Geo-targeting Terms With SEO

When selecting the keyword phrases for your SEO campaign, it is important to use the same terminology that searchers use when typing in search queries. We compared the trends over the past 4 years of visitors who use the search term “Dauphin County” vs. Harrisburg. Overwhelmingly, visitors use the term “Harrisburg” much more than “Dauphin County”. Red = Harrisburg Blue = Dauphin County We found similar results when looking at other terms such as York County, Cumberland County, Springettsbury Township etc.

The trend was more to search for the product / service using the city name. We have gathered the regional interest for 4 of the targeted areas and have provided the results below. The numbers indicate the interest level from 0 to 100 (100 being the highest).

Below is an example of what you see: People located within Harrisburg use the term Harrisburg in their searches more than York, Camp Hill and Mechanicsburg. Searchers from Harrisburg are less likely to search for products and services within Camp Hill or Mechanicsburg and more likely to type in York if they are not able to find what they are looking for in Harrisburg. Harrisburg Harrisburg – 52 York – 31 Mechanicsburg – 6 Camp Hill – 5 Camp Hill Harrisburg – 52 York – 31 Mechanicsburg – 6 Camp Hill – 5 Mechanicsburg Harrisburg – 32 Mechanicsburg – 19 York – 19 Camp Hill – 8 York York – 100 Harrisburg – 12 Based on this information we recommend that you mainly target Harrisburg and York which will provide a large amount of exposure to Harrisburg, Camp Hill, Mechanicsburg and York; but recommend that you do not leave out Mechanicsburg and Camp Hill as the cross targeting can provide additional exposure.