Which Keywords Target Local Customers Only?
If you only want customers who can actually reach your shop, visit your clinic, or book you for a job within driving distance, this is one of the most important questions in Google Ads. Get it wrong and you will pay for clicks from people fifty miles away who were never going to become a customer. Here is exactly which keywords to use, and just as importantly, the settings you need alongside them to keep your leads local.
Keywords alone will not keep you local
This surprises a lot of business owners: your keyword list is only half the job. Google's location targeting setting controls who actually sees your ad, and by default it is set more broadly than most people realise. Even if every keyword in your account has your town's name in it, Google can still show your ad to someone outside your area who is simply searching for things related to that location.
The real answer has two parts: the keywords themselves, and the location settings that make sure only nearby people can trigger them. Skip the second part and you will still leak budget to the wrong postcodes.
The keyword types that work for local-only targeting
Build your list around these layers:
- Service plus town or area: "emergency plumber Leeds", "teeth whitening Harrogate", "roof repairs Wetherby". These are your bread and butter, specific and high intent.
- Service plus "near me": "boiler repair near me", "physio near me". Near me searches are usually made on a phone by someone who wants help now, and Google already uses the searcher's actual location to decide relevance, so these pair well with tight location settings.
- Service plus neighbourhood or postcode area: useful in cities where people search by district rather than town, for example "wedding makeup artist Didsbury" rather than "wedding makeup artist Manchester".
- Service plus county or wider region, used sparingly: only add these if you genuinely travel that far, for example "roofer North Yorkshire". Otherwise you will match searches from the far side of the county.
- Problem-based local searches: "no hot water Leeds", "wasp nest removal York". These often convert better than generic terms because the person is already in a buying moment.
Most well-built local campaigns run somewhere between 50 and 150 keywords across all these layers, not thousands. More keywords without more relevance just creates mess to manage.
Set location targeting to "Presence," not the default
This is the single biggest fix most local businesses miss. In your campaign location settings, Google gives you a choice between "Presence or interest" and "Presence." The default is usually the broader one, which shows your ad to anyone searching about your area, even if they are sitting in a different city or country.
Switching to Presence only means your ad is only eligible for people who are physically in or regularly in your chosen area. For a local service business, there is rarely a good reason not to use this setting.
Choose radius or named towns, not both loosely
You have two main ways to define your area:
📍 Radius targeting
Draw a circle around your business address, typically 5 to 20 miles for home service trades. Good when your reach is genuinely drive-time based from one location.
🏙️ Named locations
List specific towns, cities or postcode areas you cover. Better when you serve particular places regardless of exact distance, for example if a motorway makes a further town quicker to reach than a closer one.
Many trades do best combining the two: a tight radius plus a handful of named towns you are happy to travel to for bigger jobs. Whatever you pick, after 30 days check the "locations" report inside Google Ads to see where your actual leads came from, then adjust. If one area brings cheap, good leads and another brings none, you can increase bids on the first and exclude the second entirely.
Negative keywords matter just as much
Add negative keywords for towns or cities you do not serve, especially ones with a similar name to yours. "Plumber Richmond" could mean Richmond upon Thames or Richmond in North Yorkshire. If you only cover one, exclude the other town name as a negative keyword, not just as a location exclusion, because Google can still match broad or phrase keywords to those terms.
Also exclude generic terms with no local intent:
These waste clicks regardless of location. Run the search terms report once a fortnight and add anything irrelevant as a new negative.
A simple worked example
Say you are a physio in Guildford covering a 15 mile radius including Woking and Godalming. Your keyword list might look like:
Location setting: Presence only, radius 15 miles from your clinic plus Woking and Godalming added as named locations if they fall slightly outside the circle.
Negative keywords: "physiotherapy jobs", "physio course", and any neighbouring town you genuinely cannot reach in reasonable time.
What is worth checking monthly
Local intent and real customer locations drift over time, so review your location report at least once a month. Look for:
- Towns bringing leads you did not expect, worth adding deliberately so you can bid on them intentionally
- Areas with spend but zero enquiries after 30 days, worth excluding to stop the budget drain
- New local phrases in the search terms report that people actually typed, which often reveal keywords you had not thought to add
Getting local keyword targeting right is part keyword list, part settings most people never check, and part ongoing tidying based on real data. The campaigns that convert well at month six are the ones that were tidied consistently in months two, three and four, not left to run on autopilot.
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