7 Proven Strategies to Target Local vs National Keywords (Without Wasting Ad Spend)

TL;DR: Targeting local vs national keywords isn't about choosing one or the other—it's about understanding when each makes sense for your business goals and budget. Local keywords typically have lower competition and higher conversion intent, while national keywords offer broader reach but require more investment. This guide walks you through practical strategies for identifying, organizing, and optimizing both keyword types in your Google Ads campaigns. Whether you're a freelancer managing a single local business or an agency juggling multi-location clients, these approaches will help you build smarter keyword strategies that actually convert.

Here's what most advertisers get wrong: they treat geographic targeting as an afterthought. They build keyword lists first, then slap on some location settings and hope for the best. The result? Wasted ad spend on clicks from people who will never convert because they're nowhere near your service area—or missed opportunities because you're bidding against national brands when you should be dominating local searches.

The reality is that local and national keywords operate in completely different competitive environments. A local plumber bidding on "emergency plumber Denver" faces different competition, different costs, and different conversion patterns than a national plumbing franchise bidding on "emergency plumber" nationwide. Understanding these differences isn't just optimization—it's survival.

Let's break down exactly how to build a keyword strategy that respects geography, controls costs, and actually drives conversions where your business operates.

1. Map Your Business Model to Keyword Geography First

The Challenge It Solves

Too many advertisers start with keywords and retrofit their business model later. This backwards approach leads to campaigns targeting locations you don't serve, budgets stretched across irrelevant geographies, and conversion tracking that can't tell you which locations actually matter. Before you build a single keyword list, you need to understand exactly where your business can convert customers and how those conversion zones should shape your keyword strategy.

The Strategy Explained

Start by documenting your business's actual conversion geography. Are you a local service business with a 30-mile service radius? An e-commerce brand that ships nationwide but has stronger brand recognition in certain regions? A franchise with multiple locations that each need separate campaigns? Your keyword strategy must mirror this reality.

For local businesses, this means identifying your primary service area, then secondary expansion zones. For national businesses with regional strength, map where you have competitive advantages—maybe you have warehouse locations that enable faster shipping, or regions where your brand awareness is higher. For multi-location businesses, document each location's service area and any overlap zones.

This geographic framework becomes the foundation for every keyword decision that follows. A keyword that's perfect for your Denver location might be completely wrong for your Miami operation because the competitive landscape, search volume, and local terminology differ.

Implementation Steps

1. Document your conversion zones: List every location where you can fulfill customer orders or deliver services, including service radiuses, shipping capabilities, or physical locations.

2. Assess competitive strength by geography: Identify regions where you have advantages (brand recognition, faster delivery, local partnerships) versus areas where you're fighting uphill against established competitors.

3. Map budget allocation to geography: Decide what percentage of your budget should target local high-intent keywords versus national awareness terms based on where you can actually win conversions.

Pro Tips

Create a simple spreadsheet with columns for location, service radius, estimated monthly budget, and keyword priority level. This becomes your strategic reference when building campaigns. If you're expanding to new locations, start with hyper-local keywords first—prove conversion viability before scaling to broader terms.

2. Use Search Intent Signals to Separate Local from National Queries

The Challenge It Solves

Not every search without a location modifier is a national query, and not every search with "near me" is genuinely local. Google interprets intent based on query type, user location, and search history. If you're not reading these intent signals correctly, you'll waste budget targeting the wrong audience—showing local ads to researchers or national ads to ready-to-buy local customers.

The Strategy Explained

Search intent for local versus national keywords falls into patterns you can identify and target. Explicit local intent includes obvious geographic modifiers: "Denver plumber," "coffee shop near me," "Austin tax attorney." These searchers are telling you exactly where they want service.

Implicit local intent is trickier but often more valuable. When someone searches "emergency plumber" from their phone at 10 PM, Google knows this is a local-intent query even without location modifiers. The query type (emergency service), device (mobile), and time (outside business hours) all signal immediate local need. Similarly, "pizza delivery" or "car wash" are inherently local even without geographic terms.

National intent queries typically involve research, comparison, or information gathering: "best project management software," "how to choose a CRM," "top-rated running shoes 2026." These searchers aren't looking for a specific location—they're evaluating options regardless of geography.

Implementation Steps

1. Audit your search terms report for intent patterns: Look at queries that converted versus those that didn't, and identify which included explicit location modifiers, which Google interpreted as local despite no modifier, and which were clearly national research queries.

2. Build separate keyword lists based on intent type: Create one list of explicit local keywords (city + service), one for implicit local terms (service-only terms you'll target with tight geographic settings), and one for national awareness terms.

3. Set different campaign structures for each intent type: Explicit local keywords can use broader location targeting because the query itself defines geography; implicit local keywords need tighter radius targeting; national keywords should use location exclusions for areas you don't serve.

Pro Tips

Run a test by searching your core service terms from different locations and devices. Notice how Google's results change based on location and context—this shows you which of your keywords Google interprets as local versus national. Use this insight to predict how your ads will compete in different scenarios.

3. Structure Campaigns by Geographic Targeting Layers

The Challenge It Solves

Mixing local and national keywords in the same campaign creates bidding chaos. You can't optimize effectively when a high-value local keyword with 50 monthly searches sits in the same ad group as a national term with 5,000 monthly searches. Google's algorithm will prioritize the higher-volume term, starving your local keywords of impressions even though they might convert better. You need campaign architecture that gives you independent control over different geographic layers.

The Strategy Explained

Build separate campaigns for different geographic targeting levels. This isn't just about organization—it's about control. When local and national keywords live in separate campaigns, you can set different budgets, different bid strategies, different ad copy, and different conversion goals for each.

For a local service business, your structure might include a primary service area campaign (tight radius, high bids on local keywords), a secondary expansion area campaign (wider radius, lower bids, testing viability), and potentially a brand protection campaign (national targeting but only for branded terms to prevent competitor conquesting).

For a national business with regional operations, you might have individual campaigns for your strongest markets (where you can bid aggressively on local + national terms), a consolidated campaign for secondary markets (efficient budget allocation across multiple smaller regions), and a national awareness campaign (broad targeting for top-of-funnel terms).

Implementation Steps

1. Create a campaign for your primary geographic target: Use tight location targeting (radius or specific cities), include both explicit and implicit local keywords, and allocate the majority of your budget here.

2. Build a separate campaign for expansion or secondary geographies: Use broader location targeting, focus on testing keyword viability, and set a smaller daily budget with automated bidding to gather data efficiently.

3. Add a national or brand protection campaign if relevant: Target broad locations with exclusions for areas you don't serve, focus on awareness or branded keywords, and use different conversion tracking to measure differently (leads versus immediate sales).

Pro Tips

Use campaign naming conventions that make geographic targeting instantly clear: "Local - Denver Metro - Exact Match" versus "National - Awareness - Broad Match." This prevents confusion when you're managing multiple campaigns and makes reporting much cleaner. If you're managing campaigns for multiple locations, consider using campaign-level location extensions that automatically show the nearest business location to each searcher.

4. Leverage Negative Keywords to Prevent Geographic Bleed

The Challenge It Solves

Even with proper location targeting, you'll get clicks from the wrong geographies. Someone researching "Denver plumber" from California because they're planning a move. Someone searching "best Italian restaurant" while browsing vacation options for cities they're not visiting yet. Google's "people searching about your targeted location" setting can show your local ads to researchers nowhere near your service area. These clicks drain budget without any conversion possibility.

The Strategy Explained

Location-based negative keywords work differently than regular negatives. You're not just excluding irrelevant search terms—you're excluding geographic variations that indicate the searcher is outside your service area or researching locations you don't serve.

If you're a Denver-based business, you need negative keywords for competing cities: "Colorado Springs plumber," "Boulder plumber," "Fort Collins plumber." If you're a national business that doesn't serve certain regions, exclude those location terms: "Alaska," "Hawaii," "international," "Canada."

But it goes deeper than obvious location names. Look for negative keywords that indicate research intent rather than local intent: "moving to [city]," "relocating to [city]," "visiting [city]," "vacation in [city]." These queries often trigger local ads but rarely convert because the searcher isn't ready to buy locally yet.

Implementation Steps

1. Build a geographic negative keyword list for each campaign: Include competing cities, regions you don't serve, and research-intent location phrases that indicate the searcher isn't in your target geography.

2. Review search terms report weekly for location bleed: Look for queries that include location names outside your service area, then add those variations to your negative list at the campaign level.

3. Create shared negative lists by geography type: Build one list for "cities we don't serve," another for "research intent location terms," and apply these across relevant campaigns to maintain consistency as you scale.

Pro Tips

Don't just add the city name as a negative—add common variations. If you don't serve Austin, add "Austin," "ATX," "Austin TX," and "Austin Texas" as negatives. Check your search terms report after adding negatives to make sure you didn't accidentally block legitimate local variations—sometimes city names appear in business names or street names within your service area.

5. Match Types Matter More for National Keywords

The Challenge It Solves

National keywords with broad match can spiral into budget-draining chaos faster than local keywords. When you're targeting "plumber" nationally with broad match, Google might show your ad for "plumber salary," "plumber school," "plumber meme," "plumber costume"—none of which indicate buying intent. At national scale, the volume of irrelevant variations explodes. Local keywords have natural constraints (fewer variations, clearer intent), but national keywords need tighter match type controls to stay profitable.

The Strategy Explained

Apply different match type strategies based on geographic scope. For local campaigns targeting specific cities or tight radiuses, you can often use phrase match or even broad match modifier more liberally because the geographic constraint naturally limits query sprawl. Someone searching "emergency plumber" within your 20-mile radius is likely a legitimate prospect regardless of what other words appear in their query.

For national campaigns, start with phrase match and exact match as your foundation. Build comprehensive keyword lists that cover the variations you actually want to target, rather than relying on broad match to "discover" them for you. Use broad match only for specific discovery campaigns with small budgets, and immediately harvest converting queries into phrase or exact match keywords in your main campaigns.

The exception: branded national keywords can often use broad match safely because your brand name provides a natural filter. Someone searching "[Your Brand] plumber" or "[Your Brand] services" is looking for you specifically, regardless of what other words they include.

Implementation Steps

1. Audit your national campaigns for match type distribution: Calculate what percentage of spend goes to broad match versus phrase and exact match, then compare conversion rates across match types.

2. Migrate high-spend broad match keywords to phrase match: Take your top-spending broad match keywords in national campaigns and create phrase match versions, then gradually lower bids on the broad match versions while raising bids on phrase match as data accumulates.

3. Build exact match campaigns for your highest-value national keywords: Create a separate campaign with only exact match keywords for terms you know convert well, set higher bids, and ensure these get priority impression share.

Pro Tips

Use Google's search terms report to identify which broad match expansions are actually working. Sort by cost and conversions, then look for patterns in the queries Google matched to your broad keywords. If you see valuable query patterns, add them as phrase or exact match keywords. If you see junk patterns, add them as negatives. This continuous refinement process is how you make national campaigns profitable over time.

6. Analyze Competition Differently for Each Geographic Level

The Challenge It Solves

Competitive analysis for "plumber" nationally looks completely different than competitive analysis for "plumber Denver." At the national level, you're competing against massive aggregator sites, franchise networks, and brands with huge budgets. At the local level, you're competing against individual businesses, local franchisees, and regional players. If you're using the same competitive assessment approach for both, you're missing critical insights that determine whether you can actually win those clicks profitably.

The Strategy Explained

For local keyword competition, focus on who's actually showing up in your specific geographic area. Use Google Ads' auction insights report filtered by location to see your real local competitors. Check their ad copy, their landing pages, their offers. Often you'll find that local competition is less sophisticated than you'd expect—many local businesses run generic ads with weak calls-to-action, giving you opportunities to stand out with better messaging and tighter geographic relevance.

For national keyword competition, assess differently. Look at domain authority of competitors ranking organically, check estimated CPCs in keyword planning tools, and examine whether the top advertisers are direct competitors or lead generation aggregators. If you're seeing HomeAdvisor, Angi, Thumbtack, or similar platforms dominating national keywords, that's a signal that direct customer acquisition at national scale might be expensive. You might be better off focusing budget on local keywords where you don't have to outbid aggregator platforms.

The key insight: local competition is about tactical execution (better ads, better landing pages, better local signals), while national competition is often about budget depth and brand recognition. Choose your battles accordingly.

Implementation Steps

1. Run location-specific auction insights reports: In Google Ads, go to your local campaigns and pull auction insights data to see exactly who you're competing against in your service area, their impression share, and their overlap rate with your ads.

2. Manually search your national keywords from different locations: Use incognito mode and a VPN or location-changing tool to see who's advertising on your national keywords in different markets—competition varies significantly by region even for "national" terms.

3. Calculate competitive viability scores: For each keyword, assess search volume, estimated CPC, your current conversion rate, and your target cost per acquisition to determine if you can profitably compete—if the math doesn't work, deprioritize that keyword regardless of its volume.

Pro Tips

Watch for seasonal competitive shifts. Local service businesses often see competition spike during peak seasons (HVAC in summer, plumbers during freezing weather), while national e-commerce keywords spike around holidays. Build your competitive assessment with these patterns in mind, and consider adjusting bids or pausing certain keywords during ultra-competitive periods where your budget can't compete effectively.

7. Build a Hybrid Strategy That Scales

The Challenge It Solves

Most businesses eventually need both local and national keyword strategies, but scaling from one to the other without creating keyword cannibalization or budget chaos is tricky. If you start with local keywords and add national terms to the same campaigns, you'll dilute performance. If you launch separate national campaigns without proper negative keyword coordination, you'll compete against yourself. You need a framework that lets you expand geographic reach without undermining what's already working.

The Strategy Explained

A hybrid strategy treats local and national keywords as complementary rather than competing. Your local campaigns focus on high-intent, ready-to-buy searches within your service area—these are your profit centers. Your national campaigns focus on awareness, research-phase queries, and brand building—these feed your funnel but convert differently.

The structure looks like this: Local campaigns use tight geographic targeting, focus on conversion-optimized bidding, and include both explicit local keywords and implicit local terms. National campaigns use broad geographic targeting with exclusions for areas you don't serve, focus on impression share or top-of-funnel metrics, and include informational or category-level keywords.

Critically, you coordinate negatives between these campaign types. Your national campaigns should exclude explicit local keywords (so "Denver plumber" only triggers your Denver local campaign, not your national awareness campaign). Your local campaigns should exclude research-intent terms (so "how to find a plumber" triggers your national campaign, not your high-bid local campaign).

Implementation Steps

1. Start with local campaign profitability: Before expanding to national keywords, ensure your local campaigns are consistently profitable with at least three months of conversion data—this becomes your baseline performance to protect.

2. Launch national campaigns with separate budgets and goals: Set a smaller daily budget for national campaigns, use different conversion tracking (leads versus sales if applicable), and set lower target CPAs initially since these keywords will convert differently.

3. Build negative keyword coordination between campaign types: Add explicit local keywords as negatives in your national campaigns, and add research/informational terms as negatives in your local campaigns to prevent overlap.

Pro Tips

Use audience layering to bridge local and national strategies. Add remarketing audiences from your national awareness campaigns as bid adjustments in your local campaigns—someone who previously clicked your national ad and then searches locally is a higher-intent prospect. Similarly, use customer match lists from local conversions to suppress ads in national campaigns (no need to pay for awareness clicks from existing customers).

Putting Your Geographic Keyword Strategy Into Action

Start by auditing your current campaigns for geographic alignment. Pull your search terms report and look for patterns: Are you getting clicks from locations you don't serve? Are local keywords getting starved of impressions because they're competing with high-volume national terms in the same campaign? Are you paying for research-intent clicks that will never convert locally?

Then prioritize based on your business model. If you're a local business, lock down your service area keywords before even thinking about expansion. Build campaigns with tight radius targeting, comprehensive local keyword lists, and strong negative keyword controls. Prove profitability in your core geography first.

If you're national with regional strength, identify your highest-converting regions and build dedicated local campaigns there. Don't treat the entire country as one homogeneous market—you'll waste budget in regions where you can't compete effectively. Focus your local strategy on areas where you have competitive advantages.

The advertisers who win aren't targeting everywhere. They're targeting the right places with the right keywords and constantly refining based on actual search term data. They're not guessing about geographic intent—they're reading the signals in their search terms reports and adjusting campaign structure accordingly.

Geographic keyword strategy isn't a one-time setup. It's an ongoing optimization process. Every week, review your search terms for geographic bleed, add negatives, harvest new keyword opportunities, and adjust bids based on performance by location. The difference between profitable and unprofitable campaigns often comes down to these consistent, incremental improvements.

Want to make this optimization process faster and more efficient? Start your free 7-day trial of Keywordme and optimize your Google Ads campaigns 10X faster—without leaving your account. Remove junk search terms, build high-intent keyword groups, and apply match types instantly, right inside Google Ads. No spreadsheets, no switching tabs, just quick, seamless optimization. Manage one campaign or hundreds and save hours while making smarter decisions. After your trial, it's just $12/month to keep your campaigns running lean and profitable.