I am optimizing for a bowling alley in a specific area, say Phoenix. The keyword 'bowling alley' gets a lot of search volume and I'm sure the competition is high. The keyword 'bowling alley phoenix' gets a lot less search and of course, has much less competition. If I search on bowling alley, even if I'm not signed in to Google, I get fairly local results. Somehow Google must know where I am. So my question is, should I concentrate on optimizing for 'bowling alley' or 'bowling alley phoenix'?
only ppc ads would be targeted locally. if u are optimizing natural search results, i would shoot for bowling ally phoenix because 1) its a lot easier 2) if people want to search for something, they would be more specific 3) long tail traffic is more targeted and will lead to a higher conversion rate
Only PPC can provide you quick time result for such a competitive keywords like "bowling alley". Target long tale and more specific keyword if you need quick response from SE. Otherwise do all onpage SEO and make valuable back-links as "bowling alley" as anchor text and patiently wait for the result with keep working on it !!!
Country Name should be included with your targeted keywords. After that You can check Traffic of the targeted keywords by the different tools. If traffic is sufficient then you need to do some good off page optimization.
"Bowling Alley Phoenix" is your best choice. "Bowling Alley" on its own is far to competitive. You will also get different search results for "Phoenix Bowling Alley", so optimize for both versions.
You are targeting for "Bowling Alley" in specific area "Phoenix". So, I suggest you to concentrate more on "Bowling alley phoenix". Also, let google know that you are targeting for local traffic using geosetting. In terms of backlinks, try to get local website or blog backlinks or site that is hosted in your country.