If you have ever used Google to look for something locally, you should have come across the “Near Me” search query. Restaurant near me, plumber near me, car garage near me, etc. But what are they and how does Google process them?
What Are “Near Me” Search Queries?
When a user types a “Near Me” search query it means that the user is looking for something around his location. For example “Restaurant near me”, the user is looking for a restaurant in his local area.
This kind of query indicates an urgent need because the user is just about to take an action based on the results of his query, to go to a restaurant, call a plumber, go to a garage, go to a dentist, etc. And that’s why those queries have a high transactional value for businesses and have special importance for Google in that it creates a customized SERP pattern only for these local search queries. (SERP stands for search engine results page).
How Google Handles “Near Me” Search Queries?
As we have said earlier, “Near Me” search queries have an explicit transactional intent in most cases, and that’s why Google pays special attention to these types of queries and creates a customized SERP Page for them, known as “Local SERPs”. But how does Google process these kinds of queries?
When a user types a search query like “Restaurant Near Me” Google algorithms first recognize that this is a local query then it detects the user location and then rewrites the search query to replace the “Near Me” with the user city/area.
For example:
- The user types the search query “Restaurant Near Me”
- Google recognizes the local intent of the query and interprets “near me” as “near the user’s location”
- Google detects the user location is Peachtree Street, Atlanta, Georgia
- Google rewrites the search query to “Restaurant in Peachtree Street, Georgia, Atlanta”
- Then it displays the local SERPs featuring the most relevant and close restaurants to Peachtree Street using its local search algorithms.
Now we have seen the “Near Me” queries, what about “Near Me” domains?
What Are “Near Me” Domain Names?
“Near Me” domains are domain names that include the keyword “Near Me” within, but what is the purpose of these domains?
If “Near Me” search queries mean that the user is looking for something around his location and Google understands this and serves him the customized local SERPs by rewriting his search query, then what is the purpose of the “Near Me” domain? It looks pretty useless because Google rewrites it anyway, right?
Well, not quite right! Let me explain…
The “Near Me” domains are not intended to be used the same way as Exact Match Domains (EDMs) because they will no be relevant.
Let’s put ourselves in Google’s shoes…
If you are a restaurant in Los Angeles, California for example then you found a monthly search volume of 100k on the keyword “restaurant near me” in the US only, then every user typing the search query “restaurant near me” is located somewhere in the US not necessarily in Los Angeles.
Therefore when Google rewrites his query and replaces “near me” with the user location, your EMD won’t be relevant to the search query, and thus the EMD will be useless in this case.
Then how “Near Me” domains should be used?
Who Should Use “Near Me” Domain Names?
“Near Me” domains are not for any type of business, they should only be used for multi-location service providers, bloggers, or directories.
Below are some types of businesses that could exploit “Near Me” Domains:
- A home restoration company that has locations all over USA states and cities.
- An industry-specific directory that features the industry-related business by location (e.g: restaurants directory for the US or restaurants directory in Europe, Restaurants directory, etc)
- A location-specific niche blog (e.g. fun activities in the US)
- Etc…
Let’s put ourselves in Google’s shoes again but this time let’s assume we have a restaurant that has locations all over the US.
If a user types the search query “restaurant near me” then Google will recognize that this is a local query and “near me” means “near the user location” and thus it will rewrite the query to “restaurant Los Angeles”.
Then it will show the most relevant restaurants around Los Angeles but this time the Search Engine will find our fictional restaurant website displaying a page for a restaurant in Los Angeles and at the same time, its domain name includes the keyword “near me”.
This means that the user would be either looking for any good restaurant in Los Angeles to have his dinner/lunch OR looking for a specific restaurant in Los Angeles (which is the place near the user) with the name “near me”.
So in this case, Google rewrites the query to be “I am looking for the nearest branch of that restaurant called ‘restaurant near me’ to have my dinner/lunch”. Thus the “Near Me” domain gives us extra relevance which results in a ranking Push for our website in SERPs.
Let’s look at another example…
Imagine you are a “directory for US restaurants” and the user is typing the query “restaurant near me”.
In this case, Google local SERP will include local restaurants in addition to local directories that include lists of the best restaurants in the area of the user (which is the type of website our directory belongs to).
But since our local directory domain name has the keyword “Near Me‘ (which exactly matches the search query of the use) And our directory has a relevant page for this SERP that includes a list of the best restaurants in the user area/city, then what will Google do is that it will find our directory VERY relevant to this SERP because it matches the user need by displaying the best restaurants in his area while including an exact match domain, so it gives our website a ranking Pusshhh in SERPs.
Final Word
“Near Me” domains are an excellent type of domain name that can be exploited for SEO purposes but few people know about them.
If your website is one of the previously mentioned types then a “Near Me” domain will be an ideal choice for you, especially if you build your “Near Me” domains with programmatic SEO which will help you achieve outstanding SEO results with little to no effort.
Interestingly enough, I sold the very long “Near Me” domain name (7 words) with a monthly search volume of 84,000. (ThingsToDoWithKidsNearMe.com)
If you have a type of business with multiple locations that you think would benefit from the “Near Me” domain, don’t hesitate to call me to get you the right “Near Me” domain for you, or you can have a free consultation with me to help you decide if “Near Me” domain would benefit you or not.
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