The Local Volume section helps you understand where demand is highest and how it varies across territories. Whether you are looking to expand into new markets, prioritize upcoming campaigns, or detect local needs that are not yet visible at a national level, Local Volume gives you the geographic dimension your strategy needs.
It is organized into three complementary pages — Local Topics, Local Sizing, and Local Trends — each offering a different angle on local search behavior.
Key Elements Across Local Pages
Map View
All Local pages share the same map-based view, giving you an immediate visual read of how search demand is distributed across territories. Larger bubbles indicate stronger demand, while smaller ones highlight lower interest — making it easy to spot major hotspots without diving into a table. You can zoom in and out to move from a global overview down to a more granular, local level.
Search Volume vs. Local Affinity
On every Local page, you can switch between two reading modes:
Search Volume — shows where the most searches happen in absolute terms, highlighting the largest markets by raw demand
Local Affinity — normalizes search volume by population, revealing where a topic is relatively more popular than average, even if total volume is smaller
Switching between the two often tells very different stories — a market can be large in volume but average in affinity, or small in size but highly engaged.
CONCEPT OF AFFINITY
Affinity is a ratio between the volume of searches and the number of inhabitants in a country, which indicates how many searches there are per 100K inhabitants.
It is a key indicator used to quantify and compare local interest or sensitivity to specific keywords, topics, or clusters, especially when geographic areas vary significantly in population.
Making Strategic Decisions with Local Volume
Across all three Local pages, the geographic lens enables a consistent set of strategic actions:
Identify where to expand by focusing on markets where demand is highest, whether in absolute volume or relative affinity
Prioritize campaign rollouts in cities or regions where interest is strongest or growing fastest
Detect local needs that remain invisible at a national level but signal emerging demand in specific markets
Adapt messaging by territory based on which topics dominate locally and how demand is evolving
Allocate budget geographically across SEO, paid, and content to match actual local demand signals
Surface high-affinity markets that may be smaller in volume but represent highly engaged, high-potential audiences