Local search in Chicago vs Denver: what we see in the data
Search data for our own services around Chicago and Denver shows a few standout cities and many quiet suburbs. Here's what that means for local SEO.
On this page8 sections
Short answer
Around both cities, search demand clusters in a handful of places: Naperville and Milwaukee on the Chicago side, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins on the Denver side. Most suburbs show almost nothing, typically 0 to 20 searches a month for "web design [town]" or "seo [town]". If you run a local business, that should change where you build pages and where you rely on your Google Business Profile instead.
We have a team in Chicago and a team in Denver, so when we planned our own local pages we pulled search data for the services we sell around both. Searches like "web design chicago" are the obvious targets, and the ones every agency in town competes for. What surprised me was everything around them: a few cities with real, steady demand, and a long list of suburbs where almost nobody searches by name.
The numbers below are for web design and SEO, because that's what we sell. Your service will have different numbers. But the pattern is worth knowing whatever you do, and the method is the same.
How we looked at it
All figures here are Semrush US data, monthly averages, for exact search phrases like "web design naperville" or "seo fort collins." A few caveats before you read too much into them:
- They're estimates. Treat 480 as "a few hundred a month," not as a precise count.
- They're exact phrases. "Naperville web designer" or "website company near Naperville" are separate searches and aren't included.
- They don't capture "near me" or map searches where the town name isn't typed. Someone in Wheaton searching "web designer near me" doesn't show up in "web design wheaton."
- We left the metro head terms out of the comparison. "Web design chicago" and "seo denver" are a different kind of target: big, contested and city-wide. This post is about the places around them.
The Chicago side
Here's what we see for cities around Chicago, including a few across the Wisconsin and Indiana lines that fall within the wider region.
| Search | Monthly searches |
|---|---|
| seo milwaukee | 590 |
| web design naperville | 480 |
| web design milwaukee | 480 |
| seo naperville | 390 |
| web design valparaiso | 320 |
| web design joliet | 210 |
| web design evanston | 170 |
| web design rockford | 170 |
| seo kenosha | 140 |
And then the suburbs. Arlington Heights, Oak Lawn and Tinley Park each show around 10 searches a month for these service-plus-town phrases. Wheaton shows around 20. Most other Chicago suburbs we checked land somewhere between 0 and 20.
The Denver side
| Search | Monthly searches |
|---|---|
| seo colorado springs | 1,000 |
| web design colorado springs | 480 |
| web design fort collins | 390 |
| seo fort collins | 320 |
| web design loveland | 170 |
| seo littleton | 170 |
| web design boulder | 140 |
Suburbs follow the same pattern as Chicago's: Englewood around 10, Golden around 20, and most others between 0 and 20.
Beyond "web design Chicago": what stands out in the data
1. Cities with their own identity beat suburbs. The biggest numbers come from places people think of as their own city, not as part of Chicago or Denver: Colorado Springs, Milwaukee, Fort Collins. Businesses there look for a local provider by the city's name.
2. Naperville is the exception among Chicago suburbs. At 480 searches a month for web design and 390 for SEO, it behaves more like a standalone city than a suburb. Joliet (210) and Evanston (170) also register. Most other suburbs don't.
3. The mix of services differs by place. In Colorado Springs, "seo" (1,000) gets about twice the searches of "web design" (480). Milwaukee leans toward SEO too (590 vs 480). In Naperville and Fort Collins it's the other way around: web design edges out SEO (480 vs 390, and 390 vs 320). I wouldn't build a theory on that, but it's a reminder to check each service in each place rather than assuming.
4. Some smaller places punch above their weight. Valparaiso, Indiana shows 320 searches a month for web design, more than Evanston or Rockford. Boulder, which you might expect to be busy, shows 140. Reputation and search demand aren't the same thing.
5. Most suburbs are close to zero. That doesn't mean nobody there needs the service. It means they don't search with the town's name in it.
Why suburbs barely show up
This is my reading of the pattern, not something the data proves.
- People search the metro name instead. Someone in Oak Lawn looking for a web designer may well type "web design chicago."
- They let Google fill in the location. A search for "web designer" or "seo agency near me" already uses their location, so there's no need to type the suburb.
- They search on Maps. Map searches lean on distance and the Business Profile rather than town names in a query.
All three point to the same conclusion. In suburbs, your Google Business Profile, your reviews and your main city page do more of the work than a page named after the suburb.
What this means for a local business
If you're in or near a city with real demand, a genuinely useful page for that city is worth building: who you work with there, real projects, practical details. For us, that's our Chicago and Denver pages, where our teams are. We cover how to do this without creating doorway pages in how to build local landing pages.
If your customers are spread across suburbs, don't build a page for each one. A town that gets ten searches a month for your service doesn't need its own page. Mention the towns you serve on your main pages, set your service area in your Business Profile, and put your energy into reviews and profile completeness, which help you in the map pack for the generic searches people actually type.
If you serve a region, look beyond the metro. The cities with their own identity (in our case Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Milwaukee) may have more named demand than the suburbs right next door.
Don't dismiss low numbers entirely. As a hypothetical: if a single new client is worth several thousand dollars to you, a phrase with 20 searches a month could still be worth a paragraph on an existing page. Just not a whole page of its own.
What I'd do with your data
The pattern above is ours. Here's how I'd find yours, in about an hour:
- List the two or three services that make you the most money.
- List every city and town you genuinely serve.
- Look up "[service] [town]" for each combination in a keyword tool. Note the volume.
- Sort by volume. Circle the places with real demand and where you can say something genuinely local.
- Build or improve pages for those. Cover the rest with an "areas we serve" section and your Business Profile.
- Recheck once a year, because demand moves.
We walk through the full method, including modifiers and "near me" searches, in how to find local SEO keywords for your city.
Frequently asked questions
Should I target "web design chicago" if I'm in a suburb?
If you genuinely serve the city, it's a reasonable target for a strong city page, but it's competitive. Most suburban businesses will get more from the map pack near them than from ranking for the metro term.
Why is Colorado Springs so much bigger than anywhere else in this data?
The data doesn't say why. My guess is that it's a large city with its own business community that searches locally rather than looking to Denver, but that's an interpretation.
Do these numbers apply to my industry?
No. These are for web design and SEO only. A plumber, dentist or law firm will see different numbers, and possibly a different pattern. Run the same check for your own services.
If you'd like help reading your own local search data and turning it into a page plan, our local SEO team works with businesses in both cities and is happy to take a look.
