Where India searches for SEO and digital marketing agencies

The data

The export contains 4,453 keywords with monthly search ranges, competition level and top-of-page bid estimates. Keyword Planner reports volume in bands, so the totals below are indicative and best read as rankings. Competition here means advertiser competition in Google Ads, not organic difficulty.

Finding 1: most terms have low ad competition

• Low: 3,354 keywords (75%)
• Medium: 232 (5%)
• High: 87 (2%)
• Not rated: 780 (18%)

Agencies bid on a narrow set of head terms. The long tail of city, locality and service combinations is largely left alone.

Finding 2: demand by city

Ranking of cities by total indicative searches across all terms that name them:

1. Delhi (with NCR terms)
2. Mumbai
3. Bangalore
4. Noida
5. Pune
6. Kolkata
7. Hyderabad
8. Ahmedabad
9. Gurgaon
10. Chennai
11. Jaipur

Noida and Gurgaon rank as high as cities several times their size, which reflects how many marketing and IT firms are based in them. Kerala, Chandigarh with Mohali, and Indore follow, each ahead of several larger cities.

Finding 3: what a click costs, by city

Median upper top-of-page bid for keywords naming each city:

• Gurgaon: INR 215
• Bangalore: INR 191
• Mumbai: INR 184
• Delhi: INR 150
• Pune: INR 139
• Noida: INR 134
• Hyderabad: INR 121
• Chennai: INR 115
• Ahmedabad: INR 95
• Kolkata: INR 93
• Jaipur: INR 61
• Indore: INR 61

Finding 4: what a click costs, by service

• PPC and Google Ads terms: INR 245
• SEO: INR 176
• Local SEO: INR 173
• Ecommerce: INR 162
• Web design and development: INR 130
• Social media marketing: INR 121
• Digital marketing, general: INR 91

Terms about outsourcing and white label SEO had the highest bids of all, with a median of INR 291, though only a handful carried bid data.

Finding 5: how people phrase the search

SEO terms are the largest group, followed by digital marketing and then website design. "Company", "agency" and "services" are used interchangeably. A large share of searches include "best" or "top", which is why list articles dominate those results. Locality searches inside Delhi and Mumbai, such as South Delhi, Dwarka, Janakpuri, Bandra and Borivali, appear often and almost always with low competition.

What a business owner can take from this

• If you are buying marketing, you have plenty of choice and no need to limit yourself to firms in your city.
• If you are advertising your own services on Google, expect to pay several times more per click in Gurgaon, Bangalore or Mumbai than in a tier-two city.
• If you serve a specific locality, a page and profile that name it face little competition.

Method and limits

One Keyword Planner export, for one industry, in one period. Bid estimates are what advertisers paid historically for a top-of-page position and change with season and competition. We have not adjusted or weighted the figures.

You may quote these figures with a link to this page.