Targeting cities and services
-
I'm having a dilemma about targeting different cities and services. My client has offices in different cities but the services offered are the same.
Let's say for divorce, the current url structure is
website/city1/divorce
website/city2/divorce
website/city3/divorce
6 different locations so that makes 6 different divorce pages. They offer 13 services so there are 7 different pages of each of the 13 services targeting different cities. I hope I said that clearly but I guess you know what I mean.
My problem is the pages are kinda competing with each other since all of them are about the same topic. It also messes up the internal linking since sometimes you link to one city using the anchor text "divorce" and then link to a different city later on using the same keyword.
Any advice on how to target different cities and services better?
I was thinking of subdomains in order to target the different locations without having competing pages but I'm not sure if it's a good idea.
That way each site is stand alone. What do you think? Thanks!
-
Hi Seth,
Provided your client has legitimate physical offices and unique local phone numbers at each of the 6 locations, there is nothing spammy about having a unique page on the site for each office and connecting those up with your Google Places/+ profiles.
There is no reason to put these on subdomains. This structure is fine:
www.lawyers.com/divorce-lawyer-san-francisco
The challenge is to create unique, valuable content for each of those pages. If you take a cookie cutter approach, then that does end up looking spammy, but if care is invested in making the content different on each of the pages, this is an excellent enhancement to your ability to rank well for each city. Let's kick some ideas around.
Keyword+City A
On this page, you've got 400 words of unique text, plus testimonials from 10 local clients in City A
Keyword+City B
On this page, you've got 600 words of unique text, plus 3 videos
Keyword+ City C
You take an FAQ approach to this page, giving great answers to the top 20 question clients who are considering divorce want answers to.
Keyword+ City D
You create an infographic detailing the typical steps in the divorce process, from filing for divorce to being granted divorce. You add text testimonials from 15 clients in city B.
Etc...This is just an off-the-top-of-my-head example of planning the content strategy so that each page is offering something different. You will plan this more carefully. What will be the same on each of these pages is a unique opening sales statement (unique for each page) and the complete NAP (name, address, phone number) for each office. Work with the designer to create a cool way to format the opening statement and NAP so that visitors hitting these landing pages know they've just been invited to call the divorce lawyer in city X, before you get on to the other data on the page, such as detailed copywriting, videos, infographics, etc.
My advice, basically, is to take the most creative possible approach to these client scenarios. Educate the client that the more he invests in these city landing page (in terms of creativity, time and funding) the better his chances of dominating in the SERPs.
Hope this helps!
-
Assuming the service and keyword is something like "divorce lawyers in city" (disregard my whole reply if I am wrong :)), there should be Google map listings dominating those SERP's. At least in the test cities I just searched. But for any local based service SERP there is most likely the same look.
In that case if your client has offices in those different cities, it would be easier to claim and optimize your Google+ listings for each location rather than have a bunch of spammy looking pages on your site. There is no reason to have 7 different pages on the exact same topic.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
For a URL, is it better to have Keyword +City?
I am working on some landing pages and trying to do well in Local areas. Is it better to have my landing pages set as mysite.com/keyword+location or mysite.com/Location+keyword. or does it even matter anymore? So for a plumber selling water heater services. is it better to be: site/hot-water-heaters-jacksonville-fl or site/jacksonville-fl-hot-water-heaters? I normally do keyword+city.
Image & Video Optimization | | netviper0 -
Any Legit Local Address Services Out There?
I have a client who lives in the UK but runs a US ecommerce site. I'd still like to get him some local trust signals but he has no options when it comes to getting an address here. Has anyone found a reputableplace where you can rent an address that isn't already being used by umpteen other companies?
Image & Video Optimization | | iAnalyst.com0 -
Citations for service providers and different locations
My clients are mostly photographers who work from home, so service based and dont have a full address listed or fear to and many want to service bigger cities and not cities they live in, or want more than one city and state. What are best practices for SEO for multiple locations as well as service providers?
Image & Video Optimization | | FeuzaReis120 -
Google categories for local limousine service
I manage the Google places page for a SAB (local limousine company). The question is, should I add "taxi" and "airport shuttle service" as categories? I have listed only "limousine" and "car service' for now and I want to play it safe although those 2 are related to limo service. Sometimes people refer to limo service as "taxi service" or they are inquiring about prices for shuttle service to the airport and they end up booking the service quite often. Does Google look to our website to find these words in the content? Google Analytics show lots of people are finding us through those two keywords as well although you cannot find the word “taxi" on our website. The interesting thing is that when searching for "taxi + my zip code" the company shows up 4th on maps results and when searching for "shuttle service + my zip code”, the company shows up 2nd on local results and also 2nd in organic results. Is this enough to make me add these 2 categories? Second question is about the area served, does it make a difference (in rankings) if I choose “Distance from one location"over"List of areas served"? What happens is the red pin would be in a different location. If I choose "Distance from one location" the pin would be right in the center of the city (which I think it shouldn't matter anymore that much since the proximity to the centroid is not a ranking factor anymore). If “list of area” served is selected, (the city name will be chosen) then the pin would be about 5 miles West of the city center. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thank you!
Image & Video Optimization | | echo10 -
Local SEO: How to optimize for multiple cities on website
Hi, I couldn't find any reference to this, so if the answer is already here, I would appreciate a link to the answer. That said, my question is this: When a local business services a large geographic area, I wanted to know how to optimize for the multiple towns? I already have the main city in my title tags, but there are at least 40 areas that surround this town. Should I have a "Services Area" page, and place all the towns there, or should they all be in the footer? I saw this one guy - in the same niche who put all the towns in his meta keyword section - but I think that's incorrect, especially since Google doesn't look at that particular meta tag. Any help would be appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | jayestovall1 -
How does google decide what city a blog belongs to?
I'm trying to build links from more local blogs at the moment and considering a huge list of blogs that are in my city, of which many do accept guest posts. I'm trying to discover a metric to thin this list down further. Is there any way of finding out if google considers a specific blog to be local to a certain area? What signals does google consider when it is making this analysis? Is it the content? or is it the "about the blog author" section? Thanks, Storwell
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0 -
How can we geo-target our website optimization for cities besides our physical location?
We have a client that is a solar energy installation & leasing company in Austin, TX that wants to target the Houston and Dallas markets. We can do a Place Page for their physical offices in Austin and San Antonio to drive traffic for those cities. But we’re not sure the best way to help them rank for Houston and Dallas, where they don't have a physical address. We’re considering a separate landing page for each city, optimized for the geo-term. Will that help them to rank in the 7Pack in Houston and Dallas, if there’s no Place Page? Will it help them rank in the organic listings for that region? Can you offer any other suggestions for how to help them rank in 2 cities where they don’t have physical offices?
Image & Video Optimization | | DenisL0 -
Are centralized local information management services like Unified Business Listings a helpful tool or unreliable?
As we work with more local businesses, I'm looking for an efficient way to manage their information across all of the different local databases. site is www.ubl.org
Image & Video Optimization | | ScottFasser590