How to optimize website for several US locations we service?
-
Hi,
Our business has a few brick-and-mortar business locations, but it is servicing multiple big cities in the US, where we do not have a location, but we do business in though our independent agents (and we cannot use their locations).
I have inherited the website, which has duplicate content for all the locations (cities and states), and I am worried about possible penalties. Every major city and state in the US has been targeted so far, but it seems pretty spammy to me- duplicate content, pages for all major US cities, pages for all states, etc. This is a B2C services website, and we can service anyone in the US.Example of pages:
domain.com/services/service-from-x-city
and domain.com/services/service-from-x-stateThe goal is to rank locally for all the cities we are targeting. What on-page optimization should I work on besides unique content for each one? Should I consolidate some pages, and if yes, what do you recommend?
What overall strategies should I follow so I do not lose the traffic for the targeted cities?
Off-page, I am working on building local citations for these cities.Thank you.
-
Thanks, Miriam.
Yes, you are right. I have already asked for help and a budget, but things are moving slowly, even with getting images and video content and it is, of course, frustrating, since I want to improve the results sooner.
Basically, I am dealing with old-school people who still don't get online marketing and look at it as a necessary "evil" so my hands are tied. I am making progress at convincing them, although at a turtle-like pace.
Thank you again.
-
Hi Anaid,
Wow, that sounds like you have a ton on your plate with this project. I think you are taking the right steps in minimizing danger, but honestly, if you've got to write 30 awesome pages of content about the export/import business, you may need to insist on getting some help from a dedicated copywriter on that. With all the other work you are doing, time has to be found to research exciting topics to make these pages great, and if you're already maxed out in your time, you may need an extra pair of hands and eyes.
-
Hi, Miriam
Thank you for the answer. We do serve the entire US.
I am working on re-creating the content on these pages (which is a total of about 30) to make it more unique. I don't see another solution at this time, since I don't have a team of bloggers at this time, just an external team who do the development and PPC. The rest falls on my shoulders- including solving technical issues, optimization, link-building, social media, blogging, research for content/competition/trends in industry and online, reputation management, analytics, even graphics, new business projects, etc.- all while trying to educate the management and sell them on the changes that are beneficial for the company.Due to the reasons mentioned above, what I am trying to do at this time is remove us from the danger zone, so I am going to change the content, as Chris said. The only other thing I can do is to re-direct some pages and then work on building links off-site, but this will take a while.
We are in the export (and a bit of import) business, any suggestions for this industry are greatly be appreciated.
-
Hi Anaid,
Google's definition of a local business is one that has a physical location and unique local phone number within a given city. So, the goal of ranking locally for cities where you don't have these things is not one I would set. Rather, you should strive for true local rankings for the cities where you do have that real office and dedicated local phone number, and hope for organic rankings in those cities where you serve, rather than where you are.
You are right to be concerned about duplicate content. Chris has given some good suggestions. I would further suggest that you consider blogging. Get your service people in on the action to write up their projects in different service cities. Take photos and videos. Develop a body of unique content this way, rather than going with the thin/duplicate content approach.
The decision to target every major city in the USA may not really be ideal. I don't know what your business is, of course, but I would say that nearly any business taking this approach would be tempted to put up tons of duplicate content, because the effort of writing thousands of pages would be so intensive. Better to have 50 awesome pages rather than 900 poor ones. If you're a B2C company, perhaps some of those efforts to reach out can be Social rather than via creating landing pages, but landing pages can certainly be an important part of your effort, so long as they are great content.
Just remember, your local goals need to revolve around your brick-and-mortar businesses. Everything else needs to be viewed as an organic effort.
-
To give you specific ideas I would have to know more about the business/industry you were working with.
-
Thank you, Chris
These are helpful suggestions. I am going to create unique content as you suggested- so this should help create unique content. I will probably organize all of them under our main Locations page, where we also have an interactive map for our physical locations. Right now, these cities and states pages are buried within the site and not visible.
Regarding the off-site links- I like your idea of getting links from local news stations. Any ideas of how I may be able to do that? I don't have anything newsworthy for those cities at this time. -
On-site wise I would do the following:
move the city pages underneath the state pages. So the tennessee page would have links for Nashville, Memphis, Jackson, Etc.
Include local details. So instead of nationwide cleaning service having content that read "we service all areas of the following city:Memphis. We can get up all stains and discolorations" I would probably have something like "We service all homes between the mighty Mississippi river and highway 385. We can get out any stain from BBQ sauce to flood damage." That way the content is unique, and geographically relevant. From there I may link to nearby cities.
I would consolidate cities where there is not enough search volume to justify a stand alone site.
Offsite I would probably consider getting links from local news stations. Additionally, I would think about doing something like a city by city comparison on relevant factors. People love to represent their cities, and it would make great link bait for local bloggers. Hope this helps.
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
-
List all keywords from a website per page in a table??
Hi all, Very basic question I know but strangely cannot find a solution to it? (its 20:40 on a Fri-night! 😉 ) I am working on a website that has over 100 pages and would like to see all the keywords associated with each page maybe in a table report of some kind? Is this at all possible? Heres an example URL KEYWORDS /index.html Moz, Moz local, London /aboutmoz.html Moz. Moz SEO, London and so on....
Search Behavior | | darrenbooy0 -
Does Not listing the prices on my website hurt?
Hey Mozers, I currently run a catalog type website and there are no prices listed. Would you happen to have an article of some sort that could back up why not listing prices is bad? I'm trying to express the importance of listing prices on the website. Can anyone help, The more articles the better!
Search Behavior | | rpaiva0 -
When auditing a website, when do you decide to delete pages?
Given that the Panda algorithm includes engagement and user experience, when would you consider deleting a page that has poor engagement and conversion metrics? For example, consider a page that ranks well organically and receives (relatively) decent traffic from search. However, this page has poor engagement metrics compared to other pages on the site, does not convert visitors as well as other pages on the site, and doesn't have any external links. Would you consider deleting this page? Which metrics do you use when auditing a site and considering a web page from removal (bounce rate, average time on site, pages per visit, linking root domains, visits, revenue per visit, etc.)? Are some metrics weighed more than others? What kind of thresholds do you use? Finally, is there a situation when you would choose NOT to delete pages, even considering the above?
Search Behavior | | SAMarketing0 -
Micro Location Site with EMD , Property related
Hi I have a client, who focus is on Commercial property leasing in Johannesburg and surrounding area's. We find that people search for "area"& "property type" The client bought 50 exact match domains for keywords that we currently run in Google Adwords for example:We advertise on keywords: "Midrand offices to let" and bought Midrandofficestolet.com, now the group wants to make small micro sites with unique article about commercial property in that area "Midrand" with a link to the main site where the "midrand properties" are listed . The feeder or micro sites will also have contact details of main site. the domains will all be hosted on the same server, registered to the same owner est. Is this typical link farming? or should we rather build the articles on the main website and park the domains on the area categories? The clients main-set is that he will same money on adwords by owning the EMD and from that link to his main site Your guidance will be much appriciated
Search Behavior | | Zooka0 -
A grade website
I started to optimize my personal Blog and portfolio website and all of my on page reports for the keywords "photography" and "Colorado Springs" were A's. What are the benefits and how much is taken in consideration by Google's algorithm? Website http://clotairedamy.com
Search Behavior | | clotairedamy0 -
+1 articles and opposed to a website
What is the difference if a friend on Google +, +1's your blog entry as opposed to your blog (as a whole)? Will it be displayed differently to their network or better yet, have a difference in their search engine results the next time they search for a relatable keyword?
Search Behavior | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Location subdomains?
We were contacted by a company that claims they want to build us a local. sub domain that targets only local traffic and operate on a rev share model. I'm very weary of this and can think of many things wrong with it, but I was asked to look into it. I'm about to give them a call to see what they are all about, but I always get great advice from the moz community so I thought I'd reach out to hear your opinions. Thanks!
Search Behavior | | ClaytonKendall0 -
How to optimize a Stock Symbol page?
Hi, My website is for stock picking. The keywords in each stock page are stock symbol. Now the stock symbol rank of my website in google is around 30-50. I use On-Page Keyword Optimization tool on seomoz to optimize those page. Now all stock symbol pages are Grade A in on-page report card. Is there other suggestions to increase stock symbol page ranking? Thanks in advance! -Don
Search Behavior | | dodoflying0