Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
SEO Location Pages - ALT Image Tag Question
-
Hello Guru's,
I have a Hire Website whereby you can rent products online.
I have created different Location pages for these which are in essence the same pages page but with different location specific urls, title tags , on page content etc etc. This helps me to rank for local search.
These location pages also display 20 products per page.
My question is Should I make the ALT IMAGE TEXT location specific for each of the 20 products . Example - Steam Cleaner Rental in "location" or should I only amend a few of the Atl Image Texts to be location specific.
I don't want to come accross as spammy in google eyes but I also don't want to be seen as having duplicate content , images etc etc
What do you think ?
thanks
Sarah.
-
I have approx. 1500 products which can be hired from 80
locations so what I have done it first split the products up into approximately 20
categories and then 8 to 10 subcategories per category and then have 80 location pages for each Category and sub category.Each location page also have a Google Business Local listing
as well.So , yes there is some degree of duplication as I have 20
categories x 80 cities and then least 8 Sub Categories per category x 80 citiesI have written unique content for the more popular cities on the category and sub category landing pages etc but as you can see, it would take me
years to write complete unique content everywhere… My site is currently 50K plus pages.I can’t see any other way of doing it ?
-
If you have several duplicate pages (with the exception of location), I do think you run the risk of being penalised for duplicate content.
Does each local area actually have a branch or is it all run from one location, with all the additioanl pages being written to garner the local belief that the service exists as a 'local service'? I've seen businesses do this and it doesn;t feel right to me. I agree with the previous poster that you'd be better building a national brand that services different parts of the country rather than making it look like you are a network of branches.
If your client does have several branches/franchises, I'd be tempted to make every page unique and about that local service. Use images specific to each location and title and alt tag accordingly.
-
if you need a real expert to write your content and you do to pull this off my recommendation would be somebody like James Agate he is a content genius and here's his website & information.
http://linkbuilding.tv/linkbuilding/james-agate-garrett-french-talk-link-prospecting/
-
Hello Sarah,
I honestly think MS you made that content 100% original and very different from any of the words used to describe the exact same product you are describing prior Google may come down hard on you.
Alt image text is anchor text for images think of it like that. There is probably even know you used different words to describe the same products a lot of similar words which Google's algorithm is able to pick up hopefully you did not just spend the content.
What you really want to do today is create a brand and have that brand rank all over the United States. I know it sounds a huge task and believe me it is but you're using location specific URLs on top of selling the same product, not trying to scare you I'm trying to get you to focus on one domain for these things.
If you do have the exact same image and you put the same anchor text and it or even Medea data yes they could be construed as duplicate content or the fact is if you posted these sites on the same hosting company or hosting account you most likely could share an IP block you needed a new C block IP address for each website or you will be caught by Google very quickly.
I think there's nothing really wrong with what you did unless you spun the content.
advice to you is billed one website and try these as well but focus on that one site that has great on page SEO using lots schemas and list the places where you work naturally in the content and that would mean creating a lot of content. I think if you go for strong site that will keep up with the national index you will fare the best. As Google places is extremely strong 90% of search in certain cases Dependent on what you are selling.
I am going to speak with a friend of mine regarding this and if they can convince me different which I don't believe they can I will let you know but seriously think of one good site for it the entire United States and Google likes Brands with the work you're putting in rewriting all these you can do a lot more with one website.
I hope I have been of help and I really hope I did not rain on your parade.
Respectfully,
Thomas Von Zickell
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
-
Is using a H1 tag in a logo image bad for SEO?
We have brand logos on certain pages that have H1 tags in them - the H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be. The logos are at the top of the page instead of a written title. But is this the best option for SEO? Do search engines value H1 tags in images as highly as a standard H1 tag?Would it be better for SEO to add an alt tag to the logo and add a separate H1 tag on the page that's also the name of the brand?
On-Page Optimization | | DVLighting0 -
Multiple H1 tags on Squarespace blog page?
Hi All, I use Squarespace and while running my site (https://www.growmassagebusiness.com) through programs am seeing that my blog posts are being seen as one page with multiple H1 tags. I read through the SS help desk and found back in 2015 someone wrote that it's not a bit deal b/c of HTML5 and that the search engines will read each blog post as a sub-page. I'm not so sure about that and wondering what the experts think? If that is screwy then I'm considering possibly making each blog post it's own page rather than using their blog posting format.
On-Page Optimization | | rajam0 -
Why are http and https pages showing different domain/page authorities?
My website www.aquatell.com was recently moved to the Shopify platform. We chose to use the http domain, because we didn't want to change too much, too quickly by moving to https. Only our shopping cart is using https protocol. We noticed however, that https versions of our non-cart pages were being indexed, so we created canonical tags to point the https version of a page to the http version. What's got me puzzled though, is when I use open site explorer to look at domain/page authority values, I get different scores for the http vs. https version. And the https version is always better. Example: http://www.aquatell.com DA = 21 and https://www.aquatell.com DA = 27. Can somebody please help me make sense of this? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | Aquatell1 -
Background Images and ALT text
We pretty much exclusively use background images for our sites. How do I add in alt text? I tried a Google search for this issue and the best answer I could find was "Use the 'title' tag in the containing div", but that was from 2010. Is there a better way to do it? And no, we're not going to switch to using standard images, because background images are way more slick for UX.
On-Page Optimization | | MichaelGregory0 -
Listing all services on one page vs separate pages per service
My company offers several generalized categories with more specific services underneath each category. Currently the way it's structured is if you click "Voice" you get a full description of each voice service we offer. I have a feeling this is shooting us in the foot. Would it be better to have a general overview of the services we offer on the "Voice" page that then links to the specified service? The blurb about the service on the overview page would be unique, not taken from the actual specific service's page.
On-Page Optimization | | AMATechTel0 -
Is it OK to include name of your town to the title tag or H1 tag on a blog to enhance local search results
I recently attended a webinar by ETNA Interactive on local search SEO. The presenter recommended including the name of your town in the title of the blog to increase local search SEO. Is this OK? Ive always been concerned that it is such an obvious attempt to rank locally that Google would consider it "spammy" ? black hat, "sketchy" or otherwise manipulative. Have the rules changed? Is it OK to do? Brooke
On-Page Optimization | | wianno1680 -
Page Title in Local SEO Title Tags?
Hi All, Still working on my title tag usage for local SEO, and I was hoping for some more feedback. My question is this: In Local SEO titles, I'm using location + keyword combinations, unique on each page. However, since each page has a specific title for the client, I figure I should be placing that at the front. My thought here was that this helps with the overall usability to the reader of the website. Ex. Contact Us page for Pizza shop Contact Us | Springfield IN Gourmet Pizza | Moe's Italian Pizza Anyone have thoughts on this one? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell0 -
Schema: Multiple Locations on a Single Page
Can adding multiple locations on a single page be confusing to Google? Is using "LocalBusiness" with "branchof" the proper way of doing this? Does anyone know of any resources that go into this type of thing in more detail? I've read everything Google, Schema and SeoMoz seem to have on this topic. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Kwilder0