Local on-page SEO
-
If it feels like you are doing something wrong, then you 'probably' are...
Local on-page SEO
When optimising a page for local SEO, and trying tick all the usuals boxes, you find yourself adding words like 'golf clubs leeds' which sounds awful when part of a natural paragraph of text. Does Google recognise this poor use of grammar? We try to be as creative as possible, as not to offend the visitor, but it feels wrong... any advice?
Thanks
-
We're here to help! So glad you found help here.
-
Thank you for your replies, it is nice to hear we are not alone in this challenge... great answers & valuable advice.
Sincere thanks.
-
Very true Miriam,
Also I thought I may add that Google respects syntax - one of the modern debates in relation to your content is all about LSI relations. Google expects to see things like "Golf Clubs in Leeds" and will still rank it for "golf club leeds"!
You don't need the exact phrase zeroed in to rank.
The best way to research this is to use the google keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS)
Throw your target keyphrase in there and look at the and let it populate ad group ideas (only seen when logged in). What you'll notice is a lot of these adword ideas have the EXACT same monthly traffic, local monthly traffic, difficulty and CPC price - that is because Google treats them as the EXACT same phrase.
Golf clubs leeds
Golf clubs in leeds
leeds golf clubsThey will all likely be treated as interchangeable in Google to some extent and a diversity of them will really help to hammer home your SEO while making it look natural.
-
Hi Indicoll,
I'm glad you've brought this up. An example like 'golf clubs leeds' is a good one. You are correct that this is unnatural language. You don't want to be writing, "We have the best golf clubs leeds", because it sounds unnatural to your human visitors, and also, because Google takes poor writing into account.
As Adam has pointed out, you can signal geography in many ways on your website and you should not have to rely on stating 'golf clubs leeds' over an over again in order to rank. Of course, there are some instances in which you feel you simply must find a way to work an exact match phrase in, in which case, creativity can sometimes come to the rescue. This would be a legitimate:
"The Golf Clubs Leeds Pros Reach For, Course After Course"
Something like that would be okay and would include those keywords in exact order, if it's essential to do so, but for the most part, Google will understand the meaning of a properly-optimized page without too much effort on the website owner's part. Optimize your tags and sprinkle keywords in a natural manner in thorough copy and you should be good to go. By contrast, awkward language can drive customers away and flag a site as spammy. It's good you are thinking about this. It's quite important!
-
I'm sure you've heard the saying "If you build it they will come" - it's a famous movie quote (I want to say Field of Dreams, but I can't quite remember off the top of my head), but more importantly it's a great mantra to build off of for SEO.
When you are trying too hard to improve your rankings you are going to fail. The most important thing you can do to improve your SEO is improve your site for your users. Google will identify your poor grammar stuffing time and time again - and let me tell you that's going to hurt you in the long run.
If you are a golf store in leeds then make sure you have an address in your footer including your city name, make sure your business is listed (and verified) on Google Places (<cite>www.google.com/local/add/</cite>) and if you have a trusted and notable business listing directory in your area like YellowPages make sure your business is listed with their digital directory. (Do NOT ever take the time to list on directories that aren't big notable companies it will actually have a negative impact)
Next it may be worthwhile implementing the Local Business schema markup (found here: http://schema.org/LocalBusiness) or schema events as they geotag as well (http://schema.org/Event)
Other than that keep your content organic, focus on your visitors needs, don't try and stuff in keywords and hit percents it all looks unnatural. Focus on getting your users the website they want to see and your CTR, Time on Site, and Bounce metrics should alter in a positive fashion lending themselves to a bit of an SEO boost anyway.
To stray away from the SEO and get a little inbound it's worth while to set up a Facebook profile with website and address information for your business as well, not only driving traffic but giving you more locational and social authority.
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
-
Losing Page Rank
Hello Moz I launched a re-design of our site over the summer and we jumped in organic search for some keywords. Recently one of our landing pages is being hammered by Google last we we lost one position this week we lost 5 positions. Although, when I check the on-page grade Moz gives it an A is there a check sheet anyone has that I could go through to see if I have any common problems. Ryan
On-Page Optimization | | ryanparrish0 -
Contact pages coming up for keywords above landing pages
I have two examples of contact pages coming up over designated landing pages Keyword: Nickel Alloys for www.neonickel.com Keyword: Artificial Grass for www.artificialgrass4u.co.uk Is there anyway I can stop this happening?
On-Page Optimization | | icansee0 -
Sub-pages have no pa
I took over a website a few months ago which is not performing well at all for chosen keywords. When I first inspected it, I found a rel canonical tag pointing to the homepage on every page. This was quickly deleted and all the pages were fetched in webmaster tools. 3 months later and the website is still performing badly. When I use the mozbar, it shows that all of the sub-pages have a pa of 1. It is only a small site and all of the pages are linked to on the navbar in a simple way. The links are not made using javascript and all the pages are on the sitemap which is submitted to wmt. I have checked that all of the changes that have been made have been indexed as well. Could it be possible that google still sees the canonical tag even though its not there? I can't think of any other reason why the pages have no pa or why it is so far behind the competitors despite having better content and links. Also, the site is appropriate for adults, but I found (among the mess left for me) a meta ratings tag set to "general". This has now been deleted, could it negatively affect rankings?
On-Page Optimization | | maxweb0 -
Opinions please on Duplicate page titles & too many on-page links warnings.-
Hello folks, I'm a total SEO newbe but totally enjoying
On-Page Optimization | | CSC
using SEOmoz to learn more. We have ecommerce sites and the 1st crawl flags – as appears typical too many on-page links. We display up to 20 products (each with three links!)
and I’m trying to push to have fewer but meeting resistance from colleagues.
We have links duplicated all over the site believing it eases navigation. My question is just how critical is the number of products displayed
and the resulting volume of links to SEO results? Also we currently have collections of products displayed
across several pages which of course have the same page title and this is flagged
as a duplication error. I wonder if product auto-scrolling help as this means only a certain number of products are displayed at one time on one page thus reducing links and the need for duplicate page titles? My superiors are resisting change (perhaps nervous of spoiling
what already works) and I need to know where to direct my persuasive powers! Many thanks in anticipation, Spence0 -
Home Page
We are re-design our home page, one are of the current home page has a drop down window called "popular products" . We wrote short articles for our keywords and have them linked to product page. In the past, it has helped us rank. However, with new Google rules, our feeling is that such practice is no good. So, we lean towards to remove it. Still, we'd like to hear some opinions and ask some questions too: www.butterflycraze.com is it clear to you that this is not good in Google's eyes? how do I determine if these links serving any SEO purpose now after Panda? depend on the answer to 2), what should we do about these pages? shall be re-direct or shall we remove them from Google index?
On-Page Optimization | | ypl0 -
Faq page
We are redoing our faq page and we were trying to decide on the best format. 1. Create each question on a separate page 2. Create one page with all the question and have the questions expand 3. Create different faq category pages (like 4) and divide the questions between them From my perspective #1 seems the best ---. you can create hyper relevant content for the user and optimize each question really well Any experience with this?
On-Page Optimization | | Morris770 -
Organic Landing Pages...
For one of our sites (fastcubes.com) I noticed our landing pages were ranking and getting a few organic visits. Considering they were made specifically for PPC, I thought maybe we should create landing pages that would not be present in the navigation of the site but for the purpose of optimizing for keyword variations. For example work station cubicles vs office workstation. We have a page optimized for office workstation but having another optimized for work station cubicles is redundant. Would it be a good idea to create this as a page that is not present in the navigation for the sole person of hopefully being ranked and getting traffic for that specific keyword? Thank you in advance for your help!!
On-Page Optimization | | DevonIntl0 -
On page links?
Hi all, Ive be going through the pages in my site getting rid of errors so i can the work of a clean slate and get the best for my site. However, i have a large amount of pages which is flagged up by seo moz pro tool as too many on page links. How bad is this in terms of seo rankings? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | wazza19850