How can I do a Geo-targeted SEO for a lawncare services client?
-
Hi All!
I am managing an SEO project for a new client, http://1800lawncaredallas.com and the optimization is yet to begin. It is a brand new website.
The client serves only in particular locations in Texas. How can I optimize the site for these cities without making it look spammy or over-optimized? Is there a checklist that I can follow to optimize these pages?
Thanks!
Rk -
Hi Radhakrishnan,
You're receiving some good advice here. I'll add some points.
1. First, determine if the business model is truly local. In order to qualify, it must have a unique physical address (no virtual offices or P.O. boxes), a unique local area code phone number and make in-person contact with customers.
2. From your description, I'm assuming that this is an SAB (a service area business). In this case, you are permitted to create just one Google+ Local page per physical location. You can also build citations on other local business directories for this physical location. What you cannot do is build them for cities where the client has no physical office.
3. Instead, for these location-less cities where your client travels to serve his customers, you must rely on organic SEO in a effort to gain organic visibility for these other cities, because you are unlikely to gain true local rankings for any city in which the business isn't physically located. Your core effort will be the creation of city landing pages on the website for each service city. Each page must be totally unique and awesome (no cutting and pasting from one page to the next. I recommend you read:
The Nitty Gritty of City Landing Pages for Local Businesses
4. Beyond simply creating the city landing pages on the website, you'll be employing other SEO techniques to promote them, such as earning links and social mentions. You may also want to encourage the client to continue blogging about his various service cities. Locally optimized videos can also be really powerful.
5. BrickTech has linked to my article illustrating the top 20 local search ranking factors. Beyond this, you can go straight to the source by reading the entire Local Search Ranking Factors annual report at: http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
There is a ton to do for any local business! These steps should get you started, and just remember with the development of city landing pages, the content must be unique and terrific to avoid stamping the website as low-quality/spammy.
Hope this helps!
-
I found this guide on the Moz Blog really useful... Top 20 Local Search Ranking Factors: An Illustrated Guide
Plenty of stuff to think about and some really great tips, and need-to-knows. Hope this helps.
-
Do not hesitate to really hone in on locations in Adwords and customize ads for towns and areas! I saw my CTR go up drastically on some of my websites that were highly dependent on location targeting. Tie that in with a google Local listing with some nice reviews and business will be booming!
-
In addition to setting up a Google Local page, have you visited GetListed.org and claimed those location listings?
-
Does the business have a B&M location? If so, create a Local Business page in Google+. There, you can set all of the areas that you service.
Another great way I get my clients ranking for specific towns is to create pages for each. E.g. [nearby town] Landscaping & Lawn Maintenance
Then populate those pages with things specific to that town: mention clients/testimonials from that town, include pictures, personal comments (maybe they have different lawn styles), directions to your office.
-
Look at Google Geo Tagging and Ensure that your pages have location pages with What services/products they provide.
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
-
Local Site Linking to Corporate Site In Main Menu - Bad for SEO?
Hi, We have 'local' websites for different countries (UK, DE, FR, AP, US etc.) and a corporate website, the local websites are going to be linking back to the corporate website in the main menu (think about us, terms and conditions kind of pages). Any local products will have their own pages on the local website but global products will be linked back to the corporate website. We will be placing an indication the user will be going to another website next to those menu links that go to the corporate website. Is there any drawback to this for SEO? Should we use nofollow in the menu structure of regional websites for these links? Thanks for your help.
Local Website Optimization | | UNIT40 -
City Pages for Local SEO
Hey Mozzers, I have a local SEO question for you. I am working with a medical professional to SEO their site. I know that when creating city pages, you want to try and make each page as strong as you can, showcasing testimonials from people who live in those towns, for instance. Since my client is in the medical profession, i was going to include a list of parks from that town and say something about how, "we want to encourage good health, etc." However, i began to wonder whether i should just create one, large resource for the surrounding towns having to do with parks, dog parks, and athletic activities and link to it in the top nav. thoughts? Nails
Local Website Optimization | | matt.nails0 -
Using IP Detection to Filter Directory Listings without Killing Your SEO?
I have a client who maintains a directory of surgeons across the United States (approx. 2,000 members at present), and wishes to use IP detection to dynamically filter their surgeon directory to a sub-set that is relevant to the geography of the visitor. At the same time, however, we want the pages in the surgeon directory to rank nationally for terms like "[insert specialty] surgeons". Any tips/best practices for implementing an IP detection solution without shooting yourself in the foot from an SEO perspective? Is it even possible? Thanks! Jeremy
Local Website Optimization | | Jeremy_Lopatin0 -
How can my categories rank for my different branches? Tidied site up but now local rankings are worse
Dear Mozzers , I am wondering if someone could please help with some advice and assistance on the following for our Tool hire site: Basically I like to know how we can rank for our categories for our different branch locations ?. We have a branch finder page and separate branch pages but I do not know if I should have an internal link from all our branch pages to all my different categories or not or is google clever enough to know that I have x locations and x categories and I should rank all the categories in all the locations. I think my site structure is fairly straightforward and on the face of it similar to what others do who have multiple branches . For example I enclose a link to 2 of our categories - carpet cleaner hire category and a floor sander hire category carpet cleaner category - http://goo.gl/cMyS4i floor sander category - http://goo.gl/4ipUyA Heres a link to our Branch Finder - http://goo.gl/UyTQdK Heres a link to one of our Branches for example - Bristol Branch - http://goo.gl/9TXHTK And heres our link to our google plus Bristol page - google plus bristol branch page - https://goo.gl/h0IwAK . We have link from our bristol page going to the bristol google plus page and visa versa. Currently within our internal linking structure there is No direct link on the branch pages to the categories ?. Is this something we need to do or not necessary ?. - If we do it , then it may mess up or confuse the page as I someone need to get all the category links on the branch pages ? We have lots of good unique content , lots of citations for our branches and categories etc but we just don't seem to rank at all well for any of our categories in local search. For example if somene was to search for - Carpet cleaner hire "City Name " or Floor sander hire "City Name" (City name being where our branches are). We dont rank very well for most of our cities. Even without putting the city name in we dont rank to well in local search. We used to have individual pages for our categories in each of the cities we have branches with unique content on all and these did rank quite well in a few cities but never top 3 in most and we got rid of these last month (start of Oct) as I was told that google may see this as quite spammy or doorway pages if I have a carpet cleaner hire Bristol page or a floor sander hire Bristol page etc ?.. All my location landing pages now just 301 back to the appropriate category. I am wondering if getting rid of these landing pages was a good idea as by tidying things up , I've seemed to have lost my local rankings for my cities. Can someone please advise if what I did was right and what else I should look at doing ?> Could it be an internal linking issue I need to sort ? Any assistance much appreciated.
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC12
thanks
Pete0 -
2 clients. 2 websites. Same City. Both bankruptcy attorneys. How to make sure Google doesn't penalize...
Hi Moz'ers! I am creating 2 new websites for 2 different bankruptcy attorneys in the same city. I plan to use different templates BUT from the same template provider. I plan to host with the same hosting company (unless someone here advises me not to). The content will be custom, but similar, as they both practice bankruptcy law. They have different addresses, as they are different law firms. My concern is that Google will penalize for duplicate content because they both practice the same area of law, in the same city, hosting the same, template maker the same, and both won't rank. What should I do to make sure that doesn't happen? Will it be enough that they have different business names, address, and phone numbers? Thanks for any help!!
Local Website Optimization | | BBuck0 -
Multilingual site making new URLs, how to preserve SEO juice?
Hello! My site currently serves content in german and english, however without having separate URLs (it depends on Accept-Language and has a submitform for changing language based on set cookies). The site appears extremely well in the search engine, with many keywords ranking at #1-10. They appear on the german and english google search, with the first one bringing the best results. It's however the english site that appears in the results. I want to change to a better approach by having subdirectories for each language, as I'm extending the site, I know how to do this but I have found -nowhere- any infos on how to preserve my search engine ranks? If I keep the english version as homepage and send german visitors to /de/, might this kill my position in the german search engine which is very important, as the new frontpage under /de/ would become more relevant and the english one maybe less? Or should I keep the german version the default one and send english visitors elsewhere? What happens with my search positions, if I have no side on the / but visitors are always send to either /en/ or /de/? Every help is greatly appreciated, as I found a lot of articles everywhere on how to make a multilingual site, but nowhere anything on how it affects current search results.
Local Website Optimization | | innovacy0 -
Localize Homepage, or service pages?
Hi so I am curious if a homepage may carry the most link juice, then if you service an entire state, do you include the state name as a keyword in your homepage title to get noticed, or the company brand, resulting in adding service area pages to cater to unique each city that you service? I am just not sure if Google is smart enough to know you service a state? I have my local page with a service area, but is this all I need? So I would not need to add a state name. Like I build horse barns, pole barns, metal buildings, and indoor riding arenas. So I am curious if you would do a title tag like Colorado Builders - Barns, Buildings, and Arenas Or maybe Colorado at the end? Or not at all Thanks for any tips.
Local Website Optimization | | asbchris0 -
One location performing worse than the rest despite no major difference in SEO strategy
Hi all, I'm flummoxed. I'm dealing with a business that has 15 or so offices in three cities, and one city is performing horribly (this includes every office therein). The other two cities have shown consistently stellar results with massive traffic increases month over month for the past year; the city in question dropped unexpectedly in June and hasn't ever recovered. We didn't perform any major website changes during or immediately prior to that time period, and the website in general hasn't been negatively affected by Hummingbird. All locations for the business are optimized in the exact same way and according to best practices; there's no significant difference in the number of local listings, reviews, G+ fans, social signals, etc across locations. All meta data and content is optimized, NAPs are all consistent, we've built links wherever we can: the SEO for every location has been by-the-books. We've run a competitor audit in this particular city that included pulling our top competitors and exploring their domain authority, meta data, on-page keyword grade for the term we're trying to rank for, number and type of inbound links, social signals, and more; and we didn't spot any patterns or any websites that were significantly outperforming us in any area (besides actual rankings). It's frustrating because the client is expecting a fix for this city and I can't find anything that needs to be fixed! Have any multi-local SEOs out there run into a similar problem? What did you do about it?
Local Website Optimization | | ApogeeResults0
