NAP question about wider service area
-
My business is based in Suffolk, UK, but I serve an area that includes Essex, Cambs, Herts and Norfolk.
I've been making an effort to include a constant NAP across all my local citations for Suffolk in an effort to rank better in local search.
However, what effect does this have on pages when trying to rank for searches for areas where I have no physical location? If my entire site has NAP across it referencing Suffolk, does this impact the ability to rank organically for areas outside Suffolk?If so, what would be the best practice for increasing organic rank in these areas?
-
Hi Alex,
Regarding testimonials - no, I am not referencing testimonials from websites. I'm talking about getting written testimonials from your customers (either on paper or via email) and uploading them yourself using Schema review markup to the respective city landing page on your own website. These on-page testimonials can be a powerful way to add unique content to your city landings pages, and they also sometimes show up in the SERPs with stars (though Google's display of this keeps changing).
As to why Google is showing you results for a city 30 miles away when you're not adding a geo-modifier, I'm not sure. Could it be that there is something about that city that is particularly relevant, or, could your location possibly be set to this city in Google, causing Google to show you results for that city? Have you tried checking from other computers located in your town? Clearly, you're doing pretty well for your own local city, and this is where you can expect to rank in the local pack (not in a city where you're not physically located) so if pursuing rankings in other cities is important, they will almost certainly have to be organic rankings, not local ones.
-
Miriam,
Thanks for that response.
One clarification:
You can also work to add on-page testimonials from clients in these service cities to the respective city landing pagesI'm assuming you mean links from clients websites in these areas to the respective pages on my site.
If I do a search for my service without any location modifier, all the results in the local pack are for a city 30 miles away where I have no physical presence. I appreciate that this local pack will change dependent on my/the searchers actual location, but it seems a bit off that 'out of the box' Google is suggesting businesses in a city 30 miles away. Does it default to the nearest city? Or does it look at a density of related businesses and assume that area should be shown? If so, how does one compete? Organic SERP for that particular city? If we add a county modifier the local pack results are now a little bit more widespread. Ideally this is where I'd like to place for local pack rankings.I've been working on gaining local citations and going back through old NAP mentions and having them updated. What else could I do to to improve those county level local pack results?
If I add my local town modifier to the search my site appears in the local pack at #4. So Google seems to be picking up some of my info.
-
Hi Alex,
Good question! Google's bias toward physical location has built into local search a specific way of handling website optimization for service area businesses like yours. Typically this looks like this:
-
You optimize the overall website for your city of location, meaning that you put your complete NAP on the contact page and in the sitewide footer. You also typically optimize your core pages (home, about, service pages) for this city of location as well. You develop your Google+ Local page and your citations to reflect the NAP of your city of location, as well. You work on earning reviews on these profiles, as well as social mentions and links. The goal of all of this work is to achieve high local pack rankings for your business for queries that either contain your city of location or that stem from devices based in your city of location.
-
For your service cities where you have no physical location, you don't have NAP. But, you do have the ability to build a unique landing page on the website for each of your major service cities. Be sure that the content is unique and terrific for each page you create and then link to these pages from a top level menu under a heading of something like "Cities We Serve'. Work to earn social mentions and links to these pages. You can also work to add on-page testimonials from clients in these service cities to the respective city landing pages. Do not put the business' NAP on these pages, because it does not apply. The goal of this work is to earn secondary organic rankings for these service cities, because it is highly unlikely that you will earn local pack rankings for any city in which you're not physically located.
Having NAP on the rest of the website will not harm your ability to rank organically for your other service cities, but you have to go into this with the understanding that you're aiming for local rankings for your city of location and organic rankings for your location-less cities.
Hope this helps!
-
-
I just made a similar response here.
http://moz.com/community/q/localize-homepage-or-service-pages
You do not need a physical location to rank but it helps. You can rank for location keywords like Essex or Cambs. There is no easy way to do this if you want to keep it legit.
Things you can do.. Get a business location in the locations specified, tie them into separate parts of your site dedicated to that area.
Widen your service area on google places to cover all these areas specified. Make your places account keyword rich and you will start to come up. With a good amount of reviews, people call even if you are far away.
-
If you only have a physical location in Suffold than your local search result efforts will be focussed on Suffold and the immediate area through your citations, reviews etcetera.
This does not mean that you can not rank in the normal search results for queries about other areas such as Cambs and Herts. Your website could state that these areas are part of your service area as well.
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
-
Improving Local Pack results across other services
A company I work for ranks well in the Local Pack under its primary service offering i.e. "primary service Bristol". And also under some other services it offers. However, under other services that are offered, it doesn't show in the local pack despite ranking No 1 in the natural SERPS for the target phrase "example service Bristol". We have pages covering all main services in the main site navigation bar. Is this just the way it is or can something be done to resolve this? Does the detail in the third-party citations have a significant impact? What about the content of the reviews? I note that we are doing better under the services mentioned within the reviews. Should I add additional categories and emulating those used by the competition under the search terms? Or am I missing something else?
Local Website Optimization | | GrouchyKids0 -
Novice SEO Question - UK & COM Results
Would someone please explain to me why when doing this search https://www.google.co.uk/search?pws=0&q=online+texas+hold+em there are uk and com pages ranking in the results for pokerstars & how do I fix it? Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | charliegirlcontent1 -
Local Service pages guide?
There are a lots of Local landing pages guide on the internet. Is there any guide for Local service pages? How to create them, what to include?
Local Website Optimization | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Multiple Websites for a Large Home Service Company
I have a client who offers multiple services, the current website is already huge because they have added on so many new offerings in the last year and want everything above the fold. As I am building out the sitemap for a re-design, they continue to add more services. (HVAC, Plumbing, Solar, Windows, Electrical) I am working on a sitemap for a re-build, but I am still well over 100 pages deep with huge menu's. **My question is what are the SEO pros/cons of breaking the site up into multiple websites? **
Local Website Optimization | | Lauren_E2 -
What to do with localised landing pages on listings website - Canonical question
Hi Run a pet listings website and we had tonnes of duplicate content that we have resolved. But not sure what to do with the localised landing pages. We have everything pointing back back to the main listings URL http://www.dogscatsandpets.co.uk/for-sale-stud-and-adoption/ but haven't pointed the URLs that show pets for specific towns and cities eg http://www.dogscatsandpets.co.uk/for-sale/dogs-and-puppies/in-city-of-london/ back to the main url. Obviously this is giving us duplicate content issues, but these pages do rank in local search and drive traffic into the site. So my question is should we canonicalise the local pages back to the main url and if we do will this mean our local landing pages will no longer rank? Is there any alternatives?
Local Website Optimization | | dogscatsandpets0 -
Ranking a Website that Services Multiple Cities
We have a website that offers services to various cities in a state. However, since we don't want to do keyword stuffing, how do we rank this website for all of these cities when it comes to the **title tags? **For example, how do we optimize the homepage title tag? Obviously I know we can't put all the cities into it, so how do we choose which city to use? I know we can add city/local pages and optimize them for those locations, but I'm referring specifically to the homepage and other main pages of the website. How do you determine which cities to use in those title tags?
Local Website Optimization | | SEOhughesm0 -
Local Area SEO - Directions Page and Multiple Use of Direction pages
Hello, We are looking to focus on multiple local areas and it has been suggested one way to mention lots of different locations on pages without doing lists or using grey SEO practices is to create directions pages. We are trying this with a client who has 2 business at the same address. The layout is:- Introduction - 2-3 sentences Directions by Car Park Parking info Directions by Public Transports Closing - 3-4 sentences - using clients keywords The hope is the having locations/areas and the clients keywords on the same page will capture some of the local areas with the clients keywords. I have some questions:- 1. If we use the same directions text and just change the opening and closing paragraphs on the different website will this be enough to not have a duplicate content issue. 2. Are the directions pages the best way to capture keywords and local area/locations on the same page. 3. Is there anything I am missing or could do instead? Looking forward to everyone's input....
Local Website Optimization | | JohnW-UK0 -
Competitor Ranking High with Questionable Backlinks
Happy Friday Mozzers! I wanted to pick your brains this morning, and see what your thoughts were on how Google missed this one. One of our competitors is ranking high in Google, and has been for some time. About 5-6 months ago, his site skyrocketed from page 3-4 to the top of page one. The site meta tag is pulling in logo alt text, content is very messy and sales driven, and after looking at the backlink profile in MOZ tools, it has a ton of links from China, Japan, Korea. Most of the backlinks are from blog pages, about everything under the sun, from UFO's to porn sites. This site has consistantly ranked high at the top of the page for many different competitive keywords. My question is this: HOW? After all the updates done by Google, and their focus on web spam, what is allowing this site to rank high constantly? (5-6 months now, and often in the number one spot). Here is an example of some of the backlinks. There are a LOT of them. http://sundtjek-wp.alexandra.dk/?p=1
Local Website Optimization | | David-Kley
http://ice.anyang.ac.kr/xe/teacher/2095
http://blog.so-net.ne.jp/etsuko_hayashi_ET3/2006-07-02 Don't worry, we are not looking to follow in his footsteps, lol. I was just wondering how this can happen, and for such a long time period.0