Can I use a state's slang term for local search?
-
Have a business located in Indianapolis, Indiana. The business name will be BusinessName Indy. The URL will be BusinessName-Indy.com
Since I am using Indy instead of Indianapolis or Indiana, is Google's algorithm smart enough to match up local results to my site?
-
I agree with Miriam and Ray.
Additionally it does depend on the query/industry. For instance "indy plumbers" does pull a 3 pack, so Google does realize I was searching for Indianapolis. But in your industry I'd search to be sure a local pack comes up.
I'd include the full city spelled out in all the relevant SEO places on your site though to help you rank for the majority of searches that will include full city name. But with Indy as part of your business name and URL you should find it fairly easy to rank for Indy searches, though the search volume will likely be less.
-
Thanks, Ray!
-
Well said Miriam!
-
Hi Steven,
I think the answer to this would be found in your keyword research. While I agree with much of what Ray has written, honestly, I would not count on Google to match 'Indy' with Indianapolis or Indiana. After all, 'Indy' is also slang for independent and the Indy 500 and what have you. So, unless KW research indicates that more people are searching for Indy that the city name or state initials or what have you, I would not choose that as your URL. Go ahead and use this term in various places in your text, if it's in common usage in your geography, but I recommend being more formal in the URL.
-
Hi StevenPeavey,
Yes, G is pretty darn smart and would understand similar terms for local areas. However, there are other local ranking factors, such as having a Name, Phone Number, and Address. you'll want to make sure you have these details apparent on your site, usually in the footer. Having those, combined with the 'slang' terms will help you rank locally. Also, be sure to setup a proper business page with a verified location.
Of course, use Moz Local to solidify yourself in those local rankings.
Lastly, make sure that the slang term you're using is popular. If people are using it to search Google (e.g. Indy plumbers) then it is a good idea to use the term. If the term is not widely used then you won't get much benefit from having it in within your site.
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
-
What's the best SEO solution for international targeting of different english speaking countries?
Hi guys, recently won a client who operates globally, their domain is .com and their head office is in the UK. They have built regional sub-directories and translated content and pages of their site for /ru, /fr etc. The issue comes with their /us and /ca pages. This content for the most part is identical to the main .com site. The content is still in English and can't in most situations be changed to be more localised, so there are duplicate content issues. Trying to think of options: Ensure hreflang is added properly, build regional links to regional pages, get local contact details / NAP on all regional pages, set up Google business listings for each regional office and link accordingly. Will Google be able to identify these regional pages as more suitable search results for US searches? Make the main .com version of the content the canonical, which takes away any ranking benefits of the regional pages altogether, but removes the duplicate content issues and means we can focus link building and content resources into making sure the .com version of the page ranks well. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | SamFanatic0 -
If we are a local based business, what is the best approach to tracking keywords? Shall we be micro tracking?
we are a local based business and we only have one physical property but we service a 15 mile radius (people within a 15 mile radius will use our services) when it comes to keyword tracking and monitoring should we just be looking at the 3 main local towns or should we go out to the villages around our area too? at what level shall we be micro tracking? do we go to such a micro level for tracking keywords for all the villages which creates a lot of keywords for the locations? what is the best approach?
Local Website Optimization | | Mutatio_Digital0 -
Local SEO for Multiple Locations - Is this the best approach?
Hi everyone! I previously have worked with single-location companies, and am now working for a company that is continuously growing and adding new locations. We are a financial institution that currently has 12 locations, and we should have 15+ locations by year-end 2017. Seeing as we have all of these locations, I thought the following approach would be the best for increasing our presence in local search. Our primary keyword is "credit union in location". Our search traffic has increased heavily over last year, but is down from the beginning of the year. I've gone through and done the following: Freshened up the content on the main website Created pages for each of our locations around April-end Attributed these location page URLs to our Google My Business locations Verified each location Wrote unique content for each page Our primary keyword rankings seem to fluctuate weekly. My next steps are to get our web design company to add the following: Structured Data on all location pages The ability to change SEO title and meta descriptions on location pages Sitemap (there is none currently, and I've been fighting them to get one added because it isn't needed.) I also plan on utilizing Moz Local to manage our local listings. After this is done I plan on finding ways for us to build links for each location, like the chambers of commerce in each city and local partnerships. Is this the best approach for our overall goal, and should I continue? Is there anything I should change about our current approach? I appreciate the help!
Local Website Optimization | | PelicanStateCU0 -
Need an Local SEO's expert opinion regarding a client trying to improve their rankings.
I have a business i'm working with right now who wants to improve their rankings in a very competitive legal niche. Are there any Local SEO gurus out there that would be willing to explain in a paragraph or two what's going wrong? Let me know if you'd like to help and I'll PM you the domain.
Local Website Optimization | | BrianJGomez0 -
Local SEO Best Practise?
We are planning to localize our website by launching CCTLD. But there is a little confusion about some aspects, which are: Should we track location and take our visitors to their native domain? Or do we need to take our visitors to .com domain and show a Popup, if they want to visit the native region website? What is the best case study for localization?
Local Website Optimization | | UmairGadit0 -
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 -
Duplicate content, hijacked search console, crawl errors, ACCCK.
My company employed a national marketing company to create their site, which was obviously outsourced to the lowest bidder. It looks beautiful, but has a staging site with all duplicate content in the installation. I am not seeing these issues in search console, and have had no luck getting the staging site removed from the files. How much should I be banging the drum on this? We have hundreds of high level crawl errors and over a thousand in midlevel. Of course I was not around to manage the build. I also do not have ftp access I'm also dealing with major search console issues. The account is proprietarily owned by a local SEO company and I can not remove the owner who is there by delegation. The site prefers the www version and does not read the same traffic for the non www version We also have something like 90,000 backlinks from 13 sites. And a shit ton of ghost spam. Help!
Local Website Optimization | | beth_thesomersteam0 -
Which is better for Local & National coupons --1000s of Indexed Pages per City or only a Few?
Not sure where this belongs.. I am developing a coupons site for listing local coupons and national coupons (think Valpak+RetailMeNot), eventually in all major cities, and am VERY concerned about how many internal pages to let google 'follow' for indexing, as it can exceed 10,000 per city. Is there a way to determine what the optimal approach is for internal paging/indexing BEFORE I actually launch the site (it is about ready except for this darned url question, which seems critical) Ie can I put in searchwords for google to determine which ones are most worthy to have their own indexed page? I'm a newbie sort of, so please put answer in simple terms. I'm one person and have limited funds and need to find the cheapest way to get the best organic results for each city that I cover. Is there a generic answer? One SEO firm told me the more variety the better. Another told me that simple is better, and use content on the simple pages to get variety. So confused I decided to consult the experts here! Here's the site concept: **FOR EACH CITY: ** User inputs location: Main city only(ie Houston), or 1 of 40 city regions(suburb, etc..), or zip code, or zip-street combo, OR allow gps lookup. A miles range is defaulted or chosen by the user. After search area is determined, user chooses 1 of 6 types of coupons searches: 1. Online shopping with national coupon codes, choice of 16 categories (electronics, health, clothes, etc) and 100 subcategories (computers, skin care products, mens shirts) These are national offers for chains like Kohls, which do not use the users location at all. 2. Local shopping in-store coupons, choice of same 16 categories and 100 subcategories that are used for online shopping in #1 (mom & pop shoe store or local chain offer). The results will be within the users chosen location and range. 3. Local restaurant coupons, about 60 subcategories (pizza, fast food, sandwiches). The results are again within the users chosen location and range. 4. Local services coupons, 8 categories (auto repair, activities,etc..) and around 200 subcategories (brakes, miniature golf, etc..). Results within users chosen location and range. 5. Local groceries. This is one page for the main city with coupons.com grocery coupons, and listing the main grocery stores in the city. This page does not break down by sub regions, or zip, etc.. 6. Local weekly ad circulars. This is one page for the main city that displays about 50 main national stores that are located in that main city. So, the best way to handle the urls indexed for the dynamic searches by locations, type of coupon, categories/subcats, and business pages The combinations of potential urls to index are nearly unlimited: Does the user's location matter when he searches for one thing (restaurants), but not for another (Kohls)? IF so, how do I know this? SHould I tailor indexed urls to that knowledge? Is there an advantage to having a url for NATIONAL cos that ties to each main city: shopping/Kohls vs shopping/Kohls/Houston or even shopping/Kohls/Houston-suburb? Again, I"m talking about 'follow' links for indexing. I realize I can have google index just a few main categories and subcats and not the others, or a few city regions but not all of them, etc.. while actually having internal pages for all of them.. Is it better to have 10,000 urls for say coupon-type/city-region/subcategory or just one for the main city: main-city/all coupons?, or something in between? You get the gist. I don't know how to begin to figure out the answers to these kinds of questions and yet they seem critical to the design of the site. The competition: sites like Valpak, MoneyMailer, localsaver seem to favor the 'more is better' approach, with coupons/zipcode/category or coupons/bizname/zipcode But a site like 8coupons.com appears to have no indexing for categories or subcategories at all! They have city-subregion/coupons and they have individual businesses bizname/city-subregion but as far as I see no city/category or city-subregion/category. And a very popular coupons site in my city only has maincity/coupons maincity/a few categories and maincity/bizname/coupons. Sorry this is so long, but it seems very complicated to me and I wanted to make the issue as clear as possible. Thanks, couponguy
Local Website Optimization | | couponguy1