Target broad keywords for local or broad keywords+local city?
-
Hi,
Is it better to target broad keywords in a local market or target 'broad keywords + local city'? Or both?
The sites I'm working with currently have landing pages for each 'local city/town + keyword' ... they each have about 5 services they offer and about 7 or more nearby towns they service. This means I'm tracking about 35+ keywords per client. That seems to be a bit much. Am I wrong? Would it be just as effective to target broad keywords and track them locally being that the local market isn't very competitive. Of course the broad keywords yield more search volume according to google keyword tool. However, the current setup is sending a worthwhile traffic volume to the site.
According to Miriam's article http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide I'm working with a business model 2 - single brick and mortar location servicing many areas nearby.
Thanks,
Chris
-
Hi Joshua,
Good for you for letting the client know that duplicate content landing pages for the cities are not a good idea. If the client is rural and the competition is low, I honestly wouldn't be recommending city landing pages at all in this scenario, unless their is a genuine reason for the business to be describing its activities in cities B, C, D, etc. Again, without knowing the nuances of the specific business, it's hard to give great advice. So, I can only take a general stab at this.
Let's say the client is a farm supply store located in Sonora, California. They are the only farm supply store within a 20 mile radius, and they want to be sure that customers in neighboring communities like Angels Camp, Jamestown, Colombia and Groveland know they exist. I would likely recommend a strategy like this:
-
Optimize all key pages of the website for product/service terms + Sonora
-
Earn testimonials from the farm store's loyal customers who come to them from various towns and include these throughout the product/service pages, including the name of the town the customer comes from.
-
Build citations for the Sonora-based store
-
Put a blog on the site and, on a modest basis, blog about industry-related events in the all the surrounding towns. Good content for the blog would be things like planting forecasts for the various towns at the different mountain elevations, coverage of farm stands, rural fairs, bake sales, mills, large animal vets, farming demonstrations, school gardens and anything else that relates to agriculture taking place in the neighboring communities that shop at the farm store for products.
-
Consider offering town-specific sales, contests and other promotions.
Given the rural location and low level of competition, this would likely be all the business would need to do to become very dominant for its goods and services within its own city and in the neighboring communities. It should not be necessary in any way to create those thin, duplicate content pages. A modest but well-planned effort should be all this business needs to succeed.
-
-
Hi,
The clients are located in small towns with many other small towns surrounding them. Most times one business is 'local enough' to be countywide and even stretch into nearby counties because of the rural-ish nature of the local market.
Currently, my company has done city pages (not unique content, just city specific titles changed) and done less effort toward the broad keywords. Even though they're getting traffic now with this method I've already notified them that they need unique content for each city page and that it's only a matter of time before Google's algorithm doesn't award such gray-hat techniques.
It'd be much easier for me to have them focus on the broad keywords then have a blog that has city-specific categories talking about the service coverage in the nearby town. However, until I have enough data I think I'll just stick to doing city-specific content (unique) with broad keyword focus as well. Review the data, then reevaluate.
Perhaps you have a better structure or approach?
Thanks,
Chris (Josh's SEO guy).
-
Hi Joshua,
That's really nice that you read my Moz Blog article. If the client is business model #2, then his city of location will almost always outweigh anything you do with additional cities. It can be difficult to offer general advice in this situation because I'm not aware of the specifics of the client's business - for instance, what is his relationship to these other cities? Is it a strong relationship or is it kind of a situation in which you're having to scramble to find a reason to build content for cities B, C and D? These nuances are very important in creating a strategy. Yes, broad keywords are almost always going to outweigh service/city terms, but for most local businesses, it's the city-related or city-based searches that count most.
-
I would generally track both, with the understanding that you are only looking to gain traffic from local clients. This doesn't specifically mean that your local clients are going to be typing in the city details in their search for your client's service. Some people might include the city while some might assume the search will target their location automatically. Generally on landing pages, if your client has a physical location, it's not that hard to create copy that includes the city. I would definitely include the main city in your titles--along with the service keywords. The search engines will pick up both.
-
While you should not fear change, your comment "However, the current setup is sending a worthwhile traffic volume to the site." says all you need to know, if the service + city landing page model is working, don't change it to change it or because you read something that says you should. If you do however believe that targeting the broad keywords instead will net you better local results, set up a few landing pages for the broad keywords and A/B test them against the local landing pages.
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 Strategy for Multiple Domain Integration
Hello, We are a locally driven business with two locations. Currently, each location has its own local site and are linked to from our central domain (3 domains total). We are discussing whether we should integrate the local sites into location pages on our core domain. However, we would also prefer to keep the ‘local’ domains live. Is this a viable strategy and what would we need to do to ensure the local sites won’t cannibalize our efforts with the main domain? Also, should we remove the contact information on those local sites to avoid NAP issues? The other option would be to build out the local domains but that could raise concerns over budget and potentially expanding into the future. And we would like the main domain to take presendence. A few additional notes on this: Each location has its own brand name and contact information. Traffic across all 3 sites is about the same. We are also considering using silos with sub-folders to build out local service pages. We understand how to set up location pages but are asking more in terms of overall strategy and ideal way to position all 3 sites. Any help or insight would be very appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | Ben-R
Best,0 -
Does A Local Therapist Need A Blog, or Should They Focus on Main Service Pages?
Hi everyone! I am just starting to practice SEO by assisting a friend with her local relationship therapy practice, and I'm not sure whether or not she needs a blog. Here's the content they currently have: A page for specific categories within relationship therapy (unmarried couples, marriage, divorce, pre-marital, etc) On each page, she describes what that type of therapy is, what clients can expect, and how she will help them during the process. My question is this: Does it make sense to start a blog, or, is it better to build out the main, static service pages with more content? I'm worried that if she does start a blog, that it could potentially take away from the authority of the main service pages. For example, let's say she writes a highly specific post titled "how to talk to your husband about marriage". Is it better to just incorporate aspects of this post on the main marriage page, or keep it as a blog post? I really appreciate any suggestions and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Local Website Optimization | | onitamara0 -
Best Practice for Inserting Keywords into Title Tag?
Hello Fellow Mozers I am looking to open a discussion for my question. I will give an example to clarify things. I have a keyword I want to rank "London Luxury Apartments" Which title would be best or what would you suggest in addition to the titles below: Option A) London Luxury Apartments | Luxury London Apartments | Brand Name Option B) London Luxury Apartments | Luxury Apartments in London | Brand Name Option C) London Luxury Apartments | Luxury Apartments for Sale in London | Brand Name Any other option not displayed above that you have extensively tested and know it works. Have in mind the following : I am aware of the 55 character limit so lets not make this discussion about the character Limit. I want to keep the discussion on the Keyword Format and Keyword Logic of using the same keyword just in a different order. The above is just an example in order to best illustrate what I wish to talk about. Round one... Begin!!
Local Website Optimization | | Nic890 -
Benefits of adding keywords to site structure?
Hello fellow Mozzers, This is kind of a hypothetical, but it might have implications for future projects. Do you think there would be any benefits (or drawbacks) to placing pages of a site into a directory named after a keyword? For example, if I had a local store that sold hockey equipment, and "hockey", "equipment", and "hockey equipment" were the main targets being optimized for, would it be better (assuming the actual pages were the same) to structure the site as hypotheticalwebsite.com/about-us/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-skates/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-sticks/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/blog/ or hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/about-us/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-sticks/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/blog/ Additionally, would any of this change if the root domain or the individual pages ALSO used those keywords (or if both of them used it)? pseudonyms-hockey-gear.com/hockey-equipment/skates/ pseudonyms-penalty-box.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/ pseudonyms-hockey-gear.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/ I've got a hunch that some of these are overkill, but I'm not sure where the scale tips from helpful to negligible to actively counterproductive. Thanks, everyone!
Local Website Optimization | | BrianAlpert780 -
Call Tracking numbers effect on Local SEO
Hello Mozzers! With the importance of homogeneous NAP information on Local SEO, could using Call Tracking numbers have a negative effect? Is it better to use Javascript to place the number, or to hard code it? Thanks in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | FrankSweeney0 -
Local SEO: City & County Pages
I'm working on developing some local pages for an HVAC company. They cover two counties, so I was planning on having two county pages, then linking them to individual city pages to keep the menu simpler and not cluttering it up with a couple dozen city pages for people to slog through. Has anybody ever done county pages before for local SEO? Or at least seen them? Just curious to see if there's any real benefit overall for have separate county pages, or if I should just stick to city pages.
Local Website Optimization | | ChaseMG0 -
Listing bundle info on site and on local SEO page.
We just finished a new telecom site, and like all telecom sites (think AT&T, Verizon, Suddenlink, etc.), we allow people to put their location in and find internet and phone service packages (what we call bundles) unique to their area. This page also has contact information for the local sales team and some unique content. However, we're about to start putting up smaller, satellite pages for our local SEO initiative. Of course, these pages will have unique content as well, but it will have some of the same content as what's on the individual bundle page, such as package offerings, NAP, etc. Currently this is the URL structure for the bundles: domain.com/bundles/town-name/ This is what I'm planning for the local SEO pages: domain.com/location/town-name-state/ All local FB pages, Google listings, etc. will like to these location pages, rather than the bundle pages. Is this okay or should I consolidate them into one?
Local Website Optimization | | AMATechTel0 -
Local SEO + Best Practice for locations
Hi All, Based on a hypothetical scenario, lets say you are a plumber. You live and operate within Chelsea in London. You have established a Google places profile and incorporated schema data to tell Google your fixed place location. In addition you operate in several nearby towns with no fixed location presence. i.e Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham. I create a feature rich page on 'How to find a quality plumber'. Within the page I incorporate the following description: blah blah, as a quality plumber serving the community of Chelsea, we also offer our services to nearby towns of Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham. I create hyperlinks for the towns (Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham) that allow the user see in details a full list of services, operation hours, etc. Naturally all towns will have there own unique content (no duplication). Question
Local Website Optimization | | Mark_Ch
Is the above scenario the correct way to provide local seo or is this approach considered spammy to Google? Thanks Mark0