SEO for local business directory type site
-
I am thinking about creating a local business directory type website that lists all local Tattoo Shops. I am familiar with both local and global SEO and how to differentiate between them, however, I am not sure how I should approach this type of website. It isn't an actual business, but I want to target local searches that are looking for tattoo shops.
In other words, when someone types in "tattoo shops" or "tattoo shops near me", or "tattoo parlors", I want the website to appear. Is this something that is manageable, or will the individual Tattoo Shop websites always show before mine since they are real local businesses with google+ pages?
-
Hi There!
Chances are, this is going to be an uphill battle; the ability to compete successfully with the likes of Google's own location-based packs of results + organic results featuring individual business websites + powerhouse directories like Yelp is going to depend on the resources you have to put into the development and marketing of the directory.
The competition is stiff for anyone entering the directory scene these days, but if you're creating something that doesn't yet exist, the best hope would be in becoming THE authoritative source for the niche. What can you do that will add value users can't get from Google 7-packs or Yelp's reviewers? What kind of content can you create that will earn you a spot amongst these already-established players? These would be the questions I would be asking myself to determine whether I wanted to dive into this new venture.
-
I would look at generalized searches such as "tattoo shops (city name)" and see what kinds of sites rank well aside from the actual businesses. Several sites do make the first page for things like this, such as Yelp, Best ## shops in City Name pages, best artists, and so on. Pick some markets that are way more competitive than yours and see what kind of backlink profile they have, level of social interaction, freshness of content, and so on. That should give you plenty to consider and help you decide whether or not to pursue it. Cheers!
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
-
Proper SEO structure for Franchise/ Franchisee websites
Hi Neighbors, Franchise website design and development can be difficult, there’s no doubt about it. I had to find the right balance between a unique and unified brand identity, and a localized experience that accurately reflects the individual franchisees and their efforts. Due to the many benefits, I have structured the to read _domain.com/location _ domain.com = TLD /location = subfolder (location page) I have also built a customized CMS (e.g. Drupal) and have given each location access to manage their location page (subfolder). To accommodate local SEO optimization, franchisees have complete control in terms of optimizing their location page (subfolder). Title tags, meta description, Alt tags, etc... Will any local optimization performed in the subfolder (location page) be stiffened because it was not done in the TLD but in the subfolder ?
Local Website Optimization | | Jeffvertus1 -
Question about partial duplicate content on location landing pages of multilocation business
Hi everyone, I am a psychologist in private practice in Colorado and I recently went from one location to 2 locations. I'm currently updating my website to better accommodate the second location. I also plan continued expansion in the future, so there will be more and more locations as time goes on. As a result, I am making my websites current homepage non-location specific and creating location landing pages as I have seen written about in many places. My question is: I know that location landing pages should have unique content, and I have plenty of this, but how much content is it also okay to have be duplicate across the location landing pages and the homepage? For instance, here is the current draft of the new homepage (these are not live yet): http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/ And here are the drafts of the location landing pages: http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/denver-office http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/colorado-springs-office And for reference, here is the current homepage that is actually live for my single Denver location: http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/ As you can see, the location landing pages have the following sections of unique content: Therapist picture at the top testimonial quotes (the one on the homepage is the only thing I have I framed in this block from crawl so that it appears as unique content on the Denver page) therapist bios GMB listing driving directions and hours and I also haven't added these yet, but we will also have unique client success stories and appropriately tagged images of the offices So that's plenty of unique content on the pages, but I also have the following sections of content that are identical or nearly identical to what I have on the homepage: Intro paragraph blue and green "adult" and child/teen" boxes under the intro paragraph "our treatment really works" section "types of anxiety we treat" section Is that okay or is that too much duplicate content? The reason I have it that way is that my website has been very successful for years at converting site visitors into paying clients, and I don't want to lose aspects of the page that I know work when people land on it. And now that I am optimizing the location landing pages to be where people end up instead of the homepage, I want them to still see all of that content that I know is effective at conversion. If people on here do think it is too much, one possible solution is to turn parts of it into pictures or put them into I-frames on the location pages so Google doesn't crawl those parts of the location pages, but leave them normal on the homepage so it still gets crawled on there. I've seen a lot written about not having duplicate content on location landing pages for this type of website, but everything I've read seems to refer to entire pages being copied with just the location names changed, which is not what I'm doing, hence my question. Thanks everyone!
Local Website Optimization | | gremmy90 -
Which is the best, ".xx" or ".com.xx" in general and for SEO?
Hi, I'm working for a digital marketing agency and have traffic from different countries. We are planning to make different websites for each country. What is the best SEO practice to choose the domain between ".xx" or ".com.xx" from Spain, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru?
Local Website Optimization | | NachoRetta
I think that the ccTLD is better always, for example ".es" better than ".com.es"0 -
Does it matter how or what site you use to GeoTag your photos?
I found a site that was very easy for me to upload my pictures, add the coordinates, download it and put it on my site. The site is GeoImgr.com, but it's not nearly as popular as some of the other's out there. Does that matter? I'm under the impression that as long as the GPS coordinates show up in the XIF Viewer, then I've gotten whatever benefit (albeit slight) there is to get. Is that correct? Or is there something about tagging them from the more popular sites like Flickr or Panaramio? Thanks, Ruben
Local Website Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
What is the best way for a UK company to source SEO Support to boost SERPS in USA Google?
We are a niche web retailer with a world leading product and as such are probably the best option for USA customers (even though we are based in the UK) up to 18 months ago google agreed and placed us high for USA searches and we had good business as a result however since penguin (or around that time anyways) google increased our SERPS for more local markets (UK and EUROPE) and decreased our ranks for USA with a consequent reduction in our USA sales We want to improve rank again in USA (and Canada and Australia and Russia) but need specialist help What's the best way to source that? (short of someone saying they know exactly how to do that) ant recommendation most gratefully received Tom
Local Website Optimization | | tomnivore0 -
Business in one location, be found in others?
Hi all, A bit of an interesting one but I am sure you can all help. My client has a business in a town called location A. Surrounding town A there are several other towns - My client wants to make sure they also appear in SERPs for these surrounding areas, even though their business is not physically located there. E.g. Product town A
Local Website Optimization | | HB17
Product town B
Product town C
Or even just being physically searching from one of those locations and typing the product name, they want to be on that first page. For example if you live in town B which is 20 miles away, my clients still wants to appear right at the top of the SERPs as they are competing against other businesses for that area. They also want to appear for town C, D, and E, all of which are surrounding town A. How can I make this happen? Would I need to create multiple landing pages and focus the SEO on each individual location? I'm just worried Google would see duplicate content but with varied location keywords. I don't have any room left in the page title to add every location. They do legitimately serve these areas, if you are looking for their product there are a few competitors around but this is in their 'territory' so to speak. Any help big or small would be great. Thanks!0 -
Multi Location business - Should I 301 redirect duplicate location pages or alternatively No Follow tag them ?
Hello All, I have a eCommerce site and we operate out of mulitple locations. We currently have individual location pages for these locations against each of our many categories. However on the flip slide , this create alot of duplicate content. All of our location pages whether unique or duplicated have a unique title Tag, H1, H2 tag , NAP and they all bring in the City Name . The content on the duplicated content also brings in the City name as well. We have been going through our categories and writing unique content for our most popular locations to help rank on local search. Currently I've been setting up 301 redirects for the locations in the categories with the duplicated content pointing back to the category page. I am wondering whether the increase in number of 301's will do more harm than having many duplicate location pages ?.. I am sure my site is affected by the panda algorithm penalty(on the duplicated content issues) as a couple of years ago , this didn't matter and we ranked top 3 for pretty much for every location but now we are ranking between 8 - 20th depending on keyword. An Alternative I thought, may be to instead of 301 those locations pages with duplicate content, is to put No Follow tags on them instead ?... What do you think ?. It's not economically viable to write unique content for every location on every category and these would not only take years but would cost us far to much money. Our Site is currently approx 10,000 pages Any thoughts on this greatly appreciated ? thanks Pete
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC120 -
Do more page links work against a Google SEO ranking when there is only 1 url that other sites will link to?
Say I have a coupon site in a major city and assume there are 20 main locations regions (suburb cities) in that city. Assume that all external links to my site will be to only the home page. www.site.com Assume also that my website business has no physical location. Which scenario is better? 1. One home page that serves up dynamic results based on the user cookie location, but mentions all 20 locations in the content. Google indexes 1 page only, and all external links are to it. 2. One home page that redirects to the user region (one of 20 pages), and therefore will have 20 pages--one for each region that is optimized for that region. Google indexes 20 pages and there will be internal links to the other 19 pages, BUT all external links are still only to the main home page. Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | couponguy0