Localized Search Results
-
I'll try to setup this question: I go to Google.com and set the search tools to a particular city that I am not in (say I live in Nashville but set the search tools for Rockville MD). I do a search for a specific term without a location modifier such as "chrysler town and country" and I don't see the website I'm looking for in the first 100 results. Then I keep the search tools the same, but change the specific search to "chrysler town and country rockville md" and the website I'm looking for is now the #1 result. What would affect the difference? I would have expected the website to have a similar ranking in both situations.
-
Hi Larry
Glad that all made sense. Sometimes this can get really confusing - I have had a few car dealers in the past that had the same questions and sometimes it's just a matter of expectations and being realistic with search engines.
Let me know if you have any more questions - happy to help where I can!
-
Thank you Patrick. That does make sense. I assumed if I am in the area that the search engine would take into account local results as well for something like "chrysler town and country" or "chrysler auto service". Both of those do not pull up the website, but adding a location does showing the site in the top 10 results. I see the difference and appreciate the explanation. - Larry
-
Hi Larry
What you are describing is taking a very specific search like "chrysler town and country" and expecting your site to rank number 1 for it. It's not going to happen. For one, you are asking about a car made by Chrysler, which will lead you directly to the car page as the number 1 result. That page is always going to rank number one for it. If it's not that, it will be a Wikipedia page or a big name car .com of some sort.
The reason why your site is not ranking for that is because at the point you are doing what is called an informational search - you're just looking for information on a specific topic. You're not giving the search engine anything beyond "I just want to see results for the Chrysler Town and Country", so, that's what it gives you; the most relevant search results to that specific topic; it's assuming you're looking for information about the car.
Now, when you tack on "Rockville MD" onto it, you're saying I want to know about Chrysler Town and Country specific to Rockville, MD, hence why your site pops up. I imagine you have the car make and model in the title and it's probably an auto dealership site located within Rockville, MD, correct?
Keep in mind this is nothing to get worked up about, because, again, you are doing a VERY specific topic search in the first search for a brand name that has a lot of authority and who's page will always rank number 1. Your site appears because you've probably optimized for what you were setting out for - ranking for car makes and models at the local level.
If someone is searching just for the make and model, they probably aren't ready to buy, they are probably just wanting information about the car, and might just be looking around. BUT, if they are searching that car in Rockville, MD, they are probably wanting to see prices and more transactional information. You're right where you want to be.
Does this all make sense? Hopefully this helps!
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 SEO Over Optimization
We are targeting a bunch of services for our local business that works in and around their location. I'm concerned about over optimization and need some guidance on whether these points should be resolved. The company is based in a city and works mostly in the city but also in the surrounding areas. Currently, the site has 6 services pages (accessible via main nav) targeting the same location i.e. “Made Up Service London”, “Imaginary Service London” (with URLs and H1 tags etc. in place containing this location). However this is soon going to become 9 services pages, I am concerned that the repetition of this one location is starting to look spammy, especially as its where the company is based. Initially, I also wanted pages targeting the same services in other nearby areas. For example “Made Up Service Surrey”, “Imaginary Service Essex”. This has not happened as the info available has been too sporadic. I was going to add links to relevant case studies into these pages to beef up the content and add interest. To that end, we came up with case studies, but after a while, I noticed that these are also largely focused on the primary location. So out of 32 case studies, we have 19 focused on the primary location again with URL’s and H1 tags etc containing the location keyword. So in total, we have 25 pages optimized for the location (soon to be 28 and more if further case studies are added). My initial feeling was that the inclusion of pages targeting services in other locations would legitimize what we have done with the main pages. But obviously we have not got these pages in place and I question whether we ever will. What is my best course of action moving forward?
Local Website Optimization | | GrouchyKids1 -
Discourage search engines from indexing this site AFTER a site launch
Hi, I have unticked "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" a few months before the initial release of my website. I don't want to be found by search engines until the official release (still a few months left). Do you think that ticking this box again will harm the website's long-term ranking or have any repercussion on the website? Do you have any additional advice to avoid being temporarily ranked until the official release which won't harm the website in SERPs? Thanks for your answers.
Local Website Optimization | | Juvo0 -
Optimizing Local SEO for Two Locations
Hi there! I have a client that has just opened a 2nd location in another state. When optimizing for local I have a few questions: We're creating a landing page for each location, this will have contact information and ideally some information on each location. Any recomendations for content on these landing pages? The big question is dual city optimization. Should Include the city & state of BOTH locations in all my title tags? or should I leave that to the unique city landing pages? What other on-page optimizations should i consider across the site? Thanks! Jordan
Local Website Optimization | | WorkhorseMKT0 -
Weird: Local Landing Page Not Showing In "City + Brand" Search Query
Hi Mozzers, I've noticed something strange that I can't quite wrap my head around. I'm hoping it's an easy fix and I'm just overlooking something. Backstory: I'm managing all things digital for a local flooring retailer that has 6 showrooms in the region. I've done basic local SEO - local landing pages with proper markup, GMB set up and verification, Moz Local scores are in the 80% range for each location and improving steadily, etc. However, one of my locations is way behind all of the others in both organic searches and the map. Recently, I did a search for "city + brand" for this particular location in an incognito window and the page came up on the 4th page. When I perform the same search for any of the other locations, the respective landing page come up 1st or 2nd along with the homepage. I even searched using the title tag as well as a few more specific searches and still nothing on the first page. This is weird, right? Has anyone experienced this before? Search Console came back perfect, so no penalties and it's definitely being indexed. For reference, the page I am referring to is http://www.nextdayfloors.net/locations/columbia/ and the location query I am using is "Columbia, MD" Any help is much appreciated! Thanks! Tim
Local Website Optimization | | AinsleyAgency0 -
Theory: Local Keywords are Hurting National Rankings?
I've read a good amount here and in other blog posts about strategies for national brands to rank locally as well with local landing pages, citations, etc. I have noticed something strange that I'd like to hear if anyone else is running into, or if anyone has a definitive answer for. I'm looking at a custom business printing company where the products can and are often shipped out of state, so it's a national brand. On each product page, the client is throwing in a few local keywords near where the office is to help rank for local variations. When looking at competitors that have a lower domain authority, lower volume of linking root domains, less content on the page, and other standard signals, they are ranking nationally better than the client. The only thing they're doing that could be better is bolding and throwing in the page keyword 5-10 times (which looks unnatural). But when you search for keyword + home city, the client ranks better. My hypothesis is that since the client is optimizing product pages for local keywords as well as national, it is actually hurting on national searches because it's seen as local-leaning business. Has anyone run into this before, or have a definitive answer?
Local Website Optimization | | Joe.Robison2 -
Virtual Offices & Google Search
United Kingdom We have a client who works from home and wants a virtual office so his clients do not know where he lives. Can a virtual office address be used on his business website pages & contact pages, in title tags and descriptions as well as Google places. The virtual office is manned at all times and phone calls will be directed to the client, the virtual office company say effectively it is a registered business address. Look forward to any helpful responses.
Local Website Optimization | | ChristinaRadisic0 -
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 -
Launching Hundreds of Local Pages At Once or Tiered? If Tiered, In What Intervals Would You Recommend?
Greeting Mozzers, This is a long question, so please bare with me 🙂 We are an IT and management training company that offers over 180 courses on a wide array of topics. We have multiple methods that our students can attend these courses, either in person or remotely via a technology called AnyWare. We've also opened AnyWare centers in which you can physically go a particular location near you, and log into a LIVE course that might be hosted in say, New York, even if you're in say, LA. You get all the in class benefits and interaction with all the students and the instructor as if you're in the classroom. Recently, we've opened 43 AnyWare centers giving way to excellent localization search opportunities to our website (e.g. think sharepoint training in new york or "whatever city we are located in). Each location has a physical address, phone number, and employee working there so we pass those standards for existence on Google Places (which I've set up). So, why all this background? Well, we'd like to start getting as much visibility for queries that follow the format of "course topic area that we offered" followed by "city we offer it in." We offer 22 course topic areas and, as I mentioned, 43 locations across the US. Our IS team has created custom pages for each city and course topic area using a UI. I won't get into detailed specifics, but doing some simple math (22 topic areas multiplied by 43 location) we get over 800 new pages that need to eventually be crawled and added to our site. As a test, we launched the pages 3 months ago for DC and New York and have experienced great increases in visibility. For example, here are the two pages for SharePoint training in DC and NY (total of 44 local pages live right now). http://www2.learningtree.com/htfu/usdc01/washington/sharepoint-training
Local Website Optimization | | CSawatzky
http://www2.learningtree.com/htfu/usny27/new-york/sharepoint-training So, now that we've seen the desired results, my next question is, how do we launch the rest of the hundreds of pages in a "white hat" manner? I'm a big fan of white hat techniques and not pissing off Google. Given the degree of the project, we also did our best to make the content unique as possible. Yes there are many similarities but courses do differ as well as addresses from location to location. After watching Matt Cutt's video here: http://searchengineland.com/google-adding-too-many-pages-too-quickly-may-flag-a-site-to-be-reviewed-manually-156058 about adding too man pages at once, I'd prefer to proceed cautiously, even if the example he uses in the video has to do with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pages. We truly aim to deliver the right content to those searching in their area, so I aim no black hat about it 🙂 But, still don't want to be reviewed manually lol. So, in what interval should we launch the remaining pages in a quick manner to raise any red flags? For example, should we launch 2 cities a week? 4 cities a month? I'm assuming the slower the better of course, but I have some antsy managers I'm accountable to and even with this type of warning and research, I need to proceed somehow the right way. Thanks again and sorry for the detailed message!0