Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
International Versus Local Backlinks?
-
I'm running a dentist's website and I've been wondering if there is any additional benefit to achieving local backlinks from other medical sites versus larger international ones?
For example, if I had a blog article that I wanted another site to link to, would you choose the local medical website within the same city or the international one that has more viewers?
-
Thanks, Miriam Ellis
-
Good thoughts from Roman, for sure, and a good question, Dylan.
Roman is right that formal link analysis will provide the only data-based answer to your query about which link will "do more" for you. But, in general, for local businesses, it is best to build up local relevance with local links. However, if a dental practice had a chance to be featured on the website of the ADA or something like that, then of course, you'd jump at that chance.
What you don't want to do is focus on getting backlinks from something that really doesn't relate to the geo-industry. So, for example, a dentist in Chicago doesn't really have a sensible relationship to a directory of dental providers in San Diego ... even if you could somehow get a link there, it wouldn't be very relevant.
But, in general, build up highly relevant local links, and if the chance comes up to be featured on an authoritative industry site, go for that, too.
-
I made a quick research and I founded 12 sites related to dental health care as link prospect who already accept a guest post with an average PA over 40 who accept guest post. so as I mention if the link has enough quality no matter the origin will help your site to rank and if this link has local signals or local keywords even better
-
No matter where the link is coming from your main concern should be if that link is relevant to
- your audience
- your content
- your goals
You need to understand that your main goal is your audience (not your brand)
Which keywords are using? (I'm talking about your possible patience)
How they make their research? (of your services of course)
Which site are they visiting? (I'm talking about your competitors)Example: you have a link coming from a relevant blog with an article related to dental health
and pointing to your site with this anchor text keyword with your location, this blog has a lot of traffic and a good authority.On the other hands, you have a local directory pointing to your site
Which one do you think is more relevant to Google?
No matter if the first one is local or not. From the Google, perspective it's a relevant website, with relevant content, giving you a vote of trust (link is like a vote) with a local signal "your location"
what would I do in your case?
Make competition research
Identify your competitors
First, you need to identify your main competitors, those sites who are in the first results of Google
and are taking those possible clients with those keywords that you to rank forBacklink analysis
Then you need to determinate the site who are linking to your competitors I mean if your biggest competitor has 15 links will be easy to beat of course if have 200 you need to think in a better strategyKeyword analysis
On this point, you need to determinate the competition level of the keywords that you want to rank.I mean with competition level of 0 to 30 is fine, with a level of 30 to 60 will be not easy and I will take some efforts but you can do it, on the other hands over 60 just forget it and found another keyword.Performance analysis
On this day the performance matter so if your competitors have a poor performance then you have an opportunity, if don't so you need to think that you need, an outstanding performance, plus an outstanding content, plus outstanding structure.
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
-
How Do You Think My Local SEO Multi-location Geotargeting Strategy Will Work?
I have a question. I just got a full-time job at Zavza Seal, an upstanding insulation contractor targeting neighborhoods of Suffolk and Nassau counties in New York. I was hired as an SEO content specialist. (Thanks Rand! You're one of my mentors~!) So, they handed me a spreadsheet of pages for city-specific terms, and they had a system in place for local rankings. But I was taught to do service-specific city pages a certain way. If the search term is for people looking for a service in that town, that's what you give them. However, I was told to proofread them, and as an SEO specialist, I couldn't keep my hands off of them. The pages were skimpy. (Example: h2, paragraph, bullets, short paragraph summary, short paragraph about the city.) What threw me off is that the content, while it was service specific, it was blog topics localized. Those are great (when long enough and optimized to compete in SERPs) but I've never seen them done on service pages. (Example: Why is Mold Remediation Necessary in Baldwin?. Now, this went in two directions in my mind. (and I wanted to do the best for the company, because I'm a wicked brat for teams, AND I get commissions on leads, so that was motivation, too.) 🐷 Anyway, 1. This could be a new approach and worthy of an SEO study on my startup site, where I take on part time clients after work, because I've never seen it done before and it could, if optimized for the target service and city rank high in SERPs AND build thought leadership and authority as a local expert. (Whereas city service pages in standard format would just promote your service. ..) What do you guys think? I just put the topic up for discussion for my team, asked them about it in detail and asked if they wanted to A'/B test a few to see what get's better traction organically. Mr. Fishkin was one of my mentors. I really wish I just had his number for this one LOL.
Local SEO | | ThisTimeWereOn0 -
How to optimize landing pages for local search?
I'm trying to understand how to optimize landing pages to appear in local search. For example, if someone in Chicago searches for "plumber", Yelp has a page "Top 10 Plumbers in Chicago." They are generating these pages for numerous business types and cities. I can't see anything on the page or metadata that indicates a geographic location or business type. What optimizations are they doing to get Google to know that it's a page for a specific city and type of business?
Local SEO | | Tourizee0 -
Local Site stuck on page 2 for years. Can’t penetrate page 1! Help!
Hey there Moz community! This is the first time I've ever asked a question here so please forgive if I slip up on any etiquette. I manage a website for a small Orlando Florida family law and divorce law firm who are targeting search phrases that include those "Orlando divorce attorney" variants. The site is located at https://www.affordablefamilylawyer.com/ If you run a search for "Orlando divorce attorney" along with close variant search terms our law firm website for about the past two years has hovered at the top of the second page of google but has never actually penetrated page 1. When you examine metrics such as page authority, domain authority, trust, and other traditional metrics it tells you that our site should be on page 1 but alas it's not happening. We have, however been featured quite often in the three pack for the local listings for the target search terms. Though valuable, our goal has always been to be featured in the top three of the organic search results. To add to the confusion we have a practice area page located at https://www.affordablefamilylawyer.com/orlando-divorce-lawyer/ dedicated to divorce and expected that page to rank for these divorce attorney search terms but it will not rank for the search terms and instead our homepage ranks for them every single time regardless of how we swap around the optimization on the page. Never had any manual actions. any help you guys can offer is greatly appreciated and I really appreciate your time!
Local SEO | | Seanthewood1230 -
Local SEO for a business serving multiple small cities
We have a local business that has a showroom in one city, and serve other 5 different small cities (in total 6 small cities). Search volume for the targeted keyword is very low (around 100 each plus minus) with a variety of competition levels. The product is expensive so this justifies the low search volume with a serious user intent.
Local SEO | | Nadiamo44
My question is given the low search volume for each keyword, what would be the best local SEO tactic for this. The website has a DA of 20 with competitors who has similar and higher DAs. Options I am considering: 1. Create unique pages for each location with unique content (no address available so I will have to use a city name postcode)
2. Create pages with the same content (but changing the area of service on the URL, H1 and mention the postcode and the radius of coverage twice in the content) and using a canonical tag to solve the duplicate issue.
In this scenario, I will create the main product pages with the address of the showroom, and mention the area of service covered for the other 5 cities.
3. Given that the 6 cities are part of a greater area, use the greater area to target them all. The keyword of the greater area has a lower search volume than the city keyword. This might work for keywords with low competition but not for ones with high competition levels. Not sure how well search engines will rank the keywords that include the greater area and show the pages for searches in small cities. Any advice on which option to go with or any recommendations for other solutions?0 -
Importance of backlinks from legal indexes such as avvo for lawyers
I have a client who is a general practice Lawyer. This particular client refuses to acquire free profiles from legal sites such as AVVO, Super Lawyers, and Justia. I have been working with this client for a year and have had a tough time getting him to rank in an ultra competitive marketplace. The other law clients I handle have all secured these backlinks and traffic is produced, domain and page authority is much higher. My client say that he has heard from other lawyers that sites like AVVO produce bad or little results, so he wants no part of them. I feel these lawyers are giving him bad advice. They are competitors and each of them have their profiles on these sites. I thought I would get some thoughts from the community to maybe help back my thoughts on these particular back links. Thanks
Local SEO | | donsilvernail1 -
Local SEO Website Structure.
Hi everyone, This might be quite a long post so please bear with me. I am currently rebuilding my website. My previous website was built by a web designer and was very basic. 5 page html site consisting of home, services, gallery, testimonials, contact pages. None of them were great - thin content, not optimised as well as could be - no h1's etc. To be fair I knew nothing about websites and didn't bother much with the site. As a new business I used it simply as a place for people to visit for more information after receiving a leaflet and never bothered much about driving traffic to the site. A few years down the line and I have realised I need the website to be working for me as opposed to alongside me. I am building it myself via wordpress as web designer didn't want to work in wordpress. I have done my keyword research and I'm working on pages as we speak. Previously my homepage - around 80% of visitors landed here for my main keyword (driveway cleaning glasgow) as it was number 6 in the organic listing. With my services page appearing directly underneath in 7 for the same keyword. I have starting building a new page for that keyword which contains (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) in the url. I have 301'd my previous services page to this url. Now for my questions...
Local SEO | | sfrediktru8
My 2nd keyword based on volume is driveway cleaning. How do I optimise for this or will the (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) page rank for this also as the words are contained within this page? I plan on having the same structure for the remaining services - pressure-washing-glasgow, monoblock-cleaning-glasgow etc, etc. As I am building new pages for each service with location built in, where does this leave my homepage? Should I be targeting keywords for this page? It is still my strongest page and apart from the (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) page which will get some help from the 301 these are all new pages so I would expect perhaps initially to lose some traffic. But as I am not ranking well for anything other than the main 2 keywords mentioned above it can only be beneficial long term when google recognises the specific pages for each service. And when I start using Adwords I will have a specific landing page for each service. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks0 -
Benefits of Several Backlinks from same Web 2.0?
If I get several backlinks from same web 2.0 (wordpress, tumblr or so on) will it be beneficial as 1 ? or each backlink will equal? if you say, "will count as 1 cause from same domain" then why don't google give you credit for getting link from 96 DA site? (wordpress)
Local SEO | | Jubaer961 -
Whitespark or Moz Local
Hello all, We can't use Moz Local as we're in the UK. Tempted to use Whitespark, but not quite sure what the differences are between the two. Also, can a website design / digital marketing agency be considered to be a local business - in Googles eyes? Thanks!
Local SEO | | wseabrook
William1