Local Seo Service Url Best practices.
-
Hey Guys and Gals,
What's the best format for service urls for local seo?
http://www.example.com/basement-remodeling
or http://www.example.com/basement-remodeling-ashburn-leesburg-sterling-va/
-
Hey Jim,
Linkbuilding isn't really my area. One is always aiming for a natural link profile, but you might want to start a new thread about linkbuilding, and also, check these out:
https://moz.com/blog/link-building-outreach-in-a-skeptical-world-whiteboard-friday
http://niftymarketing.com/list-of-local-link-building-ideas/
Hope it helps!
-
Thanks Miriam for the awesome input, I will work on making these changes asap.
Another question (seems never ending lol).
Do you suggest I build backlinks to rank these pages higher? or should i be building backlinks to my main domain.
-
Hi Jim!
Nice of you to put these out for community feedback. You're off to a good start here, and while I don't have the necessary time to look at all of these, here's what I'm seeing on a couple:
-
Good amount of text
-
Text color is hard to read; it's too light
-
H1 Tag order of keywords might need to be rethought, putting business name at end instead of beginning
-
In the main body text, reconsider all of those 'it's important' statements. It makes it sound like 'I' am suppose to do all of that work before calling your company (inspect my house, look for leaks, etc.). If this is what YOU do, be clearer about that.
-
Some text is a bit over-optimized with basement remodeling and Ashburn terms. Example: How Long Does a Basement Finishing in Ashburn, VA Take? Unless it takes longer in Ashford than some other city to finish a basement, this type of text looks a bit awkward. Review the text for other instances and be sure keywords are being incorporated in natural language.
-
It's good you're getting testimonials, but I would scrap the rotating display. It's confusing that I'm on a page about basements reading a testimonial about blinds. Put basement testimonials on the basement page, bathroom testimonials on the bathroom page, etc.
-
Put a phone number in your call to action at the bottom of the page. Don't make people click unless they want to. Give them the number.
-
Title tag & URL look good
So, you're on a good path with this page. Some minor refinements could make it better!
-
Same comments regarding font color, H1 tag, call to action, testimonials etc. as above.
-
The text needs to be edited for grammar. For example:
Bathrooms need to be a place that makes you feel good, so that every day can be started off the right way.
- The text is not quite as creative as it might be. I feel like the copywriter was having a struggle thinking what to say.
Again, I see a good initial effort here, but with a bit more effort, there could be meaningful improvements.
I know it requires bravery to show work to the public, and the good news is here that you are off to a good start but that there are some SEO, UX and content matters that could be improved. Thanks for the chance to look at these. Hopefully what I've written above will be a starting point to evaluating all of your service pages. Good luck, Jim!
-
-
Hey Jim,
You could go either way with the description. I'm kind of a fan of putting a phone number in the description, myself! I'd rather have that there than the city names.
-
Thanks Miriam! I almost got it now.
Now I have a question regarding my "main services page"
Should I be mentioning areas under title and description on my main services pages (not local landing pages)
Service : Basement finishing
url: http://www.example.com/basement-finishing
title: Basement Finishing & Remodeling | company | Call 555-555-5555!
description: Basement Finishing & Basement Remodeling | Transform Unfinished Basements To Livable Square Footage. Ashburn | Sterling | Loudoun
Or should I leave the areas out of description under main pages and use those specifically for local landing pages.
Thanks Miriam!!
Basement Finishing & Basement Remodeling | Transform Unfinished Basements To Livable Square Footage.
-
Hi Jim,
While it won't hurt you, are you sure it would be useful for your clients in City A to click over to your City B page, or might that just add unnecessary clutter and confusion to the page?
-
Hey Guys
One More quesetions.
After I setup the pages to above format, on my local landing page can i cross link them with other local pages?
for example if im on basement remodeling ashburn page can i put other areas we serve section and cross link them to other landing pages?
-
Thanks Miriam! This makes more sense now!
-
Ah this makes more sense!
Another question if i am going to link off of those pages. could i just make the main url this?
basement-remodeling-va
kitchen-remodeling-va
and have the link silo like you mentioned from the post it self? or even service areas
-
I would have a main page about each service topic and then link off from that.
Bathroom remodeling page
Bathroom remodeling content
We do bathroom remodeling in: blah blah blah, linked page, linked page, linked page.
Or naturally in the content if possible, of course. Or even a list at the bottom:
Our service area includes: town(link), town(link) etc.
This works very well for clients I've had in the past with many suburbs & locations.
-
Hi Jim,
Don't worry, you're not being repetitive
It's very common for service area businesses to serve a variety of close-set cities, and best practice for this is 1 page per city. In fact, doing so could help you to outrank your competitors who are crunching multiple cities onto the same page.
If you offer multiple services in multiple cities, the choice here is whether you want to create:
a) a page for each city and a page for each service
or
b) a page for every possible combination of services and cities
If budget, time or inspiration are limited, option A may be best in which case, you'd have URLs like this for your services
domain.com/bathroom-remodeling
domain.com/kitchen remodeling
and domains like this for your services:
...with the city landing pages needing to feature geo-specific content for projects you've done in those cities.
If you have ample time, inspiration and budget, you can go with option B, in which case, you'd build a set of pages like:
domain.com/bathroom-remodeling-sterling-va
domain.com/bathroom-remodeling-leesburg-va
domain.com/kitchen-remodeling-sterling-va
domain.com/bathroom-remodeling-leesburg-va
etc.
It's really a matter of how much creative writing you commit to so that, with either option A or B, every page you publish is as helpful as possible to customers, is unique, and is of the highest quality you can produce.
This recent Moz Blog post may help: https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages
-
Hey Matt,
Thanks for the response, If i were to silo them. What would I put in my main navigation?
Wouldn't it look funny if my main navigation listed multiple of the same?
basement-remodeling
kitchen-remodeling
basement-remodeling
kitchen-remodeling?
Thanks!
-
If you do more than one type of thing per location, I would silo them:
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for the quick response!
The reason I am asking is where my business is located we have other citys near by literally 5-10 miles apart.
I've seen my competitor do a similar thing and they seem to be ranking very well. http://www.example.com/bathroom-remodeling-sterling-leesburg-herndon-reston-ashburn-va/
http://www.example.com/bathroom-remodeling-sterling-leesburg-herndon-reston-ashburn-va/
I guess my main question is can i setup the main services url to include those near by citys and state and create additional pages like
http://www.example.com/bathroom-remodeling-in-ashburn-va/ etc etc
so main services would look like
basement-remodeling-ashburn-sterling-leesburg-va
bathroom-remodeling-ashburn-sterling-leesburg-va
and have lead capture pages like
bathroom-remodeling-in-ashburn
bathroom-remodeling-in-sterling and so on.
Sorry if my questions seem repetitive i am just confused with the whole local seo scene.
-
Hey Jim!
Normally, I would not recommend having more than one city modifier in the URL per page. So:
but not
domain.co/service-city-city-city
Ideally, you want a unique page per city. Hope that 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
-
Website with higher domain authority and good content not ranking locally?
I've got a client that has a higher domain authority than top ranking sites, is pretty well optimized from a content perspective, has good local reviews but still isn't ranking well at all... often not at all in local results. We don't show in map pack or even regular organic listings in a pretty small city. They are a local sign shop- so they make business signs/church signs etc. Have you seen anything negatively impacting local rankings that is worth digging into as possible cause? A few historical insights: They had some spammy backlinks (we think a competitor was being shady) that I've sent disavow files into Google for They had a previous SEO person create 100's of orphan pages for every possible city + offering combination you can think of- I've cleaned those up via 301 redirects Should I just keep waiting, doing content optimization or am I missing something else?
Local Listings | | karmadigital0 -
Our website ranks first in SERP but is not listed in google local list
Hi, Our website is currently (and has been) ranking 1st for a number of keywords but is not listed under the Google Local list. I have double check that all the (physical) info is correct. I do not have a duplicate page. When I order the Google Local results in rating order, we then appear on top! Has anyone come across such a situation and would you have tips on how to solve this issue? Thanks!
Local Listings | | GVZH1 -
Good service that helps optimize and create citations to google map listing?
Hi guys, Anyone know good service that helps optimize and create citations to google map listing? Also is there recommended WP theme that helps the ranking on google map? Thanks in advance!
Local Listings | | Tariq_Jameel1 -
Local SEO For Agents
My company has local offices all over the United States, similar to what you would find with insurance, financial advisory services or real estate. We would like these individuals to rank in their local communities. A few questions: (1) Do we need to set up a unique local website for each of these agents or can we build a unique page for each of these agents on our main website. (2) Agent(s) within a city can each provide their services to individual in or near that city, but they don't offer their service regionally or nationally. (3) The agents are generally home based and while there is no concern having their phone number listed, there is some issue with showing a private home address. How does this limit local search and are there any alternatives. Thanks in advance
Local Listings | | APFM0 -
Moz Local and NAP
Hi, I go to moz local and i get 4 listings and is shows 2 as verified: Verified
Local Listings | | dansum
Northumberland Ave, Bury Saint Edmunds, Verified
Northumberland Avenue, Bury St Edmunds, Both of them tell me I have 13% inconsistency and the two words that are underlined in red as inconsistent are:
Ave, Saint My google places has it listed as:
Northumberland Ave
Bury St Edmunds My website and 4 of the 11 listings have it as:
Northumberland Avenue, Bury St. Edmunds The other 7 listings have it as:
Northumberland Avenue, Bury St. Edmunds Is this a problem do you think these very slight inconsistencies matter? If so should they all match what google places says the address is (I did try changing this from Ave to Avenue on google places but it wouldn't change)?1 -
Not showing in local for primary keyword
I have a client in the junk removal business and I can't get him to show in local for junk removal +city. Junk removal is not a Google Plus category so we have to choose Garbage Collection Service, which everyone else does as well. I've optimized the site and the local listing pretty well, much better than the competitors, but we're still not showing. It's not that we're asking to rank better, we're just trying to get on the list for the one term that makes all the difference in this business. I feel like there's a junk removal party going on and we're not invited. I've thought about a possible over-optimization penalty, but there's no G warning or message and we use fewer keywords than our competitors and have no spammy links as some of the competition does. Some companies that are no longer in business are visible. I just can't figure out what we might be doing wrong. Any ideas or suggestions I might have missed?
Local Listings | | Dino640 -
Different phone numbers in local listings
We are setting up Google My Business for a client who has multiple locations around the country. They use different phone numbers to track enquiries from different sources - Yell, Google+, Direct Web Traffic, PPC etc. Therefore the phone numbers can be different between Google My Business and local listings. How much does/would this affect the Local listing? It may appear that Google is penalising for businesses try to understand their customers and where they come from!
Local Listings | | Astute-Media0 -
For companies with multiple locations, does Google mind "Duplicate Content" in local (maps) business descriptions?
I have about 20 locations for my counseling company "Thriveworks" on google. I am getting ready to submit a spreadsheet and take advantage of the new "bulk upload" to manage these locations. Each of my locations has a description that is basically the same in terms of sentiment, but 100% original content (because Google has historically hated duplicate content). 1) Should I copy and paste each location's current unique description into the spreadsheet, or just write one very good description and copy it for all 20 locations?2) Does Google like/dislike "duplicate content" as it applies to business descriptions?3) Is changing a location's description likely to temporarily harm the "ranking" of my business location in search results?Will really appreciate any help...
Local Listings | | Thriveworks-Counseling0