Suburb Pages
-
Hey Mozers,
This is an old and often criticized method of SERP however we have a client who has requested we create suburb specific pages for their site.
PLASTIC PLANTS "SUBURB" NEED PLASTIC PLANTS IN "SUBURB"
They have shown us a competitor who is ranking for hundreds maybe thousands of suburbs in Australia using this method.
Any thoughts or experience in this area would be appreciated.
-
Hey Radi,
What you are talking about is hyperlocal content, which, if developed deftly, can be great for both visibility and conversions. However, if it's obviously a stretch to create this kind of content for a specific business model, it can end up looking really spammy.
Issa is on the ball stating that the content for these hyperlocal landing pages would need to be strong and unique, and this is pretty much where the rubber hits the road: does you client have something unique to say about his product/service in each of these hyperlocal markets, or is it really just all the same from one neighborhood to another?
You mention that your client sells plastic plants. My guess is that he is selling the same goods to each suburb, so unless there is something unique you can think to for each suburban audience, my concern would be that these pages might be being created for no other purpose that SEO. Sadly, as you've pointed out, a competitor is getting away with it. This is where Google lets SEOs down: teaching the business community that low quality is rewarded.
Can you think of something better for this client to do, that isn't low quality? Maybe video marketing? A social campaign? Acquisition of awesome reviews/testimonials? Something about businesses in each suburb that used plastic plants? What I'm urging here is to use your marketing smarts to see if there is a higher path you can take the client along, rather than agreeing that he should imitate a low quality competitor.
One thing to bear in mind with this ... that spammy competitor may be getting away with this today, but they've got a sword dangling over their head. They may be only one Google tweak away from anonymity. Should that happen, and should your client have invested his marketing budget in more interesting, creative work, he could find himself standing tall as others fall away.
-
Hi Radi,
I don't see any issues with this as long as every suburb page will have unique and quality content as opposed to duplicate and thin content that is usually caused by creating unnecessary pages just to include additional keywords.
So say you have "Area A" which includes "Suburb A" and "Suburb B".
If Area A has so many listings, on domain.com/area-a/ then you can split that into
Suburb A domain.com/area-a/plastic-plants-subarb-a
Suburb B domain.com/area-a/plastic-plants-subarb-bListing should be unique and of high quality on each of these pages, none should be repeated.
I hope this helps
Issa
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
-
I want to rank a national home page for a local keyword phrase
Hello - We are a nationally available brand based in Denver, CO. Our home page currently ranks #8 (used to be 5) for "real estate photography in Denver" -- I want to improve this ranking, but our home page is generalized and not geared toward Denver, CO but to all of our markets. I'm trying to troubleshoot this and have a few ideas.... I would love advice on the best route, or a different route altogether: Create a Denver-specific page -- _will that page compete with my home page that is already ranked in the top ten? _ Add the keyword phrase in the image alt attribute Add keyword phrase into the content - need to make sure that viewers realize we are national I already updated the meta description to say "real estate photography in Denver and beyond"
Local Website Optimization | | virtuance_photography1 -
How to Get 1st Page Google Rankings for a Local Company?
Hi guys, I'm owning a London removal company - Mega Removals and wants to achieve 1st page rankings on Google UK for keywords like: "removals London", "removal company London", "house removals London" but have no success so far. I need professional advice on how to do it. Should I hire an SEO or should focus on content? I will be very grateful for your help.
Local Website Optimization | | nanton1 -
Add Content to Page or Create New Page?
We are doing some local SEO for our business which is in 10 cities. We have built a city page with unique content for each city and linked to a unique contact page with contact information unique for each city. The content on our existing page is fairly thin. 2/3 of it is the same amongst all pages as our services are the exact same from city to city so the description ad menu of our services. Then 1/3 of the content is unique to the city which is a stock photo and 1-2 paragraphs of text containing about 175 words. We have another chunk of content for each city which is probably 2-3 paragraphs but each paragraph will be short so probably in total 200 words in 1-3 paragraphs. The subject of the content is related to one of the most popular search queries that are location specific. For example, if we were a company that provided say, environmental remodeling services in city X, this second chunk of content might be about required building permits when doing remodeling in City X and how to get them, how much they cost. If the original content on the pre-existing landing page is already pretty thin, is the SEO effect going to most likely be better to add the content to the existing page or, even though it's less than 200 words, add the content to a separate page and cross link between the main city page and the city contact page.
Local Website Optimization | | SEO18051 -
Home Page Not Ranking for Brand
I've got an odd issue (that I've never encountered in 12+ years in SEO). A client's home page isn't ranking for their brand term. It's a medical spa in Las Vegas, so physical location that takes online appointments. We have an online booking system (which isn't a good one) that originally had a booking page replacing our home page. My thought is that Google associated that page as our home page because it was a stronger domain and the booking page is most used. That tool didn't allow the booking page to be noindexed (I know, crazy)- so I changed the name inside the booking tool away from the brand name as to not have both the site and the booking site optimized for the brand. Other things I've checked: The home page is indexed Home page canonical tag points to itself Title tag contains brand name at front (rest of site it's at the end) Robots.txt is accurate (allows home page) XML sitemap contains home page (and accurate for other pages) To make this even more confusing, if you search the brand name the physical location appears on the right rail with accurate URL. Any other ideas that I may be missing?
Local Website Optimization | | karmadigital0 -
Search result page
I need an answer how google sees this page. if somebody searches in carhub.com , normally goes to http://www.carhub.com/Results.aspx?CarState=Used&MakeName=BMW&MakeId=ENKWD0M8TR7W&Location=Los_Angeles but pushes the webpage http://www.carhub.com/Results.aspx , User sees the webpage like these.. but not seen any title, description and h1
Local Website Optimization | | carhub0 -
Multilocation business, how can you rank for different categories in different locations with only branch pages?
Hello Mozzers, I am wondering how do you rank for categories locally where when you operate from multiple branches. Currently our eCommerce website has location pages for every category but I know that this is now classed as doorway pages and spammy so I am in the process of sorting out our site structure. I understand that the general format for having sites with multiple branches is to have a branch page per physical location and that's about it. Is there any more to this ? However, What confuses me though, is that if you offer all these services in all these branches, how are you going to rank for them locally if you don't have a specific page for each of them in that location? So for example - We rent Carpet cleaners , floor sanders, generators in each of our different branches. My site currently has a carpet cleaner hire <location>url , floor sander hire <location>url and a generator hire <location>url. Every branch has a url for each of my categories.</location></location></location> So if I was to get rid of all of my location category pages. How am I going to rank for these renting these products in different cities where our branches does without having specific location pages for them ? Is it just a case that google knows that because I have branch pages at locations x, y, x , then my carpet cleaner , floor sander and generator category pages will rank locally in those locations providing I have decent citations etc etc etc thanks
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC12
Pete0 -
How can i optimize my pages for local areas if we are not in that area?
Hi Mozers! So I watched a video about Matt Cutts he talks about creating multiple web pages just for one keywords is an absolutely no go. So I was wondering we serve a clients in NZ Australia and USA, If we target phrase like Psychic Readings California, Psychic Readings San Diego etc (USA) Psychic Readings Melbourne, Psychic Readings Sydney (AU) Psychic Readings Auckland, Psychic Readings Wellington (NZ) What is the best practice or right way to go about structuring my pages to do this without going against googles guidelines. Many thanks
Local Website Optimization | | edward-may1 -
Top Pages analysis showing wordpress site pages when it was in a subdirectlry
My word press site used to be at morganlindsayphotography.com/Wedding I moved my site from /Wedding to the root domain three years ago where it is currently at www.morganlindsayphotography.com. Top pages in the open site analysis are still finding ONLY my old pages, titles and posts that were in the /Wedding - which are not even on my site anymore. http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/Wedding/ http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/Wedding/2012/11/04/a-new-product-addition-to-weddings/ http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/Wedding/2012/06/22/brittany-reis-jason-mcclaflin-tiffin-ohio-wedding/ http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/Wedding/2013/10/06/andy-mallory-cleveland-ohio-engagement/ http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/Wedding/category/weddings/ Does anyone know why this could be happening?
Local Website Optimization | | morganlindsaycole0