Does having the local area name in a domain effect your results when branching out?

[DragonsDesign]

We have a domain which performs well within the local search and has got good authority and trust but we are now moving further afield to rank for keywords country wide. Our current domain contains our local area, does this effect your chances of ranking for broader searches? You don't seem to see many general searches bring domains up with the location keywords within their domain.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Ryan's point about localized search being drastically different.  So the real question is whether you offer products or services that require localized identification.  If so, having your initial local area in the domain will definitely not help your effort.

As for the example of the New York times, they can get away with showing up when not searching for local specifics because they're one of the biggest sites with some of the highest SEO authority from 3rd party sites on earth.  So of course they can get away with it.  If you want to achieve the same (for non-local search phrases), you'll need to go to extreme lengths to build your site's SEO authority as well.

Personally I'd say that if your site depends on local related search, you'd be better off with a domain that doesn't have the local aspect in the name.  Build out content in a locations funnel - starting with the geographic areas you determine to be a mix of the most important and some that are semi-important (and thus easier to rank for over time).

That way, you can create individual pages (or ideally sections) that have each geographic location in the URLs.  This is much less challenging to get ranking for over time than the root domain being about just one location, because the root domain placement of a keyword is much stronger than a sub-folder.

High quality SEO will be key in the geographic funnel.  Citations from other sites in each of those locations will be really helpful as well.

[RyanKent]

Our current domain contains our local area, does this effect your chances of ranking for broader searches?

No.

If I type "newspaper" in to Google, the first result is New York Times. Since I live in California that is definitely not a local result. You can definitely rank well for broad searches with a localized name.

The moment a user adds a local name to their search, the results will drastically change. If I add the term "California" to the newspaper search, the New York Times is no longer even on the first page. I probably would have to go quite deep to find them.

How you expand depends on the nature of your business. I would recommend a press release or other announcement which generates publicity around your recent expansion. "London Cable Installation now offers service in the Liverpool and Manchester areas". This will help you rank better for localized searches in those areas.