Developing location pages
-
I need to expand our service offering to another city and focus our SEO efforts to that new location. Would it be best to purchase a new domain name and make a new website very similar to the existing website so we can better target the search engines? Same look and feel as the existing website.
Or would it be better to create a landing page for the new location on the existing website to help stengthen the current domain name? If so, how do i focus the SERPs to the new location when the existing website is so focused around my current location?
-
I agree mostly with those above stating dont build a new web site.
Just to be different though - another option is a local sub domain. e.g. chicago.yourwebsite.com. This has advantages such as keyword in the domain name, it receives some link juice from the root domain and depending on your keywords you could get your root domain and sub domain in the same search results.
That said I have actually advised against this in the past as a sub folder on the root domain still has more chance of ranking well than the sub domain for lots of reasons I wont go into now.
-
I recommend not building new website.
Your time would be better spent building more quality links to the current website and to a subpage optimized for your new city. Expanding your service area will create many new opportunities to generate links including press & news releases announcing your recent expansion, local niche directories, new client websites, local news sources, local organizations & groups, etc. Increasing your current website's domain authority and building your subpage's page authority with these new links is where I would spend the majority of my time.
Also, when you create the subpage for your new service area be sure to include the "city name" and your service's target search term(s) in your title tag, meta description, headers, image atl tags, URL, internal links, and unique content. Also, if you have a phone number and address specific to that location, I would include those (search engines recognize area codes and addresses). If you have a physical location in your new city, create a new Google+ page with your new address, phone number, and use the city specific subpage as your website.
Good luck.
PS- PPC might be a good temporary option to increase awareness in your new location, while your subpage moves up the ranks.
-
"A dedicated landing page on the same domain is the best soultion. Make sure to target variations of the keyword and location."
So long as you don't have your current city within the domain itself...
If you do, then a new domain may be necessary.
Otherwise, make sure the new city is in the URL, title tag (etc., you know the score ) and ensure you mark up the address with microformats.
ALSO : some sites have their business location in the footer across all pages - make sure this isn't the case on the page targeting the new city...
-
Agreed. A dedicated landing page on the same domain is the best soultion. Make sure to target variations of the keyword and location. Keep in mind that most of organic search traffic will be generated from the local results. Here is a little secret in ranking in neighboring cities for local results even if you do not have a physical address there.
- Find a local office building that rents out suite numbers. Ask to purchase the mailbox associated with an empty suite. Most office buildings rent their vacant suite mailboxes for $20 a month, Fill out a google places profile reflecting this new location in a neighboring town and BAM! You will now rank in local results in you neighboring town.
Make sure not to spam you local listing and build quality citations from local business around your area.
Press Releases really help as well! Hope this helps.
-
Build a dedicated page with unique content for that city, and build local links FROM the city you are targeting.
If you are targeting "new york rocks" then build a page in your site www.domain.com/newyorkrocks and then build links from within New York to the NYR page on your site.
-
Hi! We're going through some of the older unanswered questions and seeing if people still have questions or if they've gone ahead and implemented something and have any lessons to share with us. Can you give an update, or mark your question as answered?
Thanks!
-
Thank you for your reply and i think my question may have been a bit confusing. I meant to say City, not location as in a physical location.
Currently, we focus our services to the city we live in, however, we want to also start focusing our services to another city.
From my understanding, you are suggesting to expand the existing website and eventually create a new website down the road?
If so, how do i modify my existing website to focus on the additional city without duplicating the same information already on the website?
Basically, all our services are the same, we just want to focus on another city at the same time. But in our industry, when people are looking for information on our services, it's an advantage to see the website is focussed on their city.
-
I always say, don't build a brand new baby website for your existing brand unless you're absolutely sure it's necessary - you're going to have to work hard to get it even just to the same level as your existing website, let alone beyond it. Plus, why cut your link profile in half? I'd definitely say build a page or section on the new location. Some things you can do to help SEs figure out you're in 2 locations:
- Make sure both locations are in Google Places or other local services. I highly recommend Universal Business Listing for this - one submission to UBL will put your business info everywhere it should be to send strong local signals. Well worth the low price.
- Mark up the addresses of each location on your site with hcard microformat - this says to search engines "here is an address." here's a wiki with everything you could possibly need on hcard microformat: http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard
- Upload a KML sitemap with your locations to Google Webmaster Tools. Here's a good guide on how to do that: http://www.martijnbeijk.com/tutorial/using-kml-for-local-seo/
- Use your city name in the title tags of pages that are about that specific location.
Best part about those last 3 suggestions - you can do them all for free.
Good luck!
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
-
Different meta tags appearing in SERP for same landing page
Hi all, hoping someone can help. We have a landing page that ranks quite well for a number of keywords that send us a nice amount of organic traffic. We understand the importance of Meta tags, as Google will be the users first interaction with our site we want to stand out and be noticed and also show we provide information on their search query. The problem is this, while we have optimised the title and description tags for the landing page, this is only appearing on specific search results. If you were to search a different keyword, you would still get the same landing page, but the title tag and description would not pull through, it decides to pull through the page name and first few lines of text instead. Is there anything we can do to sort this issue?
Branding | | Ben_Malkin_Develo0 -
Pages with High Priority Issues 404 Errors
Hi there, I need some help on how to go about fixing the many 404 errors that i have on the site http://goo.gl/arwlON Many of the 404 errors are images that were on the CDN and now i have not joking 6k 404 errors and a good percentage are the cdn images that I deleted of 3 years work as I did not need them. Would you guys/gals be able to help me on best solution to fixing them? Thank you for your help in advance.
Branding | | blinky510 -
Add Google + button link to google page and not link
Hello SEOOOOOOOOO moz people ! I was wondering if you know how can I add Google + button to my page I tried to set it up in google page http://awesomescreenshot.com/08d1a9hmef https://plus.google.com/b/109790526955470383191/109790526955470383191/posts But i would like to link the button to my google + fan page https://plus.google.com/b/109790526955470383191/109790526955470383191/about and not the url of the page. As our website is indeed 12 websites if you go to http://www.ibremarketing.com you don't have the same +1 than http://www.ibremarketing.com/me or http://www.ibremarketing.com/ma Any idea of how to do it ? It would be amazing 😛
Branding | | AymanH0 -
Should I add follow my followers in a company page on G+ ?
Hi All, On one hand, if I follow them they are happy and receive a notice that they are being followed and will probably be more agile to plus my writings. On the other, it is unreasonable for me to follow everyone... and I think that as a brand I should watch very carefully who I follow. Thanks
Branding | | BeytzNet0 -
Merged +Local Page - About Section Formatting?
Hi All, I'm having an issue: I recently merged my Google+ business page and +Local page, and I'm happy it's verified for local search purposes. However, I am having a supremely difficult time getting the formatting and anchor text links I inserted in the "Edit Business Section to apply; It's just one large chunk of unformatted text. Of note is the fact that the text content did actually change when approved. I made a post on Mike Blumenthal's blog about this, and he said that he generally does not recommend merging at all. Any ideas how to get my formatting and text links approved by the Google+ team? Any thoughts on the pros and cons of merging Local+ in general?
Branding | | G2W0 -
How do you promote a G Plus page? Where are the G+ ads?
Hi All, My question doesn't actually refer to the fluent work of maintaining a page but rather to the basics. In our Facebook page we simply "bought" ads leading to our page and got the followers over time. I don't see an equivalent option in G+. Do I need to use regular adwords and point people to the G+ page or is there a place I can place ads inside G+? Thanks
Branding | | BeytzNet0 -
Should I put my "brand" in every one of my posts / pages?
I've heard different thoughts on this and wanted to see what you the seomoz group thought. I have been leaving my "brand" out of my titles so I could create longer titles (without my "brand" taking up precious space.) I've also read that adding your brand can take away from the words you want to optimize for in the title / post. I've read other places that you want your brand in every page title to "strengthen" your brand. Long story short, I'm trying to figure out if I should add my brand to the my page / post titiles, or leave them as is. Feel free to check out my site and current title template if you'd like. Thanks!
Branding | | NoahsDad0 -
Should we have customers like our URL or our Facebook brand page?
(Note: main question in bold) I know this post basically establishes that Facebook shares are not a strong cause of increased rankings. But what about likes? I've searched and read through the forum and YouMoz blog but haven't really found this question answered. We just redesigned our site and we're implementing sharing options in the booking and order completion processes - should we point the Facebook Like button to like our URL or our Facebook brand page (currently with 3,800+ likes)? Seems that a like of the URL would be more direct ranking value (what we're going for), but according to that same post mentioned above, Google doesn't crawl or index FB wall pages... so is all Facebook activity - shares, url likes, brand page likes - for naught? (at least for now, till Google starts using that info)
Branding | | DanielH0