Should we add the city to our keywords for a site that is only local?
-
This is one of those things I have done for a long time and all of a sudden asked myself was it necessary: For our local clients, we add the city name (Houston, KC, Birmingham) after each keyword. An example would be TestSite.com/big-tester-houston
A Title Tag might be Big Tester Houston | Test Site, etc.
Where appropriate we do the same with H1 or H2's and occasionally in the content we will use the city name.
The thought being that since the site is only for a given city, it will be deemed more relevant than a site from outside.( I understand there are other factors in SEO; this is a specific question around adding the city). Yes, we also optimize with local directories/citation sites.
Is this overkill, is it even worthwhile? Is there any evidence one way or another?
I would love some strong opinions backed up with something other than anecdotal evidence where possible.
-
Hi Robert!
Nice to see you. I would recommend that you read this post from Mike Blumenthal from a couple of weeks ago if you haven't already:
Some of Mike's readers found the advice regarding the use of geomodifiers to be controversial and this led to an extremely long discussion between Mike and readers on this topic. I think you will find it to be relevant and extremely interesting, but you'll have to make up your own mind what you think!
-
Depending the scope and type of business the website is promoting adding the city name to your page content can be great. I have done it with two websites and it worked quite well.
For those sites, I placed contact info toward the top section of the pages.
That said, some people do not like to set page content up that way..... it worked for me though.
Give it a try, it may work for you, if not, the beauty is, changes can easily be made.
Thats just my two cents... good luck! and happy holidays
-
I do know that in the past year Google has weakened the power of keywords in the domain name, however, I don't believe that applies to file names. In this video: Matt Cutts does point out that this would be a very easy thing to test.
And I believe from my personal anecdotal experience that using the name of the locality in file names is useful for SEO.
-
We did this for a local client 2 years ago and had dramatic improvement. That said, we also followed it up with a link building campaign (of course). Try it for one of the pages and track any improvements, then roll it out if it works
Does this help?
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 to configure multilingual site in google analytic? Currently showing in Referral Traffic why?
Hello All, Currently my Multilingual site is showing in referral traffic is it because I have not added hreflang tag on site? If yes and if I add the hreflang tag on all sites when where it will show in google analytic traffic from international sites? And what type of configuration required in analytic? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | pragnesh96390 -
Why do WMT's Search Analytics & GA's Real Time Keywords Differ?
I took a screen shot of the keywords from Google Analytics Real Time Keywords for Google / Organic. Then I waited a week and filtered Google Webmaster Tools' Search Analytics for queries with those keywords. None of them showed up. Why not? What I missing? Why do some keywords show up in Google Analytics RT for Google / Organic while most others are in Not Provided? I see WMT's Search Analytics says that it doesn't always show queries that "are made a very small number of times or those that contain personal or sensitive information." But most of my queries are like that. Anybody know any patterns / criteria that leads WMT to show some but not others? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | GilReich0 -
Free Media Site / High Traffic / Low Engagement / Strategies and Questions
Hi, Imagine a site "mediapalooza dot com" where the only thing you do there is view free media. Yet Google Analytics is showing the average view of a media page is about a minute; where the average length of media is 20 - 90 minutes. And imagine that most of this media is "classic" and that it is generally not available elsewhere. Note also that the site ranks terribly in Google, despite having decent Domain Authority (in the high 30's), Page Authority in the mid 40's and a great site and otherwise quite active international user base with page views in the tens of thousands per month. Is it possible that GA is not tracking engagement (time on site) correctly? Even accounting for the imperfect method of GA that measures "next key pressed" as a way to terminate the page as a way to measure time on page, our stats are truly abysmal, in the tenths of a percentage point of time measured when compared with actual time we think the pages are being used. If so, will getting engagement tracking to more accurately measure time on specif pages and site signal Google that this site is actually more important than current ranking indicates? There's lots of discussion about "dwell time" as this relates to ranking, and I'm postulating that if we can show Google that we have extremely good engagement instead of the super low stats that we are reporting now, then we might get a boost in ranking. Am I crazy? Has anyone got any data that proves or disproves this theory? as I write this out, I detect many issues - let's have a discussion on what else might be happening here. We already know that low engagement = low ranking. Will fixing GA to show true engagement have any noticeable impact on ranking? Can't wait to see what the MOZZERS think of this!
Reporting & Analytics | | seo_plus0 -
Dip in traffic from Pune for our sites in Google Analytics
Hi, We have noticed dip in traffic from Pune after 6th May'14 in our Google Analytics account for few of our sites. Did anyone noticed the same for your site. Kindly let me know if you have any idea. Thank and Regards
Reporting & Analytics | | vivekrathore0 -
404 errors more than 1.8 lacs, Duplicate Content, Duplicate title, missing meta description increasing as site is based on regular ticket selling (CRM), kindly help
Sites error increasing i.e. 404 errors more than 1.8 lacs, Duplicate Content, Duplicate title, missing meta description increasing day by day as site is based on regular ticket selling (CRM), We have checked with webmasters for 404's, but it is not easy to delete 1.8 lac entries. How to resolve this issue for future. kindly help and suggest the solution.
Reporting & Analytics | | 1akal0 -
Anyone notice a drop in results using site operator?
I set our site's preferred domain back on January 28. We had a www and non www domain being indexed. Since then, I've seen the number or results for our site site operator (site:) decline dramatically. Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing. So, I'm trying to see if it's unique to our site. My gut is that the numbers are probably leveling out to where they should be and the duplicates are falling out, but I would think that as I see number of results for non www decline, the number of results for www would increase. Any thoughts? Anyone else seeing fluctuations in results using site: ? Lisa
Reporting & Analytics | | Aggie0 -
ECommerc site redirect to external site when add to cart. Need HELP to track sales!!!
Hi, I buil this site on WordPress, http://www.pilatesboisfranc.com When you go on <<plan &="" pricing="">> on the menu you can purchase a package online.</plan> When you click ''Get Started Now'' or ''Add to Cart'' the buyer is redirect to this external site: mindbodyonline.com QUESTIONS: Can I track my sales on Googles Analytics? Can I creat a goal on G.A. ? I found this video: https://getsatisfaction.com/mindbody/topics/chalk_talk_how_to_setup_google_analytics Is this the right way to do this? About goals, a simple goal I would like to create is, one purchase. Can I acheive that? Not shure about Goals. When I test and purchase, URL is always the same https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/ASP/home.asp?studioid=30371 I'm know only very basics stuff when it is time to play in Analytics, I hope you can provide help in details. Thank you, BigBlaze
Reporting & Analytics | | BigBlaze2050 -
How To Determine ROI For Specific Keywords
I have been looking through our analytics, and nealy all our conversions are from (not provided) keywords. I am trying to find the keywords that are performing best and also to determine the return I am getting from SEO efforts. I have been told the "not provided" keywords are due to people being logged into Google when they browse. However, this doesn't make sense to me. How is it that only the keywords that convert are "not provided"? Can anyone help with this?
Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseseo0