Local Search without the user typing local?
-
Hi,
I'm a somewhat regionally based voip provider for businesses. So I'm not interested in getting the #1 ranking for voip, but I'd like to get the top for my region. So in this case asheville voip and related searches.
However, I know that alot of users in Asheville are not typing in Asheville voip when they google. They're just typing in voip or free voip, or cisco voip.
Here's my Google Insight Search: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=voip&geo=US-NC&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q
So what I was thinking about doing was in addition to my main site. Building several smaller 'educational based sites' about the benefits of VOIP. Based on google insights something like ashevillevoipphone.com. And use it to capture leads and link to my main site.
So my question is this: Is this a good strategy? If people in Asheville are just typing in voip phone, will ashevillevoipphone.com automatically have a better chance at a higher ranking?
Thanksd
David
-
So you can use the MozBar to set up local searches when you're not local.
I'd suggest building out content in subfolders on your site, instead of being microsites to link to your larger domain: www.example.com/asheville
Why would you want to put content on your microsites that people are going to want to link to and then only have one link pointing from them to your main domain? Additionally, Google is smart enough to realize that you own all the domains and you could get penalized. And, as someone who spent years in e-commerce, having more than one domain to maintain (when it sounds like you have one domain you're taking care of) is a pain in the butt.
-
Steve is correct you are better of promoting the one site.
As for local, when a searcher makes a query SE's know his ip and his location fromit, they will offere him local results, but are you local to Asheville?
I live in Perth Western Australia where it is thousands of miles to the next major city, so its easy for a SE to work out if you and the searcher are local. in the US your towns are much closer and there may be a lot of overlap, it may be a bit harder for a SE to nail you down to the one town.in short the user does not have to enter a location, but i would make sure your ip number is known to be from the ASheville area, I would also have a asheville address on your website marked up with microdata to make sure the SE understads it.
You can check your ip numner location on the web, do a search for ip number locations
-
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the response. The URL is www.ringfree.biz. However, there's nothing but a maintenance page there now. New stuff goes up this week.
What about buying those other domains (ashevillevoip.com) and pointing them towards the main page. Is there any use in this?
Thanks
David
-
Hi David
In my experience you'd be better off adding the educational content to your own site with the addition of local (Ashville) references within the content.
More experienced SEOmoz'ers may have a better answer
Building a very full and rich content base within your own site / domain with healthy links within the site that will provide the user a better experience has got to be the first target for any website.
be good to see the URL for the site too.
Regards
Steve
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
-
Kinds of organic search results (Google)
Not sure if this is a new "unit" for Google organic results. Please see the attached image. When searching for "invoice software", the top quarter of the page is a ribbon of products/brands with badly formatted logos. The fact that it's so ugly, and there's nothing marking it as a paid result, leads me to think it's organic. Anyone know what this SERP unit is called; and better still: How do you get included? We rank super high in the normal organic results, but don't appear at all in this product ribbon. y71A9
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobM4161 -
Does anyone have a clue about my search problem?
After three years of destruction, my site still has a problem - or maybe more than one. OK, I understand I had - and probably still have - a Panda problem. The question is - does anyone know how to fix it, without destroying eveything? If I had money, I'd gladly give it up to fix this, but all I have is me, a small dedicated promotions team, 120,000+ visitors per month and the ability to write, edit and proofread. This is not an easy problem to fix. After completing more than 100 projects, I still haven't got it right, in fact, what I've done over the past 2 months has only made things worse - and I never thought I could do that. Everything has been measured, so as not to destroy our remaining ability to generate income, because without that, its the end of the line. If you can help me fix this, I will do anything for you in return - as long as it is legal, ethical and won't destroy my reputation or hurt others. Unless you are a master jedi guru, and I hope you are, this will NOT be easy, but it will prove that you really are a master, jedi, guru and time lord, and I will tell the world and generate leads for you. I've been doing website and SEO stuff since 1996 and I've always been able to solve problems and fix anything I needed to work on. This has me beaten. So my question is: is there anyone here willing to take a shot at helping me fix this, without the usual response of "change domains" "Delete everything and start over" or "you're screwed" Of course, it is possible that there is a different problem, nothing to do with algorithms, a hard-coded bias or some penalizing setting, that I don't know about, a single needle in a haystack. This problem results in a few visible things. 1. Some pages are buried in supplemental results 2. Search bots pick up new stories within minutes, but they show up in search results many hours later Here is the site: http://shar.es/EGaAC On request, I can provide a list of all the things we've done or tried. (actually I have to finish writing it) Some Notes: There is no manual spam penalty. All outgoing links are nofollow, and have been for 2 years. We never paid for incoming links. We did sell text advertising links 3-4 years ago, using text-link-ads.com, but removed them all 2 1/2 years ago. We did receive payment for some stories, 3-4 years ago, but all have been removed. One more thing. I don't write much - I'm a better editor than a writer, but I wrote a story that had 1 million readers. the massive percentage of 0.0016% came from you-know-who. Yes, 16 visitors. And this was an exclusive, unique story. And there was a similar story, with half a million readers. same result. Seems like there might be a problem!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | loopyal0 -
Is a dynamic online user list bad for SEO?
Hello everyone, I have a question that is currently puzzling me, and I hope you can help me with. On musicianspage.com (one of our websites), we show a list of online users embedded within the page which, as you may expect, changes all the time according to who's online at that moment. That list appears on every page of the site, so at any time any page on the site has a different content and different link profile (sometimes we have just a few users connected, other times we may have over 50 users connected at the same time). My question is: is such a "dynamical-embedded" list bad, good or neutral from a SEO stand point? If it is bad, what do you suggest to do? Put it inside a frame? Using AJAX? Any thoughts and suggestions are very welcome! Thanks in advance to anyone reading this. All the best, Fabrizio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Local ranking (keyword) strategies
Hello SEOmozers, I've been working on improving all components of my SEO skills for the past 6 months. I have definitely had some great victories and some gray defeats. My newest challenge is local ranking for a home improvement company. My target is to rank them locally with Google within the top 7 results. I have managed to do so, but only for one keyword "windows and doors CITY". My campaign, in terms of anchor text has a wide variety of long and shortail keywords, I have not concentrated on the above keyword. My question is, how do I go about to rank this website in the local results for all other keywords "windows CITY", "window replacement CITY", etc... What I don't understand is how Google picks up which keywords to rank the website locally for, and which ones to ignore. Any information will be well received. Cheers, Nikster
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thenikster0 -
What is Local Citation And how to get high ranking on targeted keyword
Hello Friends, Can anyone tell me what is Local Citation and how to optimize business on targeted keyword. What are the sources needed to optimize local listing on google places. I submit my business citation up to 50 local listing sites but the results are 0. My company got no leads Via local listings. Please tell me how would I optimize my company local listing citation and how to increase chances to get leads on local listing sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KLLC0 -
Do you think that google places have influence on organic search?
Hi everyone, Do you think that google places have influence on organic search? i mean if you are on google places with your companies, your ranking must be better for that query? isn't it ? if you agree with me i'll bring you this stange case: my clients has a company profile on google places but it is only fourth on the organic results for that query and his competitor is ranked first with: no google places profile no authority and no company in the city ( in fact it is not in the city but 30 miles far ) the query is "poltrona frau brescia" poltrona frau= name of the company brescia= city in wich the company is located thanks poltrona-frau-brescia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | guidoboem0 -
800 Number vs. Local Phone
I have a client with multiple locations throughout the US. They are currently using different 800 numbers on their site for their different locations. As they try to optimize their local presence but submitting to local directories, we are trying to determine two things: Does having a local number reroute to an 800 number devalue the significance of it being a local number (I've never heard of this, but someone told them it did) Locality and consistency are important. Assuming they can't remove the 800 numbers from the site, are they better off keeping the 800 numbers on their site and using local numbers every else online OR just using the 800 numbers for all of their local listings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caleone0