Ranking in Multiple Geographic Locations

[SavvyPanda]

Hey Mozers,

We are a Joomla Web Design firm located in Milwaukee Wisconsin, however, we serve clients all over the midwest (and US) (chicago, madison, minneapolis, etc)

I'm curious what the best strategy for ranking in these new geographic areas?

Originally I was thinking of creating geographic specific landing pages for each area, however, i'm scared it will hurt us with Google's recent penguin and panda 3.5 updates. Also, won't i need to link to these landing pages from our main website to get them indexed?

What about creating mini websites on subdomains: (example) Chicago.SavvyPanda.com??

• What are your ideas?

• Do you have clients who have successfully started ranking in multiple geographic cities/areas?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi ITrogers,

I think it's important to note that the strategy you are recommending is forbidden by Google's Quality Guidelines. Please see:

http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528

Specifically:

Business Location: Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location.

Do not create a listing or place your pin marker at a location where the business does not physically exist.

It's critical to be totally up-to-date on the guidelines because they aren't intuitive, making it very easy to accidentally violate them. The strategy your are describing of renting virtual offices where the business doesn't actually exists puts the business at real risk for penalties or banning.

Also, because of the Savvy Panda's industry, (website design) he does not have any chance of ranking for his core terms in the local SERPs. Google doesn't handle website design, SEO or certain marketing firms in this way.

I hope this helps to clarify things for you and others on this thread.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Savvy Panda,
Thanks for bringing your good question to Q&A.

It's important to understand that, by nature of your business, seeking inclusion in Google's local search results is actually out. If you do a search for 'web design firm milwaukee wi', you will see that Google does not display local, pinned results in its main results for this query, nor do they handle website design firms in this manner anywhere in the US. Google stopped displaying local results for web design and SEO firms in January of 2010, as I recall.

This doesn't mean you can't create a Google Place Page. You can, and it will be somewhere within the Maps index, but it will not be displayed in the main results and is therefore unlikely to ever be viewed my many people. You are allowed to create a Google Place Page only if you do some business face-to-face with clients. If all of your business is virtual, then a Google Place Page is not right  for you.

If you do serve some clients face-to-face and you should you decide to create a Google Place Page, only create 1 of them if you've only got one office. Do not purchase virtual addresses/p.o. boxes in an attempt to look like you are local to areas where you aren't actually located. Only utilize your own legal business name, your dedicated local area code phone number and dedicated local street address. Depending on your business model, you will need to go 1 of 3 routes with your Place Page.

• If your business serves all clients at your office, choose the show address path in Google.

• If your business serves some clients at your office and some clients at their locations, again, show the address and use the service radius tool to indicate the geographic region in which you serve. *There is some evidence that you should go easy on the tool. I can't share any examples with you, but I never advise my clients to set a service radius of greater than 30 miles because I have seen some indication that setting a wider service radius than this may actually harm your profile.

• If your business serves all clients at their locations, choose the 'hide address' function.

For more on this topic, see: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-you-may-need-to-hide-your-google-places-address-asap

Regardless of whether you create a Google Place Page or not, by dint of Google's choice not to display true local results for web design firm queries, your efforts to gain visibility for different geographic terms are going to have to be organic in nature.

What you don't want to do is this: create duplicate pages of content that simply switch out geographic terms. You are quite right in guessing that this will not impress Google (nor will it be of much value to human users).

A better approach is this: find a real reason to write about your work in those cities. With my own local SEO clients, what I find to be a natural approach is a showcase of projects in specific cities. A combination of project details, client testimonials from the city in question, videos + transcripts, interviews of the employee/employees who undertook the project in that city and similar data gives you something unique to write about. Your page about the design you accomplished for a car dealership in Chicago can be completely different from your page about the work you did for a restaurant in Madison, with good planning and creativity. I have found this to be a winning strategy repeatedly for my clients.

You can then undertake whatever promotion you want of the page (linkbuilding etc.) to help it work its way up in the SERPs.

Perhaps there are other types of geographic-oriented content you can create as well. For example, you might host a seminar in a certain city or attend a conference, and you can write about that. You can blog about the business scene in various Midwestern cities. You might volunteer at something in the cities or sponsor something there for goodwill and publicity.

Basically, what it boils down to is thinking creatively and then being willing to expend the time/money/effort to write creatively about your genuine involvement in different local communities. This sensible approach is one you can feel proud of for years to come, and that's not something you can say when the approach is to game or manipulate the system. The writing is on the wall that Google has lost patience with a manipulative approach and I believe they will continue to move in that direction in the coming years.

Hope these tips are helpful to you!

[SavvyPanda]

i'd agree.

i'm planning on creating a full landing page with geographic specific content.

So what i'm hearing is that it's gunna be hard to rank in organic search in multiple geographic locations, but it's more possible with local results (google places)?

I really don't want to have to get mailing addresses and phones from all over to rank for that. hummmph.

in an ideal world, i'd like to just rank organically... does anyone have a good strategy for this?

[itrogers]

It really just depends on the content of those pages. If its simply just address and phone, no way! Good localized content will help for sure!

[MSWD]

"Penguin won't really let you rank for them now organically, but locally you definitely have a shot"

They may or may not let you rank organically.  But I would sure try.  I would still create landing pages for the cities.  With only a few I would tend to put my cards on the fact that you would get be able to rank them.

[BenFox]

Do you want to rank in the main results or were you more interested in the local results?

My answer is concerning the main organics results as I've no experience with local.

I'd avoid subdomains and keep your landing pages on your root domain.

You will need to link to them from your main site and probably need to link to them them quite extensively.

Beyond that if it's good old fashioned on page optimization and link building. I have a sneaking suspicion that having a local phone number, postal address, etc. will help.

For linkbuilding my first priority would be to make sure you were listed in all of the relevant local web design directories and yellow pages style places (if any).

[itrogers]

Rent mailboxes / addresses from executive suites in that area. They usually cost $25 per month. Add on a phone number with the local area code as well if possible. Don't use Google voice. Have all of the mail and phones forward to your main phone and address.

Create Google Places profiles for each using these addresses. Optimize them with unique business information. Verify these profiles via phone or address. (Most likely address) For the URL for the profiles, have them go to specific pages (which is the next step).

Create dedicated pages for each location. Create optimized content for each. Use Schema.org or hCard to markup the addresses. Make it consistent with your Google Places page.

Create local citations in local search platforms and local directories for all of your locations. Make sure the business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent with the ones you've purchased. Use distribution services and citation checkers like Localeze and GetListed. Get reviews to your Google places page. LEGITIMATE REVIEWS!

• http://getlisted.org/
• http://localeze.com/

I have done this successfully with two clients now. Penguin won't really let you rank for them now organically, but locally you definitely have a shot.