Geo targeting multiple locations organically
-
When targeting multiple cities for specific keyword phrases, do local links like Merchant Circle, & Yelp need to be present for each town?
-
Hi Kristopher,
Your question is a good one. If you do not have a physical address in a city, then, no, you should not be using these local platforms. Google and other local directories want actual physical locations in their indexes - not virtual offices, P.O. boxes, etc. Here is the language from Google's Places Quality Guidelines (http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528) that speaks to this:
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. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.
So, anything other than this is a violation of the guidelines, and it's just good sense to represent your business in an accurate and truthful manner on the Internet. That being said, making use of Local SEO if you're an SEO company is somewhat of a moot point as Google stopped showing local results for web design and SEO companies in January of 2010. It is my understanding that this was partly based on their decision that these types of businesses are mainly virtual in nature (whether that's true or not), and also, heavy spamming of the vertical. So, you can't achieve true local rankings for this business model.
We've had similar questions here in recent times from Members in the SEO/design fields who want to be able to target numerous cities within a state. From what you've written, I believe this is your goal. Such efforts will have to be solely organic, and the task at hand is to find a reason to create content about your work in various geographic places. For example, you might have a page dedicated to your SEO or design projects for businesses in Buffalo, NY, and another page about your projects for clients in Long Island. You've got to find something really different to say about your work in each locale in order to have a reason to create such pages so that you end up with robust rather than thin or duplicate content.
Hope this helps!
-
Thank you Kane.
I do not have a office in the new location but I did add a address. I added UBL's basic service to help with the local directories. I have a good address, a unique phone number for the new location & I used a new domain name that forwards to the main domain. ex. " seonewyork.com" forwards to "seo.com"
Do you think using a new domain is the way to go?
-
They'll definitely help, both for Google+ Local listings, as well as localized organic listings (without a map in the SERP).
Do you have physical locations in those cities? Or are you trying to rank pages for those cities without having a physical presence? If you're trying to rank without the physical address, you'll have to compete without many of these local directories. Not impossible, but easier if you have the address to work with.
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
-
Ranking Multiple Domains Simultaneously
What kind of strategy would one implement to rank multiple domains in SERPs? (One domain per keyword) I am looking more into link blocking and that, but I don't know the effectiveness and consistency of the strategy. Does anyone have any recommendations? I really can't be arsed giving every single site it's own full SEO treatment 🙂 Thanks very kindly and in advance for your thoughts 🙂
Link Building | | Ultra_Valves0 -
Multiple Sites Vs. Single Site
We're a growing law firm looking into expanding into different practices of law. The question we're running into is should we create new sites for our different practice areas or add them to our current site? If we create multiple sites we have to divide our linking building efforts, but if we maintain everything under a single domain will be harder to be considered an "expert" on each section of law and get ranked well in each category? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Link Building | | PewLaw0 -
Subdomain or no subdomain ? About location of a special page on the site
I have a blog on interior decoration and I have made a Wordpress Plugin which is not at all related to the niche of my blog...I have created this plugin in the hope that I might get backlinks due to this...but am not sure whether I should keep the plugin documentation page on some page of the blog itself like www.example.com/blog/plugin-page/ or on some subdomain like plugin-page.example.com
Link Building | | ksbnok0 -
How does Google treat multiple backlinks on the same page?
Hello mozCrew Just a quick yay or nay. We have an embeddable code on our site for customers who want to post our link on their website listed here: http://www.accupos.com/etc/embed-code-restaurants.php But in our link, there are actually 2 separate links, one branding link that says the name of our company, AccuPOS, and another link which targets a specific target keyword "Restaurant POS Software". My question is, does Google only give credit for the branding link, since it is listed FIRST? Or will we get double credit? Is this a good or bad practice, and what would you recommend? Thank you! Derek Moore
Link Building | | DerekM880 -
Multiple pages battling for same keyword
Hi, I have earlier had a post about this, but still I am in doubt. I posted: http://www.seomoz.org/q/page-not-being-indexed The keyword "betsafe" in that question has now "bounced" back and is now the page shown in SERPS for the search keyword. This is great, however I don't know why. By checking the URL in OSE i have discovered that the page has in-links from SEOmoz.org. Which comes from the above questions thread. Can it really be, that these 2 links from SEOmoz forum has done the difference? We appareantly have zero links from other sites to the URL, despite actually having them on another site. Now we are having trouble with keyword: "bet365" which should show page http://www.betxpert.com/bookmakere/bet365 but does not (on google.dk). I have optimized the page as far as I can stretch it without doing in in an unnatural way. Only thing left to do is bring down number of links. What is your advice? Should I simply try to link build for the URL with the keyword - and then it will beat our other pages which seem to steal the SERPS? -Rasmus
Link Building | | rasmusbang0 -
How best to link multiple related websites.
I have a handful of e-commerce websites that overlap each other some in the same niche. I have already heard that it would have been best to make just one website, but this is not practical for me. Our business model goes back to a time before the internet. We have relationships with manufacturers where they refer business to us because we brand web sites which will not switch customers to competing brands. Our agreements make it ok to link to other websites so long as we have branded websites that focus on the specific manufacturers. For SEO, what is the best way to link these sites? Site wide links in footers.? Single links at on homepages? One way links from the most powerful site? Some other method? We have been wrestling with this question for some time.
Link Building | | EugeneF0 -
Multiple links to dead pages
I have just taken over a client and have been shocked to see a lot of wasted 'link juice' from hundreds of websites linking to old/dead pages within my client's domain. My question is - what is the best method to re-capture that juice given that it is impractical to change the links at source. Thanks.
Link Building | | driansmith0 -
Is publishing content on multiple platforms like Tumblr, Blogger, Posterous, etc. a legit way to build backlinks?
My client has a fishing report that is published weekly on his blog. Would it be wise to syndicate that content on these other services with backlinks baked into each one? Any thoughts?
Link Building | | AaronParrish1