Keywords separated location names in footer

[ZQBT]

We have a US based website, most of the traffic come from search engines mainly Google. We have comma separated location names of all popular places / U.S states where our products are popular (about 80 comma separated location names on footer of the website). Means, these 80 (comma separated) keywords appear on all 900 pages of the website.

Does these footer (comma separated) location names will prove to be comma separated keywords OR keywords stuffing on each page of website ?

The reason we need these location names is because each product page is having traffic from keywords having location names in them.

For example:

• "product1" in chicago
• "product1" new york
• "product2" IL
• "product3" california
• "product3" georgia
• and a lot more

Location based keywords are bringing in about 20% of the traffic.

Please suggest any good solution to this problem. Thanks !!!

[MiriamEllis]

You are so welcome, Waqas!

[ZQBT]

Thank you so much  Bryan and Miriam !!!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Waqas,

I would second what Bryan says, and more so now than ever because of Google's recent update to their Webmaster Guidelines (http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66358) which state:

Keyword stuffing

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

Examples of keyword stuffing include:

• Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
• Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for
• Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:
  We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

(Bolded emphasis mine)

What you are doing is a pretty clear violation of the guidelines. A better option for what you are trying to do is to create unique content that gains backlinks about terms you're trying to rank for....not simply listing a bunch of keywords anywhere on the site, and most especially in the footer. Google is really getting tough on these practices in 2012. I recommend that you work on creating a content development strategy.

[ZQBT]

Thanks Bryan for useful links...

Actually I am not worried about the internal linking. We have plain location keywords (eg. Chicago, New York, California) on footer, they are not linked. We want to remove them but at the same time do not want to lose local organic traffic these keywords are bringing in. Our fear is removing these keywords from footer may result in loss of 20% traffic.

Any alternate solution would be much appreciated.

[Bryan_Loconto]

I would not recommend these footer links just because Google might look at it as over optimizing.

I would run an seomoz on-site report and get as high of a score as possible.

Here is a WBF on internal linking structures that should help.

Part 1

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smarter-internal-linking-whiteboard-friday

Part 2

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond