What is the best way to target two keywords with one website?
-
I have a client that needs to target two different citys for her service. I have her front page ranking first page for one of the cities, but I have tried all sorts of things and can't get her front page to rank first page in the second (and less competitive) city.
I know the drill about making a second page and trying to rank that page but is there a better way?
-
AWC
I was following up with Jonathan on another question and I realized I had told you something that was incorrect. I am going to PM you something to look at (I know you will protect my client) that shows how we use PHP in the footer to change the address to the one for the sub directory.
I will try to get to you today.
Best -
Thanks for this Robert!
-
Vadim
I wish I could say, "Yes, always." Honestly, it is a goal we constantly strive for, but yesterday I found a site we had done and half the photos were without and I was very disappointed. Our preference with client sites is that the photos be done either by our team (we use top end cameras with GPS attachments for all photos we take) or that the client take the photos and provide us exact details as to where they were shot. With the latter, we can add the geo tagging in Picasa easily.
I believe this data is very, very important.
Thanks
-
I'd love to rank the website on Local results for both Austin, TX and Denver, CO. I got some pretty bad advice early on so Local has been a rough ride back up for me and I have yet to see any improvement on ranking in that area, but I did just install Local SEO by Yoast on the wordpress site which let me submit a Geo Sitemap and includes kml files for both locations so I'm hoping that helps with that.
Everyone always just says "get ranked on local..." but I find that harder than Organic search results. Anyone else have an opinion?
-
Can you explain a little more about Geo Tagging and the Google Maps API?
To explain further, I am working for a wedding photographer that has an address in Austin and Denver. The link is here: http://www.photojennette.com. I have been working on the site for about 6 months tweaking things, link building, etc. and have been able to rank on page 1 (as high as #2) for Austin which was the first focus, and page #2 for Denver. I have had some issues with bad advice for Google Local and have not successfully gotten the listing into the "Map Listings" but am working on that as well with KML and Geo Sitmaps but I just started that a few days ago.
The site is wordpress. I have the Mozbar installed and can see all the PA and DA for the sites ranking higher and lower and PA seems to be the main issue because the site is ranking page 1 most of the time for Austin given that the front page is optimized for Austin mostly. When I flip the switch and try ranking a page for Austin and Denver, I can never get to page one and the PA of those pages is 1 currently... So I would need links to those pages to build PA correct?
-
Great info Robert, do you geo-tag your images as well, in this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging sense of the word?
Thanks
-
Thanks Robert.
"Assuming (from your question) you do not have a physical address for city B,"
The scenario has a business address in city B which is in the footer of the site.
If the business address is in the footer, how does it affect site optimization of big city A and he half dozen other cities in the sub-directories?
-
Jonathan,
First, go back and read what I wrote and read my response to AWCThreads as well. Now, you can believe me or not, but I am talking Houston TX and a competitive vertical. And, yes, my clients want to rank in all the suburbs and neighborhoods, etc.
What everyone needs to realize is that they are not taking into account whether or not a business is a service area business and whether or not you have an actual physical address. Assuming (from your question) you do not have a physical address for city B, you can't go in and set it up as if you do for Local. But, you can use two pages on the site to assist you in ranking in both the 7-Pack and the organic. (Given that availability, I am at a loss as to why someone wanting to rank would do one page.)
Now, as to PA, etc. If what you are wanting is some type of "instant" ranking, I do not know what to tell you. I can tell you that we are able to gain ranking for our clients with this methodology but each individual city/area/neighborhood is different as to how quickly. Ranking for a given city + Keyword is ranking and it requires the same efforts, etc. as any other keyword or phrase. But, if you have good content, include the geo + KW as I said before and the images, video, google maps API on one of the pages, etc. You should be able to rank in a reasonable amount of time. (Say page two within 2 months).
I hope this helps clarify.
Robert
EDIT: I wanted to add, if the site has pages with reasonable PA, make sure a few are linking to the new pages without being unrelated.
-
Yes, I want to know how the footer name, address and phone number affect local optimization efforts.
Suppose I want to optimize my site (as Robert suggests) for big city A. However, my business address is in a suburb of big city A (little city B).
If the little city address is in the footer, will it diminish my SEO efforts for big city A?
Further, if I'm optimizing for 2, 5 or 10 cities in sub-directories how does the NAP in the footer affect optimization for those cities?
Is the NAP stripped from the footer throughout the site? Can you leave the NAP in the footer without negatively affecting on-page optimization for big city A and the other half dozen cities?
-
No we have not forgotten that, but it is not just about PA. PA comes with time, and effort on all the other things you should be doing as an SEO.
-
Can you explain this more? I think you're on to something I haven't thought about, but the broken english or poor grammar is making it tough.
Anyone else that does can you help him explain?
-
What you are forgetting is PA. I have already done this and it does nothing because there are people in the second location who's main priority is to rank for that location. My "inner-page" with 1 or 2 PA isn't going to rank page 1 or top 3 at all because others have DA and PA ranking their site in those spaces. We are talking about highly competitive markets here, not some random fish word.
-
The site is built around the major city (that can be the largest or the one that is most important to the client, etc.).
Got it. But If my single biz is located in a suburb of the main city, will my biz address in the footer of a WP site diminish my ability to rank for the main city for which the rest of the page is optimized?
For every other city we use subdirectories. Assuming one service in general, we will have two pages for each "subdirectory city": typically one that explains the business with content containing info re that city....Then we have a contact page with same and with Google maps API.
I'm not very knowledgeable about sub-directories since I've not needed to use them (yet).
Since the page is in a sub-directory, is the footer info removed? Sounds like it is in lieu of the contact us page.
-
Agreed. This is the easiest way to do it, and the method I use.
-
I totally agree with Lars, you just create 1 inner page for every city, optimize content and meta tags afor that city+keyword and use thge right anchors for links and citations, and booom, u're ranked !
-
This works. We do it all day long.
-
The on-page content is likely not as relevant to the second keyword you are trying to rank for. Ideally you would have inner pages for each city, so the on-page seo factors match up with what your trying to rank for. It's a lot easier for google to determine what keyword the page should be ranking for if the content shows that.
It'll also help having the city name in the URL for the inner page, such as http://www.website.com/boston-wicker-baskets/
-
Jonathan,
I am not sure about "the drill" but I do know how to rank a given service for two or five or ten cities. The way we approach it is simple: First and foremost, you need to rank in the Local (how many Pack) for those areas where you have locations to the best of your ability. When trying to rank for a city plus a keyword, IMO it starts with Local. Given that, to rank organically as well, here is what we do: The site is built around the major city (that can be the largest or the one that is most important to the client, etc.). Then for every other city we use subdirectories. Assuming one service in general, we will have two pages for each "subdirectory city": typically one that explains the business with content containing info re that city. By content I mean not only text, but images, videos, etc. Then we have a contact page with same and with Google maps API.
Now, originally, we would say (rather hubristically) that this will be for local and that for organic. We soon learned that we could not accurately predict which would be organic versus which would be Local. Yes, there are some ways to try and influence it, but don't worry over it.I can tell you that we have no problem gaining ranking for clients following this methodology.
I hope it helps you,
Robert
-
The way I often approach these things is to "brand out" the homepage, and do two inner pages, one for each location.
-
Hello Jonathan,
You mentioned "two different citys for her service" are you trying to rank for local results or for organic results?
Also first page for one of the cities does this mean for the main location, aka the location of the business?
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 Deduce Spam Score Of Any Website?
Hello I want to know and Little help to deduce ss of my one of the website Can anyone give help to deduce Spam Score of my Website?
On-Page Optimization | | studio45ca0 -
What is the best way to deal with creating a separate brand with it's own website when the main site already ranks well for the target keywords?
A client currently has a site that ranks well for a number of queries. They recently created a new site for a spin-off brand/company that they now want to focus on ranking for some of the keywords their original site already ranked for. What would be the best way to go about this without throwing away the existing authority and traffic the original site has for those queries?
On-Page Optimization | | P1WS_Sully0 -
Optimizing images on website. Is it bad to use the same alt names and keywords?
I have a webpage that I have 6 separate images showing step by step instructions of how to use our product with a sentence describing instruction inside image. I took screenshots of the instructions from the products App and uploaded them to webpage because they provide a great visual. I want to make sure I optimize correctly, can I use the same keywords for all the image names?
On-Page Optimization | | artscube.biz0 -
Over-Optimized Website
I'm looking for advice for what you would start with if you were working on a website that was extremely over-optimized for 1 keyword. So, for example, I'm going to pretend this client is a dog trainer in Toronto (I can't publicly post the URL). I've read places that having exact-match anchor text links to inner pages in the footer of the site can cause problems and removing it has resulted in big ranking jumps. I'm looking to see if there are other big items that you would tackle first if this was your client. Some examples of things the site has: There is a page for dog training under their Services menu. However, internal links on their site link "dog training" to both the homepage and to this service page. Is that going to cause issues? The anchor text for internal linking is almost always the exact same word - "Dog Training". There is a banner that goes across the top of the site that appears on every page that says "Dog Training Toronto". I'm guessing I should remove that. Would the same keyword being overly used on every page cause confusion? Almost every image on his site is saved in the format "Dog Training Toronto". I'm looking to see if anyone has general tips on where to start with a site that has been over-optimized for 1 keyword. He actually has a ton of good content on his blog that gets a ton of traffic (because it's actually useful) so it's not that his content sucks - it's just been overly structured and SEO'd to death. I found a few articles on this but other than the footer advice I didn't find too many case studies of others that have run into this issue and done a few steps that actually worked.
On-Page Optimization | | ImprezzioMarketing0 -
Keyword stuffing when brand includes keyword
Hi If you have managed to combine brand name with primary target keyword do you still need pay attention to on page keyword stuffing ? since one would expect plenty of brand references in the body copy ? Or is it still best to reduce instances of the keyword aspect ? For example if site is called 'Franks Service Centres' and you have lots/too many instances of 'service centres' in the body copy a/c to MA on-page grader, should you reduce some instances of the kw ? All Best
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence
Dan0 -
My website ranking recently dropping - why?
Hi all, I am a photographer and do my own website and links etc. Website is: http://www.mckayphotography.com.au I have enjoyed good google rankings for my main keyword 'wedding photography sydney' for many years, and even recovered after taking a hit from the penguin (may 2012) update. But the last month has seen a steady drop from around 2nd - 4th down to now 10th. I have analyzed my site using all the moz tools and on most counts eg moz rank and moz trust I am ahead of my competitor sites....but still rank under them on google. So I would greatly appreciate on advice people could give on getting my ranking back up again! Thanks in advance Darryn
On-Page Optimization | | dmck0 -
Selecting keywords
Hi there, my question is: If I select and optimize in the page a keyword like "english courses in Boston" if someone type in Google only english courses, would my site be shown up in first places in the SERPs (if I had done a good onpage and offpage optimization)? or someone who has optimize the page with the keyword "english courses" would be in a preference place? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Keywords & ranking
I am working for a social networking site called Yookos. Much our content is user-generated. How can i add keywords onto the site to make sure our site appears in the SERPS? Also what techniques can i use to make our social site rank highly? Do the other SEO techniques apply here?
On-Page Optimization | | seoworx1230