Should I use general keywords or city specific keywords for back link campaign?

[jesse1341]

I am working on a new client that offer appliance repair in all of california and I was wondering would it be ok if I just target general keywords like "appliance repair" instead of city specific keywords like "los angeles appliance repair"  for the back link campaign . I am sure city specific would be better for rankings, but would the general keywords help local seo at all? What is the best way to go about this with out having to make a city specific page for all listings? thanks

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jesse,

You've received some thoughtful advice so far here from the community. I think it would help if you could clarify your business model, as this is quite important in terms of Local SEO.

Does your client have a single physical address or multiple physical addresses throughout California? I'm having a hard time picturing how a single location business could repair appliances throughout the whole length of California, so maybe I'm not understand your business model correctly. And, if the situation is that the business only has a single physical location in the city of Los Angeles, why would you need to rank in cities statewide? In other words, how would it help for the business to rank for 'appliance repair Eureka' unless services can be rendered up there in the north?

I think the more specific you can be about your business model, the more targeted advice you'll receive here. Hope this helps!

[crackingmedia]

I think you could do both...

Have a page which is like a directory page for all their depots, but then have individual pages for each depot giving their full name, address and phone number, a Google map, details of the types and makes of appliance that depot repairs, opening times etc.

An example of a company that does both is Walmart. If you click on the More Details link in the page below you are taken to a detailed page about an individual store:

http://www.walmart.com/storeLocator/ca_storefinder_results.do?serviceName=&rx_title=com.wm.www.apps.storelocator.page.serviceLink.title.default&rx_dest=%2Findex.gsp&sfrecords=50&sfsearch_single_line_address=california

Or look at Fedex. They have a state level directory for California: http://local.fedex.com/ca/ which drills down to cities: http://local.fedex.com/ca/los-angeles/ and then to offices within that city: http://local.fedex.com/ca/los-angeles/office-4566/

OK, Fedex are huge, but they have very detailed individual pages for each of their offices. Whilst your client may only have a few service & repair depots in California, the principle is the same.

Peter

[sedamiran]

I am a little unsure what 'back link campaign' means but if it means Link Building then I recommend you to watch these before you work on it:

http://moz.com/blog/the-death-of-link-building-and-the-rebirth-of-link-earning-whiteboard-friday

http://moz.com/blog/seos-dilemma-link-building-vs-content-marketing-whiteboard-friday

http://moz.com/blog/the-top-4-ways-to-use-social-media-to-earn-links-whiteboard-friday

[jesse1341]

But would I need to make an additional page for each city or can I still get benefit from just adding cities in anchor text?

[WhiteboardCreations]

Google hasn't put a specific number to how many backlinks is bad or good. Just keep them diverse, spread out so you aren't doing 100 links a day or 5,000 a month like some of these crazy SEO companies tell you they can build for you. Use variations with plural versions, use commas, full state names, use variations in your URL for the anchor text link www.domain.com is different than http://domain.com and http://www.domain.com/. Keep the content relevant and high quality as we consider Google to be a human these days, so if a human has a hard time reading it, then you know Google will also. Keep your links on a steady flow and not all at once to spread them out over the weeks/months. If you think it feels or looks spammy, it most likely is in Google's eye too.

• Patrick

[jesse1341]

Patrick,

Thank you for your helpful input, I was wondering if there was a thing as too many different back link keywords? Would it be bad?

[crackingmedia]

Hi Jesse

When you say they offer appliance repair in all of California does your client have a single location to which appliances are brought or taken to for repair or just one?

So, to use your example, if they have depot in Los Angeles which people can phone to arrange for their appliance to be repaired, then include a page on the site with the address details of the Los Angeles depot and optimise that page for "Appliance Repairs Los Angeles". Then do the same with all the other cities they have depots.

If they only have one location, then it will make more sense to just optimise for "Appliance Repair California".

As I say, it really depends on how your client operates.

I hope that helps,
Peter

[WhiteboardCreations]

Jesse,

The type of anchor text (keyword) used for your link building should be diverse based on some important factors.

What type of links are you going to build - Social bookmarks, Directory, Guest Post, Press Release, Citation, etc... Based on what type of link you are going to build, you should switch up the general "service" keyword with geo-specfic keywords "city + service" and "service + city". Do some keyword research also to determine variations of keywords in how a service is being searched and if state names or abbreviations are being used like "service + city + state abbrevation" (appliance repair los angeles ca).

Just remember, Google is looking at original content, diversified links and diverse anchor text when considering to build rank and authority of a domain. Local SEO loves local citations, so look into this to begin building your link strategy. Keep in mind NAP (Name, Address, Phone) as well. If you are only based in LA, then you're going to have a tough time ranking locally in Google Maps for searches in San Diego or the like. Test the waters without being spammy and analyze. Also consider blog articles on the website www.domain.com/blog/article-title-here/ which can help you target more city specific terms, content and links so you aren't creating 1 page per city if that would be too much work.

Hope this helps. - Patrick