Multi-Location SEO: Sites vs Pages
-
I just started with a new company that requires multi-location SEO for its niche product/service. Currently, we have a main corporate website, as well as, 40+ individual dealer websites (we host all). Keep in mind each of these dealers consist of only 1-2 people, so corporate I will be managing the site or sites and content strategy. Many of the individual dealer sites actually rank very well (#1-#3) in their areas for our targeted keywords, but they all use the same duplicate content. Also, there are many dealer sites that have dropped off the radar in last year, which is probably because of the duplicate and static content. So I'm at a crossroads...
- Attempt to redo all of these location sites with unique and local content for each or
- Create optimized unique pages for each of them on our main site and redirect their current local domains to their page on our site
Any advise regarding which direction to go in and why. Why is very important. It will be very difficult to convince a dealer that is #1 with his local site that we are redirecting to our main site, so I need some good ammo and reasoning. Also, any tips toward achieving local seo success will be greatly appreciated, too!
Thank you!
-
I would still start with the sites that aren't ranking first. The more things you try to do at once, the less predictable the outcome is and the greater the risk of a negative impact.
Start by moving over a few sites that aren't ranking that well. Gauge the impact. Do their rankings increase or drop? What about a month after you've made the move? Once you have a better idea of what the impact will be, you can move over a few more sites, and repeat the process.
A piecemeal approach may take a little longer, but it reduces your risk and gives you a more predictable outcome. It also will allow you to perfect the process of moving sites before you get to the moneymakers that are already ranking well.
-
Thank you for sharing that webinar! Great stuff!
While they are getting decent traffic, I do not want to think short term. Like you said, we could be left with nothing. Many locations have seen the drop in rankings, so probably just a matter of time. So I'm going to switch over to the unique local pages on our site and redirect their pages to the main site. Much more manageable solution with less risk of duplicate content. (ahhh...)
If I redirect their old homepage to their new local page on our site and each product page on their site to that product page on our main site we should benefit from that link juice right both nationally and locally? Their is some value in acquiring those ranking URLs, right?
-
Is being #1 bringing in traffic and $? If so, Takeshi's answer below might be worth looking into. The only problem with "If it aint broke don't fix it.", is that once it's broke, you're left w/ nothing....or worse.
REI and Cabela's do a nice job.
This Mozinar from last year is really good-
-
"If it ain't broke, why fix it?" Haha! True. Pretty sure that is the exact response from one of my dealers.
Another variable I failed to mention is that the dealer sites are running on a very old CMS version, and their current template is not compatible with updated version. Outdated CMS has resulted in a few security issues. Meaning, I am forced to make a decision.
-
They are not very unique. Same product and service just in a different regions.
- How would you respond to a local dealer that has a site ranking #1 for targeted keywords?
- Any outstanding corporate websites with good location structure you would recommend?
-
Redirecting sites that are already ranking is almost guaranteed to result in a rankings drop, at least in the short term. However, managing 40 sites is a ton of effort, especially if they're all using duplicate content, and they don't benefit from the domain authority of your main corporate site.
Why don't you start with moving over the dealer sites that aren't ranking onto your main site. That way they will benefit from the domain authority of your main domain, and you can clean them up a little with some unique content to improve their rankings. The sites that are already ranking, you can leave alone until they run into any roadblocks. If it ain't broke, why fix it?
-
It's tough to give an answer w/o knowing specifics.
If each dealer is truly unique and not just a "branch", then go for unique sites w/ unique content.
Otherwise, follow the standard corporate website structure and create a page to each location.
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
-
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amarieyoussef0 -
Merging Pages and SEO
Hi, We are redesigning our website the following way: Before: Page A with Content A, Page B with Content B, Page C with Content C, etc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading1
e.g. one page for each Customer Returns, Overstocks, Master Case, etc
Now: Page D with content A + B + C etc.
e.g. one long page containing all Product Conditions, one after the other So we are merging multiples pages into one.
What is the best way to do so, so we don't lose traffic? (or we lose the minimum possible) e.g. should we 301 Redirect A/B/C to D...?
Is it likely that we lose significant traffic with this change? Thank you,0 -
Onsite SEO vs Offsite SEO
Hey I know the importance of both onsite & offsite, primarily with regard to outreach/content/social. One thing I am trying to determine at the moment, is how much do I invest in offsite. My current focus is to improve our onpage content on product pages, which is taking some time as we have a small team. But I also know our backlinks need to improve. I'm just struggling on where to spend my time. Finish the onsite stuff by section first, or try to do a bit of both onsite/offsite at the same time?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Is a 404, then a meta refresh 301 to the home page OK for SEO?
Hi Mozzers I have a client that had a lot of soft 404s that we wanted to tidy up. Basically everything was going to the homepage. I recommended they implement proper 404s with a custom 404 page, and 301 any that really should be redirected to another page. What they have actually done is implemented a 404 (without the custom 404 page) and then after a short delay 301 redirected to the homepage. I understand why they want to do this as they don't want to lose the traffic, but is this a problem with SEO and the index? Or will Google treat as a hard 404 anyway? Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy0 -
Essential items to consider when starting a new site in terms of SEO?
I've just launched a new site and have undertaken the following: Keyword friendly page titles Meta description Not a great deal of content on the site yet - but have a blog which we're trying to update as much as we can Analytics and Webmaster tools set up Dmoz submission Facebook, Twitter and Google+ page Google places set-up - waiting for postal pin I've signed up to here to help me to start building a link profile. However, would like to hear any more hints, tips or help on items I should be doing for a new site looking to move up rankings. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | savageseo0 -
Will thousands of redirected pages have a negative impact on the site?
A client site has thousands of pages with unoptimized urls. I want to change the url structure to make them a little more search friendly. Many of the pages I want to update have backlinks to them and good PR so I don't want to delete them entirely. If I change the urls on thousands of pages, that means a lot of 301 redirects. Will thousands of redirected pages have a negative impact on the site? Thanks, Dino
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dino641 -
Domain vs Subdomain for Multi-Location Practice
I have a client who has 2 locations (Orlando & Tampa) and would like to keep the current domain for both locations (DA 29). We want to target additional cities within each service area (Orlando & Tampa). Each service area would target 2 cities on the main pages and 4-5 cities with "SEO" pages which contains unique content specific to the given city. Would I be better off creating sub domains (www.orlando.domain.com & www.tampa.domain.com), creating subfolders (www.domain.com/orlando, etc) or keeping the domain as is and create SEO pages specific to each city? We want to spread the domain authority to both locations.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Red_Spot_Interactive0 -
Website redesign - how do I avoid screwing up my site SEO?
We are preparing to launch a newly designed (and much improved) website in the next few months. I want to be very careful to ensure we do not mess up any rankings (and hopefully actually improve rankings) when switching over the site. I'm particularly concerned about one key phrase that our homepage currently ranks on. After the redesign it would be more appropriate for our of our subpages to rank for that term, but I'd rather have our homepage rank (less relevant for this keyword than the subpage) then nothing at all. I know about 301 redirects, and we are planning on creating a few comprehensive diagrams to ensure we redirect old pages to the correct new pages. Beyond that, what can I do to preserve our rankings? Thanks! -Ryan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RyanD.0