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
-
How critical is page speed: average vs fast is it worth the effort?
Hi most of our pages are rated as "medium" for optimisation by the google page speed tool and with an average speed of 2.5 seconds compared to my competitors whose pages are rates as "fast" and have a speed of less than 1 second! We use the DNN platform & my web dev has said that he cant squeeze anymore from the platform and that to get the same speed as my competitors will need a platform development which it out of our control. My question is, is it worth moving our site to another platform that can achieve these fast speeds or is the difference between medium and fast not worth it - i am mainly looking at it from a google ranking signal perspective. Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
SEO benefits/drawbacks of physical address on site.
Simple question - how much of an SEO impact does NOT having a physical address on your site make? I run a photography business based from home. For security reasons I don't really want our home address easily available to the public. I have a Google Maps listing (actually seem to have two at the moment, but that's a different matter) and the full address is logged there but is not viewable publicly - just the surrounding area. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robandsarahgillespie0 -
SEO impact when micro site are hosted on third party url
Have a look at this url
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kjerstibakke
http://www.bekkevold-as.no/.
On the front page they are providing links to a website created by one of their suppliers. (Three cirkle icons in the middle of the page).
The links make the customers leave the site and open on a different domain, even the branding of the page is for Bekkevold Elektro (see log top right)
The question from me: How will this impact the SEO for Bekkevold Elektro. Would it be better to create a subdomain for Bekkevold Elektro and ask the supplier to point to this? Or is it ok to leave it as it is, having links back to the web site for Bekkevold Elektro? Just changing the target of the link to open in a new window.
Thank you very much for your support on this. I would appreciate any suggestion for improvement for my customer, Bekkevold Elektro. Best regards
Kjersti Bakke0 -
Links / Top Pages by Page Authority ==> pages shouldnt be there
I checked my site links and top pages by page authority. What i have found i dont understand, because the first 5-10 pages did not exist!! Should know that we launched a new site and rebuilt the static pages so there are a lot of new pages, and of course we deleted some old ones. I refreshed the sitemap.xml (these pages are not in there) and upload it in GWT. Why those old pages appear under the links menu at top pages by page authority?? How can i get rid off them? thx, Endre
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Neckermann0 -
What Are Your Thoughts On Location Targeted Pages?
I have a client that wants to rank for a bunch of locations around his primary location. Say 30 minutes away. So we created a bunch of pages for cities around his location. So far it seems to be working pretty well. That said, I heard from someone else that Google really doesn't like these type of pages anymore and that we are better off with just one location page and list the areas we server on it. What are your thoughts and experiences?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | netviper0 -
What recommendations do you have for the SEO of this site?
Hello, Could you glance at this site and let me know if you see anything we could improve upon? www.nlpca.com A couple of notes: We're over-optimized for the term "NLP" on the home page. We're removing the footer links soon. We have 2 locations: San Francisco, CA and Salt Lake City, UT. Our main keyword is "NLP Training" but we would like to rank higher for the keyword "NLP". Also note that we're completely white hat, but we have international site-wide backlinks, and a couple of site-wide backlinks in site's footers - all friends and colleagues of ours.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
How To Handle Duplicate Content Regarding A Corp With Multiple Sites and Locations?
I have a client that has 800 locations. 50 of them are mine. The corporation has a standard website for their locations. The only thing different is their location info on each page. The majority of the content is the same for each website for each location. What can be done to minimize the impact/penalty of having "duplicate or near duplicate" content on their sites? Assuming corporate won't allow the pages to be altered.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JChronicle0 -
Seo for Q&A site
Hi, I am working on a newly launched Q&A site. We have very few questions and users right now and very very low seo traffic. In order to increase the number of users and seo traffic we intend to create a number of pages containing potential questions. Each page would have the following structure: Question. Ex: "What are the top wholesale suppliers of coffee in China?" Some content. Ex: Are you looking for wholesale suppliers of coffee in China? Post your question here? Question form Some additional content So there would be a page for wholesale suppliers of coffee for every country. We would publish the pages gradually and the content would be unique but yet similar (ex: only the Country changes). What do you think about this approach? Is it a good idea or can it be dangerous? We don't want to incur in any kind of penalization, we just want to give the possibility to people who are looking for specific information to find us and be able to post the request on our website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ypsilon0