SEO For Local Searches
-
I run a driving school of over 100 instructors in the UK. We cover around 60 different areas.
My homepage www.driveJohnsons.co.uk is optimised for 'driving lessons' and 'driving school' search terms mainly.
My area pages are optimised for the same but with the area included ie: Driving Lessons Birmingham or Driving Lessons Leeds
I've taken a drop in many areas...
I've cleaned up my incoming links using the disavow too and upped more relevant links associated with the same industry as myself.
The question i have is should i change my URL's for my area pages from www.driveJohnsons.co.uk/driving-lessons-leeds to: www.driveJohnsons.co.uk/leeds
I've been told stuffing the URL with keywords for an area actually dilutes the strength of my homepage and all the other areas.
At the moment i have 60 area pages with: www.drivejohnsons.co.uk/driving-lessons-area
It use to work a treat, but i've started seeing some companies change their URLs to: /area and excluding the driving-lessons
If i make this change then i'm either going to have to bit the bullet on build up links for those areas again or do a redirect for each area.
I've added most areas to google places and i've added google map to many of area pages too.
If anyone knows a bit more, please let me know...
-
Hi Anthony,
So glad the resource helped!
-
Hi Miriam...
I found the local listings article very interesting, quite frightening in fact. It all makes sense but you have put a lot of things back into perspective.
-
Unfortunately, these kinds of pages, regardless of the URL, can present problems for organic SEO (even when they have some local SEO benefit). If the 60 pages are basically cookie cutter - the same content except for the city/region, then this is the kind of thin content that can cause problems with Panda. The keyword-loaded URL might marginally increase the problem, but I think the risk is real either way.
As Miriam said, if it's a few locations, it's not usually a big deal. Hundreds is definitely a risk. Sixty is a bit borderline, IMO. If your site had 1,000 indexed pages and 60 local pages, probably no big deal. If you have 100 pages total and 60 local, then I'd be concerned. There's no easy solution. Either you: (1)focus the regions and pare it down a bit, or (2) work to create more unique content on each of these pages and make sure they don't look thin.
-
Hi Anthony,
Back again. You might like to check out the good examples of multi-location businesses in this article from Local U:
http://localu.org/blog/designing-business-location-website-pages-part-2-multiple-location-business/
I'm still pretty much sticking to my original suggested URL structure, and I think these examples may be useful in your planning.
-
Hi Anthony,
You've raised an interesting point. I've asked some of our traditional SEO experts if they would weigh in on this with you. My clients typically have just a handful of locations, in which case, it's been a no-brainer for me to go with the /service-city url structure, but I think what you're asking is a valid question. It might still be the best choice to go with this structure, but if you're really concerned about it, you could go with just a /city URL structure for the office landing pages. On the other hand, the URL is only one step in your optimization work. Even if you did just go with the /city structure, wouldn't you be optimizing the tags and text of the pages with the core service phrase? Another thought, too, would be to go with /business-name-city, but when one considers that many business names may contain the core service phrase (Superior Driving Lessons, for example), this brings us back to square one.
When things become messy like this, I try to step back and ask myself if what I'm doing is natural. In this case, I think having pages on your website that specify that driving lessons are offered in X city is totally natural. It's not like you're trying to game anything with explaining this. You're giving an honest representation of what the business does and where it does it. Sometimes, I can over-think things about my clients, in which case, coming back to what is natural and honest can often provide a guiding light.
As I've said, I think your question is worthy of an answer. I've shared my thinking on this, but I really hope you'll get feedback from some of our other staff on this as I believe several heads may be better than one in hashing out the technical specifics of this.
-
Hi Miriam
I've got physical addresses for the areas. A google postcard has been sent to the area to authorise.
I'm not bothered if i rank on the first page locally or organically.
My concern with the URL was if i have 60 URL's saying /driving-lessons-AREA
Would that not dilute dilute each areas strength because of the heavy use of driving lessons and also dilute my home page optimisation which is for the whole of the UK for driving lessons.
As for links, i've had a good clean up around 2 months ago but it seems the disavow tool takes time as these horrible links are still present in my webmaster links to site section.
It's weird i have another website that is spammed to hell, bad links and poor content and that sits on the first page of local listings and i've done no work on it since the penguin update - as there was too much to do and i had other priorities.
All i've tried to do with my main site is good seo practice.
So you think the driving-lessons for every area page shouldn't make a difference ?
-
Hi Anthony,
Are you saying that your business has a physical office in each of these cities? I am assuming this is so, as you are only allowed to create Google+ Local pages for physical offices. If there is some chance that you've done so, lacking physical offices, then you could expect Google to remove these listings if they become aware that they don't represent physical offices.
I see no problem with your URLs. I'm curious as to what you read. Those look like perfectly fine URLs for local landing pages to me.
Are you aware that there is currently a shakeup going on in Google's local results? It's possible that this could account for any fluctuations you are seeing.
If not, it sounds like you may have had some link problems in the past. Is there any chance that you might have run afoul of the Google Places Quality Guidelines in some way? Here's a link to them: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
Ranking fluctuations happen in Local. Sometimes they are caused by tweaks to Google's algo. Other times, they occur when you are surpassed by a competitors' efforts. And, in some cases, a business drops because of engaging in bad practices. Consider these three scenarios and see if one of them fits your business most closely. Hope this helps.
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
-
SEO Strategy Report Structure
I am looking to get a structure for an SEO strategy document. While I understand that the specific tactics that you will used will vary significantly from project to project I would love to get my hands on a document that has heading that should be covered off in an SEO strategy report. Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks
Industry News | | cbarron0 -
Is it reasonable to not give an SEO access to our CMS?
A client (we designed their website) recently employed an SEO who required FTP access or access to the CMS. We told the client they would need to take full responsibility for any updates the SEO carried out, otherwise, the SEO could send over the changes and we would put them in at no extra cost to the client. The client didn't want to take responsibility and denied the SEO access to the CMS, and told the SEO to send over the completed work for us to put into the site. The SEO was not happy with this arrangement, and didn't seem to understand that we needed to trust him before access was would be given at a future date. Other SEO's have never had a problem with this arrangement, but this SEO claimed what they do is secret and for no one else to see. SEO want's to proceed, client doesn't want to proceed, we are happy to update the website with the client's approval. This particular client has a reputation for backing out of things. Also from the initial client, SEO contact the SEO was ready to update the website within 24 hours. Are we being unreasonable?
Industry News | | ChristinaRadisic1 -
Real-Life Negative SEO Study
This isn't so much of a question as an offer The Offer first, then the story. We are currently the target of a sustained negative SEO. This was only discovered in the last 3 or 4 days (Webmaster reports impressions down from 15,000 to 1,600!). I'm not asking for help, I believe we know what to do in order to combat it. My question is whether anyone at MOZ would like to use it as a real-life ongoing case study. We are not a new company and have never dabbled in black hat SEO. All current thinking suggests that this shouldn't have been possible given our age and reputation. A summary of our company/site below: 9 Year old domain $3m annual sales Previous Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Company 25,000 Facebook fans Hundreds of natural links including CNN.com, Washington Post, Inc.com I'm not the best writer and I'm not that technical. I would gladly give the right person full access to anaylics, webmaster tools, sales reports, interviews. Given that this is still ongoing (and there's always a chance we might not recover!) I suspect this would make a great case study for the community given the right author. gfbM8kV
Industry News | | experiencedays1 -
URL Search removal tool.
Hi All! I have tried to request a URL removal from Google search for an old testing site they still have listed. Ive tried requesting removal of the domain and of individual pages, all requests are getting rejected. Any help would be gratefully appreciated 😄 Many Thanks Anthony
Industry News | | Anthonykal-group0 -
Anyone used an SEO company they are happy with and would recommend to others?
I have been researching SEO companies. Some are not willing to provide references, while others have references with lukewarm recommendations. Any e-commerce owners/managers here that have used an SEO company that they would recommend? I am about to give up and stick to doing it in-house!
Industry News | | inhouseseo0 -
How to achieve the highest global and local relevance in google?
Let's say I have a company that has its main business in Europe for thefollowing languages: English German Portugese French Italian And let's say some other markets (e.g. the Portugese one in south america) is also important. The question now is how should we structure the Domain if we want onlyone top level domain (www.company.com)? a) By using subdomains to target users with Google Webmaster Tools for the relevant country: portugal.company.com/pt (same content) brasil.company.com/pt (same content) germany.company.com/de england.company.com/en etc. or b) by using virtual folders www.company.com/pt www.company.com/de www.company.com/en
Industry News | | imsi
etc. or c) something completely different I do not know about? What do you reckon is best? I appreciate all suggestions!0 -
Managing SEO Partners
Hi, Up until yesterday my main role was to implement & create SEO strategies and analytics for varying clients, and our own agency. Going forward I have been tasked with sourcing and managing SEO partners for our existing and future clients. This is totally a new concept for me, and I was wondering if any mozzers out there have been tasked with similar roles and could give me some ideas on what questions I should be asking, or maybe have an SEO matrix to rank agencies to help match to clients? Your help as always is greatly appreciated. Many thanks Sean
Industry News | | Yozzer0