Local SEO Question: Domain Wide Vs Specific Page
-
Hey Moz Community,
Question about Local SEO authority and how it applies to a domain vs. landing page. Let me elaborate...
Company is launching a new local out reach sales channel and merging it with our inbound sales channel under one brand. The plan thus far is to create a targeted landing page for local customers/leads.
I have been tasked with creating the written content and making sure we are optimized as much as possible for this landing page to show up for our city. Funny enough for a lot of relevant terms we are already in the top 10 with little optimization (Also due to low competition for most of these terms) Two questions:
1. Should the whole site be optimized for local - appropriate schema markup, G+ business local set up, contact page with correct address formatting, building citations/local links etc.? To accompany our targeted page?
2. Will taking a local first initiative hurt reaching our non-local target market? If so will a very targeted landing page for local customers do the trick minus rest of local optimizations ?
I guess what the question really boils down to is will optimizing for local hurt our broader inbound search reach/ranks in the long run? I want to be sure we are competitive to our broader audience and local audience on the same site with trying to get into sub-domains or considering re branding what is essentially the same department but for local purposes.
Responses and sharing previous experience would be greatly appreciated
-
Thanks for the Wisdom David! This really helped out ! I totally agree on EMD's - that said I don't believe I could swing this one on management and the developers. A lot branding already tied to the domain that would make this into more of a total re-brand project vs. just a merger.
Thanks again!
-
Hi Dylan,
Would you be able to explain your business model in a bit more detail? Is the business primarily local, with face-to-face transactions with customers in a given city, or is the business primarily virtual/non-local. The better you can paint a picture of what the business model looks like, the more tailored answers I believe you'll receive from the community here
-
1. Should the whole site be optimized for local - appropriate schema markup, G+ business local set up, contact page with correct address formatting, building citations/local links etc.? To accompany our targeted page?
If you are going to target that area specifically, then yes. If you still want to maintain a focus on national or boader match keywords, then no I would not modify the whole site.
2. Will taking a local first initiative hurt reaching our non-local target market? If so will a very targeted landing page for local customers do the trick minus rest of local optimizations?
You have to remember what the landing page's purpose is. You are trying to rank for one or a few things in a very specific area. One challenge I forsee in just having the landing page is that you are going to be up against companies that focus their whole effort to that one given area.
Depending upon what your long term goals are would determine how you move forward. To answer your question, yes it could hurt you on your national focus if you change your entire site to focus on that one given area.
Another aspect to look at is PPC and AdRank. Since you will have a local page that is highly targeted, your ad score will most likely go up for that ad if you choose to go the paid route. More on that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBmPtduElkM. If you are going to run some ads, the landing page could work well for you, and not be that expensive.
So what are your options? Well, IMO the landing page may accomplish what you are trying to do if there isnt a lot of competition for the phrase and target area. If you have competition whose main goal in life is to rank for that one area and phrase then I do not see the landing page carrying enough weight to make a difference.
If there is strong competition for that area, you may want to investigate a exact match domain, and place your content on that site. Many people discount the value of EMDs simply because they do not understand the value and their purpose. True, an EMD will not be easy to get to rank for a lot of keywords, but that is not their purpose. An EMD is to target one specific area and keyword. Will one page be enough? Probably not, but by setting up 5-10 pages on an EMD could get you ranking very high if the content and site are put together well. You could also link to your local site from your main national focus domain, and help them both out since they are relevant to one another.
By having the other domain, you dont risk sabotaging your main sites traffic by changing to a local focus. This will also allow you the freedom to create local profiles (citation sites, Google+ personal and business, etc) for your new domain. I know it sounds like a lot of extra work, but I dont think that having the subpage on your main site will be enough unless the competition is weak, or you have a lot of ways to promote the new page through marketing.
-
Hi Dylan,
This is from my own experience:
1. If your local is a priority, then you have to do this
2. It won't, really. Since (I presume) that your company is primarily a local-first company, then you can just create other landing pages that can target those that are non-local. You can actually create a more targeted copy like that and promote it in more targeted channels.
It can also work the other way around but I'm just looking at your advantages by optimizing for local, especially with the new update.
Bottom line, check their priority and optimize for that first.
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
-
Right hand side Google Local profile image pulling from 3rd party site
Hello! When googling our company's name, the Google Local profile comes up on the right hand side with the reviews, address, phone number, etc. Those are all fine but the main photo being used is not the one specified in the Google My Business profile but it seems to be pulling from a 3rd party site that recently added a link and an image to our website. Why is this happening and can we specify the image that shows up? Your help will be very much appreciated!!!
Image & Video Optimization | | uniseo10 -
Local Optimization for ATM Machine
I was curious if an ATM in a building or its own enclosure can be locally optimized as a branch if it has a physical location, it doesn't seem spammy by any means.If anyone has suggestions or an opinion I would love to hear them.
Image & Video Optimization | | kparada0 -
.png vs .jpg - Which ranks better or does it matter?
Hi Moz community, I am working on a SEO project (ecommerce) and most of the images on the website are .png and I notice they do not rank but yet the .jpg do. Do you recommend I change all the .png to .jpg? They all have alt text and keyword filenames (no spam 🙂 Here is the website www.moldear.com.ar. Notice the swimming pool coping tiles are .png and the swimming pool images are .jpg. I cannot get the coping images to rank for some reason Thanks Carla
Image & Video Optimization | | Carla_Dawson0 -
G+ Profile and Pages won't let me list categories
Hi Mozzers, I'm working on a client's G+ profile and sub-pages and the competition all have one simple category - 'House Clearance'. When you start typing there is a drop down and this category isn't present for us? Nowhere near.This is what the client does and I can't work out howe to get it in the page? Anyone else had this problem. Thanks Gareth
Image & Video Optimization | | Bush_JSM0 -
LOCAL SEO: Franchise --> One storefront. Multiple territory. Multiple listings?
An interesting problem came our way, and I'd love your help in solving it. An individual I'm chatting with owns and manages a number of territories of a service-based Franchise business around Eastern Iowa.**His territory covers multiple cities and zips. He services all of those places, but does not have a physical presence in all. There is one company office. But he has local numbers for each territory.**The corporate franchise's website is dynamic. It shows the 'local' number and information based on the visitor's location. Basically, little microsites for each franchise territory.Three years ago he set up individual Google Places pages for each territory, using a PO box address and the local phone numbers. The Google listings are set up not to display an address. The kick is -- those addresses are now expired. Those Google Local listings still exist, and drive considerable traffic in each target city. As you can imagine, this also causes havoc on his other citations. There are scattered (YP, Yahoo, Yelp, etc) listings for each address. Their name in GetListed brings up all five different addresses, each with a number of web properties already claimed.Now that I've offered to help, I need to determine the best way to move forward. Suspend the verified listings with hidden addresses and move to a single listing for the office location? We could add all of the zips in manually, but it would cover a very wide range, and could lose its rank in local SERPs. Even with a well-optimized description. And the local numbers would likely not show up. Keep the listings. Don't touch them at all. The owner is looking to maintain the look and feel of a local business in each of his territories. That is difficult to do with a single listing. Assuming we decide not to touch the active listings (option 2), what will we do for other listings? Do we claim a local Yahoo listing for each location? Just for the corporate office? Would love to hear how others have attacked the multi-territory franchise problem, or would in this case.Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | SocialJosh0 -
Google+ Local Reviews
Hi everyone, Is it against Google+ Local's guidelines to request one's customers to post reviews on their page? For example, asking my customers on my email list, or through Facebook if they can leave a review on the G+ Local page? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | FernwoodFitness0 -
Competition leaving bad reviews on our places page, what to do?
I have flagged the reviews as not useful from multiple IPs. I have attempted reporting the review as well. Google does nothing. It's very obvious that the review(s) are fake. Often all the other reviews of the person's profile are for different cities and all 5 stars for businesses that they are most likely doing SEO work for. Are (blackhat) SEOs using bad reviews as a technique to keep the competition out in your business/market? What did you do about it?
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0 -
Does Local SEO affect international ranking ability?
I'm 90% sure that local SEO doesn't have an affect on international rankings (it doesn't logically make sense that it would) but I wondered if someone could verify that assertion for me, either from experience or by pointing me in the direction of a resource/article that states it. Have searched high and low but can't find anything thanks j
Image & Video Optimization | | jamesjackson0