What is the Best Keyword Placement within a URL for Inner Location Pages?
-
I'm working on a website with 100s of locations. There is a location search page (Find Widget Dealer), a page for each state (Tennessee Widget Dealers) and finally a page for each individual location which has localized unique content and contact info (Nashville Widget Dealer). My question is is related to how I should structure my URL and the keywords within the URL. Keywords in my examples being the location and the product (i.e. widget).
Here is a quick overview of each of the 3 tiered pages, with the Nashville page being the most optimized:
- Find Widget Dealer - Dealer Page only includes a location search bar and bullet list links to states
- Tennessee Widget Dealers - Page includes brief unique content for the the state and basic listing info for each location along with links to the local page)
- Nashville Widget Dealer - Page includes a good amount of unique content for this specific location (Most optimized page)
That said, here are the 3 URL structure options I am considering:
- http://website.com/widget-dealers/tennesee/nashville
- http://website.com/dealers/tennesee-widget-dealers/nashville
- http://website.com/dealers/tennesee/nashville-widget-dealer
Any help is appreciated! Thank you
-
#3 is a winner from my perspective, too.
Nice feedback on this thread, everyone. Great to see!
-
If no keywords in domain I would also go with #3 from a pure SEO perspective. Although post Hummingbird and post Pigeon I'm not sure it matters quite as much these days.
Just my 2 cents, no strong theory behind it except for good ole fashioned local SEO.
-
I get the same feeling when I look at the 3 options. My only hesitation is the old rule about keeping keywords early in the URL. Not sure if that really matter anymore.
-
There are no keywords in the domain. If there were I would definitely just go with dealers/tennessee/nashville and keep it simple and direct as you suggest.
-
Replying to your last statement if I were going to go with http://website.com/widget-dealers/tennesee/nashville, are you saying I should have the "widget dealers" page url be different and be just "dealers"? Wouldn't that confuse the bots on structure?
-
Just curious…are any of your keywords or location in the domain name?
If I were to search for this product, I would probably search something like "widget dealer Nashville Tennessee". I try to keep in mind what a person would search when structuring a URL. If your domain states the product, something like "www.widget.com/dealers/tennessee/nashville" would make the most sense to me.
Also, URL structure should semantically make sense as well as narrow down to the point of the page it links to. The URL affects SEO somewhat indirectly through user interaction and usability. Keep in mind, if you use long keywords at the end of your URL ("dealers/tennesee-widget-dealers/nashville") search engines will truncate it anyway in the results (www.widgets.com/dealers/.../nashville"). Basically, clean, simple, direct URLs are the best way to go.
Hope that helps
-
I agree Jarno! Option 3 looks and feels more logical than the others. I'd go with that as well!
-
Personally I would go with number 3, purely based on a feeling. Number 2 just feels and look wrong.
I think with number 3 you've got it all logically arranged. State / City dealer. Very logical.
Just my 2 cents.
Regards
Jarno
-
I would suggest not placing "widget-dealers" in any of the urls aside from the page that actually has the location search and bulleted list (which I'd assume is http://website.com/widget-dealers). Any state pages or location-specific pages could simply be structured as http://website.com/dealers/tennesee and http://website.com/dealers/tennesee/nashville respectively. This puts both the state and location closer to the start of the url; not to mention that shorter urls are generally better.
However, if you're adamant about using one of the 3 options outlined in your question, option 1 would logically be the correct structure as it tends from general to specific. The structure, from what I understand of your site, wouldn't make sense in the other two options.
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
-
Ranking for keywords locally with multiple locations
If we have a company with multiple physical locations across multiple states, but selling the same products, what would be an optimal strategy? All local locations have been claimed, but the site is not coming up for searches with local intent. If the corporate site focuses on the "products", what is the best way to get that associated with the individual locations as well? When implementing json+ld, would we put the specific location on the specific location pages and nothing on the rest? Any other tips would be great! Thanks in advance,
Local Website Optimization | | IDMI.Net0 -
301 or 302 Redirects with locale URLs?
Hi Mozers, I have a bit of a tricky question I need some help answering. My agency are building a brand new website for a client of ours which means changing the domain name (yay...). So! I have my 301's all ready to go for the UK locale, however, the issue I have is that the site will also eventually have French, German and Spanish locales - but these won't be ready to go until later this year. We will be launching in just English for September. The current site already has the French and German locales on it as well. Just to make sure I'm being clear, the site will be www.example.com for launch, but by lets say November, we will also have a www.example.com/fr/ and www.example.com/de/ site launched too. So what do I do with the locale URLs? As I said above, the exisitng site already has the French and German locales on it, so I don't particularly want to redirect the /fr/ and /de/ URLs to the English homepage, as I will want to redirect them to the new URLs in November, and redirecting more than once is bad for SEO right? Any ideas? Would 302s maybe be the best suggestion? Thanks! Virginia
Local Website Optimization | | Virginia-Girtz1 -
Business location in small town - How to target meta title?
So it's common practice to include the city/state in page titles and within the content. However let's say that a business is located in a small town, but serves customers in surrounding, larger towns. You might say that it's not worth mentioning the small town because there would be few searchers in that area. However, does Google take into account the distance a searcher is from the business location, in relation to the page title, as well as the Google my Business page? Obviously you can't go stuffing all of the surrounding towns into your homepage or main service pages. Is there any value in mentioning the small town, or is it fine to leave it out too? What has been your experience?
Local Website Optimization | | OliverNeely0 -
Multiple location pages are they bad?
Hello all, I am research some competitors of a client of mine. My client specializes in H.P. printer repair and over the last 8 years has lost market shares to the competition. I want to reclaim market share. As I was searching some of the service companies many have page that list multiple towns that they service. here is an example. http://printerrepairservice.com/locations-we-service/ Should I be recommending this to my client? To me it seems like a spam keyword process. I know an employee of this particular company and he say their online business is booming. I want my clients to boom too! What are your thoughts on these location type pages?
Local Website Optimization | | donsilvernail0 -
Removed huge spammy location footer, looking to rebuild traffic the right way
Hello, On this site, I removed a huge spammy location footer with hundreds of cities, states, and dog training types. The traffic and rankings have gone down a lot, and I'd like a discussion on how to rebuild things the right way. There's some local adjustments to be made to the home page content, but other than that: My plans: 1. Analyze top 10 Google analytics keyword queries and work them into the content as best as possible, though I am debating whether the client should make new pages and how many. 2. I'm going to suggest he add a lot of content to the home page, perhaps a story about a dog training that he did in Wisconsin. I'll think about what else. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | BobGW0 -
How to create sites with powerful individual pages to achieve top results.
How to create sites with powerful individual pages to achieve top results . According to MOZ I need to have powerful individual pages to achieve top results my site has a 0 authority so for this reason I need to focus on powerful pages but how do I know if my pages are powerful or not.
Local Website Optimization | | A.V.S0 -
Moving to a new Location: SEO Website
I'm moving to a different state and want to keep my business and clients in both locations. Is it better to build two separate sites, one for Ohio locations and create a new site for Tennessee content? (www.ohiosite.com & www.tennesseesite.com) Or is it best to keep one site, and install a second wordpress site in a separate folder like ( www.site.com + www.site.com/tennessee )
Local Website Optimization | | morg454540 -
Local Business Schema Markup on every page?
Hello, I have two questions..if someone could shed some light on the topic, I would be so very grateful! 1. I am still making my way through how schema is employed, and as I can tell, it is much more specific (and therefore relevant) in its details than using the data highlighter tool. Is this true? 2. Most of my clients' sites have a footer with the local business info included on every page of their site (address and phone). This said, I have been using the structured data markup helper to add local business schema to home page, and then including the footer markup in the footer file so that every page benefits from the local business markup. Is this incorrect to use it for every page? Also, I noticed that by just using the footer markup for the rest of the pages in the site, I am missing data that was included when I manually went through the index page (i.e. image, url, name of business). Could someone tell me if it is advisable and worth it to manually markup every page for the local business schema or if that should just be used for certain pages such as location, contact us, and/or index? Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | lfrazer0