Approach for an established site looking to serve different content to regions in a single country/lang

[jez000]

Hi guys,

I have an established site that currently serves the same content to all regions - west and east - in a single country with the same language.

We are now looking to vary the content across west and east regions - not dramatically, but the products offered will be slightly different.

From what i gather, modifying the url is best for countries, so feels like overkill for regions within the same country. I'm also unlikely to have very unique content, outside of the varied products, so I'm mindful of duplicate/similar content, but I know I can use canonical tags to address.

I have a fairly modern CMS that can target content based on region, but mindful of upsetting Google re; showing different content to what the bot might encounter, assuming this is still a thing.

So, three questions from an SEO perspective -

1. Do i need to really focus on changing my url structure, especially as I'm already established in a competitive market, or will I do more harm than good? Is the region in the URL a strong signal?

2. If I should make some changes to the url and/or metadata, what are the best bang for buck changes you would make?

3. How does Google Local fit into this? Is it a separate process via webmaster tools, or does it align to the above changes?

Cheers!!!

Jez

[jez000]

Thanks Rob, clear answer, much appreciated

Jez

[Toddfoster]

Hello Jez,

This is a fairly straightforward process:

1. Changing your url structure is unlikely to do you much good, especially if you are already established in your industry. You could try it out and see if rankings improve, but chances are it will be a lot of fruitless time and effort for not much (if any) gain. Region can be a strong signal for brick and mortar businesses from a local perspective (at the city/locality level) but it is unlikely to matter if you are serving full regions of an entire country. Google would likely interpret this as irrelevancy in areas that are not centered on a location you choose.

2. The url represents a "hard" ranking factor (as in, it is a technical SEO ranking factor), but probably isn't what you should be focusing on here. Meta data and tags are "soft" ranking factors (as in, they affect customer UX and can affect positive ranking signals from Google based on user metrics), so you might put some time into these if you feel they could use some work. For example, if you are targeting the Western region, you might specify this in meta tags so potential customers in the Western region will be more likely to click through, while Eastern customers might not. This will help with potential Bounce Rate, thereby indirectly helping your ranking potential.

3. Google Local is normally reserved for businesses operating in a given geographic area - for example, a business operating solely in a single city. Improving your Local profile for local customers is a good idea, but given the scope of your project, it is not likely going to be advantageous for you to divert too much of your time or resources to it.

Overall, region in the url is still a ranking factor, but this is trending towards becoming less important as time progresses, especially as "exact match" ranking declines. As I stated above, making alterations and testing the effects will let you know which direction to move for sure, but it carries risk with it. I would focus on maintaining quality (non-duplicate) content in 2 regions set from the same domain - new technical changes will make this more profitable for you in the long run than attempting to make exact matches in your url's or altering your site structure.

Cheers!

Rob