Questions about canonicals

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Howdy Moz community,

I had a question regarding canonicals. I help a business with their SEO, and they are a service company. They have one physical location, but they serve multiple cities in the state. My question is in regards to canonicals and unique content. I hear that a page with slightly differing content for each page won't matter as much, if most of the content is relevantly the same. This business wants to create service pages for at least 10 other cities they service. The site currently only have pages that are targeting one city location. I was wondering if it was beneficial to use a template to service each city and then put a canonical there to say that it is an identical page to the main city page?

Example: our first city was san francisco, we want to create city pages for santa rosa, novato, san jose and etc. If the content for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, city were the same content as the 1st city, but just had the slight change with the city name would that hurt? Would putting a canonical help this issue, if i alert that it is the same as the 1st page?

The reason I want to do this, is because I have been getting concerns from my copywriter that after the 5th city, they can't seem to make the services pages that much different from the first 4 cities, in terms of wording of the content and its structure. I want to know is there a simpler way to target multiple cities for local SEO reasons like geo targeted terms without having to think of a completely new way to write out the same thing for each city service page, as this is very time consuming on my end.

Main questions?

Will making template service pages, changing the city name to target different geographic locations and putting a canonical tag for the new pages created, and referring back to the main city page going to be effective in terms of me wanting to rank for multiple cities.

Will doing this tell google my content is thin or be considered a duplicate? Will this hurt my rankings?

Thanks!

[Dezzign]

Don't use canonical tags on your other area pages. If you use canonical tags on your area pages that point back to the main page then you won't be able to rank them, and they won't even get indexed! Only use self-referential canonical tags on your area pages.

You're facing a predicament that a lot of Seo's face. Building separate area pages is the most effective way to rank, period. The only exception to this rule is if your domain has huge authority (DA=70+). Then you can rank for different areas with a single page by just mentioning other areas in the page's copy somewhere.

The way to rank for other areas is simple....but not easy. You're already going about it the right way. But I also do the following:

• Ensure the content is 100% unique, or at least 90%+ unique.
• Change all of the image file names, e.g: new-diaper-cleaning-area.jpg
• Change all of the image title and alt tags.

To do this thoroughly takes a bit longer, but those ranking for the other areas may stick for many years to come, so it's worth the effort. Another secret little tip is to link out to an authority site in that area. So just Google 'Your Area Points of Interest' or 'Your Area Chamber of Commerce' and find the first PR5+ site in the results. Then link to them with a contextual link in the lower half of your page. Good Luck!

[KeriMorgret]

I'll let Miriam respond as to the effectiveness, as I don't have as much data about that. I was more giving my thoughts as a user and what I come across, especially having lived in the SF area and having seen lots of sites like that.

[Ideas-Money-Art]

I like this, and I agree with you about this concept. The client I am working with however does not want to give up his rankings for the specific geo terms, like the example you mentioned above.

Diaper service fremont - goes to diaper service fremont landing page
Diaper service hayward - goes to diaper service hayward landing page
Diaper service newark - goes to diaper service newark landing page

So, they think this strategy works as a way to keep the content fresh on their site as well as give them more ways to rank in specific locations that they are targeting. More pages means more chances to rank for specific geo targeted service keyword terms.

Would what you mentioned before like

Diaper cleaning  (one page) 
{content}
we serve

• city 1
• city 2
• city 3
• city 4

work more effectively than

Diaper cleaning [city name 1,2,3,4] (individual pages)

If i want to rank in those specific cities? Will that one good page, rank for many different local searches? or is the latter still more effective?

[KeriMorgret]

Honestly, as a user, I want to find all the information about your services on a page. If I'm looking for a diaper service, what matters to me is having all of the information in one place, not having thin content for "diaper service fremont" "diaper service hayward" "diaper service newark" "diaper service northeastern corner of San Lorenzo by the high school". Give me all the info about how wonderful your service is, how cloth diapers save the world, and give me a page where I can see if I'm in your service area. I don't know if that is something that could work in your situation, but it's a thought.

Ryan did have a good suggestion about testimonials including the city name of the user.

[RyanPurkey]

This might help your copywriter: have them incorporate neighborhoods from those other cities as well as testimonials from past customers based in those locations to help produce different content. Typically cities have their own separate ares: industrial part of town, hip, business sector, etc. that interact with service companies in different ways. Using your knowledge of how you've served people in those areas not only adds in a lot more familiarity to the page as well as localized referrals, but it should differentiate your content too.