Target broad keywords for local or broad keywords+local city?
-
Hi,
Is it better to target broad keywords in a local market or target 'broad keywords + local city'? Or both?
The sites I'm working with currently have landing pages for each 'local city/town + keyword' ... they each have about 5 services they offer and about 7 or more nearby towns they service. This means I'm tracking about 35+ keywords per client. That seems to be a bit much. Am I wrong? Would it be just as effective to target broad keywords and track them locally being that the local market isn't very competitive. Of course the broad keywords yield more search volume according to google keyword tool. However, the current setup is sending a worthwhile traffic volume to the site.
According to Miriam's article http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide I'm working with a business model 2 - single brick and mortar location servicing many areas nearby.
Thanks,
Chris
-
Hi Joshua,
Good for you for letting the client know that duplicate content landing pages for the cities are not a good idea. If the client is rural and the competition is low, I honestly wouldn't be recommending city landing pages at all in this scenario, unless their is a genuine reason for the business to be describing its activities in cities B, C, D, etc. Again, without knowing the nuances of the specific business, it's hard to give great advice. So, I can only take a general stab at this.
Let's say the client is a farm supply store located in Sonora, California. They are the only farm supply store within a 20 mile radius, and they want to be sure that customers in neighboring communities like Angels Camp, Jamestown, Colombia and Groveland know they exist. I would likely recommend a strategy like this:
-
Optimize all key pages of the website for product/service terms + Sonora
-
Earn testimonials from the farm store's loyal customers who come to them from various towns and include these throughout the product/service pages, including the name of the town the customer comes from.
-
Build citations for the Sonora-based store
-
Put a blog on the site and, on a modest basis, blog about industry-related events in the all the surrounding towns. Good content for the blog would be things like planting forecasts for the various towns at the different mountain elevations, coverage of farm stands, rural fairs, bake sales, mills, large animal vets, farming demonstrations, school gardens and anything else that relates to agriculture taking place in the neighboring communities that shop at the farm store for products.
-
Consider offering town-specific sales, contests and other promotions.
Given the rural location and low level of competition, this would likely be all the business would need to do to become very dominant for its goods and services within its own city and in the neighboring communities. It should not be necessary in any way to create those thin, duplicate content pages. A modest but well-planned effort should be all this business needs to succeed.
-
-
Hi,
The clients are located in small towns with many other small towns surrounding them. Most times one business is 'local enough' to be countywide and even stretch into nearby counties because of the rural-ish nature of the local market.
Currently, my company has done city pages (not unique content, just city specific titles changed) and done less effort toward the broad keywords. Even though they're getting traffic now with this method I've already notified them that they need unique content for each city page and that it's only a matter of time before Google's algorithm doesn't award such gray-hat techniques.
It'd be much easier for me to have them focus on the broad keywords then have a blog that has city-specific categories talking about the service coverage in the nearby town. However, until I have enough data I think I'll just stick to doing city-specific content (unique) with broad keyword focus as well. Review the data, then reevaluate.
Perhaps you have a better structure or approach?
Thanks,
Chris (Josh's SEO guy).
-
Hi Joshua,
That's really nice that you read my Moz Blog article. If the client is business model #2, then his city of location will almost always outweigh anything you do with additional cities. It can be difficult to offer general advice in this situation because I'm not aware of the specifics of the client's business - for instance, what is his relationship to these other cities? Is it a strong relationship or is it kind of a situation in which you're having to scramble to find a reason to build content for cities B, C and D? These nuances are very important in creating a strategy. Yes, broad keywords are almost always going to outweigh service/city terms, but for most local businesses, it's the city-related or city-based searches that count most.
-
I would generally track both, with the understanding that you are only looking to gain traffic from local clients. This doesn't specifically mean that your local clients are going to be typing in the city details in their search for your client's service. Some people might include the city while some might assume the search will target their location automatically. Generally on landing pages, if your client has a physical location, it's not that hard to create copy that includes the city. I would definitely include the main city in your titles--along with the service keywords. The search engines will pick up both.
-
While you should not fear change, your comment "However, the current setup is sending a worthwhile traffic volume to the site." says all you need to know, if the service + city landing page model is working, don't change it to change it or because you read something that says you should. If you do however believe that targeting the broad keywords instead will net you better local results, set up a few landing pages for the broad keywords and A/B test them against the local landing pages.
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
-
Should I avoid duplicate url keywords?
I'm curious to know Can having a keyword repeat in the URL cause any penalties ? For example xyzroofing.com xyzroofing.com/commercial-roofing xyzroofing.com/roofing-repairs My competitors with the highest rankings seem to be doing it without any trouble but I'm wondering if there is a better way. Also One of the problems I've noticed is that my /commercial-roofing page outranks my homepage for both residential and commercial search inquiries. How can this be straightened out?
Local Website Optimization | | Lyontups0 -
Does anyone experienced to rank a KOREAN Keyword here?
Hi everyone just a quick question is it working if i rank a korean keyword in google search engine?Any tip and advice on how gain more keyword for this.
Local Website Optimization | | invechseo0 -
I want to rank a national home page for a local keyword phrase
Hello - We are a nationally available brand based in Denver, CO. Our home page currently ranks #8 (used to be 5) for "real estate photography in Denver" -- I want to improve this ranking, but our home page is generalized and not geared toward Denver, CO but to all of our markets. I'm trying to troubleshoot this and have a few ideas.... I would love advice on the best route, or a different route altogether: Create a Denver-specific page -- _will that page compete with my home page that is already ranked in the top ten? _ Add the keyword phrase in the image alt attribute Add keyword phrase into the content - need to make sure that viewers realize we are national I already updated the meta description to say "real estate photography in Denver and beyond"
Local Website Optimization | | virtuance_photography1 -
If we are a local based business, what is the best approach to tracking keywords? Shall we be micro tracking?
we are a local based business and we only have one physical property but we service a 15 mile radius (people within a 15 mile radius will use our services) when it comes to keyword tracking and monitoring should we just be looking at the 3 main local towns or should we go out to the villages around our area too? at what level shall we be micro tracking? do we go to such a micro level for tracking keywords for all the villages which creates a lot of keywords for the locations? what is the best approach?
Local Website Optimization | | Mutatio_Digital0 -
Will NAP Schema Impact non local searches
Hi, Just got a business address and a toll free number for my website. I have read that adding the NAP details schema to the site gives that additional weight of trust to Google and also helps local search. Now my website is NOT local. However, if I add my LA address details on my website using the Local Business schema.org, it might give Google the impression that I am based out of CA. Fair enough, but my question is, will it impact negatively for SERPs from other states. For example I might want to rank for KW "Autism Alternative Treatment". Obviously now that I have added my NAP, if someone keys in Autism Alternative Treatment LA or Autism Alternative Treatment CA, google should give my site preference. But if someone searched Autism Alternative Treatment Arizona, will google exclude/downgrade me (even though there may not be a local site for Arizona) from the search results under the pretext that I am not Arizona based? Your suggestion would be very helpful.
Local Website Optimization | | DealWithAutism0 -
2 Relevant local websites but closing one and redirecting it to an older site
We have 2 websites, 1 domain is about 10 years old and another is about 4 years old, the 4 yr old domain we are thinking of shutting down since its the same type of service we run but it was a 'keyword domain' that used to rank on 1st page but now its 4th page back. If we put the blog posts and other content + setup re-directs from the 4yr old domain to the 10 yr old domain, would this help the 10 yr old domain with more link juice that it might need for the extra boost? There isnt really any point having both websites up since both are about the same content and targeting the same local market.
Local Website Optimization | | surfsup0 -
How to target an established .co.uk site/blog to audiences in other English speaking countries - UAE, Singapore for example?
Excuse for the novice questions, but looking for help! 🙂 I have an established .co.uk website/blog for which I have established a good solid following in the UK over a good number of years. That said I have recently relocated to Dubai and so I am looking to target my English blog content to English speakers here and Singapore? While the language setting of my site is "en" is there anyway that I can change this to "en-ae" and "en-sg" for example to build a following in these markets? Or is my .co.uk TLD an issue that is going to hold me back from building following in these locations? I ask as I have just read the hreflang announcement from Google, but noticed in my Webmaster Tools that I get the following message: "Your site has no hreflang tags". Thanks in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | twofourseven0 -
Should I use keywords in all my URLs?
I couldn't find anything online that really covers my exact question. If I wanted to change my home page URL, (currently along the lines of "http://example.com/home") would it be a good idea to change it to "http://example.com/dallas-auto-repair"? Then on the "services page" I might change the URL to "http://example.com/dallas-auto-services". Pages like the contact page would probably remain simply "example.com/contact" Theoretically by putting my main keywords right there in the URL, I would imagine that I could get moved up in the SERPs. Am I wrong? So if this is a bad idea, please let me know why. If this is a good idea, do you have any articles or references that cover this, or even personal experience?
Local Website Optimization | | Marshall_Motors0