Onsite Optimization for 2 Locations on One Site
-
Hello,
We have multiple client who have 2 office locations n the same state in varying counties and would like to have their site rank for two counties. Is this plausible ?
For instance they would like their header tags to read "Lawyer in Middlesex & Monmouth County NJ" Rather than "Middlesex County NJ Lawyer"
Would this be an effective strategy or be seen as stuffing by Google?
-
Hello,
This was exactly my approach to this, and I feared it would be over optimization, however my top ranking competitor seems to be using both counties in their H1s as seen here:http://www.leifertlaw.com/
They also have a resources section linking to arguably pretty useful external links in their footer to links with nearly entirely duplicate content for each relevant town in their service areas: http://www.leifertlaw.com/delray-beach-criminal-lawyer-traffic-attorney.html
This website's optimization should literally be illegal, and seems to be using tactics that are frowned upon...yet it is ranking on the first page for both our target counties.
Should we still avoid using these methodologies?
-
Hi there
I would be careful because sometimes this can lead to over optimization. If they have two locations, make sure you list that on a Contact or Locations page to help users know that there are two locations.
Beyond that, I would look into Schema markup for those locations, as well as citations/listings for each - you can do this through Moz Local, Whitespark, or Yext. I would also do a local SEO audit so that you can make sure listings/citations are consistent. Make sure this is also reflected in your social media channels, especially in each locations verified Google My Business pages.
Be careful with content directed at locations - websites have the tendency to use the same content for multiple locations, switching out only the location. This is a big duplicate content issue and can backfire.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
Different variations of my site (www ; non www ; https ; http) have different authority status
In Open Site Explorer I can see that the www and non www versions of my site gets treated differently with one group of links pointing to each version of the same page. This gives a different PA score. eg. http://mydomain.com DA 38 PA 37 http://www.mydomain.com DA 28 PA 27. Currently our preferred variation is https://www.mydomain.com but it used o be http://mydomain.com for 3+ years and I can see that the non www version of my domain have more authority. Would you advise us to "change back" to setting our preferred url as the non www version as before or would it have a negative impact on our SERP ranking etc if we change it again now?
Local Website Optimization | | shaunn140 -
Discourage search engines from indexing this site AFTER a site launch
Hi, I have unticked "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" a few months before the initial release of my website. I don't want to be found by search engines until the official release (still a few months left). Do you think that ticking this box again will harm the website's long-term ranking or have any repercussion on the website? Do you have any additional advice to avoid being temporarily ranked until the official release which won't harm the website in SERPs? Thanks for your answers.
Local Website Optimization | | Juvo0 -
Is it deceptive to attempt to rank for a city you're located just outside of?
I live in Greenville, SC (who has a large "Greater Greenville" reach). I work for an agency with many clients who are located just outside of the city in smaller towns, sometimes technically in counties other than Greenville. Often, they provide services in the city of Greenville and aim to grow business there, so we'll use "Greenville, SC" throughout site copy, in titles, and in meta descriptions. Are there any negative implications to this? Any chance search engines think these clients are being deceptive? And is it possible these clients are hurting their ranking in their actual location by trying to appear to be a Greenville-based company? Thank you for any thoughts!
Local Website Optimization | | engeniusbrent1 -
Applying NAP Local Schema Markup to a Virtual Location: spamming or not?
I have a client that has multiple virtual locations to show website visitors where they provide delivery services. These are individual pages that include unique phone numbers, zip codes, city & state. However there is no address (this is just a service area). We wanted to apply schematic markup to these landing pages. Our development team successfully applied schema to the phone, state, city, etc. However for just the address property they said VIRTUAL LOCATION. This checked out fine on the Google structured data testing tool. Our question is this; can just having VIRTUAL LOCATION for the address property be construed as spamming? This landing page is providing pertinent information for the end user. However since there is no brick and mortar address I'm trying to determine if having VIRTUAL LOCATION as the value could be frowned upon by Google. Any insight would be very helpful. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | RosemaryB1 -
Company sells home appliances and commercial appliances. What is the best way to differentiate the two on our site for the best user experience/SEO?
Should we structure it starting at the homepage with the user selecting for home or for business, that way they have to make a selection before moving further OR should we somehow differentiate in the navigation using the top menu tabs, dropdowns, etc?
Local Website Optimization | | dkeipper1 -
Internationalization: 2 Websites in English for different location?
Hi guys, My customer is already well established in France. They have a good Domain Authority and a lot of Inbound Links. They're doing very well in France. They're now looking at entering the US market, however, their trademark is already registered within the US. They therefore decided to go with a new name. Basically: They open an english-only website for the US presence They add English as a language on their French website for their European presence They'll therefore have two domains: aaa.com: US Presence bbb.com: European Presence; 2 languages: French & English My main reaction was that: since the content on aaa.com and bbb.com/english/ will be the same, they'll necessarily have Duplicate Content issue. How would you look at this? What would be the best alternative for them? Thank you
Local Website Optimization | | PierreLechelle0 -
What is the best CMS Approach for Multilingual Versions of Site?
We have expanded into France and Brazil and now have a someone in-house that can translate to French and Brazilian Portuguese. I own ".fr" and ".com.br" versions of our domain. We are using Wordpress for our CMS. We are currently publishing about 2 articles a week on English site which we would be translating and publishing through new international sites (when appropriate). We will be changing out photos and videos at times in addition to all the text/copy. So, before I jump deep into this I wanted to reach out for help regarding the best modern approach to this. Should I use some sort of WP Plugin that will let me manage each of these through 1 WP install or is it better to run each separately through multiple WP installs? I want to achieve this while... avoiding any duplicate content penalties. provide easy admin/editor management of publishing content. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | the-coopersmith0 -
Can a Find Us Link suffice as the NAP in footer of site?
I understand the need for NAP in the website for citation sourcing / local ranking purposes, etc. Is it possible to use a linking anchor text such as "Find Us" that can link to the Contact Page of the site that does list the street address? Or should it link to the google places listing? The client basically wants to "hide" the NAP, but keep the power of the local listing. Can this be done? Any suggestions? Or an example of website that does this successfully?
Local Website Optimization | | cschwartzel1