How to approach SEO for a national website that has multiple chapter/location websites all under different URLs
-
We are currently working with a client who has one national site - let's call it CompanyName.net, and multiple, independent chapter sites listed under different URLs that are structured, for example, as CompanyNamechicago.org, and sometimes specific to neighborhoods, as in CompanyNamechicago.org/lakeview.org. The national umbrella site is .net, while all others are .orgs. These are not subdomains or subfolders, as far as we can tell. You can use a search function on the .net site to find a location near you and click to that specific local website.
They are looking for help optimizing and increasing traffic to certain landing pages on the .net site...but similar landing pages also exist on a local level, which appear to be competing with the national site. (Example: there is a landing page on the national .net umbrella site for a "dog safety" campaign they are doing, but also that campaign has led to a landing page created independently on the local CompanyNameChicago.org website, which seems to get higher ranking due to a user looking for this info while located in Chicago.)
We are wondering if our hands are tied here since they appear to be competing for traffic with all their localized sites, or if there are best practices to handle a situation like this. Thanks!
-
Hey Kat. I'd tend to agree with Andy's response that moving this into one site makes sense. You could then redirect the local pages into the appropriate page on the main site, creating a single authoritative domain. You'd want to make sure as you do this that each local page is truly unique...if the Chicago and Detroit local sites both contain similar pages about a dog safety campaign, you'd want to consolidate those (probably) into a single dog safety campaign page that could work for both locations (or find a way to distinguish the content for each location).
Now, having gone through a few projects like these, I know full well that what is best for SEO or UX isn't always the most popular solution. Internal politics play a role, and I'm guessing you might be in a spot where some of the local chapters don't want to relinquish control over their site. So, as an alternative solution you could look for some other ways to link these sites together. For instance, you could have a dog safety page on the main site that all the local chapters can link to and possibly, let the local chapters adjust the content slightly via the link. As in, if the url includes a query sting referencing Chicago (maincompanysite.net/dog-safety.php?location=Chicago), the content on that dog safety page could be programmed to show Chicago's phone number and address. That way you have a definitive page that can rank, but also a way for local chapters to share that content through their domain.
A lot of that alternative comes down to content governance rules, communication about who creates what page, a clear understanding of how people link to sites, and probably some clear design/brand standards. It is a bit of a mess, but not an unrealistic reality if you can't convince all the stakeholders in the value of consolidating to a single domain.
Hope that helps!
-
Hi Kat,
I would be looking to bring everything into one site. What they are doing isn't really good for user experience, and as you said, they are competing against themselves.
It shouldn't be too difficult to do and 301 the local sites to the relevant areas within the main site.
-Andy
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
-
Geo-Targeting Boroughs/Neighborhoods in New York
Is there a way to determine which boroughs/neighborhoods are drawing traffic in big cities like NYC and LA?Google Analytics lists all traffic under the city name, so New York, NY, gets 90%+ of the traffic.
Local Website Optimization | | GoogleAlgoServant3 -
Help choosing ideal URL structure
Hi All, We are considering changing the link structure for the website of a large restaurant group, which represents about 100 restaurants in the USA. While I have some opinions, I'd very much welcome the opinions of some other seasoned SEO's as well. There are two options on the table for the link structure, which you can see below. The question is for restaurants with multiple locations, and how we structure those URLs. The main difference is whether we include the "/location/" of the URL, or if that is overkill? I suppose maybe it could have some value if someone is searching a term like "Bub City Location", with "location" right in the search. But otherwise, it just adds to the length of the URL, and I'm not sure if it'll bring any extra value... In this example, "bub-city" is the restaurant name, and "mb-financial-park" is one of the locations. Option A
Local Website Optimization | | SMQ
http://leye.local/restaurant/bub-city
http://leye.local/restaurant/bub-city/location/mb-financial-park/ Option B
http://leye.local/restaurant/bub-city
http://leye.local/restaurant/bub-city/mb-financial-park/ Thoughts?0 -
How to use canonical tags/hreflang for a company in multiple English-speaking countries?
My company is a global company with locations in AU, UK, and USA. Each has their own website. For example, we have https://www.catskill.us (for the USA), a https://www.catskill.com.au (for the AU), and https://www.catskill.co.uk (for the UK). I have used both canonical tags and hreflang tags for our USA website to distinguish any duplicate content from our AU and UK websites. I am wondering if I used the canonical tags and hreflang tags appropriatley in the below example for our USA website. Is it the best way to avoid link value loss? | |
Local Website Optimization | | joseph.defranco
| | |
| | |
| | |0 -
Need an Local SEO's expert opinion regarding a client trying to improve their rankings.
I have a business i'm working with right now who wants to improve their rankings in a very competitive legal niche. Are there any Local SEO gurus out there that would be willing to explain in a paragraph or two what's going wrong? Let me know if you'd like to help and I'll PM you the domain.
Local Website Optimization | | BrianJGomez0 -
Will hreflang eliminate duplicate content issues for a corporate marketing site on 2 different domains?
Basically, I have 2 company websites running. The first resides on a .com and the second resides on a .co.uk domain. The content is simply localized for the UK audience, not necessarily 100% original for the UK. The main website is the .com website but we expanded into the UK, IE and AU markets. However, the .co.uk domain is targeting UK, IE and AU. I am using the hreflang tag for the pages. Will this prevent duplicate content issues? Or should I use 100% new content for the .co.uk website?
Local Website Optimization | | QuickToImpress0 -
What is the effect of CloudFlare CDN on page load speeds, hosting IP location and the ultimate SEO effect?
Will using a CDN like CloudFlare.com confuse search engines in terms of the location (IP address) of where the site is actually physically hosted especially since CloudFlare distributes the site's content all around the globe? I understand it is important that if customers are mostly in a particular city it makes sense to host on an IP address in the same city for better rankings, all things else being equal? I have a number of city-based sites but does it make having multiple hosting plans in multiple cities/ countries (to be close to customers) become suddenly a ridiculous thing with a CDN? In other words should I just reduce it down to having one hosting plan anywhere and just use the CDN to distribute it? I am really struggling with this concept trying to understand if I should consolidate all my hosting plans under one, or if I should get rid of CloudFlare entirely (can it cause latency in come cases) and create even more locally-based hosting plans (like under site5.com who allow many city hosting plans). I really hope you can help me somehow or point me to an expert who can clarify this confusing conundrum. Of course my overall goal is to have:
Local Website Optimization | | uworlds
1. lowest page load times
2. best UX
3. best rankings I do realise that other concepts are more important for rankings (great content, and links etc.) but assuming that is already in place and every other factor is equal, how can I fine tune the hosting to achieve the desirable goals above? Many thanks!
Mark0 -
Local SEO: City & County Pages
I'm working on developing some local pages for an HVAC company. They cover two counties, so I was planning on having two county pages, then linking them to individual city pages to keep the menu simpler and not cluttering it up with a couple dozen city pages for people to slog through. Has anybody ever done county pages before for local SEO? Or at least seen them? Just curious to see if there's any real benefit overall for have separate county pages, or if I should just stick to city pages.
Local Website Optimization | | ChaseMG0 -
What's the best way to add phrase keywords to the URL?
Hi, Our keywords are all our service + a list of towns (for example, "carpet cleaning St. Louis"). The issue I'm having is that one particular site could be targeting "carpet cleaning St. Louis", "carpet cleaning Manchester", "carpet cleaning Ballwin", "carpet cleaning Kirkwood", etc. etc. etc... up to maybe 15 different towns. Is there a way to effectively add these keywords into the URL without making it look spammy? I'm having the same issue with adding the exact keywords to the page title, img alt tag, etc. Thanks for any advice/input!
Local Website Optimization | | nataliefwc0