Local SEO same company two different locations
-
I have a client who has 2 locations approx 20 miles apart. He wants to reach new customers at the second office location. He is an owner of a law firm he practices elder law, in the second location he has an attorney who practices injury law. The second location is in an area where targeting prospects for elder law could also be lucrative. We currently have two separate websites for each area of law.
My question is...
Would it be suggested to create another elder law website to target the potential clients in this second location.
Also for the first location we have put in place a content marketing strategy that has increased revenue considerably. Basically creating content (blog posts) that resonate with the target audience. If a new website is in order can the blog post be posted here too with a canonical referencing the original website. Im thinking a slow redistribution of content on the new site.
Advice here is greatly appreciated as this new market for my client could increase revenue even more.
-
Hi Donald!
Good topic! Ideally, this is how most Local SEOs would suggest organizing a business with this model:
-
A single website representing the brand
-
A unique page on the site for each service
-
A unique page on the site for each of the two physical offices
-
Both offices on the Contact page and in the footer
-
A unique Google+ Local page for each of the 2 locations, and a unique citation set for each of the physical locations
Instead, what your client has done is to build out a unique website for each of their two specialties. Fortunately, as the business has two unique locations, many of the concerns that would normally surround such a strategy do not apply. If the client only had one office and had built out two websites - that would be a big concern. But, happily, this is not the case with your client.
Nevertheless, the drawbacks of your client's approach are that, instead of all of the work he does pouring into building up the strength of a single brand on a single site, he is going to have to split his energy and funding between two different sites. It's not as convenient to do this, but if the client wishes to stick with this approach, here are a few things to be sure not to do:
-
Don't share phone numbers between the two offices. Each must have its own unique local phone number
-
Do a citation audit to be sure that there are no merged listings and that the name, address, phone number and website for location A are not mixed up anywhere with those of location B. Everything must be separate and distinct at all times. The Google+ Local pages and citation sets for the 2 offices must be totally unique.
-
Do not put the address, phone number or URL of website A on website B or vice versa, anywhere. Keep these sites totally separate. Do not link from one website to the other.
-
Do not share content of any kind between the two websites. All content must be unique on the two sites.
Hopefully, following these steps, you can prevent merging of details, and can simply market the two sites the way any local businesses would be marketed. Hope this helps!
-
-
The second office is branded entirely different, The only thing it has similar is the business name. In fact both websites are branded toward their respective urls,
central jersey injury
mercer elder law
Each website makes note that there is another office in a separate location. The only thing that brings them together is the logo which is archer law office, llc They are in their own right two different businesses.
-
My apologies, I didn't notice that there were 2 sites already in place. If I were starting from scratch, I would have kept everything under one site.
So lets ignore office 1 and concentrate on the second. I would not go adding additional pages to office 1 because you don't want to run into difficulties where you are trying to compete against yourself for the same terms. No harm in mentioning it, but don't try and compete.
Office 2 should have it's own set of skills, keywords, location and Google My Business page. My only concern is if Google sees two websites for one business like this. It shouldn't be a problem, but there is always an element of unknown with Google and if you tie these in together through Google My Business, you might draw additional attention.
-Andy
-
So what would be the proper way of expanding the local search radius? We are doing fine about ten miles out. Should we create a second page dedicated to the 2nd office location? this is what i am asking for the best way to implement a local campaign for the second office. Remember there is already a lawyer in the second office location that practice injury law. Should a second page be created on the website about elder law? should I do it for both websites?
-
Would it be suggested to create another elder law website to target the potential clients in this second location.
I wouldn't do this Donald. The way Google views this sort of thing is 'why produce it on a second website, when the first website would do just fine'. If there was a huge separation in industries, then yes, it would be advisable, but for this, I would keep it all within the same 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
-
How to optimize landing pages for local search?
I'm trying to understand how to optimize landing pages to appear in local search. For example, if someone in Chicago searches for "plumber", Yelp has a page "Top 10 Plumbers in Chicago." They are generating these pages for numerous business types and cities. I can't see anything on the page or metadata that indicates a geographic location or business type. What optimizations are they doing to get Google to know that it's a page for a specific city and type of business?
Local SEO | | Tourizee0 -
Advice needed; Scrap mature .co.uk and move to .com, or run two separate domains?
Asked before, we have a .co.uk domain name and it has grown with rankings over many years with many quality links made to it. Since, we also have acquired the .com of our agency brand, and want to also focus on US market - something hard to do with a UK domain. However, we aren't sure which route to go from here... Should we keep the .co.uk active and allow that to focus on the UK market, and grow the .com from scratch with a site that looks the same with slightly different content and interlink the two with regional flags. Or move across to the .com totally and scrap the .co.uk. I know we could do a redirect and save a good number of the links made on the .co.uk, but is that worth even doing? And what would the risk be of having two sites the same with similar content? Since this isn't an area I've dealt with before, we are interested to get some real advice to understand which decision is right given the scenario.
Local SEO | | thewebpreneur0 -
Opinion on stripping down homepage to two navigational links for SEO
I am in the process of restructuring a clients site who offers two niches. One is an event venue and the other is private dining. We have struggled in the past with ranking for either one since google sees restaurant and event venue as two distinct businesses. So on the homepage I would like to essentially 'divide' the site into two sections - Weddings and events, and Dining. From there people can choose which part of the website they would be directed to. (There are other things we will do as well, like up content etc. but this is the start) So my question is this - from an SEO standpoint should I do away with a menu on the home page and only have two links there and have the site hierarchy go down from there, does this give more 'juice' to the two categories? or will it hurt the site since there is no about, contact, etc page link on the home page? thanks for any opinions on this!
Local SEO | | Jenn_E0 -
How to promote a local SEO/Web design company via a blog (mainly blogging) and social media?
Hello, What is possible as far as promoting a local SEO and Web Design Company with a blog? I'm offering simple web design, both informational and product based, as well as SEO for existing informational and product-based companies here in Boise, Idaho. At first it won't be face to face so there's no local SEO. I honestly don't like to sell. I've done it for years and I'd like to spend my time blogging (mainly blogging), doing social media, and volunteering. How can I use this approach to get a beginning agency off the ground? Please don't tell me to go push my services. I'd like to get my company off the ground through avenues that have integrity to me. How do I do this? Feel free to include articles and videos in your response if appropriate. Thank you.
Local SEO | | BobGW0 -
Showing a preferred Google location in branded search for a multi-location business?
Background: A business has 5 brick and mortar locations, in 5 different states, with 5 separate Google+ profiles. The corporate headquarters are in Michigan. The Michigan Google+ Local profile is the one that should be most closely associated with the brand. Problem: We want the Michigan Google + Local page to show up for branded searches nationwide: right now, it only shows up on geolocated searches in Michigan. Of course, it totally makes sense that the other 4 Google+ local pages will appear for users searching with IP locations (or logged in locations) near those states. But for other states - is there a way to help Google understand or give preference to the main corporate location? What we're trying to prevent is someone in New York City searching for "company name", and then seeing a lesser location appear in SERPs associated with the brand, instead of our favored Michican location. Ideas so far: Continue to enhance out the Michigan location's Google+ page (check categories, photos, description, share content frequently, expand circles, get reviews, yada yada yada - we've already done much of this). _Maybe give this page more attention and content than other locations if we have to? _ Build links into Michigan Google+ page? Ensure general citations are up to date - use localeze/moz local etc. Website - We have a page for each location. While Michigan is featured, we also do promote our other offices as well - all kinda promoted equally on site in terms of metadata, content, etc. Any other brainstorming advice or out-of-the-box (oh no, did I just say "out-of-the-box"?) ideas to help Google associate the Michigan location as our "primary" one we want shown on more generic branded searches, even though of course the other 4 are impt too? Tricky...
Local SEO | | mirabile0 -
How to market locally for a national brand?
I just got a new client that offers travel information for cities throughout the US and Canada. They have a specific page set up for most locations. I want to promote each page for that community, but the task is very daunting, as you could imagine. It's almost like having a separate client in each city. I've optimized the title tags, meta descriptions, content and so forth, but that's not enough. Engaging in a backlinking and social media strategy for each location is insane - I wouldn't have enough time in the day. Looking for off page promotional ideas that can be scaled nationally. Does anyone have a similar situation with a national brand, or any ideas you'd like to share?
Local SEO | | Masbro1 -
I'm starting an internet marketing company along with a newspaper company
I'm starting a project for a newspaper company where I just started working as the in-house SEO. I'll have ownership along with the newspaper for this new internet marketing company and could use some advice.Should I build our new site on the newspapers domain with good pr already or start a fresh site from square one. I'm trying to weigh out the pro's and cons and I'm still undecided.This news company has been around since the 50's and the trust is there. But just one sticky situation with an uneducated client could hurt the reputation of the newspaper.Your thoughts please!
Local SEO | | onetwotree0 -
Links for Local Search: Relevance or Proximity?
Hi Mozzers, In the best situation links for a local business should be relevant and come from a local organization, but this is not always possible. In cases where you have to choose between relevance and proximity which is more important?
Local SEO | | waynekolenchuk0