Local SEO Strategy after Pigeon update.

[Jubaer96]

We are a local web design agency and well ranked with several local city level keywords. Now we want to spread out our services to near by cities. What's the best way to do that?

Example: We've already ranked for "web design new york". Now how can we rank our site with "web design in Washington" and "web design in California"?

Note: We've good DA and PA (above 60) along with higher Trust Rank. But don't have those new keywords on our content.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jubaer!

The first thing to do here is to establish what connection your business has to these other target states where you lack a physical location. A web design company isn't like an SAB (a plumber, electrician, etc.) that will typically travel to various cities to serve clients. So, your connection is likely to be different to this, and for your industry, is typically going to be the fact that you have clients in these states. So, one suggestion would be that you create a page for each target state (it sounds like you're going after states instead of cities, right?) and then showcase your clients in that state on its designated page on the website. Add really good testimonials from the clients in those cities, accompanying their business showcase and brainstorm other content you might add to these pages to make them interesting and helpful.

Understand that you will, of course, be going after organic rankings rather than local ones, and that if you fail to get the organic results you're hoping for (competition is likely to be very stiff) you may need to rely in part or in full on PPC instead of organic.

[Jubaer96]

We're having a good number of Local links and also have great relationship with the market. But according to this strategy, if we want to target 6-7 keywords then we have to create 6-7 separate pages. Which won't look good. And the Link Juice and authority will also divide to 7 pages instead of having in 1 service page. Will be that a good idea?

We don't have plan to work with national keywords. If you see, we're ranked on #1 with "web design" keyword on our city. Now willing to expand it on other near by cities. And also want to work with keywords like "web design + city name".

[Eric_Rohrback]

What you'd want to do in this situation is to create local landing pages for each market you're in. So in your situation you would have a page for New York, and a page for Washington, then branch out into more services/offerings from those two focal points. Each page should be unique to the city you're targeting (unique content, hours of operation, address, phone, about us info, etc...). I would recommend embedding a Google Map for each office in the different cities as well.

From what you've described, it sounds like you want to be a national provider so are you targeting national keywords? If you're focusing on local SEO you might see better results by targeting the city you're currently in, then slowly expanding out into nearby regions. Targeting national is fine, but you'll need to make sure you really understand the market landscape. Doing solid link building, and paying attention to your internal link structure will help boost the PA of those local landing pages. In my tests/observations I've been able to get local landing pages to rank on the first page easier than the homepage due to the regional/local focus of those pages.

This strategy definitely works (and has been confirmed by others in the industry), but it will only work in the strategy is right from the beginning. Relevant local links and good onsite optimization is key.