Local Seo Service Url Best practices.
-
Hey Guys and Gals,
What's the best format for service urls for local seo?
http://www.example.com/basement-remodeling
or http://www.example.com/basement-remodeling-ashburn-leesburg-sterling-va/
-
Hey Jim,
Linkbuilding isn't really my area. One is always aiming for a natural link profile, but you might want to start a new thread about linkbuilding, and also, check these out:
https://moz.com/blog/link-building-outreach-in-a-skeptical-world-whiteboard-friday
http://niftymarketing.com/list-of-local-link-building-ideas/
Hope it helps!
-
Thanks Miriam for the awesome input, I will work on making these changes asap.
Another question (seems never ending lol).
Do you suggest I build backlinks to rank these pages higher? or should i be building backlinks to my main domain.
-
Hi Jim!
Nice of you to put these out for community feedback. You're off to a good start here, and while I don't have the necessary time to look at all of these, here's what I'm seeing on a couple:
-
Good amount of text
-
Text color is hard to read; it's too light
-
H1 Tag order of keywords might need to be rethought, putting business name at end instead of beginning
-
In the main body text, reconsider all of those 'it's important' statements. It makes it sound like 'I' am suppose to do all of that work before calling your company (inspect my house, look for leaks, etc.). If this is what YOU do, be clearer about that.
-
Some text is a bit over-optimized with basement remodeling and Ashburn terms. Example: How Long Does a Basement Finishing in Ashburn, VA Take? Unless it takes longer in Ashford than some other city to finish a basement, this type of text looks a bit awkward. Review the text for other instances and be sure keywords are being incorporated in natural language.
-
It's good you're getting testimonials, but I would scrap the rotating display. It's confusing that I'm on a page about basements reading a testimonial about blinds. Put basement testimonials on the basement page, bathroom testimonials on the bathroom page, etc.
-
Put a phone number in your call to action at the bottom of the page. Don't make people click unless they want to. Give them the number.
-
Title tag & URL look good
So, you're on a good path with this page. Some minor refinements could make it better!
-
Same comments regarding font color, H1 tag, call to action, testimonials etc. as above.
-
The text needs to be edited for grammar. For example:
Bathrooms need to be a place that makes you feel good, so that every day can be started off the right way.
- The text is not quite as creative as it might be. I feel like the copywriter was having a struggle thinking what to say.
Again, I see a good initial effort here, but with a bit more effort, there could be meaningful improvements.
I know it requires bravery to show work to the public, and the good news is here that you are off to a good start but that there are some SEO, UX and content matters that could be improved. Thanks for the chance to look at these. Hopefully what I've written above will be a starting point to evaluating all of your service pages. Good luck, Jim!
-
-
Hey Jim,
You could go either way with the description. I'm kind of a fan of putting a phone number in the description, myself! I'd rather have that there than the city names.
-
Thanks Miriam! I almost got it now.
Now I have a question regarding my "main services page"
Should I be mentioning areas under title and description on my main services pages (not local landing pages)
Service : Basement finishing
url: http://www.example.com/basement-finishing
title: Basement Finishing & Remodeling | company | Call 555-555-5555!
description: Basement Finishing & Basement Remodeling | Transform Unfinished Basements To Livable Square Footage. Ashburn | Sterling | Loudoun
Or should I leave the areas out of description under main pages and use those specifically for local landing pages.
Thanks Miriam!!
Basement Finishing & Basement Remodeling | Transform Unfinished Basements To Livable Square Footage.
-
Hi Jim,
While it won't hurt you, are you sure it would be useful for your clients in City A to click over to your City B page, or might that just add unnecessary clutter and confusion to the page?
-
Hey Guys
One More quesetions.
After I setup the pages to above format, on my local landing page can i cross link them with other local pages?
for example if im on basement remodeling ashburn page can i put other areas we serve section and cross link them to other landing pages?
-
Thanks Miriam! This makes more sense now!
-
Ah this makes more sense!
Another question if i am going to link off of those pages. could i just make the main url this?
basement-remodeling-va
kitchen-remodeling-va
and have the link silo like you mentioned from the post it self? or even service areas
-
I would have a main page about each service topic and then link off from that.
Bathroom remodeling page
Bathroom remodeling content
We do bathroom remodeling in: blah blah blah, linked page, linked page, linked page.
Or naturally in the content if possible, of course. Or even a list at the bottom:
Our service area includes: town(link), town(link) etc.
This works very well for clients I've had in the past with many suburbs & locations.
-
Hi Jim,
Don't worry, you're not being repetitive
It's very common for service area businesses to serve a variety of close-set cities, and best practice for this is 1 page per city. In fact, doing so could help you to outrank your competitors who are crunching multiple cities onto the same page.
If you offer multiple services in multiple cities, the choice here is whether you want to create:
a) a page for each city and a page for each service
or
b) a page for every possible combination of services and cities
If budget, time or inspiration are limited, option A may be best in which case, you'd have URLs like this for your services
domain.com/bathroom-remodeling
domain.com/kitchen remodeling
and domains like this for your services:
...with the city landing pages needing to feature geo-specific content for projects you've done in those cities.
If you have ample time, inspiration and budget, you can go with option B, in which case, you'd build a set of pages like:
domain.com/bathroom-remodeling-sterling-va
domain.com/bathroom-remodeling-leesburg-va
domain.com/kitchen-remodeling-sterling-va
domain.com/bathroom-remodeling-leesburg-va
etc.
It's really a matter of how much creative writing you commit to so that, with either option A or B, every page you publish is as helpful as possible to customers, is unique, and is of the highest quality you can produce.
This recent Moz Blog post may help: https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages
-
Hey Matt,
Thanks for the response, If i were to silo them. What would I put in my main navigation?
Wouldn't it look funny if my main navigation listed multiple of the same?
basement-remodeling
kitchen-remodeling
basement-remodeling
kitchen-remodeling?
Thanks!
-
If you do more than one type of thing per location, I would silo them:
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for the quick response!
The reason I am asking is where my business is located we have other citys near by literally 5-10 miles apart.
I've seen my competitor do a similar thing and they seem to be ranking very well. http://www.example.com/bathroom-remodeling-sterling-leesburg-herndon-reston-ashburn-va/
http://www.example.com/bathroom-remodeling-sterling-leesburg-herndon-reston-ashburn-va/
I guess my main question is can i setup the main services url to include those near by citys and state and create additional pages like
http://www.example.com/bathroom-remodeling-in-ashburn-va/ etc etc
so main services would look like
basement-remodeling-ashburn-sterling-leesburg-va
bathroom-remodeling-ashburn-sterling-leesburg-va
and have lead capture pages like
bathroom-remodeling-in-ashburn
bathroom-remodeling-in-sterling and so on.
Sorry if my questions seem repetitive i am just confused with the whole local seo scene.
-
Hey Jim!
Normally, I would not recommend having more than one city modifier in the URL per page. So:
but not
domain.co/service-city-city-city
Ideally, you want a unique page per city. Hope that helps!
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
-
Is SEO effect of NAP Inconsistency A Hoax?
Is the effect of NAP inconsistency on search rankings basically a myth to justify business citation management services? I've been doing SEO for over 10 years but only recently started doing local businesses. I have yet to find any sort of published study that clearly shows a significant ranking effect by correcting an inconsistent NAP on any business directory site other than Google and Bing Business Listings. In fact, the publishers of any such articles claiming NAP inconsistency has a significant negative SEO effect are almost always businesses or people that are charging for such services. Gee, could they be a little biased? Obviously if you have an incorrect address that is far from the actual address, correcting it will help your ranking (think 3-pack) in the area close to your business but that's not really the type of ranking effect I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a missing suite #, or an old address that is 1/2 block away from the new address but still the same phone number, or identical address but different phone (a toll free versus a local number). That kind of stuff. Of course you don't want to have an incorrect address or non-working phone number on places like Superpages, Yelp, Yellowpages, etc, but does anyone know of any place I can find good factual proof that having inconsistent NAPs on these sites has any significant effect on rankings? I'm sure some of the big SEO companies have the data to determine the effect. Or is this more of a "tin foil hat" / herd / OCD mentality on this subject that no one can prove (or disprove?)
Local Listings | | MrSem0 -
Evidence that high organic rankings impact positioning in the Google local pack?
I'm looking for articles/evidence that if you have a high ranking organic listing that it will improve your chances of being in the local pack. I came across this about a year ago, but I have had trouble finding articles to support this. Does anybody know of any recent articles and/or studies that show a correlation of high organic listings and local pack visibility? Thanks!
Local Listings | | BigChad20 -
How to create a filter view to view local search traffic in google analytics ?
Id like to be able to drill down into the local search traffic for a site in google analytics, i know i can get some analytics data via google's local places dashboard, but id like to see a more detailed chart in google analytics. I read this article and installed this filtered view dashboard from Local U, but it seems its stopped working since it was originally published back in July 13. Is there a more up to date method for capturing this data ?
Local Listings | | jpeg800 -
Average Percentage of Clicks on Google (Adwords vs Local 3 Pack vs Organic)
Does anyone know the allocation, percentage-wise, of clicks that go to Adwords vs Local 3 Pack vs Organic on Google Search (average)?
Local Listings | | OhYeahSteve0 -
Local Profile Struggling
Hi guys, we have a client that we are having some issues with. We have done extensive directory work for them, so this is unusual. Their Google My Business profile isn't ranking hardly at all, although they have decent organic rankings. Here is the company: https://plus.google.com/+ComfortAireHeatingCoolingPlumbingWisconsinRapids/about We have two possible reasons, but before we spend the time fixing these we were hoping for some reassurance from the Moz community. 1)Name in GMB looks spammy. This truly is their name, but we thought it may be an issue due to the keywords. 2)Address inconsistency: The client wanted us to use 880 Highway 73 South, Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494 so that is how we submitted it to aggregators and directory sites. Google didn't accept that, they changed it to: 880 WI-73 Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494. The USPS Zip code checker didn't accept either of these, they use 880 STATE HIGHWAY 73 S, WISCONSIN RAPIDS WI 54494. Do you guys think one of these is our issue, or could it be something else. Thanks in advance for your insights!
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
UK aggregators of local business data
Hi Guys, I have signed up for Moz Local and I am looking for UK aggregators of local business data to help build my search. Can anyone recommend a source?
Local Listings | | SEM_at_Lees0 -
Swiss SEO Companies
Hello Moz Community! My name is Colby. I work with Comit Developers here in the US, but I currently have a client that is in need overseas. My client is looking for SEO work in Switzerland. We've never worked in this country, but we are willing to outsource to get a little help. I am looking for some smaller SEO companies in or nearby Zurich. Does anyone have any ideas? We are looking for companies who can charge fair prices. I'm not sure how expensive the Swiss market is for SEO, but I'd love some insight. Can anyone help me?
Local Listings | | ComitSEO0 -
Local SEO for a company with 3 sites, for 3 different type of businesses
Hi I've been working for an employment lawyer in Sydney for 3 years now, all good, I built many citations and fixed all ones and the website/blog are ranking fine. Imagine I created the citation using e.g Anton Forester Employment lawyers, name, phone and address. Now the client just launched a website about property with the same name/brand and a different business title e.g Anton Forrester Property Lawyer and another 3rd website about conveyancing with the same name/brand and another business title e.g Anton Forrester Conveyancing law. My question is how do I build citations now that the name is different in the 3 cases, 3 websites but possibly the same phone and address? Thanks a lot Cheers Nico
Local Listings | | niclaus780