Local Seo Service Url Best practices.

[hde]

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/

[MiriamEllis]

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!

[hde]

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.

[MiriamEllis]

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:

1. http://www.hdelements.com/basement-finishing-and-remodeling-ashburn-va/

• 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!

2. http://www.hdelements.com/bathroom-remodeling-in-ashburn-va/

• 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!

[MiriamEllis]

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.

[hde]

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.

[MiriamEllis]

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?

[hde]

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?

[hde]

Thanks Miriam! This makes more sense now!

[hde]

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

[MattAntonino]

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.

[MiriamEllis]

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:

domain.com/leesburg

domain.com/sterling

...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

[hde]

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!

[MattAntonino]

If you do more than one type of thing per location, I would silo them:

• example.com/ashburn/basement-remodeling
• example.com/ashburn/kitchen-remodeling
• example.com/sterling/basement-remodeling
• example.com/sterling/kitchen-remodeling

[hde]

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.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Jim!

Normally, I would not recommend having more than one city modifier in the URL per page. So:

domain.com/service-city

but not

domain.co/service-city-city-city

Ideally, you want a unique page per city. Hope that helps!