Local search traffictwo locations
-
Hello,
Can I ask for some advice? A client of mine is located in two cities. The first one was his original city and he has lots of traffic for various search terms and is very happy. He then expanded and has a branch in a second city. We created a unique landing page for it and a Google My Business page, built citations and it is ranking quite well (on first page for the two keywords that we targeted). But traffic is not great as city 1.
His main navigation has a list of services and also a locations tab which has the two locations. The services pages are all unique and target specific keywords and I added location to the end of them - :
e.g. **SERVICE KEYWORD CITY 1, CITY 2. **
A search for SERVICE KEYWORD + CITY 1 is on first page and lots of traffic.
For SERVICE KEYWORD + CITY 2 it is on page 2.
How would we increase the traffic to the second city? Should we create sub pages of the services he provides with the location set as city2 only (and keep the original ones only as city 1)? These would kind of duplicate the services pages we already have so we would have the problem that we might be duplicating stuff.
Since SERVICE KEYWORD CITY 1 are doing really well (he's either first or second) I am loathe to change it too much but not sure how to get more keywords for city 2 without duplication the services pages.
Any advice?
-
Some good ideas here. Thank you all.
-
Great article just posted on Search Engine Land - How to solve duplicate content local SEO issues for multi-location businesses. http://searchengineland.com/solve-duplicate-content-local-seo-issues-multi-location-businesses-255509
-
Great question! And one that is built into the scenario of a single location business expanding to new locations.
There are typically 2 routes local multi-location businesses can take.
-
Build a single set of service description pages + a unique page for each location.
-
Build pages for every possible keyword/city combo + a unique page for each location.
Benefits of route one: by focusing your resources on this more limited set of pages, you may find you've got what it takes to build the BEST page on, for example, native plant landscaping in the industry and the BEST page about your location in San Francisco.
Drawbacks tend to relate to how to optimize major pages of the website (homepage, about). With just 2 locations, you can likely include some optimization for both cities on these pages, but if you start opening numerous locations, this can become untenable. After all, Whole Foods does not list hundreds of cities on its homepage ;). And, once you've got these two sets of pages built, you can turn focus in all kinds of exciting directions, creating all kinds of new content that continues to build your brand and increase conversions.
Benefits of route two: If you have the resources to do this well, you can end up with some very thorough keyword coverage. However, it may or may not be great for human users. Will users genuinely be helped in some unique way by the presence of your page on 'native landcaping san franciso' and your page on 'native landscaping oakland', describing the exact same service twice? In some cases, yes, but in others, no. So, make a wise choice here. Does a set of pages covering every possible service/city combo exist for users, or because you're crossing your fingers search engines will take note?
Drawbacks become quickly apparent where resources are lacking. Thin, duplicate content can easily result from this route, weakening your website instead of strengthening it. With proper resources, this doesn't have to be the case, but if you suspect it might be tough to pull off dozens of truly top quality pages with the route 2 approach, I'd advise sticking with route one.
Hope this helps, and Rand's most recent Whiteboard Friday might help with organization of the work ahead of you: https://moz.com/blog/build-content-keyword-map-for-seo-whiteboard-friday
-
-
We are focusing on a few specific cities as well. I have created a list of sites that are both specific to that city AND rank high using the Moz Domain Authority tool. I put the list in Google Sheets to keep track and then have systematically gone down and reached out to various people at these sites to try to get articles or mentions, etc from them. This does two things. First you get exposure from relatively high volume sites in that area. Two, I think it helps to get backlinks that focus on regions or concepts. This way I can do both. Before I reached out to them, I wrote a draft of the article. We are working on a sharing economy concept so we wrote about the sharing economy in general (instead of just writing about us) to make it more compelling for their audience. That has done fantastic for us.
In terms of where to look, traditional media like print newspapers, magazines, radio almost always have a site with a news/blog section. Also, you can use something like the Follow Wonk tool to find Twitter accounts for people that blog in the area. This is often easier than the media sites. Some of the media sites will do it but are uber expensive. Also, many cities have a Reddit sub for that city. Be careful. If it feels to ad like, people on that city will butcher you. Sometimes you can get on the sidebar of that sub and that will be the gift that keeps on giving.
To see an example of what we did, check this out. The site is only for Dallas.
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
-
Local Listing - Service Business with Three Areas Served
A client of mine owns a business that is a service (i.e. they do not have a storefront). They service three major markets - Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Nashville, TN. When talking to the Google My Business team, they said we needed to set up only one listing based on where we were headquartered (which is Atlanta) and then list that we service the other markets so that it shows in the listing. So we have one business listing set up as a service but headquartered in Atlanta and show the service area as Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte. Does this seem correct? There is a lot of competition for them so looking to boost local search as much as possible. Thanks!
Local Listings | | maghanlinchpinsales0 -
How change image for business search results
Hello, I want to change my business listing search image, Which appear while Searching My business For related keywords. How should i change it?? have uploaded but Google still uses old image . is there any way to change it ??? Thank you in advance
Local Listings | | iepl5
falguni0 -
How to add details to Google Local Listings
Hello, A website I am working on made it to Google's Local Pack. However, it does not have the website, hours, or location info. What is the best way to add it? I added an image link for context. http://imgur.com/rT3lQ4K Thanks!!
Local Listings | | HectorCortes0 -
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 -
What is the radius for local search results
Does anyone know if there is a specific radius google uses to display local search results or is it simply based on the number of competitors or industry vertical.
Local Listings | | coolhandluc
Let's say I am based in covent garden London and I am looking for an indian restaurant. I assume that all results will be very localized as there are plenty of Indian restaurants in convent garden. But If i was looking for, let's say "wooden pipe shop" (i believe there is none in convent garden) what would google display? how far away from my desired location will google be able to extend it's results to?0 -
Location in business name for listings
A while back, I changed 26 of our business listings on Google so that the business name included the city, for example: "Business Name Sheffield", "Business Name York", "Business Name Doncaster". It looked consistent, it was easier to read in Google Maps when searching for Eden Mobility and even better - it may have been the cause of positive impacts in our local rankings. Using the Moz Local tool, I'm now looking at rolling out this change out throughout ALL of our business listings on the web, including Factual, Yelp etc etc... Does anybody have thoughts on this? At the back of my mind I can't help but think that I should be consistently using ONLY the business name throughout all of my online business listings. Will Google consider each of these locations as separate business entities? Here's something I found in Google's guidelines: Adding unnecessary information to your name (e.g. "Google Inc. – Mountain View Corporate Headquarters" instead of "Google") by including marketing taglines, shop codes, special characters, hours or closed/open status, phone numbers, website URLs, service/product information, location/address or directions or containment information (e.g. "Chase ATM in Duane Reade") is not permitted. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I've seen some big businesses such as ASDA doing the same thing I'm doing - but I'm undecided!
Local Listings | | LiamMcArthur0 -
Should I change my local listing Service type from Brick and Mortar to Service Area in Google? And will it affect my ranking in a negative manner?
Currently my company Big Boy Bail Bonds, Inc is ranking very well for the city it is located and, currently service type is brick and mortar. But my Company does not only service people at our location but we service the entire county of Los Angeles. And I wanted to know if you would advise me on weather I should change the service type from brick and morter to service area. and if doing that would effect me in a negative manner when it came to my ranking? Plz advice Thank you in advance.
Local Listings | | LittleDog1 -
Do Local PPC Ads Get Ranked Higher Even Though the User Doesn't Specify Search Location
See the attached image.I searched for a drug called "Actos". The first Google Adwords result was a result specific to "Arkansas" which is odd because I didn't specify that I was in Arkansas. I understand that Google makes that recommendation because Google knows I'm in Arkansas. The resulting landing page has NOTHING to do with Arkansas and you can view it here: http://bladdercancerlawsuit.org/actos-bladder-cancer/My question is this: Does the fact that the AD has the name of the user's state (Arkansas) make the "click" less expensive or higher ranking or both? Is this known by Adword specialist community? I'm wondering because this is an expensive keyword and hard to guarantee top position for. If this is a technique we should incorporate, I'd love to do it. U1dfiiE
Local Listings | | iprov0