Local SEO Best Practise?
-
We are planning to localize our website by launching CCTLD. But there is a little confusion about some aspects, which are:
- Should we track location and take our visitors to their native domain?
- Or do we need to take our visitors to .com domain and show a Popup, if they want to visit the native region website?
- What is the best case study for localization?
-
Yet to finalize
-
You want to redirect them to the appropriate ccTLD for their location. How you handle language is up to you, there's no perfect solution. Someone in France searching on Google.fr is going to get websites in French 99 times out of 100.
How many countries and languages are you targeting?
-
As i read
Don't use machine translations and don't automatically redirect a user to a different language based on location. It's fine to suggest an alternate language site, but you don't know (without asking) if that English-language searcher in France is an expat, a student of foreign language, or someone who's lost on the internet.
-
Hi,
An IP-based redirect would be preferred. But before you get to that point, you should help visitors just land on the appropriate ccTLD to begin with. One primary way to do this is ensure each country's version of Google has the right ccTLD versions of your URLs indexed - see links below. Any other marketing you do should also serve the appropriate URLs. The IP-based redirect should really just be a fall-back in the event that they don't end up where you wanted.
Here's a couple resources that will help you through this process:
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
-
Call Tracking Best Practises for General SEO
Hey folks, So I'm aware of the importance of consistent citations, and the mayhem call tracking numbers have been known to cause in regards to that in that past. So just wanted some up to date clarification on these two things: Local SEO isn't strictly speaking a big deal for us as we supply a software and as such are technically global. I'm presuming consistent citations are still worth aiming for though, and will help increase general authority as well? Let me know if I'm totally wrong about that! What's the best practise set up for call tracking, given that your main NAP number you'd obviously want hardcoded somewhere, alongside showing your dynamic numbers to relevant visitors. Apologies for any ignorance, as always any help and advice is muchos appreciato.
Local Website Optimization | | Zoope1 -
Weird: Local Landing Page Not Showing In "City + Brand" Search Query
Hi Mozzers, I've noticed something strange that I can't quite wrap my head around. I'm hoping it's an easy fix and I'm just overlooking something. Backstory: I'm managing all things digital for a local flooring retailer that has 6 showrooms in the region. I've done basic local SEO - local landing pages with proper markup, GMB set up and verification, Moz Local scores are in the 80% range for each location and improving steadily, etc. However, one of my locations is way behind all of the others in both organic searches and the map. Recently, I did a search for "city + brand" for this particular location in an incognito window and the page came up on the 4th page. When I perform the same search for any of the other locations, the respective landing page come up 1st or 2nd along with the homepage. I even searched using the title tag as well as a few more specific searches and still nothing on the first page. This is weird, right? Has anyone experienced this before? Search Console came back perfect, so no penalties and it's definitely being indexed. For reference, the page I am referring to is http://www.nextdayfloors.net/locations/columbia/ and the location query I am using is "Columbia, MD" Any help is much appreciated! Thanks! Tim
Local Website Optimization | | AinsleyAgency0 -
For a generic domain say www.purplecola.com where the company is based in India (IP address there too), how should they best optimize for US search traffic?
Let's just say that they want to target the US market. Should they add a US based IP address? Would love to hear insight from people who have managed this, experienced this or have expertise. Obviously, a US based physical address would help. Thanks!! Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
Local SEO case with two physical locations
I hope someone can help me make some decisions. I did read a lot about Local SEO lately but I’m not sure what way to go with this client. Client: Service provider with two physical locations (service is provided on the physical location). In the coming 12 month there will open 1-2 new physical locations in other cities. Has only one phone number. I will try to advise them to get a local phone number for both locations. But they prefer one (mobile) number to keep things simple. Clients are willing to travel for the service, since it’s a one day course they take. Current clients do come from a lot of different locations. The competition for around 5-6 big cities is pretty low since there aren’t a lot of service providers who deliver these courses. Questions: Should I put both addresses in the footer? It’s a best practice with only one location. I think it’s handy for users with two locations as well but I’m worried about how Google sees this. Also this will get confusing when the client passes 3-4 locations. If the client sticks with one mobile phone number, should I make a Google + local page for both physical locations? The Google guidelines clearly state they prefer a local number as much as possible. If I add “Our service areas “ to the top navigation and make a unique place page for every city (to rank organic aswell) is it wise to link those local Google + pages to the unique page about this service? Normaly I would go for yes, but I want to add places with and without a physical location under the same navigation. With just one location I would just focus on that city and add unique pages for the other pages. I’m getting a bit stuck between best practices since the client got opportunities with multiple strategies. I hope you guys (and girls 😉 ) can help!
Local Website Optimization | | Bob_van_Biezen1 -
Local Area SEO - Directions Page and Multiple Use of Direction pages
Hello, We are looking to focus on multiple local areas and it has been suggested one way to mention lots of different locations on pages without doing lists or using grey SEO practices is to create directions pages. We are trying this with a client who has 2 business at the same address. The layout is:- Introduction - 2-3 sentences Directions by Car Park Parking info Directions by Public Transports Closing - 3-4 sentences - using clients keywords The hope is the having locations/areas and the clients keywords on the same page will capture some of the local areas with the clients keywords. I have some questions:- 1. If we use the same directions text and just change the opening and closing paragraphs on the different website will this be enough to not have a duplicate content issue. 2. Are the directions pages the best way to capture keywords and local area/locations on the same page. 3. Is there anything I am missing or could do instead? Looking forward to everyone's input....
Local Website Optimization | | JohnW-UK0 -
Will subdomains with duplicate content hurt my SEO? (solutions to ranking in different areas)
My client has offices in various areas of the US, and we are working to have each location/area rank well in their specific geographical location. For example, the client has offices in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas & St Louis. Would it be best to: Set up the site structure to have an individual page devoted to each location/area so there's unique content relevant to that particular office? This keeps everything under the same, universal domain & would allow us to tailor the content & all SEO components towards Chicago (or other location). ( example.com/chicago-office/ ; example.com/atlanta-office/ ; example.com/dallas-office/ ; etc. ) Set up subdomains for each location/area...using the basically the same content (due to same service, just different location)? But not sure if search engines consider this duplicate content from the same user...thus penalizing us. Furthermore, even if the subdomains are considered different users...what do search engines think of the duplicate content? ( chicago.example.com ; atlanta.example.com ; dallas.example.com ; etc. ) 3) Set up subdomains for each location/area...and draft unique content on each subdomain so search engines don't penalize the subdomains' pages for duplicate content? Does separating the site into subdomains dilute the overall site's quality score? Can anyone provide any thoughts on this subject? Are there any other solutions anyone would suggest?
Local Website Optimization | | SearchParty0 -
Can a localization web design update hurt SEO?
Hi mozzers, Me and my team are having a major website refresh and update for one of our client's. The structure of the website can be divided into 2 types of pages: corporate pages(representing the core services of the company which rank nationally) and microsite pages(representing each and every 30+ franchise locations ranking locally). Right now when you visit the Seattle microsite page you have localization feel but the main nav(of corporate site) remains at the top on top of the subnav(orange under map) which is customized for the location where you are in. My colleague who is the main person in charge of this website update would like to create a better localization experience for users in specific cities by having one main navigation instead of 2 displaying exactly the same pages displayed on the actual subnav (actual microsite) (images are below of actual and potential look of the website). FYI: URLs will remain the same. I really like this idea of a more personalized experience but I am afraid that the local seo strategy we have done so far may be jeopardized because of this new design but i am not sure. Am I right? Are we going to lose national and/or local rankings? Will this fresh design hurt the SEO we have been doing for the past few years? It would be great to provide me "best practice" tips to follow for this case as far as what are the steps I should be paying attention... Thank you guys! ktJrsNx.png Boq4Pvt.png
Local Website Optimization | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Do more page links work against a Google SEO ranking when there is only 1 url that other sites will link to?
Say I have a coupon site in a major city and assume there are 20 main locations regions (suburb cities) in that city. Assume that all external links to my site will be to only the home page. www.site.com Assume also that my website business has no physical location. Which scenario is better? 1. One home page that serves up dynamic results based on the user cookie location, but mentions all 20 locations in the content. Google indexes 1 page only, and all external links are to it. 2. One home page that redirects to the user region (one of 20 pages), and therefore will have 20 pages--one for each region that is optimized for that region. Google indexes 20 pages and there will be internal links to the other 19 pages, BUT all external links are still only to the main home page. Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | couponguy0