Multi Location SEO Page Structure
-
I am trying to optimize my website for multiple locations. I have setup a landing page for each location. Now I want to optimize services we offer at those locations such as floor scrubber rentals. I'm confused on the best approach for this for ranking locally.
I offer the same equipment for rent at each location. So... should I have a link on the location landing page that takes you to an individual floor scrubber rental page for each location optimized for that locations city or should I have just one floor scrubber rental page and would I optimize it for both cities or just optimize it for floor scrubber rentals in general? I have many different categories like this that are offered @ both locations.
If I do individual pages all the products and rates will be duplicate but I could change the areas we deliver to and description to be more geared towards that city.
-
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the additional details. Okay, so I now understand that you have 2 physical locations and sell/rent a menu of products.
You have 2 options.
Option 1
You create a unique, strong landing page for each of your locations. This post explains the types of content you'll want to include on these pages. These pages overview your complete service menu, but focus highly on addition information that relates specifically to that locale. You'll want testimonials/reviews (see this post) and other types of persuasive content that engender trust in what your company does in that target city.
Separately, you'll also create a set of pages for each of the services you offer. Describe each service in great detail on its own page. Link to these pages from the city landing pages and vice versa. You can mention locale on these pages, but the main focus should be on the items you rent/sell.
Be sure all of the above pages are easily accessible from a top level menu.
Continue to build out content on the site or attached blog over time.
Option 2
You create a unique page for every possible keyword combination. So, you'd have a Memphis Floor Scrubber Rental page and a Nashville Floor Scrubber Rental page, and so on.
You can take this approach, but only if you can avoid the pitfalls of redundancy/duplicate content. It's kind of old-school at this point to take this approach. Unless you can find a very strong reason to create all of the pages for the good of users, this method can be a bit of an overkill and can often result in a low quality site with a lot of thin or duplicate content instead of a high quality site with best-in-class pages.
So...
I typically prefer Option one for small-to-medium businesses, with maximum effort being put into making the smaller set of pages very high quality.
And don't forget to link all of your citations for the Nashville location to your Nashville page, and the same goes for Memphis.
Hope this helps
-
This is my website cougarchemical.com
We both sell and rent multiple products. Floor scrubbers, pressure washers, carpet extractors...Both of our locations, Memphis and Nashville stock for sale and rent the same products along with chemicals. I want to optimize the site to rank locally for all these products but I didn't know what google looks for. There seems to be many different opinions on the subject. I wasn't sure if google would look @ my location pages for Memphis and Nashville then see a linking page specific for pressure washer products and rank locally just off that or if I would need to have a page specific for pressure washers in Memphis and then one for Nashville to rank locally.
Thanks
-
Hey There,
Robert is giving some good advice. I wanted to ask for a clarification. Does your business solely rent floor scrubbers, or are you saying it vends multiple products/services?
-
Hi there,
Based on the information you have provided, you probably want your URL structure to look like:
www.domain.com/product/city-product
So using your example (Floor Scrubbers) and an example city (let's say Chicago and Philadelphia), it would look like:
www.domain.com/floor-scrubbers/chicago-floor-scrubbers with H1's like "Chicago Floor Scrubber Rentals"
www.domain.com/floor-scrubbers/philadelphia-floor-scrubbers with H1's like "Philadelphia Floor Scrubber Rentals"
This may depend on the search volume you see for each of your keywords in different cities, but this method gives you a bit of a ranking bonus plus it is very easy to use from a UX perspective. Consider from the visitor's perspective:
No matter where they enter your site, they can find the service they are looking for and where it is provided. That answers the majority of questions your potential customers will have, which is really the whole point of this exercise.
Just remember that your landing pages should feature custom, unique content regardless of how many cities you are represented in. So, using the example above, you will need new content both for the Chicago location and for the Philadelphia location, using different keywords and phrases if possible so you don't confuse Google.
The rates being duplicated won't hurt you - it won't help you either, but at least you won't be hit with duplicate penalties. Long story short you have a lot of content in your future.
Hope this helps and follow-up if you have any extra questions.
Cheers,
Rob
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
-
What are SEO best practices for Java Language Redirections?
We would like to get some insight on what is the best practice of setting up canonical URLs in the below scenario. CMS used: Liferay – we believe they are using java. The URL structure at this stage can not be changed to best practices (/en/ and /ar/). Currently the language redirections works like this: English: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en Arabic: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar Depending how you entered the website last time the root URL will show English or Arabic content without the ‘sufix’: https://www.website.com/page1 All 3 different URL’s are being indexed on Google - which is causing duplication and confusion. We have a few ideas: Have 2 main URLS: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en and have the canonical set to https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar and have canonical set to https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar However, how would you handle the root page which does not have a specific language attached. If we need to make a choice we would go with Arabic, as mainly Arabic pages are indexed on Google with the root domain. This way we would (hopefully) retain the rankings for this. Question: did anybody had to deal with a similar situation? What would you do in a similar situation and why? Thanks for all your input.
Local Website Optimization | | skrauss0 -
SEO Best Practice for Managing a Businesses NAP with Multiple Addresses
I have a client with multiple business addresses - 3 across 3 states, from an SEO perspective what would be the best approach for displaying a NAP on the website? So far I've read that its best: to get 3 GMB account to point to 3 location pages & use a local phone number as opposed to a 1300 number. Display all 3 locations in the footer, run of site
Local Website Optimization | | jasongmcmahon1 -
What's the best SEO solution for international targeting of different english speaking countries?
Hi guys, recently won a client who operates globally, their domain is .com and their head office is in the UK. They have built regional sub-directories and translated content and pages of their site for /ru, /fr etc. The issue comes with their /us and /ca pages. This content for the most part is identical to the main .com site. The content is still in English and can't in most situations be changed to be more localised, so there are duplicate content issues. Trying to think of options: Ensure hreflang is added properly, build regional links to regional pages, get local contact details / NAP on all regional pages, set up Google business listings for each regional office and link accordingly. Will Google be able to identify these regional pages as more suitable search results for US searches? Make the main .com version of the content the canonical, which takes away any ranking benefits of the regional pages altogether, but removes the duplicate content issues and means we can focus link building and content resources into making sure the .com version of the page ranks well. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | SamFanatic0 -
Improve my on-page SEO
Hello, I am a photographer based in the UK, I have recently increased my prices, so SEO has become more important then ever as I need to target additional cities and wedding venues. I am looking for suggestions on ways I can ethically improve my websites on-page SEO and regional landing pages. I am running out of ideas, so any suggestions would be welcome. Do you think search engines will see these regional pages as low quality spammy pages are they not advised! If so how can I target other cities with out paying for PPC. Home page Additional Issues Is the 404 server script any good? I also have an issue, with old deleted wordpress pages, redirecting them even though there are no redirects set up in SEO yoast. I am not sure the server script on the shared hosting for 404 errors is any good, does anyone have any experience with this. For example this page returns the 404 page, however the header status is 200. http://www.robertsail.co.uk/derby-wedding-photographers-2/ If I moved to a dedicated server would this help me out.
Local Website Optimization | | Roboto19701 -
Local food delivery SEO strategy
Hey guys, I'm working with a new company that doesn't have a brick and mortar storefront, they deliver. They basically deliver pre packaged smoothies in a VERY localized area (Vancouver, BC). I'm wondering how grandiose their goals should be re ranking for keywords that have non localized authority. What do I mean? Lets say their marketing pillars are "health education related to smoothies" "convenient veggies for smoothies" "(insert health benefit here) for smoothies". Should they be trying to compete for these keywords? Or should they really be trying to rank with keywords especially to Vancouver? Side note: What kind of effect does Country and Locality have on keywords that are generally used by content providers and not service related companies building out an inbound strategy? Thanks in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | Anti-Alex0 -
Doorway Pages & Service Area Business
I see many national brand franchises that offers restoration services such as water damage (Servpro, Service Master etc.) There are local websites for each franchise. Each franchise has 50+ locations that they service They currently have pages like 'water damage + city' that have about 500-700 words each Some websites have 30- 100 location pages optimized for 'water damage city' These location pages do not have a physical offices None have duplicate content (word for word) above 20% The only different between these pages is perhaps 200 words about the city Example: www.servicecompany/water-damage-los-angeles www.servicecompany/water-damage-reseda www.servicecompany/water-damage-van-nuys Are these doorway pages?
Local Website Optimization | | MilestoneSEO_LA0 -
What is the Best Keyword Placement within a URL for Inner Location Pages?
I'm working on a website with 100s of locations. There is a location search page (Find Widget Dealer), a page for each state (Tennessee Widget Dealers) and finally a page for each individual location which has localized unique content and contact info (Nashville Widget Dealer). My question is is related to how I should structure my URL and the keywords within the URL. Keywords in my examples being the location and the product (i.e. widget). Here is a quick overview of each of the 3 tiered pages, with the Nashville page being the most optimized: Find Widget Dealer - Dealer Page only includes a location search bar and bullet list links to states Tennessee Widget Dealers - Page includes brief unique content for the the state and basic listing info for each location along with links to the local page) Nashville Widget Dealer - Page includes a good amount of unique content for this specific location (Most optimized page) That said, here are the 3 URL structure options I am considering: http://website.com/widget-dealers/tennesee/nashville http://website.com/dealers/tennesee-widget-dealers/nashville http://website.com/dealers/tennesee/nashville-widget-dealer Any help is appreciated! Thank you
Local Website Optimization | | the-coopersmith0 -
Launching Hundreds of Local Pages At Once or Tiered? If Tiered, In What Intervals Would You Recommend?
Greeting Mozzers, This is a long question, so please bare with me 🙂 We are an IT and management training company that offers over 180 courses on a wide array of topics. We have multiple methods that our students can attend these courses, either in person or remotely via a technology called AnyWare. We've also opened AnyWare centers in which you can physically go a particular location near you, and log into a LIVE course that might be hosted in say, New York, even if you're in say, LA. You get all the in class benefits and interaction with all the students and the instructor as if you're in the classroom. Recently, we've opened 43 AnyWare centers giving way to excellent localization search opportunities to our website (e.g. think sharepoint training in new york or "whatever city we are located in). Each location has a physical address, phone number, and employee working there so we pass those standards for existence on Google Places (which I've set up). So, why all this background? Well, we'd like to start getting as much visibility for queries that follow the format of "course topic area that we offered" followed by "city we offer it in." We offer 22 course topic areas and, as I mentioned, 43 locations across the US. Our IS team has created custom pages for each city and course topic area using a UI. I won't get into detailed specifics, but doing some simple math (22 topic areas multiplied by 43 location) we get over 800 new pages that need to eventually be crawled and added to our site. As a test, we launched the pages 3 months ago for DC and New York and have experienced great increases in visibility. For example, here are the two pages for SharePoint training in DC and NY (total of 44 local pages live right now). http://www2.learningtree.com/htfu/usdc01/washington/sharepoint-training
Local Website Optimization | | CSawatzky
http://www2.learningtree.com/htfu/usny27/new-york/sharepoint-training So, now that we've seen the desired results, my next question is, how do we launch the rest of the hundreds of pages in a "white hat" manner? I'm a big fan of white hat techniques and not pissing off Google. Given the degree of the project, we also did our best to make the content unique as possible. Yes there are many similarities but courses do differ as well as addresses from location to location. After watching Matt Cutt's video here: http://searchengineland.com/google-adding-too-many-pages-too-quickly-may-flag-a-site-to-be-reviewed-manually-156058 about adding too man pages at once, I'd prefer to proceed cautiously, even if the example he uses in the video has to do with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of pages. We truly aim to deliver the right content to those searching in their area, so I aim no black hat about it 🙂 But, still don't want to be reviewed manually lol. So, in what interval should we launch the remaining pages in a quick manner to raise any red flags? For example, should we launch 2 cities a week? 4 cities a month? I'm assuming the slower the better of course, but I have some antsy managers I'm accountable to and even with this type of warning and research, I need to proceed somehow the right way. Thanks again and sorry for the detailed message!0