Local Search Location Keyword Use

[GrouchyKids]

Hello.

Whats the best way to approach the use of location phrases within the page content itself?

Say your based in a large city but also work in smaller surrounding areas, would you target the main location i.e. "London" on the home page and the main product/service pages directly.  Or would you leave this all to deeper pages where you can more easily add value?

I can imagine that the inclusion of the location i.e. "London" might compromise the quality of the writing.  And put off the users from other locations.

For example on the Home Page if your targeting:
Keyword: Widgets
Location: London

Widgets in London and Beyond

For the best Widgets in London come to...

And for a key product or service page if your targeting: 
Keyword: Car Widgets
Location: London

Car Widgets London and Beyond

For the best Car Widgets in London come to...

On deeper pages its going to be easier to make this work, but how would you approach it on the main pages and homepage?

Hope that all makes sense?

[GrouchyKids]

Hi Mirriam,

Makes perfect sense, that's exactly what I wanted to know.

Thanks again for your help.

Justin

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Justin,

Glad those resources helped, and your follow-up question is one I'd answer with 'it depends'. When a business' city of location is the major city (like, let's say San Francisco) then, yes, I would strongly optimize all main page elements with that city, because - hey - it's the BIG city! But, let's say the business is located in a small town outside that city (let's say Mill Valley) and there are larger cities the business serves (like San Francisco), then I might be a little more sparing in overemphasizing the small town. So, this is really a case-by-case thing. You should experiment with different forms of optimization if the physical city isn't the major city, and see how this affects conversions. Hope this helps!

[GrouchyKids]

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for the great response.

I can see from your examples how to add unique valuable content to the pages.

But would you go so far as my examples and add the location into the H1 tag of the home page and product / services pages?

Justin

[MiriamEllis]

Hey There,

Your city of physical location is your core city/core keyword, so yes, it would typically be a good strategy to use that geo term on your main pages (Home, About, Contact, etc.) and then develop city landing pages for the other cities in which you serve. This article should help:

https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages

And this one, too:

https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-checklist

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi,

I would definitely be looking at what the winners for these phrases are doing. I never advocate copying exactly what someone else is doing, but it can certainly save you many hours of head scratching and worrying.

It does sound like you need to spend some time coming up with a structure for the site that will work, but remember to make the pages as descriptive as possible, but don't stuff keywords and try not to have them sound like they were written by a robot.

You also need to be careful that you aren't creating pages that are too similar as this will also compromise your work and try not to make everything too 'boilerplate'.

-Andy