One locations page, or multiple pages?
-
Hi,
I represent a franchisor who does all marketing- including local seo- for our franchisees. I've read a lot about local SEO and understand the basics, but have some remaining questions.
1- If our typical territories are quite large and encompass more than one major city, should we create multiple location pages for the same franchise owner? I believe the answer should be yes from an SEO stand point, but the problem is that most of our franchisees naturally just have one business address (their home). Since PO boxes and virtual offices aren't the way to go, what's the best course of action? And when I say major cities, I'm really talking about major cities (and not just small towns/boroughs). Can they just use a friend's/relative's address?
2- There's a lot of info out there about "locations pages," but it's not really clear whether or not you should really just have ONE page for each location, or several pages with different content? For instance, it looks like a lot of businesses are creating just one, "home-page" looking landing page for their individual locations, with everything from services to testimonials on just that one page. Is this preferred over creating several different local pages for that one location? The latter is what we currently do. From the user stand-point, it looks like each franchise location has it's own "mini website" on our main website. For instance, a landing page optimized for the local business name, a local services page, a project/photo gallery page, local review page, etc. It seems like a lot less work just building one landing page for each location, but is the payoff the same?
I'm torn between the two strategies- is it really worth the extra work (in terms of traffic + local ranking) to build out the individual pages for the one location?
Thanks Moz Community!
-
Makes sense and this clears up a lot of our questions. Thanks Miriam!
-
Thanks for the response Donna! This helps!
-
Nice responses from both Donna and Joy here. Thanks, ladies
Kimberly, definitely pay attention to Joy's advice regarding using friend's houses for this. It's a definite no-no. Review Google's Guidelines to know how to play by the rules and avoid disaster.
I recommend reading the following:
This one is now 3 years old, so there might be a few old terms in it, but it should help you define your business model:
https://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide
And this one should help you with your approach to creating these landing pages:
https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages
Finally, I'm going to raise the issue of RankBrain here and link you to Rand's WB Friday on this:
https://moz.com/blog/optimizing-for-rankbrain-whiteboard-friday
Please take a few minutes to watch this to help you determine whether multiple pages for the sake of keyword breadth or a single, really comprehensive page for each theme/topic will serve you better. SEO is changing and that goes for both local and virtual businesses.
I hope these resources will help you skill up to develop a really smart and modern strategy for marketing your business!
-
There isn't anything wrong with creating multiple "city-pages" on your website targeting different city names. Just be careful, because if there isn't enough unique content on them that is valuable to the user, they could be labeled as Doorway Pages, which are against Google's guidelines. Phil Rozek has a great guide full of ideas for content for these pages.
What is not allowed is creating multiple listings for the same business in Google My Business. Google will remove the listings if they catch them and can possibly suspend the user's account as well. Using addresses of relatives to create these listings would also be against Google's guidelines and would be defined as a fake listing.
I would only suggest creating multiple subpages for the location if they are targeting different keywords (products/services). For example, if you have a location for an insurance agent then it might make sense to have 2 subpages, one targeting auto insurance and another targeting home insurance. However, if the location just really offers one service, like a hotel, then it doesn't make sense. I've seen chains do this and often Google only ever ranks the main location page and not the subpage because they are all targeting the exact same thing and the content is almost the same.
-
Hi Kimberley,
1- Should we create multiple location pages for the same franchise owner?
You're right, the answer is "yes" but the objective of creating a single page per location is not so your franchisee shows up in local search results (on Google Maps), but so they show up in organic search results.
Can they just use a friend's/relative's address?
You need a unique mailing address for each location you want to show up in maps. A place where someone will answer the phone during business hours with a typical business greeting like "XYZ Business. How can I help you." I don't recommend using friends/relatives addresses for lots of reasons including the fact that friends and relatives move and you'd still have to incur the cost of getting a unique phone number and optimizing a business listing for each location.
2. It seems like a lot less work just building one landing page for each location, but is the payoff the same?
More is better. Google favors fresh, active, and growing websites. Many businesses build a one-page-fits-all solution due to budget constraints. That can work in niche / non-competitive markets, but rarely does otherwise. You should assess your budget, resources, and competition and then decide on an approach.
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
-
Multiple service area pages that rank well. However the primary keyword page tends to bounce around between the pages. How can I stabalise the ranking to the primary page
We have multiple service area pages attached to the primary keyword for the site which arent in the navigation and we have the primary page which is in the navigation. Currently Google is choosing different service area pages to rank for the primary keyword so the rankings bounce around a lot for the keyword when it doesn't have a service area target in it. Eg work shirts vs work shirts brisbane.
Local Website Optimization | | jonathan.k0 -
Service Area Location Pages vs. User Experience
I'm familiar with the SAB best practices outlined here. Here's my issue: Doing local landing pages as described here might not be ideal from a user experience point of view. Having a "Cities We Serve" or "Service Areas" link in the main navigation isn't necessarily valuable to the user when the city-specific landing pages are all places within a 15-mile radius of the SAB's headquarters. It would just look like the company did it for SEO. It wouldn't look natural. Seriously, it feels like best practices are totally at odds with user experience here. If I absolutely must create location pages for 10 or so municipalities within my client's service area, I'd rather NOT put the service areas as a primary navigation item. It is not useful to the user. Anyone who sees that the company provides services in the [name of city] metropolitan area will already understand that the company can service their town that is 5 miles away. It is self-evident. For example**, who would wonder whether a plumbing company with a Los Angeles address also services Beverly Hills?** It's just... silly. But the Moz guide says I've got to do those location pages! And that I've got to put them high up in the navigation! This is a problem because we've got to do local SEO, but we also have to provide an ideal experience. Thoughts?
Local Website Optimization | | Greenery1 -
Page Title Local SEO - 2 places
Hello guys, I am from azores are 9 islands in portugal. I live in São Jorge is one island. My question is. If one person seach by Azores Canyoning or São Jorge Canyoning. Because Azores is one region and São Jorge is one island inside Azores. And i want have this two exact keywords in title page. Canyoning is a service. Azores Canyoning - São Jorge Canyoning | Brand Name what is best way to write this title? Or is not good?
Local Website Optimization | | Flaske0 -
URL and title strategy for multiple location pages in the same city
Hi, I have a customer which opens additional branches in cities where he had until now only one branch. My question is: Once we open new store pages, what is the best strategy for the local store pages in terms of URL and title?
Local Website Optimization | | OrendaLtd
So far I've seen some different strategies for URL structure:
Some use [URL]/locations/cityname-1/2/3 etc.
while others use [URL]/locations/cityname-zip code/
I've even seen [URL]/locations/street address-cityname (that's what Starbucks do) There are also different strategies for the title of the branch page.
Some use [city name] [state] [zip code] | [Company name]
Other use [Full address] | [Company name]
Or [City name] [US state] [1/2/3] | [Company name]
Or [City name] [District / Neighborhood] [Zip Code] | [Company name] What is the preferred strategy for getting the best results? On the one hand, I wish differentiate the store pages from one another and gain as much local coverage as possible; on the other hand, I wish to create consistency and establish a long term strategy, taking into consideration that many more branches will be opened in the near future.1 -
Disproportionate Links to Home Page
I'm a professional magician and mentalist who travels nationally for corporate events, social functions, and trade shows. Unfortunately, the landing pages are all for different venues and locations, but the product stays the same. How do you recommend optimizing for somebody whose product is essentially themselves? The pages have similar content, videos, etc., so I don't want to be dinged for duplicate content.
Local Website Optimization | | KevinViner0 -
What to do with localised landing pages on listings website - Canonical question
Hi Run a pet listings website and we had tonnes of duplicate content that we have resolved. But not sure what to do with the localised landing pages. We have everything pointing back back to the main listings URL http://www.dogscatsandpets.co.uk/for-sale-stud-and-adoption/ but haven't pointed the URLs that show pets for specific towns and cities eg http://www.dogscatsandpets.co.uk/for-sale/dogs-and-puppies/in-city-of-london/ back to the main url. Obviously this is giving us duplicate content issues, but these pages do rank in local search and drive traffic into the site. So my question is should we canonicalise the local pages back to the main url and if we do will this mean our local landing pages will no longer rank? Is there any alternatives?
Local Website Optimization | | dogscatsandpets0 -
Local site went from dominating first page - bad plugin caused duplicate content issues - now to 2nd page for all!
I had a bad plugin create duplicate content issues on my Wordpress CMS - www.pmaaustin.com I got it fixed, but now every keyword has been stuck on page 2 for search terms for 4 months now, where I was 49 out of 52 keywords on page one. It's a small local niche with mostly easier to rank keywords. Am I missing something? p.s. Also has a notice on the Dashboard that says: "404 Redirected: There are 889 captured 404 URLs that need to be processed." Could that be a problem? Thanks, Steve
Local Website Optimization | | OhYeahSteve0 -
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