Creating a subdomain for IP targeting based on city
-
We are currently located in OKC and are opening a new location in Dallas. After much research, I found the best way to do the website is to create a subdomain a redirect people based on their IP location so our current SEO will help give substance to the new location.
My question is, should I recreate the whole website under this subdomain using Dallas instead of OKC throughout or should I just recreate 1 or 2 pages?
This is all very new to me and I need as much help as I can get lol.
-
My next question is that we are planning to have different price points in each location, how would you recommend I handle that? If you look on our site now advancedbodyscan.com you'll see we have pricing for scans and these will be higher in the Texas market. I can do content based on IP address as well, but that seems like a lot of work and possibly not necessary...
Should I keep everything generic and then put pricing only on the landing pages? I just don't want someone from TX to accidentally buy at an Oklahoma price online and vice versa.
-
Thank you for the responses! I ended up creating a landing page based on IP address. So if you are in Texas you will be directed to that page, but if you are in Oklahoma you will be directed to the main.
My next question is that we are planning to have different price points in each location, how would you recommend I handle that? If you look on our site now advancedbodyscan.com you'll see we have pricing for scans and these will be higher in the Texas market. I can do content based on IP address as well, but that seems like a lot of work and possibly not necessary...
Should I keep everything generic and then put pricing only on the landing pages? I just don't want someone from TX to accidentally buy at an Oklahoma price online and vice versa.
-
Hi KylieM!
Thanks for bringing your question to the forum.
While I'm not sure what the findings of your research were based on, I believe what you've decided may be overly-complicating your task. A business with 2 locations can simply have a landing page for each of its two branches. You don't need a subdomain, you don't need to recreate the website. Just be sure your core pages (home, about, services, contact) are in good shape, and create a unique page for OKC and another for Dallas. This post might help: https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages
-
I agree with Joseph, as you can also do the IP based redirect from all of the pages in that case.
-
Hello KylieM,
Personally, I would always use a subdirectory when I want to target different locations. Google usually see your subdomain as a different website, that means using subdirectory you can make sure all the SEO effort, especially link juice is focused on the same website.
Hope this answered your question.
Regards,
Joseph Yap
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 Locations Same City
I have a local seo campaign im trying to reconfigure. Lets say i am a dwi lawyer and i have multiple locations. These are merely examples for cities and keywords. Home page is Criminal defense lawyer - this is the term we should be targeting. Maybe i can target the state name, but i am losing so much SEO weight by not leveraging this home page as the main page for this term. Then we have a location page in south Boston that is "S Boston DWI lawyer" as the title tag. Then we have another location page north Boston that is "N Boston DWI Lawyer" as the title tag. I can leave the city name off the home page title tag, but then what do i do with these pages that are pretty much competing with one another? I know the home page will not rank since none of the locations point to it, and only to a location page. I was thinking about creating one page with both locations and having both G map listings go directly there, but that doesn't make sense because other locations do not have the same setup. Or choosing the most central location and pointing that to the home page and let the rest have a locations page. Finally the home page will not rank well for any major terms. The location page does rank for the fictional south Boston DWI lawyer, but the other listing does not show up. The home page does not show up in the first ten pages either. One other aspect is that the home page ranks for terms that I am not even targeting. These pages are all targeted on specific keywords so that they do not overlap or compete, but some pages are the services main outline, but the location pages have their own version. I have removed all mentions of the same keyword from the home page. I made a few wchanges about 2 weeks ago and already noticed movement in rankings days later.
Local Website Optimization | | waqid0 -
Mysterious Location Based SERP Disappearance
Hi Everyone, I've got a bit of a confusing SEO issue which I'm hoping you'll be able to help with. Apologies in advance for the long post, I've put an abridged version below also. We have one main keyword and it seems to have disappeared in some locations. The main keyword is "clothing manufacturers" and up until recently we had stability for almost a year. We're based in London, England and we regularly check "clothing manufacturers" to see where we're showing in search, and we usually see between 3rd - 5th. We use AHREFS to track rankings and noticed recently that "clothing manufacturers" had disappeared totally. We asked some people in different areas of the country to check where we were showing in search - one in Somerset, one in Liverpool, one in Beckingham and we used a VPN in Manchester. In all of these areas we aren't ranking for our main keyword at all. In London though we're 5th which is the lower end of normal. We then checked other keywords and it turns out "Clothes manufacturers" is one we're also not ranking for outside of London. However for "clothing manufacturers uk" and "clothes manufacturers uk" we are ranking for in every location we have tried. "Clothing manufacturers uk" is currently the keyword which brings us the most traffic. There are no manual penalties in webmaster tools, but looking at analytics it looks like our impressions for the main keyword have been down over the past 90 days, so we think we have had a problem and not realised for some time. Around a week before we see that our traffic for "clothing manufacturers" dropped, we made some structural changes to the website homepage, where we added LSIs, more H2s, more long tail keywords and more content, taking the copy from around 500 words to around 1100 words. This was in an effort to make the homepage less keyword stuffed and more natural. As a result of this we saw an overall increase in traffic and enquiries, and that's the reason we didn't notice for so long that traffic from "clothing manufacturers" has dropped so badly. Our first thought is that this might be something to do with Schema. Our website was until last week using a schema which included our "postal address" which is our physical office location in London. The schema was implemented in June 2017 and we have noticed that 3 months after implementing the schema, in October, our traffic fell dramatically for our main keyword, "clothing manufacturers". At the same time, our traffic for "clothing manufacturers uk" increased dramatically. Interestingly, the schemas used by our competitors don't include their office addresses and they show up all over the country for "clothing manufacturers" and "clothes manufacturers". One of our competitors is physically within half a mile of us. Have you guys seen a schema limit a company to searches only in one locality before? We have now removed the address from the schema to see if we start ranking all over the country again, like we used to before we implemented it. If this is the problem then it could take 3 months to turn around like it did for us to get in to this situation (Schema implemented June 2017, traffic fell October 2017). We're therefore trying to investigate every possibility to ensure we leave no stone unturned. Do you have any thoughts on the problem and if it could be schema related, or possibly something else? Thank you in advance! TL:DR Keywords "clothing manufacturers" and "clothes manufacturers" no longer ranking around the UK. Still ranking in London where we are based. Still ranking well for "clothing manufacturers uk" and "clothes manufacturers uk". Traffic for "clothing manufacturers" dropped 3 months after implementing schema and one week after making changes to website homepage (increased word count, added long tail keywords, LSIs and H2s). Schema included "postal address" which we notice none of our competitors have. They rank all over the country for "clothing manufacturers". One of our competitors is based within half a mile of us in London. Could having the address in the schema limit us to one locality? Could it be something else entirely?
Local Website Optimization | | rswhtn0 -
Looking to create a "best practice" doc on location pages. Anyone know of a useful resource?
I'm working for a few regional brands and would like to create a best practice doc for the structure of a location page. Has anyone seen anything recent regarding a structure for local, regional and national pages? Thanks all, Kevin
Local Website Optimization | | Kevin.Bekker1 -
Local Search ( Automotive Vertical ) One Targeted Landing Page Listed Twice In Navigation
NOT talking about the same page being linked to twice Talking about One (1) (landing) page Being Listed Twice In Navigation. Looking for a definitive answer that there is NO negative SEO ( or negative anything ) to put the same page in your site's Navigation Bar ... twice (or more than once) Can't find anything written that there is anything to consider or be concerned with, but, thought I'd ask. I'm a newERbie, but not a NEWbie...have 2.5 years experience in local, on-page SEO...but only know what I know Maybe I should know this, but, I don't. E.g. Home New Cars Used Cars Special Offers Service Finance About Us PickUps PickUps This is JUST an example, but, we have multiple occurences, let's say, Trade-In-Value ... in two places. One page, two locations in navigation. I have SEEN it being done, 'all the time', but now, when I went to do it with a little bit of a different rationale, I was questioned about ' ... is this okay for SEO ' I THINK yes But, I want to KNOW yes ... it is ok.
Local Website Optimization | | GaryT_SEO0 -
Using IP Detection to Filter Directory Listings without Killing Your SEO?
I have a client who maintains a directory of surgeons across the United States (approx. 2,000 members at present), and wishes to use IP detection to dynamically filter their surgeon directory to a sub-set that is relevant to the geography of the visitor. At the same time, however, we want the pages in the surgeon directory to rank nationally for terms like "[insert specialty] surgeons". Any tips/best practices for implementing an IP detection solution without shooting yourself in the foot from an SEO perspective? Is it even possible? Thanks! Jeremy
Local Website Optimization | | Jeremy_Lopatin0 -
Subdomain versus Subfolder for Local SEO
Hello Moz World, I'm wanting to know the best practices for utilizing a subdomain versus a subfolder for multi location businesses, i.e. miami.example.com vs. example.com/miami; I would think that that utilizing the subdomain would make more sense for a national organization with many differing locations, while a subfolder would make more sense for a smaller more nearby locations. I wanted to know if anyone has any a/b examples or when it should go one way or another? Thank you, Kristin Miller
Local Website Optimization | | Red_Spot_Interactive0 -
Where does analytics pull information from for general keyphrases that do not list a city? Ex: Restaurants, Playgrounds, Librarys
I have heard that when doing a general search, the search engine will pull the results based on IP address. But what if that information is not available? Where does analytics pull that keyword information if there is no location associated with the keyphrase?
Local Website Optimization | | seomozinator0 -
How to target an established .co.uk site/blog to audiences in other English speaking countries - UAE, Singapore for example?
Excuse for the novice questions, but looking for help! 🙂 I have an established .co.uk website/blog for which I have established a good solid following in the UK over a good number of years. That said I have recently relocated to Dubai and so I am looking to target my English blog content to English speakers here and Singapore? While the language setting of my site is "en" is there anyway that I can change this to "en-ae" and "en-sg" for example to build a following in these markets? Or is my .co.uk TLD an issue that is going to hold me back from building following in these locations? I ask as I have just read the hreflang announcement from Google, but noticed in my Webmaster Tools that I get the following message: "Your site has no hreflang tags". Thanks in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | twofourseven0