Multiple Locations Same City

[waqid]

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.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Waquid!

Thank you so much for adding a bit more context to your question. I perfectly see your scenario now.

So, if a business does something like landscape design and has only two offices in San Francisco, it's likely that the homepage and both location landing pages will include references to "San Francisco" and "Landscape Design". The landing pages could also be optimized for hyperlocal terms like "North Beach" or "Glen Park" if they are in different neighborhoods.

However, if the business has, lets say, 20 offices in California, then they wouldn't be likely to use any city or neighborhood terms on the homepage because there are simply too many cities to cover. Rather, the homepage might reference regional names, like SF Bay Area, or Central Valley or Orange County, etc, or even just Northern California/Southern California.

If the service is identical at all locations, then there's really no avoiding using those service keywords on all pages. You can vary them in any way that keyword research shows you variants. For example, you could dice up findings like "sustainable landscape design, native landscape design, commercial landscape design" etc, between the pages, but if you have just one overarching service, then it will be reflected on all pages. It's the geo-terms that need to be parsed up to fit the scenario of your various offices.

[waqid]

Question is how does one target two locations in the same city with the same keyword/service, and then the home page as well.

I have GMB links to my location pages for a south and central location in one large metro city. The home page is having the same keyword.

What would you do in this instance?

For now i removed all instances of keywords located on the location pages. The home page has a totally different topic now.

I did see my rankings jump up a page and we got into the top 5 on gmaps for tons of terms. I am just trying to see if there are any options im missing on best way to setup multiple locations targeting the same city without wasting the home page SEO juice.  Because right now my home page is not ranking for any major terms at all.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Waqid,

Thank you so much for bringing your topic to to the forum. I've read through your scenario now, but I'm not seeing the question you're asking. Can you please detail what your exact question is? Thanks!

[waqid]

Thanks for the responses but the keywords are fictional and jsut an example of my predicament. The business has been around for 27+ years and in google for  about ten. our backlink profile , citations and etc are all very competitive. Clean and concise citations and links.

I will re read what you said. But it sounds like we are on the same page and I do not expect rank well jsut because on page is perfect. What I’m trying to figure out is the best plan for long term success targetfing these highly Competitive terms.

Content is also exceptional and very informational and helpful.

I’m going To review competition again and make spreadsheet of their layout.

I will kepe this updated so that maybe I can help others in the future

[effectdigital]

"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. _"

Obviously have your main keyword on your homepage, but unless your site has a unique value proposition (watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AmRg3p79pM - only watch until Miley outlines common mistake #1, the rest is pretty much irrelevant here) that trumps that of all your competitors (who may have been operating in the area before you) - don't expect to suddenly jump to number 1. Your popularity massively affects your rankings and having a unique value proposition for end users massively affects your quality and volume of organically created backlinks

As to whether you should have separate pages for S Boston (South Boston) and N Boston (North Boston?) - that depends on your implementation and the keyword volumes.

• "n boston dwi lawyer" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "north boston dwi lawyer" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "s boston dwi lawyer" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "south boston dwi lawyer" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner

Pointless! Let's try slightly broader terms:

• "n boston lawyer" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "north boston lawyer" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "s boston lawyer" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "south boston lawyer" - 10 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner

Still pretty bad. If I could 'quickly and easily' find evidence that Google though people were searching for these terms regularly, or broader variants - and that Google didn't 'group' their search volumes (and thus thought they were distinct search entities as per Hummingbird) I might say yeah, have two separate pages and on each page create one of those Google maps that draws a border around an area (usually created with zipcode / post-code data) which would illustrate your area of service and the cut-off boundaries

Since there isn't much volume here for these kinds of terms, is local SEO really the answer for you? Is it even going to benefit you that much? Is it even going to make a difference, whatever you do? I'm not really sure about that, looking at the data behind Google's searches

Experimenting with more terms it does very much seem that South Boston could be worth targeting independently, but North Boston is really not even worth bothering with:

• "n boston legal" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "north boston legal" - 0 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "s boston legal" - 10 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "south boston legal" - 10 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner

Actually, people seem to care more about the distinction of 'greater' Boston and what that means. People care about South Boston and Greater Boston, rather than North / South divide of Boston:

• "n boston " - 10 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "north boston" - 480 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "s boston" - 40 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "south boston" - 12,100 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "greater boston" - 2,900 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner

So go for South and Greater Boston related terms if possible and divide it up that way:

• "greater boston legal " - 20 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "south boston legal" - 10 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "greater boston legal services" - 1,900 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner
• "south boston lawyer" - 10 estimated monthly searches in the USA from Google's Keyword Planner

If you have no base of operations in Greater Boston, maybe you want to fundamentally reconsider that as somewhere in Greater Boston might be considered more lucrative from a search POV. Maybe North Boston is part of Greater Boston, I don't know - I'm from the UK! I'm trying to see it a bit like London and its various districts (North London, South London, Greater London, Camden, Covent Garden etc)

With all this info coming together, I'd say don't really bother with North Boston much at all. I might Create a South Boston page and reference Greater Boston on that a lot, drawing up a Google map showing your bordered service areas (highlighting South Boston, your office in South Boston, and then surrounding Greater Boston - all on ONE map)

I'd talk a lot about the legal scene in South Boston, why the product is more relevant there (when people in North Boston don't seem to even care much for legal aid at all). I'd illustrate that your core focus in is South Boston with aspirations and clients in and around surrounding Greater Boston - where it seems like the real money is

Without an office in Greater Boston somewhere, rankings in that area (those areas) will be slightly hampered, but competition for "greater boston legal services" is "low" (at least for PPC, but it's probably also low for SEO as well) - so you might make some ground and get a bit of traffic more quickly

If having a South Boston specific location page which does not really reference North Boston much (or pollute itself with that term) necessitates for UX purposes that you also need to create a North Boston page, fine do it. Just don't expect it to bring much traffic in (based on what I am seeing!)

"_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 changes about 2 weeks ago and already noticed movement in rankings days later. "

Strong technical SEO and keyword 'cannibalisation' avoidant deployment 'allow' you to rank well. They don't make your site the best page for Google to rank. All they do is clear your roadblocks, but if you don't have enough fuel (popularity, value-add propositions) to be competitive and win the race - don't expect to win

SEO is not a substitute for a business offering which may not be more competitive, than all others sites ranking above itself. SEO helps your website to rank appropriately, where an unbiased user would expect to see it in Google's rankings