Local Vs. National Targeting - Pointless?
-
Hi,
I have a client, in Maryland, that wants to rank on the first page for "yoga teacher training". But to my understanding Google (don't know about Yahoo! & Bing at the moment) is prioritizing local listings first based on the user's IP (or preferred city if using a logged in Google Account).
-
Am I right about the priority of local listings? Is that a common occurrence now?
-
Is it possible for my client to rank for yoga teacher training for someone searching in New York, for example, or is this a huge chalenge?
Thanks for any advice!!
Kindly, Michael
-
-
Will do, thanks!
-
Thanks - the client doesn't even come up locally for the search - but if you append the state she is in, she ranks on the first page.
I think I'm going to go back and explain that moving up even for a local search is going to bring in substantial more traffic.
-
Hi Michael,
Yes you are right about #1, this type of thing would probably be best explained with an in person meeting where you do the searches together live and explain the results. If face to face isn't possible setup using gotomeeting and share your desktop and show the client. If the client doesn't rank for local yet suggest getting ranked local first (easier) and then going national.
It is possible to rank for other cities and your strategy would come down to the goal. Do you want to show up as a local result or just have the site show up in the regular SERPs. There are ways to show up for local results without having a physical location but it starts to fall in the grey hat tactics area.
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
-
Would there be any benefit to creating multiple pages of the same content to target different titles?
Obviously, the duplicated pages would be canonical, but would there be a way of anchoring a page land by search term entry? For example: If you have a site that sells cars you could use this method but have a page that has (brand) cars for sale, finance options, best car for a family, how far will the (brand) car go for on a full tank and so on? Then making all the information blocks h2's but using the same H2s for the duplicated page titles. Then it gets complicated, If someone searches "best car for a family" and the page title for the duplicated page is clicked how would you anchor this user to the section of the page with this information? Could there be a benefit to doing this or would it just not work?
Algorithm Updates | | Evosite10 -
Do keyword target landing pages increase rankings?
Let's say we create landing pages for targeted keywords in our niche. So like we have landing pages optimised for 80% of the top keywords with decent search volume. If these pages started ranking at first page or around; will this scenario improves the ranking of website? Right now, only few of our top pages are ranking good. Planning to create more of such.
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
SEO - Vimeo vs. YouTube
Hi Does anyone have any good blogs or stats on which video hosting platform is better for SEO? I'm guessing YouTube as it's owned by Google - but I'd love some stats to support this for an internal debate. Thanks Becky
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Geo Target Location in your URL Structure
Hello everyone at SEOMOZ 😄 I have a question if you would be as kind as to inform me of which direction that I should take on this matter would be the more desirable approach for my seo strategy I have been using my location in my URL structure since I started doing SEO 5 years ago and I have always benefited from including my city in the URL. My question is, since the SEO landscape has change so drastically over the past 2 years and the Search Engines have become much more end user friendly and list suggestions for users as they type would it be more beneficial in 2013 to have the "Keyword" before or after the Geo Targeted Location in the URL structure? I own a computer repair business for the past 6 years now and I know that when i check to see where I am ranking for a particular keyword phrase such as "Computer Repair" GOOGLE detects my location and provides suggestions as I start typing out "Computer Repair" for the search query. One of the suggestions is "Computer Repair Wilmington NC" so I am starting to wonder if placing the Geo Targeted City after the Keyword would be the wiser choice instead of before it like a couple of years ago? Working Example: Here is a site that I am building out right now to re-brand my business. Currently I have one of the Silo Category Slugs set as seen below using the Location before the Keyword The First Example has the Geo Target Location before the Keyword and looks more natural to visitors on the site (at least to me) however I'm afraid that I may be shooting myself in the foot not placing the keyword before the Target Location? But if I do that, It does not read or flow fluently to the average looker so kinda confused and torn on how to deal with this>! FIRST EXAMPLE: Location Before Keyword Silo Parent Category = "Computer Repair" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/wilmington-nc-computer-repair/ Silo Child Category = "Laptop" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/wilmington-nc-computer-repair/laptop-repair/ Silo Grand Child Category = "LCD Replacement" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/wilmington-nc-computer-repair/laptop/lcd-screen-replacement/ **SECOND EXAMPLE: ** Keyword Before Location Silo Parent Category = "Computer Repair" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/computer-repair-wilmington-nc/ Silo Child Category = "Laptop" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/computer-repair-wilmington-nc/laptop-repair/ Silo Grand Child Category = "LCD Replacement" http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/computer-repair-wilmington-nc/laptop-repair/lcd-screen-replacement/ Which would be the more favorable of the 2 examples that I have given please? Keyword before or After the Geo Targeted Location? thank you
Algorithm Updates | | MarshallThompson310 -
Bing's indexed pages vs pages appearing in results
Hi all We're trying to increase our efforts in ranking for our keywords on Bing, and I'm discovering a few unexpected challenges. Namely, Bing is reporting 16000+ pages have been crawled... yet a site:mywebsite.com search on Bing shows less than 1000 results. I'm aware that Duane Forrester has said they don't want to show everything, only the best. If that's the case, what factors must we consider most to encourage Bing's engine to display most if not all of the pages the crawl on my site? I have a few ideas of what may be turning Bing off so to speak (some duplicate content issues, 301 redirects due to URL structure updates), but if there's something in particular we should monitor and/or check, please let us know. We'd like to prioritize 🙂 Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | brandonRT0 -
KML File vs. KMZ File
When should you use a KMZ file? What are the benefits to using a KMZ file as opposed to just a standalone KML file?
Algorithm Updates | | RezStream80 -
Local SEO-How to handle multiple business at same address
I have a client who shares the same address and suite number with multiple business. What should be done to optimize their website and citations for local SEO? Is this a huge issue? What should we do so our rankings aren't affected. Will changes take a long time to take place? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | caeevans0 -
Bing Vs Google SERP
I realize the major search engines use different criteria but I don't see how - for the same home page keyword - my site could rank #3 on page 1 for a Bing search and be off the charts (Page 15+)? on Google. Has Google gone so far off the charts with their new Penguins and Pandas so as to be in a different universe? Seems Google is now extremely over-weighting big sites like Wikipedia, WebMD, eHow, etc. and in doing so vastly reducing the diversity of results shown. I am commonly seeing different pages of the same website appear multiple times in the first 2-3 pages of Google results. What's the point?
Algorithm Updates | | veezer0