Hi Eric,

You are right to be wary of this tactic. Not only would you be creating duplicate content by replicating this statement from page to page, but you would also be going against Google's webmaster guidelines which state:

Keyword stuffing

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

Examples of keyword stuffing include:

• Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
• Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for

(Bolded emphasis mine) See: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66358?hl=en

Unfortunately, if your client lacks the funding to develop unique content for each of his service cities, then he should not expect to rank for them. In days gone by, the client would have needed to pay for phone book ads that highlighted his service cities. Lacking funding, he would have been out of the running. These days, because of Google's bias towards unique, useful content, funding comes into play when it comes to content development.

Perhaps you can find a good solution for this client in the form of an on-going contract in which you develop 1-2 new pages or posts for him per month at a reasonable rate. By then end of 2014, he would have added 12-24 new pages of content to his website, covering his cities and many of his services. He needs to be convinced of the value of this investment, and if you start with just a few of the cities and he begins getting more phone calls, it's likely he will see that this is an essential investment that is going to pay for itself over time.

Hi Eric,

First, I need to make a small correction to my earlier statement. I meant to state that duplicating text across PAGES would = duplicate content. Footer content is excluded from this. Most websites have the same content in their footer from page to page. Sorry if what I wrote was misleading. So, duplicate content isn't the issue here, but...

While I agree that your devil's advocate argument contains horse sense in some ways, the footer is probably one of the most obvious places Google would look for spam. If Google goes out of their way to state that they don't want blocks of city names on a website, I think it's wise to take this at face value. And I think that, because footers are historic candidates for spamming, Google would be especially down on this type of content being placed there.

I may be a little bewildered by your client's goals. If they don't want to rank for their service cities, why include them anywhere on the website? And if the goal is to let visitors know the areas they serve, why not at least put that on the homepage of the website, shine a spotlight on it so it's totally clear? Make a custom map. Write a full description. Create unique pages and link to them from a top level menu.

Relegating this vital information to the footer, which many people won't even see, just doesn't make sense to me. The areas an SAB serves are critical data and should be highlighted in every way possible. When I develop websites for SABs, I create two main types of pages beyond the typical homepage, contact, about, etc.:

1. Service description pages (one for each service)

2. City landing pages (one for each major city served)

To me, these are the basics of any local business website, and I would be puzzled by a client who didn't 'get' this. I work primarily with small-to-medium local businesses, and I totally understand budget constraints, This is why creating a protracted timeline for getting all the necessary pages developed is often a good solution. To me, from what you've written, it sounds like your client may not have clear goals in mind in regards to how their website will serve them and their customers. Hopefully, as their marketer, you can help them create a plan that will take their website forward to becoming a true sales-generating asset. I hope these thoughts are helpful.

Hi Trevogre,

So glad to have you here in the forum. I'm not 100% sure I'm understand your initial question. You write:

So if I create a services areas page, with links to landing pages for each county/city that is serviced. And then I create the pages for each area, and leave the content blank but then pursue filling out the content. Is the absence of the content considered duplicate content? Would you get penalized for the essentially blank pages.

Why would you take the approach of creating blank pages to be filled out later? There is no benefit I can see in publishing blank pages. Don't create a page until you've got something to put on it. While I don't believe Google would see blank pages a duplicate content (simply because there would be no content on them), I do not recommend creating links in your navigation or pages to pages that don't yet exist. That could look spammy - like you're just putting up blank pages so that they can have service/city URLs/titles, but haven't bothered to put anything on them. So, I don't see why one would do this. Have I misunderstood what you're asking?

Regarding this:

Ultimately I think this leads to poor organic search results, because the ability to determine the quality of a small business has nothing to do with its location

It's important to understand that the local and organic algorithms are separate. Local rankings are those that appear in the local packs of results. They are determined by a combination of factors including geography and authority. Location, as a ranking factor, is only relevant to local businesses...not virtual businesses. I totally agree with you that location has nothing to do with quality, but this should only concern true local business models - not businesses that aren't physically based.

I feel like I may be failing to comprehend your exact concerns here ... do you feel that local businesses located outside the borders of neighboring cities are being dealt an unfair hand? Or is it something else? Please, feel free to provide further clarification!

The local community involvement is an excellent jumping off point for this. Totally agree!

Regarding evergreen vs. fresh content ... as we know, Google does love frequently updated pages, so where possible, that's a great way to go, but having a static, unique page is definitely an excellent start! Go for it!

Hey Scott,

That's a tough problem, but removing the phone number would not be a good solution as it is one of the 4 core pieces of NAP+W data that Google and customers need to see about any local business. I wouldn't trust a business with no listed phone number and expect most customers would feel the same about this.

I like Bryan's common sense suggestions on this. What I would like to add is that your thread has made me curious as to what it is about the client's business that is making it so confusing to customers that they need a 15 minute explanation before they understand the business model. Maybe the very best thing to do here would be for you to coach the client into whittling that down to a 4-5 sentence explanation that takes less than 1 minute to explain. Think along the lines of an elevator pitch. No business should require a 15 minute explanation, if we're just covering the basics.

Likely, what the client is experiencing is that it's necessary to then move forward from the basic explanation to the conversation that leads to discovering the fitness of a prospect and then closing a deal. While there is no way to avoid putting in this time, again, it comes down how the conversation is managed. I am thinking back to my own early days when I found it frustrating that I would spend a great deal of time listening to customer's issues and explaining my service, only to discover many minutes into the conversation that their budget did not match my fees. What I eventually learned from this was to mention my rates within the first couple minutes of the conversation. At that point, I would either hear,

"Oh, I can't afford that."

or

"That sounds reasonable."

This helped me determine whether a further investment of my time in the discussion was appropriate. It may be that your client is struggling with something like this and needs to refine her communications so that she can tell the difference between a good match and a poor one within a couple of minutes of answering her phone.

One other suggestion ... have the client answer the phone and then put the customer on hold for 30 seconds. In that 30 seconds, run an automated on-hold message with music and voice disclosing the key components of the pitch. By the time the owner then takes the customer off hold, they will have heard the basics.

Hi Trevogre,

Thanks for the further details. My advice is not to create blank pages on your website, regardless of nofollow. Similarly, my advice is not to create pages with nothing more than a form and call to action on them. If I saw a website with 10 pages on it consisting of nothing but a form and a call to action, I would consider that to be of low quality, regardless of nofollow.

Regarding Google's search results, unfortunately, our personal beliefs about what makes a high quality result do not always match Google's beliefs. I get what you are saying about making queries with the hope of being returned the highest quality page, regardless of location. The problem is, if Google doesn't understand your intent, they will show you things you weren't looking for. There isn't really any way for you, on your own, to influence Google's  take on quality and relevance, apart from the fact that Google may personalize results for you based on your past search habits. So, I do get where you're coming from on this. There just isn't really anything I know of that you can do about it. Hope this helps!

Hi Kanya!

Local SEO and local rankings are meant for businesses that make in-person contact with their customers. This generally does not apply to e-commerce companies, most of which operate virtually. So, whether you use a P.O. box or not may be a bit of a moot point here. If the customer DOES make face-to-face contact and does want to rank locally, he cannot use a P.O. box on most citation platforms - it won't be accepted. He would need a real physical address.

Regarding adding cities and states to the site, of course, he should explain which places he ships to, but if like most businesses he ships to the 48 states or something like that, then this really isn't a reason to create unique content, as presumably the shipping process is the same for all customers. Don't just add a list of states or cities for the sake of SEO. Google frowns on such practices.

Likely, if the client makes no personal contact with his customers, organic SEO is going to be where you need to put focus - not Local SEO. Hope these thoughts are helpful!

Hi Kanya,

That's right - if the company is not local, having a P.O. box where they receive mail is totally fine. No worries about that.

Hey Brett!

There are some nuances to this I want to be sure I'm understanding.

1. How many physical locations do you have? Are you saying that you have 1 physical location from which you are serving all of those states, or do you have physical locations in each of the states?

2. Are you meeting face-to-face with your customers in each of these states, either at your office or at their homes/businesses?

Please, answer these 2 questions as fully as possible.

Regarding instances in which Google does not show local results for a given query, this is based on their internal interpretation of what is most relevant. Google makes a decision about whether a searcher's intent is local or not, and also, they determine whether there is enough relevant local data to show on a given query. No one (but Google) knows all of the ins and outs of these decisions, but it's not something you can really influence. The important thing is to recognize whether Google is showing local or organic results for your core queries and then do everything you can to become dominant in those results, either via local or traditional marketing methods. Remember, too, that results are personalized - so you searching from Hawaii are not seeing the same results that your customer is searching from California

I'll look forward to your replies on questions 1 & 2.

Hi There!

I just responded over on your other thread, but wanted to include think link for you to a thread I started when Google announced their doorway pages update:

http://moz.com/community/q/how-google-s-doorway-pages-update-affects-local-seo

I hope you'll find that helpful!