Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hey There,

You've received some really nice feedback from Patrick, so I'm just going to add a bit of my own here.

Foundational Understanding

It's vital to understand that, despite the fact that Douglasville is a small town, it is the town Google will see you as most relevant to once you've got your Local SEO basics in place. You have to anchor yourself to Douglasville, taking care of it first and then building out from there.

Your basics are:

1. The most helpful, fast and professional website you can produce, properly optimized for the core Douglasville term with abundant focus on contact information.

2. Adherence to the Google quality guidelines in the creation of your Google+ Local page (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en)

3. Clean, consistent citations on a variety of other platforms (http://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-us)

4. Beginning your acquisition of reviews on any of the above platforms that feature reviews.

All of the above is primarily geared toward your prominence in Douglasville.

Next Steps

Now, moving on from the basics with the foundational understanding that search engine rankings are going to be different for each user, given that the user has become a major centroid of search, your second set of tasks moves out from here and includes these:

1. Develop a publishing plan to cover on your website all of the cities that you serve. Each city that you serve will be treated to a unique page of content on your website (no thin, duplicate pages). This is a major creative effort, worth your very best effort. The point of this effort is to gain organic (not local pack) visibility for the cities that you serve.

2. Develop a publishing plan for ongoing content development on your website or website-based blog that continues to showcase your expertise as it relates to both your services and service cities.

3. Assess your social opportunities, in terms of the places customers already hang out where your outreach could be useful. Participate on an on-going basis on those platforms.

4. Look for additional city-or-industry specific platforms where you can earn citations. This might be things like Douglasville's Chamber of Commerce, or the website of computer repair association or club.

5. Look for competitive difference makers, wherever you can find them. For example, are your competitors doing video marketing? If not, there's something for you to consider doing which they aren't. Are your competitors doing PPC, radio or TV advertising, supporting a local sports team, hosting workshops, writing a column for the local newspaper, offering specials or holding contests? Anything that your competitors either aren't doing at all or aren't doing very well is an opportunity for you to surpass them with a superior effort. Competitive difference makers will be different for every industry/geography/individual company.

In Sum

Whether you accomplish all of the above solo or end up hiring a Local SEO agency or other marketers to assist you, the hoped-for result of this work will be:

1. Increased conversions (phones ringing, forms being filled out) as a result of:

2. Better local pack visibility for Douglasville-related searches

3. Better organic visibility for your service city-related searches

4. Broader visibility on both on and off-line platforms

Knowing how well you are doing on all of the above tasks is going to be based either on your own education about Local Search Marketing or on the savvy of the marketers you hire. Just remember, rankings are not the end goal here - conversions are. Good luck to you and hope this helps!

Hi Nathan,

I recommend going with USPS version. I use SmartyStreets.com to look these up. Also, recommend you check out Nyagoslav Zhekov's recent post on acceptable NAP:

http://www.whitespark.ca/acceptable-google-maps-nap-abbreviations-and-variations

Hi Again,

I showed your image to a few very good Local SEOs and no one had ever seen anything like it before. Maybe some type of radius function. Maybe Google is testing something.

Update: I stand corrected. Someone I spoke to says they have seen this in the Google My Business dashboard and that it was called 'hit radius'. It might have been something showing where most calls or traffic were coming from. I guess it's not a well-known feature whatever it is! Might be worth it to take it to the Google and Your Business Forum and see if you can get more info on this from a TC there.

That's a first for me! I have no idea what that spot is. I'll ask some colleagues to see if anyone else has seen it. Colorful!

Hi Joshua,

Yes, this warning from Google is still relevant:

Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for

So, what you are describing with a block of geo terms/zip codes on a single page would fall under this heading. I would advise finding a better way of featuring this info.

Regarding neighborhoods, recommend that you read: http://moz.com/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid

Hi Ikkie - We'll be glad to take a look if you can share what you're seeing.

Hi Fastrack!

Yeah, it's an interesting decision. For now, they're gone. But, there's always the possibility that this feature could reappear at some later date in a new form, with new chosen sources. We'll see.

Nice feedback here. The one thing you've asked about that I don't believe I've seen addressed is your question regarding having geographic modifiers in your business name. You are correct - Google does not want these, unless they are part of your legal business name or DBA.

This was a bit of a goofy situation. Originally, Google's guidelines expressly forbid the use of anything but the legal business name or DBA in the business title. Then, in the fall of 2013, they suddenly changed their policy on this, permitting business owners to add descriptors. So, at that point, lots of business owners jumped on this and added city names and other descriptors. A little over a year later, Google reversed their policy, returning to their original stance on this in which they do not want city names, state names, etc. in the business title unless they are part of the real-world business name.

You can read the guidelines here, under Name: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

Hi Andre!

I wish I knew more about Local SEO in Germany, but your screenshot looks like the new-ish 3-Pack that Google rolled out in the US last winter to replace their Carousel results. See coverage of this here:

http://searchengineland.com/google-axes-carousel-new-local-3-pack-208710

For hotels, restaurants and other hospitality/entertainment searches, Google had rolled out the Carousel in the summer of 2013, but this has been replaced by these results. Naming conventions have been kind of scattered. You'll hear terms like 3-pack, snack pack, local stack, hamburger pack. I think it's just easiest to call it a 3-pack. I'm not sure when these 3-packs rolled out in Germany, but this is likely what you are seeing. The upshot is that it has just become harder than ever to compete when Google is only awarding pack status to only 3 businesses!

Hi Charlie,

I'm sorry you haven't yet received any feedback yet on this question. Mike Blumenthal's writing on this topic (which you've already read) is as much as I personally know about on this, having never personally implemented a call tracking strategy for a local business. I'm hoping someone in our community will still reach out to you on this, but it may be that having read what you've read, you know as much as most folks on this topic. It may be you'll need to experiment to learn more.

That's really interesting regarding your client, William. Too early to say if there's a connection there, but it would be cool if you could find other similar examples in your client pool. Now, common sense would say that if Google is downgrading the visibility of third party reviews, this could indicated that they are placing less trust in them, and perhaps, relying more on a Google-centric representation of user sentiment, but there is nothing to confirm this, at this point. Third party reviews have long been considered an important ranking factor, so it would surprise me to see their value totally vanish in that regard. And, of course, review diversity is important for more than just rankings. I think it will be some time before we understand the shakedown from this small but significant move on Google's part.

I'd be glad to hear any theories about this from the community!

Hey All My Favorite Local Community Members!

I think we might start having questions come up about this, so I thought I'd do a quick post. Google has just confirmed that they have removed the 'Reviews from Around the Web' feature that has so long been a part of their local SERPs display. Mike Blumenthal confirms that this is official, here:

http://localu.org/blog/google-more-reviews-links-removed-from-knowledge-panel/

Apparently, you can still see your reviews from around the web in your Google My Business dashboard, but they are gone from knowledge panels, etc. This may not be a feature greatly missed by many, as the business owner had so little control over what was displayed in this section.

So ... upshot is: if you've just noticed that this feature is gone, it's official - it's gone.

Hi Fastrack,

Odd coincidence that you should ask. You'll want to read this:

http://localu.org/blog/google-more-reviews-links-removed-from-knowledge-panel/

This feature has just disappeared from the knowledge panel. Something's up. Don't miss the comments on the post.

You're very welcome!

Hi Joanna,

Yes - I would still recommend creating a unique page on your site for each location out of which you operate, and making maximum effort to ensure that the content on each page is unique and helpful.

Hi Brian - Your instinct about this is correct. Spun pages tend to be of very low quality and largely duplicative. Ideally, if you have an important city/service combination, you should be investing the time it takes to create a unique page from scratch about it. If the term is worth it, the time is worth it.

Hi Cole,

Unfortunately, yes - the set of pages being surfaced by Patrick would pretty much fit Google's definition of doorway pages, in my opinion.

The content has been duplicated across multiple pages, simply switching out the city names.

I recommend a couple of things here:

1. Read the thread I started about the doorway pages update when it rolled out: http://moz.com/community/q/how-google-s-doorway-pages-update-affects-local-seo

2. If you are currently developing these thin/duplicate content pages for yourself and your clients, this is definitely a great moment for you to rethink your strategy. It's my personal belief that content should only be published if it is unique and helpful. If you don't have unique content to publish on these types of city landing pages, then you don't have a reason to publish them.

Each local business that wants to cover cities in which they lack physical locations faces this same interesting challenge - identifying the legitimate connections between the business and the focus communities. These real-world connections need to be showcased on the landing pages. If they don't yet exist, the business needs to discover if the relationships can be developed and then showcased. If there are no opportunities for relationships, then these types of page don't really belong on the website in question.

Fortunately, a website design company has the opportunity to build direct relationships with its clients in the various cities it is serving. For example, if Alexandria is a city in which you have clients, your Alexandria page can be the place you write up these projects, including project descriptions, customer testimonials , video content, etc. When you've achieved showcasing, perhaps, five great clients on the Alexandria page, see what else you can do to make it unique. For example, does you company host or participate in industry events in this city? Sponsor a little league team there? Have a unique take on rising industries in the city? Anything you can think of that will demonstrate the strong relationship you've built on the business scene in a town will prove to new potential customers that you are very involved in serving businesses in their city.

There are no shortcuts here. Developing the writing for these pages calls for your greatest creativity and a decision to allot time and funding to creating city-related pages that are the gold standard in your industry and geographies. This mindset has always been appropriate, but now, with Google's doorway update, it has become a must.

3. Recommend you also read:

http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/30/16-ways-to-create-unique-local-content-for-cities-where-you-want-to-rank/

Hi Max,

For a tool like Moz OSE, it's a matter of depth that is likely preventing us from crawling through directories' millions of pages to find just one link on your particular listing on such a site. This does not meant that the links in your citations do not count as links - just that a crawl may not find them. Also, important to mention that the key point of building citations is not links - it's about ensuring that your business NAP is available and consistent on a variety of platforms. This makes you accessible to your customers and also strengthens search engines' 'belief' in the validity of your data.

Hi Avin,

I'm really sorry that I did not see you had replied on this thread. Provided that you have face-to-face interactions

with customers at your corporate office, then yes, it would be worth it to build citations on the major platforms.

Hi Kerry,

Excellent answer from Patrick. I just want to add a bit to it. For local businesses, directories are very much still part

of the picture. I, too, am curious about the nature of the directories your client is listed on. I'm assuming they are not

major directories like HotFrog. Would these be niche directories, specific to your client's industry, or something along

those lines? If so, do you sense that there is something fishy about the directories or the client's presence on them?

So glad you guys and gals like the Moz Local Learning Center. That's great to hear! It can even be a useful thing to share with your clients to help them start speaking the Local language with you

Hi Gavo!

The link Richard has shared will take you to the Moz's most recent industry expert survey of the key factors that contribute to local rankings. If, however, you are new to Local SEO, understanding the meaning of some of the terms in the survey may be a bit of a challenge, in which case, I recommend that you read your way through the Moz Local Learning Center:

http://moz.com/learn/local

This is a free library we've developed which covers many of the basics of getting a local campaign going. I think you'll find it helpful!

Hi! If you don't yet have the clients in place to create this type of content, then you don't really yet have a reason to create it. While you're building up your client base in the other cities, some other ideas might be finding opportunities to network in these other cities. Perhaps attending Chamber of Commerce meetings, hosting or attending workshops in these other cities or finding other opportunities for building relationships within these communities that you can then write about. Until then, your pages would by necessity be blank and you don't want blank pages on your site.

If you're talking about a retail business, it's the same thing. The fact that customers in cities B, C and D drive to city A to shop isn't really a compelling reason to develop content. Your other customers will not be interested in this. You have to discover whether you have some more real/interesting connection between the business and the other communities. For example a retail toy store might host a gaming event in city B, sponsor a little league team in city C, etc. Finding ways to become locally involved where your customers live builds relationships that you can then showcase on your website/blog.

This post from one of my favorite Canadian Local SEOs, Jim Rudnick, is quite old, but I think you may find it relevant to your question:

http://canuckseo.com/index.php/2010/04/to-dot-ca-or-not-to-dot-ca

In your shoes, I'd actually consider reaching out to someone like Jim for some consulting if he's available, as he knows Canadian Local like few other pros. You're making a big decision, and some professional advice could be very valuable at at time like this.

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!

Hey There!

Good topic! It's my personal feeling that Google's doorway pages update will mainly affect thin, duplicate content that doesn't have a very good reason for existing. I think the scenario you are describing could well fall under that heading if your competitors are taking a weak approach to the task of developing city landing pages. Some thoughts:

1. I can see the sense, if you have many clients, in breaking them up via city onto different showcase pages, but I would like to see more than just images on these pages. Project descriptions, customer testimonials, maybe even some unique content about the most powerful industries in that city could go far toward making these pages of value to human users, showing them your company's good work with neighboring businesses they recognize.

2. I think you need to do a gut check to draw a line about where you might be going overboard on this. If you are a boutique agency located in 1 city and taking clients in 9 other nearby cities, I could see it as a reasonable goal to create 10 really excellent pages with unique, interesting content on them. But, if you are a virtual business and want to create 50, 100, 5,000 pages like this to cover every city in the state or country (and I've seen this approach!) I find it less reasonable to imagine that the content is going to be unique and valuable to human users. Not saying that it's impossible, if you have big resources - just that it's less likely. So, you need to see what feels right to you; Google isn't giving us a cutoff point to work with about this. It's up to each of us to see what feels authentic and what feels like an obvious, painful grab for the SERPs, right?

3. I would not recommend putting these links in the footer, regardless of the strength of the pages. I would recommend including them in your main navigation menu. Even if the pages are great, it's my belief that Google expects spammy stuff in footers and you don't want to be accidentally lumped in with that crowd. If your pages are super, show them off in your menu with pride and leave the footer for your physical NAP, contact us link, copyright and other basics like that.

This would be my take on how to approach this. I get that you're seeing your competitors' doing things a certain way, and maybe they've all produced fantastic content for those footer-linked city pages, but if there's any chance that they haven't, you doing a better job could wind up being a competitive advantage.

Google prefers local phone numbers that connect directly to the place of business, but in recent times, they have allowed toll free numbers into their system. You can read the guidelines here:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

Hi Alick!

Thanks for turning up that response - hey, it's an oldie! Kind of fun to see

Hey Neil -

Some news your client may be happy to hear: Google has just made a review removal request very visible in their product. See coverage of this on Mike Blumenthal's blog:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/04/03/new-google-support-option-offers-a-form-to-contest-reviews/

However, this would only be an appropriate action to take if the review is truly inappropriate rather than a legitimate negative review of the business. Your client is not correct in his/her belief that you can just phone Google and have them take down reviews. This would not work

So, an inappropriate review might be one left as part of a grudge by a former employee or something like that. This is different than a legit negative review - as in the case of someone getting a raw pizza or being treated rudely at the place of business and documenting their negative experience.

If it's the latter, then best course of action is to make use of the the owner response function described here:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474050?hl=en

Owner responses should be crafted with care to show accountability for mistakes, concern for disappointments and a strong willingness to improve and rectify a negative experience. These will help the owner to show he's a good guy who is committed to customer satisfaction. If you are acting as the client's advisor in this, you can help him in the process of developing an excellent, concise, effective response.Hope this helps!

Hmm .. yes, I'm able to replicate that following your steps in Maps, but when you actually click through to the reviews, these bolds are gone. Honestly, I have no idea what they are doing there in the review snippets (as in your screenshot). They don't have anything to do with the search term. Looking at a nearby laundromat in Buffalo, I don't see the same behavior:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bryant+Street+Laundry/@42.8962389,-78.854702,11z/data=!4m5!1m2!2m1!1slaundromat+in+buffalo,+ny!3m1!1s0x89d312fc0bfb7309:0x3112b5c7362ad14

So - sorry, but I'm just not sure what those bolds represent. If anyone else has come across this, please chime in!

So glad that was helpful, Bob! Good luck!

Hi Rich!

Good discussion going on here, and many thanks to Alick for surfacing an older response of mine. If you can get a local phone number for each business, that will be your best bet against what would be the chief worry in this scenario - that Google will believe this is really just one business promoting itself as two businesses.

I have become less of a fan of suite numbers in recent times, as Google has become more capable of handling multiple businesses at the same location. So, currently, what I would recommend would be this:

1. Assess internally whether this truly is 2 businesses, or whether it is really just 1 business offering both in-studio and remote lessons. I think this step is really important, as the basic product (music lessons) is the same for both businesses and the best-known scenario in which Google has trouble with multiple businesses occupying the same location is when they share an industry or when a single business is trying to branch out its services to appear like multiple businesses. They have gotten better about understanding shared locations (lots of doctors in one building, etc.) but there is a potential for 2 music lesson businesses in the same home being flagged as suspicious. Just like if an HVAC company wanted to represent its heating services as one business and its air conditioning services as another. Google does not support his approach at any time. There may be nuances to the 2 business models of which I'm unaware that make it appropriate to promote this as two companies, but at a glance, to me this sounds like one company with both studio and at-home services.

2. If you determine that there is, indeed, reason to view these as distinct companies, then unique phone numbers, unique websites and unique citations would be the way to go with this ... with the proviso that you have notified the business owner that there may be a measure of risk in this approach.

Hope this helps!

Hi Bob,

Okay, thanks for clearing that up. Let's look at your other questions now.

What’s your take on putting up two (or in the future 3 locations) in the footer?

There is no official rule about this. Personally, I have drawn the line at 8 locations in the footer and have never seen any issue from that many, so you should be okay with 3.

Besides that, how would you combine for example 3 pages about the physical locations with unique pages for a other 10 city’s that are in the service area of your business

Your description of the business model does not seem to me to be a service area business (like a plumber). You are a brick and mortar business - you do not travel to customers in a service area and the fact that customers come to you from other towns is not really enough reason to optimize for these town terms. If, however, you have a legitimate connection to these other towns, like you teach classes in them, host events in them, sponsor events in them or other connections along these lines, then there may be opportunities for content publication. If there are not connections, then you should focus on your 3 physical location cities and, perhaps, their hyperlocal neighborhoods. More on this:

http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide

http://moz.com/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid

Last but not least, would you say a part time entrepreneur with a physical location that’s only open for 3-4 days a week could claim a local google + page?

Google's only guideline about this is:

In order to qualify for a local Google+ page, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours.

There is no guideline stating that you have to be open 7 days a week, so if you have set hours of business during which someone walking up to your door is going to find a staffed business to receive them, you should be good to go. Just be sure you are accurately listing your hours of operation when you create the Google+ Local pages for your 3 locations.

Hope this helps!

Hi Carlos,

Good thread! You're dealing with 2 separate issues, as I see it.

Issue 1 - Your customer shouldn't be leaving you back-to-back reviews on any platform. If you know this customer and can ask him to remove one of his reviews, that would be wise.

Issue 2 - The fact that both locations are no longer showing in the local pack for your search term may have nothing to do with your customer's odd review activity. Rather, it may have to do with competition. Unless you have few competitors, it's not terribly common to have more than 1 location show in the same pack for a product or service search. So, just looking for 'printing houston', Google may choose to only show your business once, regardless of you having 2 locations. Branded searches are different. If I look up 'Whole Foods Houston', Google is likely to show me multiple Whole Foods locations all in the same pack. So, you may simply be dealing with the presence of competition in your city, in which case, thinking about this from a hyperlocal standpoint may be your best bet.

For more on this, see: http://moz.com/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid

That being said, it's always wise to keep an eye on your reviews and if a customer has somehow gotten the wrong idea about helping you by posting multiple reviews, outreach to them would be very smart. It wouldn't be good if Google wrongly decided this was some sort of spammy campaign on the part of your business.

You can also petition Google now to have a review removed: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/04/03/new-google-support-option-offers-a-form-to-contest-reviews/

Hope this helps!

Hi There! This is pretty typical that Google will show different results for different search terms ... even when to our eyes the terms are so similar. Building your authority for the second term will be your best bet for being seen as a relevant answer on the 'designer' term. Changing your title tag could help, but it could also make you less relevant for the pack in which you've achieved that great #1 spot, so I wouldn't be inclined to go that route. Rather, I would do an audit of the sites that are ranking well for the 'designer' term to see what is making them strong enough to do so. I would then try to up my efforts in the areas discovered, whether this would involve tweaking SEO, publishing new content, improving social signals, earning links or what have you.

In a nutshell, I wouldn't recommend taking steps that could work against the #1 ranking you've achieved for term one, but rather, would set term two as a new, separate goal and create a plan around it that could help me earn greater visibility in this second pack.

Hi Tom!

Normally, I see bolded text in reviews when it replicates part of my search term. It sounds like you are saying the bolded text in your results does not replicate any of the words in your search. Can you share your exact search term so that the community can look at the live result instead of a screenshot? Might help. Thanks!

I think you might find this to be a helpful post:

http://localu.org/blog/google-now-allows-brand-pages-become-local-pages/

Just remember - Google+ Local pages are tied to physical locations only. Brand pages are different.

Hey Bob!

I'll look forward to replying in detail to each of your good questions, but first want to ask for clarification on one really important point. You write, "classes are only given with enough signups."

I should have caught this earlier in the thread. Are you saying these are not businesses, but classes, like an instructor teaching yoga classes a few times a week inside of a larger facility like a gym? If so, this is very important to know, as Google does not authorize creating Google+ Local pages in this scenario:

An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent. Please coordinate with your host to have your information displayed on the page for their business within their "Introduction" field. (from https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en)

Please, let me know if the above describes the business model, because the scenario is quite different if it does.

Hi There! Not quite sure I'm following your thought here. What would you be keeping the NAP off of? I understood that your original idea was to build out separate landing pages for zip codes or build a separate website. I'm recommending against either approach. Having 2 authoritative websites (with the same business name) would potentially be confusing to both humans and bots, and building out landing pages on your original site just for zip codes sounds like it might lead to thin or duplicate content, and could even fall under Google's new doorway pages update.

If you want to optimize for zip codes, my best recommendation is to find an way to work this into your existing site and existing city landing pages (as in my Monterey example). I can't think of any other approach I'd be comfortable recommending.

Hope this helps!

Hi There -

While I'm not sure of the plugin you're citing, you are right to suspect that cloning hundreds of thin or duplicative pages would not be a strategy any good Local SEO would recommend, particularly in light of Google's recent doorway pages announcement (see: http://moz.com/community/q/how-google-s-doorway-pages-update-affects-local-seo). Loading any site down with this kind of content would not be a smart move, and my recommendation would be to devote the bulk of your resources of both time and funding to carefully crafting the highest quality content for your relevant topics, whether these are local landing pages, blog posts or what have you. I would caution you against looking for a fast solution here. A better goal would be mining deep for quality, however long this might take.

Additionally, it's good to remember that just because a competitor seems to be benefiting from a spammy practice, it's not really a good idea to model your marketing on this. Google can't see everything all at once, but when they finally do see something they don't like, punitive action can happen overnight. I think the best way to look at this is that competitors who are spamming are actually in a weak position. They are putting their visibility at risk, while you, taking the high road, are securing your future.

Good feedback from Ryan on this.

As he's mentioned, Google+ Local pages relate to staffed physical locations rather than service cities, so your client can have 1 Google+ Local page per staffed physical location he operates. Do not create Google+ Local pages for any service city where the client doesn't have a physical location.

He should definitely have a unique phone number for each location.

Hey There!
I am in complete agreement with Richard that building a new website to optimize for zip codes would be overkill - and could actually lead to ranking issues for your business if your complete or partial NAP is appearing on more than one website.

For SABs, including zip codes in optimization can be challenging. You want to avoid ever adding big blocks of zip codes to the site, as Google has explicitly stated in their webmaster guidelines that they consider this to be a spammy practice. How naturally you can talk about zip codes may depend somewhat on the business model. For example, if you do landscaping in Monterey, CA., a quick lookup shows me that you could be working in 4 different zip codes. So, let's say you have a landing page on the site for Monterey. You could write project descriptions (with photos, videos, testimonials, etc.) on this page, and the text could include something like, "Here's a zen garden we created in the 93940 zip code area of Monterey." Or, "Here's a butterfly garden we created for the beautiful monarchs that pass through the 93499 zip code area of town every year." If your services are on the creative side, you can be creative in showcasing your work, too, but if you are a plumber, it just may not seem very natural to write, "Here's a sink we unclogged in the 93940 zip code neighborhood." Seems like a bit of a stretch.

Good discussion going on here, and agree with Ryan 100% about informing the business owner of the risks he is taking and, if you choose to continue serving this business, structuring the contract so that you are not responsible for negative outcomes.

One of the major risks I would discuss with the client is this, at least the way I am understanding what you've described.

1. The business had a site and built citations for it at location A.

2. The business then had you build a second site covering locations A and B and wants you to build citations for business B.

If this is correct, the trouble is that the business now has TWO websites representing the location of Business A and this is pretty much guaranteed to cause holy heck on Google's end. Google wants to find a single authoritative website representing each physical location (each Google+ Local page). Finding 2 authoritative websites representing location A is going to cause confusion and could water down the authority this client has built for business A, decreasing the benefits he's earned. The client needs to hear this.

Ideally what should be happening here is that:

A) The customer fully separates out his two businesses, legally. He runs 2 different companies out of 2 different offices with no connection between them. He runs 2 different websites and supports them with 2 unique citation sets. This would be the above-board, risk-free approach.

B) If the customer will not do this, then I agree that he is making a poor choice in trying to make a single company seem like 2 different businesses, doubtless for SEO purposes. I see trouble ahead for the business if this is their approach to marketing. It's possible that you could continue to work on the site you built, removing ALL references to the location of business A and only building citations for location B, but without knowing all of the nuances of this, it seems pretty iffy to me.

I totally sympathize with the pickle you're in on this, not having realized what the company was doing before you developed their new website. You could choose to walk away from the contract if you are not comfortable moving forward. I'd personally be tempted to do so, if the client refused to act on my marketing advice regarding this. At the very least, the one thing you have learned from this is to structure into your initial client discovery form questions regarding all sites they currently own. This is a hard way to learn this - but an important lesson, for sure.

Hey Rod,

This is Google's def. of Doorway Pages: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721311

If you read through that carefully, I think the conclusion you may draw is that the difference between what Google is describing as a doorway page and what you may hear Local SEOs referring to as 'local landing pages' or 'city landing pages' or what have you, would be uniqueness and quality. This is my reading of this, anyway.

If you are going to create landing pages, as in the case of a local business serving multiple cities, I would suggest making maximum effort to ensure that each page is a thorough, unique, stand-alone resource for visitors. Don't throw up a bunch of thin, similar pages. Go for uniqueness and high quality. Hope this helps.

Hey Rod,

I'm trying to understand what this service does. I looked up a random business in it and it simply seems to be giving a sense of how the business is listed on Google. I'm not seeing actual landing pages. Is there something particular that you are looking at on this site that concerns you in regards to doorway pages?

Hmm... that link is redirecting me to a homepage.