@michaelfisk said in Creating a subdomain or subdirectory for each major city for our main website...:
If our website is abc.com I am wanting to create a subdomain or subdirectory for each major city for SEO targeting purposes. But I want each domain to go to our see the same content from the main website abc.com.
What's the best way to accomplish this? Duplicating our main page over and over sounds terrible , especially when trying to make changes down the road.
Should we create an alias for each location? example.. abc.com/new-york, abc.com-chicago, etc...?
If we go that route how does google acknowledge that? Would that mess up our SEO or help?
Creating subdirectories for each major city on your website (e.g., abc.com/new-york, abc.com/chicago) is a common and effective strategy for local SEO targeting. This approach allows you to serve the same content while also having the flexibility to customize and optimize each page for specific local keywords, which can significantly improve your SEO.
Here's how to do it:
Create Subdirectories: Set up subdirectories for each city on your website. This way, you can manage content updates more efficiently without duplicating the main page.
Canonical Tags: Use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues. This tells search engines that certain pages are the authoritative version, avoiding penalties for duplicate content.
Localized Content: Customize each subdirectory with localized content, such as city-specific keywords, meta tags, and relevant local information. This enhances local search visibility and user experience.
Internal Linking: Ensure proper internal linking between the subdirectories and your main website. This helps distribute link equity and enhances user navigation.
Google My Business: Optimize your Google My Business listings for each location, linking back to the corresponding subdirectory on your website.
Google acknowledges subdirectories well, and when done correctly, it can significantly boost your local SEO. Avoid using subdomains (e.g., new-york.abc.com) as Google treats subdomains as separate entities, which might dilute your SEO efforts.
By creating city-specific subdirectories and optimizing them appropriately, you enhance your website's relevance and authority for local searches, improving your overall SEO performance.