Hey guys!

I had asked this question a few months ago and now that we are seeing even more implicit information determining search results, I want to ask it again..in two parts.

1. Is is STILL best practice for on-page to add the city name to your titles, h1s, content etc? It seems that this will eventually be an outdated tactic, right?

2. If there is a decent amount of search volume without any city name in the search query (ie. "storefont signs", but no search volume for the phrase when specific cities are added (ie. "storefront signs west palm beach) is it worth trying to rank and optimize for that search term for a company in West Palm Beach?

We can assume that if there are 20,000 monthly searches for the non-location specific term that SOME of them would be fairly local, so do we optimize the page without the city name and trust Google to display results with a local intent...therefore showing our client's site in the SERPS when someone searches "sign company" and they are IN West Palm Beach?

If there is any confusion, please just ask me to clarify! I think this would be a great WhiteBoard Friday topic for Rand!

From a search perspective, It may be a bit more beneficial to use the directory route but that is often difficult to organize when we are talking about multiple pages (ie a previous years entire website).

In my opinion, the subdomain route seems like the best option. It will allow for the previous pages and content to contribute to the current sites domain authority while also serving as an extremely organized presentation of the previous years events and attractions!

Hey Zoran,

From my understanding social bookmarking on small and rarely used sites will have VERY little positive affect on search rankings. I like to follow Eric Ward's golden rule: ask yourself..would you want this link if Google did not exist?

Definitely think your time could be better utilized elsewhere!

Ah yes, I thought you meant you were going to disregard the actual H1, if you are hiding text, certainly not a good idea!

I assume not. I believe Google will just use your first line of content as the H1! I think Rand did a video on this not too long ago. I don't think he believes H1s were very important.