What is the best way for a local business site to come up in the SERPs for a town that they are not located in?
-
At our agency, we work with many local small business owners who often want to come up in multiple towns that are near to their business where they do not have a physical address. We explain to them again and again that with the recent changes that Google in particular has made to their algorithms, it is very difficult to come up in the new "blended" organic and Places results in a town that you don't have a physical address in. However, many of these towns are within 2 or 3 miles of the physical location and well within driving distance for potential new clients. Google, in it's infinite wisdom doesn't seem to account for areas of the country, such as New Jersey, where these limitations can seriously affect a business' bottom line.
What we would like to know is what are other SEOs doing to help their clients come up in neighboring towns that is both organic and white hat?
-
I don't do local myself, so I haven't tried this, but I have seen the suggestion of getting testimonials from customers and including the customer's cities next to their names in the testimonial.
-
As you mention, it is very tough (if not impossible) to come up in Google Places for a neighboring town. I know this for a fact because I am currently working on SEO for a small business here in Texas with about 10 neighboring cities. The best I have been able to do is get them in top 10 SERP's organic results for neighboring towns. And Top Google Place and Organic results for their actual town listed in address when searched.
I have had some success by placing neighboring cities in title text and in page content while keeping content flow as natural as possible. This did work for a few of the company's neighboring cities in organic results.
-
Let's say you have a landscaping company who does work in several small towns. You could make a separate webpage for each town and fill it with amazing photos of the work that they have done (with permission from the featured property owners) in each of the geographic localities.
This would serve not only as a page that might rank in the search engines but it would also be a great way of building credibility in that community. If website visitors see that the company has done landscaping for the library, medical plaza, and some of the best homes then they will have greater confidence in hiring them. So you get two benefits from these pages.
Important - be sure that you put the addresses on the site for all of these properties.
These pages will have substantive content and tons of BIG juicy photos with extensive captions that describe the plants the mulch - everything about the job. These types of pages might rank better than Joe Schmoe landscaper who has a skimpy webpage with yada, yada, yada Belmont landscaping.... yada yada yada landscaping in Belmont.
Make this site a gallery of work that shows that your company is active and doing all types of work for everyone who is anybody everywhere in the whole freekin' county.
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
-
What is your experience with markups (schema.org) in terms of SEO and best practice learnings?
Hi, I am looking to implement schema markups into a variety of websites and currently wondering about best practices. I am working on energy providers, building material, e-retailers, social association among others. While I understand every single one of these is an individual case, I could do with some advices from you, guys. Which markups would you consider key for search engines? I would have naturally chosen markups to highlight the business name, location and products but there is so much more to schema.org! Thanks,
Algorithm Updates | | A_Q0 -
Site titles / descriptions change - Google Algo Change ?
Hello, During the weekend 4 of our sites automatically changed their search titles and descriptions at the same time.
Algorithm Updates | | lordish
They are not picking up the real pages: Title, Description. Our ranks are dropping because of this. can you please tell if it happened to you as well or if you recognize a problem here? sites:
http://www.robinhoodbingo.com
http://www.gossipbingo.com
http://www.moonbingo.com in the attached examples:
for the kws searched - the results show different titles and descriptions. results for these pages:
moon bingo - http://www.moonbingo.com
mobile bingo - http://www.robinhoodbingo.com/skin/mobile.php rhMzURw.png 2tRL5dZ.png0 -
Images not getting indexed in google image search :( " site: hdwallpaperzones.com " )
hi as i have mentioned in title.. my website images are not getting indexed in google image search engine.. out of 360 images only 5 got indexed from 3 days.. please help me out.. thanks
Algorithm Updates | | toxicpls0 -
Google's Local Search Results for Broad Keywords
I have a question regarding Google's local search results for broad keywords. Since Google is changing their algo to reflect local results for broad words, would it be beneficial now to start going after those words as well? For example: we have a client ranking for 'miami security alarm', but I would like to know if it would be beneficial to start optimizing for 'security alarm' as well. Also, since Google's keyword research tool reflects searches on a national level, how would I be able to find out how many searches a broad keyword is receiving on a local level? Thank you in advanced!
Algorithm Updates | | POPCreative0 -
My Site PR lost to PR4 ! I worked as per SEOmoz Suggestion - No Traffic Drop, Organic Search is good and higher than referral or Direct Traffic !
My Site PR5 lost to PR4 ! I worked as per SEOmoz Suggestion - No Traffic Drop, Organic Search is good and higher than referral or Direct Traffic ! What might be the problem ? Nov 29-2012 my site was hacked very badly and google Blacklisted me for the first time and if you see now " it says, Past 90 days nearly 19 times my site was acted as medium to spread virus" Even thought we checked our FTP, Cpanel or Home Directory - Everything seems good. My domain which was hosted - has other domains in the same network and some are porn - those sites are injecting malicious code ! May be that's the reason or please give me some idea how to improve it !
Algorithm Updates | | Esaky0 -
Is our office location keeping us from showing up in the local results?
I’m the managing broker of Reilly Realtors, a real estate brokerage in Austin, TX. We are ranking fairly well for our targeted keywords, but we never show up in the local results. We serve the entire Austin area, but our office is in Bee Cave, a small town located a few miles southwest of Austin. Is our office location keeping us from showing up in the local results? And if so, how can we rank in the local results without moving our office to the downtown area? Thanks, Michael
Algorithm Updates | | AndrewHill0 -
How do you properly target locally with anchor text?
I'm trying to figure out the best method for externally linkback anchors to my site for local results. What would be the best way to do this for some local SERP love: Cheeseburgers Chicago, IL Cheeseburgers Chicago Cheeseburgers Chicago illinois
Algorithm Updates | | Goetzman0 -
How long does a news article stay on Google's 'News' section on the SERP?
Our site is recognised as a news source for our niche - was just wondering if anyone had any idea how long the news story stays on the front page of the SERP once Google picks it up?
Algorithm Updates | | DanHill0