What is the optimal approach for a new site that has geo-targeted content available via 2 domains?
-
OK, so I am helping a client with a new site build. It is a lifestyle/news publication that traditionally has focused on delivering content for one region. For ease of explanation, let's pretend the brand/domain is 'people-on-the-coast.com'. Now they are now looking to expand their reach to another region using the domain 'people-in-the-city.com'.
Whilst on-the-coast is their current core business and already has some search clout, they are very keen on the city market and the in-the-city domain.
They would like to be able to manage the content through one CMS (joomla) and the site will deliver articles and the logo based on the location of the user (city or coast). There will also be cases where the content is duplicated for both regions. The design/layout etc. will all remain identical.
So what I am really wanting to know is the pros, cons and ultimately the best approach to handle the setup and ongoing management from an SEO (and UX) perspective. All I see is problems!
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Confused O.o -
Thanks for your help Ryan - much appreciated.
So from a technical perspective, how would you deal with duplicate content served on both sites? Simply no-index dupe content on one site? There will be lots of this (feature articles, major events etc.) posted daily-weekly.
-
Hi Ben. Thanks for the link. After looking through the site I'd stick with my above rec and just make them both as branded as possible for their respective locations. With some color coding and visuals you could incorporate both pretty well. You can also advertise the city site internally via linking, the addition of related articles, and so on. Basically the stuff you see done on other sites with systems like Outbrain could be done internally with these two sites as well.
-
-
Thanks Ryan.
Yes, this is the quandary.
Their intention is to target by ip address and the much of the content is events, event reviews, things to do etc targeting locals.
Whilst I guess it dilutes the juice, 2 separate domains/sites is the option I keep coming back to. But then it is a matter of dealing with duplicate content as there will be feature articles, major events and other content that will be served on both sites. So how to avoid duplicate content issues and at the same time avoid the brand confusion you mentioned? And how to do this from a technical perspective in set up that avoids ongoing pain?
-
It would be super helpful if you could share your current domain.
-
Hi Benny. I don't know if the small scale geotargeting is the best way to handle user intent. It'd probably be best to keep content tied to location as defined by the domain. For example, if I'm on the coast, researching a trip to the city, and get to a site about the city, but the logo is about the coast, I'm just confused.
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
-
Local SEO + Searcher Intent Targeting for Home Builder
Good Morning, All! I work for a home builder - www.HibbsHomes.com. Their site has hundreds of pages and blogs and I'm looking at consolidating many of them as they're older and use an older SEO strategy. Can you take a look at their portfolio? http://hibbshomes.com/custom-home-builders-st-louis/st-louis-custom-homes-portfolio/ I'm wondering if I should consolidate the various projects into their own pages by house type and city - rather than having all on one page? Both for SEO and for easier searchability. How would you organize this for these? The benefit to setting up city pages is the local SEO rank (St Louis has so many suburbs). The benefit to setting up pages by home style or size would be for user experience. How do I improve this for both? And... how do I optimize for conversions better?
Local Website Optimization | | stldanni1 -
Blogs/content marketing or slower salesfunnel on webshop?
Hi all, Im considering about building contents en blogs on a webshop, because a visitor will get see a lot of information about blogs, etc. The salefunnel will be chaotic, purchasing will be slower on a webshop. The webshop has more then 5000 products. Focus on gamers. For example Ikea or mahuranna shop, they have builded a website near their webshops. To get more traffic ofcourse, but its to hard to do both of them. Your focus will get lost and they way of communication on website/shop will be changing. Your brand and strategic will also change a lot, thats why im considering to find the right way. Who can give me an advice?
Local Website Optimization | | Dreamgame20160 -
Should I use Rel-Canonicals links for a News site with similar articles each year
Our small town news site provides coverage in a lot of seasonal areas, and we're struggling with the current year's content ranking above previous years. For instance, every year we cover the local high school football team, and create 2-3 articles per game. We'll also have some articles preseason with upcoming schedule and general team "talk". We've seen where articles from past seasons will rank higher than the current season, presumably because the older articles have more links to them from other sources (among other factors). We don't want to delete these old articles and 301 them to the newer article, since most articles include information/stories about specific players...and their families don't want the article to ever come down. Should we rel-canonical the older articles to the newer one, or perhaps to the "high school football" category page? If to the category page, should we rel-canonical even the new articles to that main category page? Thanks for the help.
Local Website Optimization | | YourMark.com0 -
Schema markup for a local directory listing and Web Site name
Howdy there! Two schema related questions here Schema markup for local directory We have a page that lists multiple location information on a single page as a directory type listing. Each listing has a link to another page that contains more in depth information about that location. We have seen markups using Schema Local Business markup for each location listed on the directory page. Examples: http://www.yellowpages.com/metairie-la/gold-buyers http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?CS=L&MCBP=true&C=plumber%2C+dallas+tx Both of these validate using the Google testing tool, but what is strange is that the yellowpages.com example puts the URL to the profile page for a given location as the "name" in the schema for the local business, superpages.com uses the actual name of the location. Other sites such as Yelp etc have no markup for a location at all on a directory type page. We want to stay with schema and leaning towards the superpages option. Any opinions on the best route to go with this? Schema markup for logo and social profiles vs website name. If you read the article for schema markup for your logo and social profiles, it recommends/shows using the @type of Organization in the schema markup https://developers.google.com/structured-data/customize/social-profiles If you then click down the left column on that page to "Show your name in search results" it recommends/shows using the @type of WebSite in the schema markup. https://developers.google.com/structured-data/site-name We want to have the markup for the logo, social profiles and website name. Do we just need to repeat the schema for the @website name in addition to what we have for @organization (two sets of markup?). Our concern is that in both we are referencing the same home page and in one case on the page we are saying we are an organization and in another a website. Does this matter? Will Google be ok with the logo and social profile markup if we use the @website designation? Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | HeaHea0 -
Subdomain for ticketing of a client website (how to solve SEO problems caused by the subdomain/domain relationship)
We have a client in need of a ticketing solution for their domain (let's call it www.domain.com) which is on Wordpress - as is our custom ticket solution. However, we want to have full control of the ticketing, since we manage it for them - so we do not want to build it inside their original Wordpress install. Our proposed solution is to build it on tickets.domain.com. This will exist only for selling and issuing the tickets. The question is, is there a way to do this without damaging their bounce rate and SEO scores?
Local Website Optimization | | Adam_RushHour_Marketing
Since customers will come to www.domain.com, then click the ticketing tab and land on tickets.domain.com, Google will see this as a bounce. In reality, customers will not notice the difference as we will clone the look and feel of domain.com Should we perhaps have the canonical URL of tickets.domain.com point to www.domain.com? And also, can we install Webmaster Tools for tickets.domain.com and set the preferred domain as www.domain.com? Are these possible solutions to the problem, or not - and if not, does anyone else have a viable solution? Thank you so much for the help.0 -
Should digital marketing agencies treat SEO differently when it comes to homepage content?
When I review competitor digital agency sites, they seem to have very little homepage content. But how would this be beneficial in gaining a higher SERP rank?
Local Website Optimization | | randomagency1 -
Ecommerce Site with Unique Location Pages - Issue with unique content and thin content?
Hello All, I have an Ecommerce Site specializing in Hire and we have individual location pages on each of our categories for each of our depots. All these pages show the NAP of the specific branch Given the size of our website (10K approx pages) , it's physically impossible for us to write unique content for each location against each category so what we are doing is writing unique content for our top 10 locations in a category for example , and the remaining 20 odd locations against the same category has the same content but it will bring in the location name and the individual NAP of that branch so in effect I think this thin content. My question is , I am quite sure I we are getting some form of algorithmic penalty with regards the thin/duplicate content. Using the example above , should we 301 redirect the 20 odd locations with the thin content , or should be say only 301 redirect 10 of them , so we in effect end up with a more 50/50 split on a category with regards to unique content on pages verses thin content for the same category. Alternatively, should we can 301 all the thin content pages so we only have 10 locations against the category and therefore 100% unique content. I am trying to work out which would help most with regards to local rankings for my location pages. Also , does anyone know if a thin/duplicate content penalty is site wide or can it just affect specific parts of a website. Any advice greatly appreciated thanks Pete
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC120 -
Keyword Cannibalization? My home page is ranking higher for a keyword that another page is targeting
Hello! My website's http://lessonsgowhere.com.sg/ and we're a marketplace for local lessons. I've been working on the site's SEO for maybe 3 to 4 months now, and am seeing some good results. The one thing that really bugs me right now is that my homepage is ranking for a keyword that I'm trying to target with another page. Specifically, I'm targeting the group of keywords for 'cooking class', 'cooking lessons', 'cooking class singapore' with the category page: http://lessonsgowhere.com.sg/cooking-classes However, my home page is currently ranking on the first page for local search (Google Singapore), and my category page isn't! On the other hand, the page that I'm targeting for 'baking class', 'baking lessons', and 'baking class singapore' is doing fine and is already in the top 3 positions for the entire group of keywords. Anyone have any ideas as to what I can do?
Local Website Optimization | | NgEF0