Passing Juice through Multiple Locations
-
Hey Gang,
Thank you in advance for taking some time out of your day to read/comment on this. I really am thankful for this awesome community.
SO, I just took over a locksmith client with over 20 different locations all up and down the west coast. They have some of their Google My Businesses ranking in the snap three. But most of them are not even close. The SEO that they had done was very 2012 and very messy. They have the name of the cities in their GMB profiles which is against google policy (although we haven't got taken down)
Example: Instead of Locksmith plus they have Locksmith Plus Portland or Locksmith Plus Seattle.
So their Citations are all over the place. Some locations have a bunch, and some locations I haven't even been able to put them on Yelp or Super pages (because they do not accommodate well at all for multi location business it's kind of been a nightmare)
And Besides mediocre citations their websites are all over the place to. None of them are Linked to each other they each look like a separate brand.
So here's my question(s)
1. I have a pretty good PBN network of my own real websites for clients that I have ranked to page one. I want to start Backlinking to just our one Main locksmith site (that ranks for no city) an have that juice flow into all the other sites but I am afraid I wont interlink them correctly and the juice will get wasted. Should I have like all the links to every cities website on the front page and point all my pbn at the front page? How to I link these bad boys correctly? Or should I... (next question)
2. Ok I know the Google my business does not care about how many citations we have but rather the quality of those citations. I already know we are having a brand crisis. We need to change all these listings to the same brand name but I am afraid google will spank us once we change and take down our number ones (so be it?)
But My question is how much should I focus on back linking some of these page listings. Like should I be posting the naked Yelp URL on some of my web 2.0s (that link back to my main website)? Or what if i just had the main citations on the cities website so they could get some juice too? Confusing!
Overall I know that Google wants clean consistent branding and that what we want to do.I just want to make sure everything is hooked up right so when I do make some Bad a** big content that every location can benefit from it.
Guys thank you again. Much Loves and I hope every body had a great new year. Here's to a strong 2016
-
Hi Meier,
I so urge you to take EGOL's advice as gold - he is legendary in his knowledge. The scenario you are describing with the PBN is not something that sounds safe or natural to either of us - so, this is your Moz squad talking here
It might help you to put yourself in a user's shoes. Does it actually benefit you, if you're looking for key grinding or to get let into your locked car to be thinking about pressure washing at that moment? No. There is no natural relationship there. Do you want to go, via a link, from a pressure washing site to a locksmith site or vice versa? No. There is simply no relationship there.
I also want to raise the issue here that the locksmith industry is one of the most notorious for its history of spam problems in the localsphere. Anything you do for clients in this industry is going to be in an atmosphere of heightened scrutiny (particularly at Google) and so a profile of unrelated, unnatural links would be just the sort of thing they'd be looking for to bring down the hammer.
So, please exercise caution here!
-
Ok let's restart
Hi i'm Meier
Let's Say I have just one local business owner that called me and said "hey bud! I really enjoyed your locksmith service yesterday, I have an awesome pressure washing business, do you mind if I write a quick article for you guys?"
And Im all like WAIT don't do it yet, lemme talk to my MOZ squad and make sure all my sites will benefit from the mention.
-
If this is a group of blogs and those blogs link to a network of clients, that is a spiderweb of links that might be identified by google as manipulative.
-
**I have never used questionable links - never will. Everything I have is real. **
-
Does anyone want to comment on the interlinking strategy?
I don't like it. Your comment (below) would send me running if I was one of your clients.
** I have a pretty good PBN network of my own real websites for clients that I have ranked to page one. **
Google hates blog networks. They take them down regularly. Sites that participate in them by receiving links get Penguin penalties that can toast your site for a yearf or longer.
Your clients might see their sites demoted so low that they get almost no traffic. Then they will be stuck with $5,000,000 in merchandise, a warehouse with a $15,000/month 5-year lease, and 12 employees that are fired.
That's my comment.
-
Does anyone want to comment on the interlinking strategy? I don't have fake websites, I have real clients with ok DA that are willing to link to the site naturally. How to I pass that juice right?
-
T.h.a.n.k.y.o.u.!!!!! That was some original content you wrote right there!
-
Happy New Year to you, Meier, and we're very happy you're part of the community
Wow - the scenario you are describing of a locksmith with multiple websites for 20 locations and NAP consistency issues is a tall order. You may receive totally different advice from other community members, but here's mine:
-
I would consolidate everything into a single website for this brand and permanently 301 redirect the old sites to the new one.
-
I would create a landing page for each of the 20 offices on the new website with the awesome content you are planning to build, rather than trying to split this up in 20 directions. This way, you are directly building the brand for all locations instead of trying to do it via some more circuitous method.
-
I would do (or hire out) a complete citation audit and invest $$$ in it to be sure all 20 locations are being audited.
-
I would read Joy Hawkins' tutorial, word for word, about duplicate detection: http://searchengineland.com/definitive-guide-duplicate-research-local-seo-238719. I would find, document and fix all duplicates possible.
-
I would then conduct a citation cleanup campaign. If I did it via a tool, I'd make darned sure everything was being caught and corrected. Anything not corrected, I'd fix manually. The beauty here would be that if you did steps 1 & 2 first, while cleaning up any bad NAP on the citations, you'd also be implementing the new landing page URL for each business location in its citation set. And, of course, complying to the letter with Google's guidelines as to naming conventions will be critical in this step.
-
Finally, I really don't know much about PBNs, apart from the problems surrounding them (see: https://mza.bundledseo.com/community/q/private-blogging-network , http://searchengineland.com/google-targets-sites-using-private-blog-networks-manual-action-ranking-penalties-204000, https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/how-to-check-which-links-can-harm-your-sites-rankings etc.) I'm guessing that you are already aware of these problems, but just in case not, thought I'd mention. When it came to advising my own client, I would not recommend that a PBN be their link strategy, because I don't feel comfortable with representing one as what Google has been pretty clear about stating they want in terms of natural links. Rather, I'd aim for something like this: https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/link-building-outreach-in-a-skeptical-world-whiteboard-friday and I'd aim to avoid mistakes like those shown here: https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/the-rules-of-link-building-whiteboard-friday
Hope this helps and that you'll receive more feedback from the community!
-
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
-
Service Area Location Pages vs. User Experience
I'm familiar with the SAB best practices outlined here. Here's my issue: Doing local landing pages as described here might not be ideal from a user experience point of view. Having a "Cities We Serve" or "Service Areas" link in the main navigation isn't necessarily valuable to the user when the city-specific landing pages are all places within a 15-mile radius of the SAB's headquarters. It would just look like the company did it for SEO. It wouldn't look natural. Seriously, it feels like best practices are totally at odds with user experience here. If I absolutely must create location pages for 10 or so municipalities within my client's service area, I'd rather NOT put the service areas as a primary navigation item. It is not useful to the user. Anyone who sees that the company provides services in the [name of city] metropolitan area will already understand that the company can service their town that is 5 miles away. It is self-evident. For example**, who would wonder whether a plumbing company with a Los Angeles address also services Beverly Hills?** It's just... silly. But the Moz guide says I've got to do those location pages! And that I've got to put them high up in the navigation! This is a problem because we've got to do local SEO, but we also have to provide an ideal experience. Thoughts?
Local Website Optimization | | Greenery1 -
Service Location links in footer and on the service page - spamming or good practice?
We are are a managed IT services business so we try and target people searching for IT support in a number of key areas. We have created individual location pages (11) to localise our service in these specific areas. We put these location links in the footer which went to the specified IT support pages respectively. Now we have created a general 'managed IT services' page and are thinking of linking to these specific pages on there as well as it makes sense to do it. Would having these 11 links in the footer as well as on the 'managed IT services' page be spamming? or would it be good practice? If this is spamming, which linking location should hold preference. Would appreciate the feedback
Local Website Optimization | | AndyL93
Thanks
Andy0 -
Multi Location SEO Page Structure
I am trying to optimize my website for multiple locations. I have setup a landing page for each location. Now I want to optimize services we offer at those locations such as floor scrubber rentals. I'm confused on the best approach for this for ranking locally. I offer the same equipment for rent at each location. So... should I have a link on the location landing page that takes you to an individual floor scrubber rental page for each location optimized for that locations city or should I have just one floor scrubber rental page and would I optimize it for both cities or just optimize it for floor scrubber rentals in general? I have many different categories like this that are offered @ both locations. If I do individual pages all the products and rates will be duplicate but I could change the areas we deliver to and description to be more geared towards that city.
Local Website Optimization | | CougarChemMike0 -
Store Locator Apps - Which Do You Use?
Hey Everybody! I'd so appreciate feedback from our web developers and Local SEO wizards here regarding store locator apps (you know - type in a city/zip and get shown the stores nearest you). There are a number of different paid options out there on the market, and a couple of free ones. If you are managing the websites/SEO for multi-location clients, would you share with me which store locator app you chose, why you chose it and how you like it? I am particularly interested in two things about these: Does you app allow you to build a permanent landing page for each store location, including the ability to fully customize the content on that page? In terms of ensuring that these landing pages get crawled, have you used an html sitemap, some type of directory page with crawlable links or some other feature that allows bots to reach the landing pages? Or, if you're not doing any of that, do you believe Google is crawling javascript/ajax/something else to get through your store locator widget to the landing pages? Thanks, in advance, for helping me with my research on this topic!
Local Website Optimization | | MiriamEllis0 -
A question about similar services a multiple locations
Moz Friends, I hope you can help with this question. My company has 25 locations, and growing. Our rankings are strong in the Serps and Local Maps. With each location, we create a new page (with a unique URL) for that specific location (ex: Thriveworks.com/knoxville-counseling). We then write about 15 pages of unique content for that location, each page about one of the services we provide like: Depression Counseling, Couples Therapy, Anger Management, Eating Disorder Treatment, Life Coaching, Child Therapy, and the list goes on and on.... Hence, for each location, we create a pile of URLS like: Thriveworks.com/knoxville-counseling/couples-therapy, ..../knoxville-counseling/depression-therapy, .../knoxville-counseling/anger-management... We do this to rank for medium-long-tail searches like "Knoxville Marriage Therapy." As we grow, this results in us writing lots and lots of original content for each location. Original, but somewhat redundant. We would much rather write one AMAZING article on depression counseling, than 25 'okay' ones for each office we open. So, my question (if you're still reading) is our current approach the right one? Should we continue the grind and for each location create a unique page for each service offered out of that office? Or is there a better way, where we can create One anger management page that would suffice for each of our local offices? Has anyone addressed this topic in an article? I Haven't found one... I look forward to your feedback, and thanks in advance!!
Local Website Optimization | | Thriveworks-Counseling0 -
How to approach SEO for a national umbrella site that has multiple chapters in different locations that are different URLS
We are currently working with a client who has one national site - let's call it CompanyName.net, and multiple, independent chapter sites listed under different URLs that are structured, for example, as CompanyNamechicago.org, and sometimes specific to neighborhoods, as in CompanyNamechicago.org/lakeview.org. The national site is .net, while all others are .orgs. These are not subdomains or subfolders, as far as we can tell. You can use a search function on the .net site to find a location near you and click to that specific local site. They are looking for help optimizing and increasing traffic to certain landing pages on the .net site...but similar landing pages also exist on a local level, which appear to be competing with the national site. (Example: there is a landing page on the national .net umbrella site for a "dog safety" campaign they are doing, but also that campaign has led to a landing page created independently on the local CompanyNameChicago.org website, which seems to get higher ranking due to a user looking for this info while located in Chicago. We are wondering if our hands are tied here since they appear to be competing for traffic with all their localized sites, or if there are best practices to handle a situation like this. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | timfrick0 -
Local SEO case with two physical locations
I hope someone can help me make some decisions. I did read a lot about Local SEO lately but I’m not sure what way to go with this client. Client: Service provider with two physical locations (service is provided on the physical location). In the coming 12 month there will open 1-2 new physical locations in other cities. Has only one phone number. I will try to advise them to get a local phone number for both locations. But they prefer one (mobile) number to keep things simple. Clients are willing to travel for the service, since it’s a one day course they take. Current clients do come from a lot of different locations. The competition for around 5-6 big cities is pretty low since there aren’t a lot of service providers who deliver these courses. Questions: Should I put both addresses in the footer? It’s a best practice with only one location. I think it’s handy for users with two locations as well but I’m worried about how Google sees this. Also this will get confusing when the client passes 3-4 locations. If the client sticks with one mobile phone number, should I make a Google + local page for both physical locations? The Google guidelines clearly state they prefer a local number as much as possible. If I add “Our service areas “ to the top navigation and make a unique place page for every city (to rank organic aswell) is it wise to link those local Google + pages to the unique page about this service? Normaly I would go for yes, but I want to add places with and without a physical location under the same navigation. With just one location I would just focus on that city and add unique pages for the other pages. I’m getting a bit stuck between best practices since the client got opportunities with multiple strategies. I hope you guys (and girls 😉 ) can help!
Local Website Optimization | | Bob_van_Biezen1 -
Business in one location, be found in others?
Hi all, A bit of an interesting one but I am sure you can all help. My client has a business in a town called location A. Surrounding town A there are several other towns - My client wants to make sure they also appear in SERPs for these surrounding areas, even though their business is not physically located there. E.g. Product town A
Local Website Optimization | | HB17
Product town B
Product town C
Or even just being physically searching from one of those locations and typing the product name, they want to be on that first page. For example if you live in town B which is 20 miles away, my clients still wants to appear right at the top of the SERPs as they are competing against other businesses for that area. They also want to appear for town C, D, and E, all of which are surrounding town A. How can I make this happen? Would I need to create multiple landing pages and focus the SEO on each individual location? I'm just worried Google would see duplicate content but with varied location keywords. I don't have any room left in the page title to add every location. They do legitimately serve these areas, if you are looking for their product there are a few competitors around but this is in their 'territory' so to speak. Any help big or small would be great. Thanks!0