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
-
Local Strategy for Multiple Domain Integration
Hello, We are a locally driven business with two locations. Currently, each location has its own local site and are linked to from our central domain (3 domains total). We are discussing whether we should integrate the local sites into location pages on our core domain. However, we would also prefer to keep the ‘local’ domains live. Is this a viable strategy and what would we need to do to ensure the local sites won’t cannibalize our efforts with the main domain? Also, should we remove the contact information on those local sites to avoid NAP issues? The other option would be to build out the local domains but that could raise concerns over budget and potentially expanding into the future. And we would like the main domain to take presendence. A few additional notes on this: Each location has its own brand name and contact information. Traffic across all 3 sites is about the same. We are also considering using silos with sub-folders to build out local service pages. We understand how to set up location pages but are asking more in terms of overall strategy and ideal way to position all 3 sites. Any help or insight would be very appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | Ben-R
Best,0 -
Which URL and rel=canonical structure to use for location based product inventory pages?
I am working on an automotive retailer site that displays local car inventory in nearby dealerships based on location. Within the site, a zip code is required to search, and the car inventory is displayed in a typical product list that can be filtered and sorted by the searcher to fit the searchers needs. We would like to structure these product inventory list pages that are based on location to give the best chance at ranking, if not now, further down the road when we have built up more authority to compete with the big dogs in SERP like AutoTrader.com, TrueCar.com, etc. These higher authority sites are able to rank their location based car inventory pages on the first page consistently across all makes and models. For example, searching the term "new nissan rogue" in the Los Angeles, CA area returns a few location based inventory pages on page 1. The sites in the industry that are able to rank their inventory pages will display a relatively clean looking URL with no redirect that still displays the local inventory like this in the SERP:
Local Website Optimization | | tdastru
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/Nissan/Rogue
but almost always use a rel=canonical tag within the page to a page with a location parameter attached to the end of the URL like this one:
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/Nissan/Rogue/Los+Angeles+CA-90001"/>
I'm having a hard time figuring out why sites like this example have their URLs and pages structured this way. What would be the best practice for structuring the URL and rel=canonical tags to be able to rank for and display location based inventory pages for cars near the searcher?0 -
Local SEO for Multiple Locations - Is this the best approach?
Hi everyone! I previously have worked with single-location companies, and am now working for a company that is continuously growing and adding new locations. We are a financial institution that currently has 12 locations, and we should have 15+ locations by year-end 2017. Seeing as we have all of these locations, I thought the following approach would be the best for increasing our presence in local search. Our primary keyword is "credit union in location". Our search traffic has increased heavily over last year, but is down from the beginning of the year. I've gone through and done the following: Freshened up the content on the main website Created pages for each of our locations around April-end Attributed these location page URLs to our Google My Business locations Verified each location Wrote unique content for each page Our primary keyword rankings seem to fluctuate weekly. My next steps are to get our web design company to add the following: Structured Data on all location pages The ability to change SEO title and meta descriptions on location pages Sitemap (there is none currently, and I've been fighting them to get one added because it isn't needed.) I also plan on utilizing Moz Local to manage our local listings. After this is done I plan on finding ways for us to build links for each location, like the chambers of commerce in each city and local partnerships. Is this the best approach for our overall goal, and should I continue? Is there anything I should change about our current approach? I appreciate the help!
Local Website Optimization | | PelicanStateCU0 -
Duplicate Content - Local SEO - 250 Locations
Hey everyone, I'm currently working with a client that has 250 locations across the United States. Each location has its own website and each website has the same 10 service pages. All with identical content (the same 500-750 words) with the exception of unique meta-data and NAP which has each respective location's name, city, state, etc. I'm unsure how duplicate content works at the local level. I understand that there is no penalty for duplicate content, rather, any negative side-effects are because search engines don't know which page to serve, if there are duplicates. So here's my question: If someone searches for my client's services in Miami, and my client only as one location in that city, does duplicate content matter? Because that location isn't competing against any of my client's other locations locally, so search engines shouldn't be confused by which page to serve, correct? Of course, in other cities, like Phoenix, where they have 5 locations, then I'm sure the duplicate content is negatively affecting all 5 locations. I really appreciate any insight! Thank you,
Local Website Optimization | | SEOJedi510 -
Local SEO - Adding the location to the URL
Hi there, My client has a product URL: www.company.com/product. They are only serving one state in the US. The existing URL is ranking in a position between 8-15 at the moment for local searches. Would it be interesting to add the location to the URL in order to get a higher position or is it dangerous as we have our rankings at the moment. Is it really giving you an advantage that is worth the risk? Thank you for your opinions!
Local Website Optimization | | WeAreDigital_BE
Sander0 -
Collapsing Location-Specific Subdomains
My client has 24 separate subdomains for its nationwide business, one for each specific location. Much of the content is very similar, as the site serves as a lead-generator for rental reservations. After years of suggesting the approach of using one domain, we have finally gotten the client onboard to eliminating the subdomains and maintaining a subdirectory/page approach for location-specific content and allowing universal content to live at the root domain. I've been looking for any case studies that have any watch-outs or demonstrated benefits when collapsing domestic subdomains (phoenix.client.com; albuquerque.client.com, etc.) into the root, and have been fairly unsuccessful so far. We will be setting up a rigorous 301 redirect tree to ensure we retain as much link juice as possible from any existing subdomain-specific inbound links. Any advice/guidance to help set expectations of what will shake down from this change? It feels like we should see increased domain authority and less cannibalization, as the client ranks nationally for important broad-level keywords, with significantly higher DA at the root level than any tracked competitors, but I'm a little nervous about how localized search results will be affected. Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | ClassicPartyRentals1 -
Multiple Domains for Real Estate
Hi, We have 10 different website for our apartments. I am thinking about consolidating them all into 1 website. Is this a good or bad idea? I think it would be good as we would get all the authority for the 1 domain so it would be easier to get new apartments ranked but I am not too sure. I am trying to optimize for local SEO. I am pretty sure that consolidating them is the best option but I would like to be certain about it before we make the investment.
Local Website Optimization | | Jon_B0 -
Separate Domains for Different Locations (in Different Cities)
We are in the process of building a new website for a client with locations in Tucson and Phoenix. Currently, they have one website that encompasses all locations, however, we are going to build them location specific websites (as many of the services are different between locations). Now my question is, as far as SEO goes, which one of these options would be the best? Option 1: Have separate domain names for each location. For example, StevesPetTucson.com and StevesPetPhoenix.com. _Pros: Easy to target specific, local keywords. Better looking domains. _ _Cons: Splits backlinks between two domains. _ Option 2: Setup StevesPet.com/Phoenix and StevesPet.com/Tucson. Pros: Keeps all backlinks pointing to one root domain. Note: We are going to use seperate WordPress installs for both websites, regardless of how we setup the domains. As we will be using different templates, menus and so on, we found this to be the best option. Thanks for any advice!
Local Website Optimization | | McFaddenGavender1