Local SEO for a business serving multiple small cities
-
We have a local business that has a showroom in one city, and serve other 5 different small cities (in total 6 small cities). Search volume for the targeted keyword is very low (around 100 each plus minus) with a variety of competition levels. The product is expensive so this justifies the low search volume with a serious user intent.
My question is given the low search volume for each keyword, what would be the best local SEO tactic for this. The website has a DA of 20 with competitors who has similar and higher DAs.Options I am considering:
1. Create unique pages for each location with unique content (no address available so I will have to use a city name postcode)
2. Create pages with the same content (but changing the area of service on the URL, H1 and mention the postcode and the radius of coverage twice in the content) and using a canonical tag to solve the duplicate issue.
In this scenario, I will create the main product pages with the address of the showroom, and mention the area of service covered for the other 5 cities.
3. Given that the 6 cities are part of a greater area, use the greater area to target them all. The keyword of the greater area has a lower search volume than the city keyword. This might work for keywords with low competition but not for ones with high competition levels. Not sure how well search engines will rank the keywords that include the greater area and show the pages for searches in small cities.Any advice on which option to go with or any recommendations for other solutions?
-
-
I also want to improve the local SEO for my website. How can I do that?
-
Totally @Nadiamo, do let me know if you want to run any more thoughts or ideas by us, here..
-
Thank you Vadim!
-
Thank you Nigel!
-
I will answer your 3 specific options and general thoughts at the bottom:
-
Yes you have the correct game plan here. Postal code may or may not help unless it is specifically searched for.
-
Unique content is the name of the game, each neighborhood/area will have their own unique elements you can write about in your content and this will engage the user and bring familiarity and will rank better, and this solves duplicate issues.
-
Greater area reach is hard unless you are dominating with reviews or other local listing factors. The goal is having a physical location close to your area of intent.
"product is expensive so this justifies" - does this justify potentially opening another physical location to be closer to the searcher?
Also how is the current showroom main location doing, with search and its response? Is it in the target area, is it reaching customers well?
-
-
Hi
You have to be careful creating city pages. make sure they are as unique as you can make them and add some local content. Treat them like you would any other page when SEO'ing them.
Ensure correct and on a one page one theme basis - forget the greater area and concentrate on the town/village. if you try and hoof the local area in as well you will destroy them all, especially if the local area has its own page.
Title
Description
H1
Alts
Local contentmake sure it is in the form
City - Service - Company name
and not service first.
More here: https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/do-you-need-local-pages
I hope that help
Nigel
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
-
Do You Think the Distance Algorithm Has Less Weight for Local Service Related Businesses?
Hey guys, I wish Rand could answer this question, because I know he figured all of this out, or has at least thought about it at least once. Basically, I want to understand exactly how the local algorithms work. Do you think the Distance algorithm works differently for service related businesses that don't offer services directly to your car, or other moveable assets? (motorcycles, lawnmowers, small engines) For example, construction companies. We all know how boring their offices are. No one wants to go to one unless there has been a problem or to pay a bill, say at Trugreen or something. They don't sell products, and who wants to go to some construction company that will likely just be a receptionist and maybe a field manager on his lunch break with some field reps rotating in and out during the day getting new leads and entering sales? That's uncomfortable. Why not just call them? So, do you think Google's local algorithms know that and put less weight on businesses that fall into that category? Car shops, small engine repair, and say shoe repair shops are different because you have to bring them something to fix. Stores that sell products are different because you have to go shopping and pay them to take the products home. But remodeling companies, marketing agencies, etc. probably don't get a lot of foot traffic. (And it's because we know we can handle it on a phone call.)
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
International Versus Local Backlinks?
I'm running a dentist's website and I've been wondering if there is any additional benefit to achieving local backlinks from other medical sites versus larger international ones? For example, if I had a blog article that I wanted another site to link to, would you choose the local medical website within the same city or the international one that has more viewers?
Local SEO | | Undergrnd0 -
Moz Local Reporting - What are you doing?
I am a pro when it comes to reporting for paid search. However we came out with a new local product and use Moz Local. What are you doing for reporting? Automated reports? Are you tracking progress over time? Is there a reporting application that automates the process?
Local SEO | | PSLab0 -
SEO and IP based content
Hello, We are building a guide/directory that will service multiple cities across Canada. Currently, our home page will detect your IP, and display local content on the home page. Although we feel this is incredibly useful to the end user, we are worried about how search engines will interpret our home page. In addition to our home page, should we have landing pages for each city that we are in? and should we follow site structure like this? www.thesite.com/vancouver So if a user from Vancouver goes to our home page, they will see Vancouver related content, but how would a search engine see the home page? We would like to know the best approach to placing well for searches in different Canadian cities. Most of our searches will be city specific: Calgary widgets, Vancouver widgets, etc. Thanks
Local SEO | | ebk0 -
Does the physical location of a server effect the local rankings of a site?
I've just been running a report on a site and noticed that while they have a .co.uk domain it is hosted on a server in the United States and just wondered if anyone was aware, if the physical location of a server mattered to search engines for ranking purposes especially with local search?
Local SEO | | ben_dpp0 -
Showing a preferred Google location in branded search for a multi-location business?
Background: A business has 5 brick and mortar locations, in 5 different states, with 5 separate Google+ profiles. The corporate headquarters are in Michigan. The Michigan Google+ Local profile is the one that should be most closely associated with the brand. Problem: We want the Michigan Google + Local page to show up for branded searches nationwide: right now, it only shows up on geolocated searches in Michigan. Of course, it totally makes sense that the other 4 Google+ local pages will appear for users searching with IP locations (or logged in locations) near those states. But for other states - is there a way to help Google understand or give preference to the main corporate location? What we're trying to prevent is someone in New York City searching for "company name", and then seeing a lesser location appear in SERPs associated with the brand, instead of our favored Michican location. Ideas so far: Continue to enhance out the Michigan location's Google+ page (check categories, photos, description, share content frequently, expand circles, get reviews, yada yada yada - we've already done much of this). _Maybe give this page more attention and content than other locations if we have to? _ Build links into Michigan Google+ page? Ensure general citations are up to date - use localeze/moz local etc. Website - We have a page for each location. While Michigan is featured, we also do promote our other offices as well - all kinda promoted equally on site in terms of metadata, content, etc. Any other brainstorming advice or out-of-the-box (oh no, did I just say "out-of-the-box"?) ideas to help Google associate the Michigan location as our "primary" one we want shown on more generic branded searches, even though of course the other 4 are impt too? Tricky...
Local SEO | | mirabile0 -
How can you perform productive local SEO when the company is moving?
I'm working with a brick and mortar store that is planning to move to a new location in a few months. All the citation information is going to have to be updated. Is there anything productive you can do in the interim to help their rankings when you know you'll be facing an update of all their citations?
Local SEO | | cakelady0 -
SEO planning: Franchise/multiple local sites
I am in the planning stages of franchising a cleaning business and was wondering if anyone had some ideas on SEO strategy. If money were no object and I had a team of hundreds of copywriters at my disposal, would the ultimate solution be to have the following sort of URL structure www.cleanbiz.co.uk/city within which there are numerous www.cleanbiz.co.uk/city/local-town pages? If this is the best strategy then is it worthwhile to begin work towards ranking for cities and local towns within them prior to actually operating there? I understand that lack of physical presence will penalize me in terms of local search but would a lack of physical address and phone number render any foundation work pointless (for example, prior to having any franchises in say London, would it be worth while building quality content and links on a www.cleaningbiz.co.uk/london page, and then www.cleaningbiz.co.uk/london/notting-hill, alongside a blog and so on?) Interested to understand the best way to go about this given the enormity of the campaign! Thanks
Local SEO | | EdwardoUK0