How to Handle Multiple Locations
-
We are working with a client who will have multiple locations––same company, same services [for the most part], different location. They want each location to get picked up locally in the search engines.
What is the best way to handle the website and URLs?
One overarching website with a page for each location?
Separate Company Name with the town in each - "XYZ Company - Orlando"?
Have a separate URL with the town name for each location that points each location's page?
All addresses on each page in the footer?Thanks.
-
Hi vzPro,
Absolutely. Schema for local is a very good thing to use whenever a physical address exists. Also, thought you might like to read a fairly recent article of mine on the topic of city landing pages. A lot of folks have told me it helped them to understand their opportunities.
The Nitty Gritty of City Landing Pages
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1403
Hope this helps!
-
Thanks for the extra info Miriam. Do you think adding "Local Business" schema is a good idea for these landing pages too? Is there any SEO value to that?
-
Hi ThinkCreativeGroup,
Great discussion going on here. I'll try to add a bit.
-
Yes, have a unique page for each of the locations on the website. Make sure that the content on each of the pages is unique. Do not simply change out keywords from page to page. Take the most creative approach you can to each location and find something of value to the user to write about.
-
Optimizing the website footer with the NAP (name, address, phone) for each of the locations is a best practice if the total number of locations isn't too large. I would say 6 or less would be fine.
-
You can also put all of these locations on a main contact page.
-
Yes, having the name of the city in your legal business name or DBA may be of some value, but be careful that:
-
You are listing it identically in all places across the web. In other words, don't be Bob's Chicago Taco Shop in some places and Bob's Taco Shop in others. Unless the business is utterly new and has absolutely no footprint (including offline Yellowpages), then chances are the name of the business has already been indexed in a variety of places. If the business chooses to change its name, all citations must be updated to match so that only one form of the business name exists everywhere. Also, be advised that if your client has already built up a good rep on the web around their existent name (with local listings, reviews, citations, etc.) then a change of name can be catastrophic. You can expect to lose all reviews and many citations by changing the name of an established business, as a new name will be a signal of a brand new business. So, be careful with this!
-
You are not over-optimizing your title tags. A few months ago, Andre Weyher (formerly of Matt Cutts' search quality team) said in an interview, "Don't put more than 2 commercial keywords in your titles or Google will frown on it." This statement led to an interesting theoretical disussion over at CatalysteMarketing's local search forum in which it was suggested that a city name not appear too many times in a title tag. (see: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/local-seo-ranking/984-local-search-engine-optimization-warning-city-title.html)
I mention this here because, if you are Bob's Chicago Taco Shop, and you're putting your business name in your title tags, then your name represents one usage of a city name. So, be aware of that and don't over-do it.
-
-
I would definitely take the time to read up on this blog post from Mike Ramsey over at NiftyMarketing. It was posted on SEOmoz at the end of January. It will answer a lot of your questions.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/40-important-local-search-questions-answered
-
Thanks, very helpful!
Each location is in the same city, does that change your response at all? And, is it OK if each landing page is within the same site with a separate URL, or should the landing pages be completely separate sites?
-
I would have a single locations page that lists all of your businesses locations by city, state.
I would link the city, state to a landing page for the specific city,state.
Each city, state landing page would have a unique, URL, title, headings, content, etc that would use a format like Keyword | City, State | XYZ Company - because if someone Googles your company name, you should already come up... it is more important to have the keywords, then city or city, then keywords in your title - do some keyword research on this to see which is best for you.
THEN register each of those city,state landing pages using GetListed.org - this will help you build up your local presence in those areas since you have a physical office location.
If you wanted, you could do the footer idea... I think that gets to be kind of spammy, but I guess it all depends on the industry and the number of locations.
Hope that helps.
Mike
-
Thanks for the responses, they make sense.
Do you know if adding the name of location into the official company name will have any impact on SEO?
And, should we list the locations in the footer or on a "locations" page?
-
you could also modify subdomains
i.e. www.company.com; orlando.company.com; seattle.company.com etc..
-
The bese way is to have one website with multiple urls for different locations with the right title tag. This way gives me the most feedback. I did this for a payroll company and it worked out great. so if your website is example.com you can say the locations url can be example.com/locations/orlando.html
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
-
Best Way to Handle Multi-Language Sites
In the last year we've made a few significant changes to the structure of our site - namely adding translations for a few languages. We have historically been gaining in organic search by about 10% each month, but in the last two months we've leveled out and seen a slight dip. I am wondering if this has something to do with the addition of the second language, and namely if there's a chance we've been penalized due to duplicate content. We have almost all pages / content on the site translated by a translator, but the way the development works the site will grab the english version if a translation hasn't been added - potentially adding some duplicate content? The URL structure remains the same, other than the addiion of the language - site.com/our-tour vs site.com/de/our-tour We also haven't translated the tour name itself, so that remains the same. Just wondering if anyone has any feedback on best practices here or things I should be looking out for. Thanks in Advance.
On-Page Optimization | | mkgreyound1 -
Will Multiple 301's to the Same URL Cause Issues?
Hey Everyone, We have a client (I don't have permission to disclose) that has just attempted to create better URL's for their site, per our direction. In the process, their website platform kind of took over their renaming attempts and instead of creating the clean, short, descriptive URLs we all wanted, they got convoluted, longer URLs. This all happened within the past 3 or 4 days. So, they went out and got an add-on that's going to help them create better URL's. In the meantime, they now have the original page/URL plus two new ones for a total of three. No 301's have been setup yet. When they create the new and (hopefully) improved URL tomorrow, will it hurt their rankings to have three pages redirected to the new one? Is a 301 redirect the right method for this issue or should they do something different? Thanks in advance, Kirk
On-Page Optimization | | kbates0 -
HTTPS and HTTP both exist! How to handle?
I was asked to do some SEO work for a website and learned that just 6 weeks ago, their webmaster added an HTTPS instance of the site. Their backlinks all point to HTTP and the 6 pages that are already ranking are all on the HTTP site. I'm afraid to rock the boat by redirecting the site from HTTP to HTTPS as we may lose rank. What are some suggestions? If I just pull down the HTTPS will that hurt us? Would you just go ahead and redirect it? IF so, would you do each page individually or as a whole?
On-Page Optimization | | dk80 -
Rich snippets for multiple breadcrumbs
Hey there,
On-Page Optimization | | Supertramp
I have been playing around with rich snippets for multiple breadcrumbs for quite a bit now - without any success. It would be great if someone could point me to an example where this has been implemented correctly. I followed the Google recommendation but it doesn't seem to work for me. See also: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2335753/Matt-Cutts-If-You-Have-Multiple-Breadcrumbs-Google-Picks-the-First-One Thanks for your help. Cheers,
Jochen0 -
Optimising a page for multiple key phrases?
Is there a technique to optimising for multiple key phrases? In the "old days", we'd have written doorway pages targeted at different key phrases, or just written a landing page for each key phrase. Now we're told that more is better and having all the info about a topic in one place will get you better SEO outcomes. But that means pages must be optimised for multiple key phrases. For example, I currently have three pages that are related topically: Bangkok Skytrain (Guide to BTS and MRT Lines) - this page is a description of the metro train system in Bangkok and how to use it. Gets traffic from key phrases like "bangkok BTS line", "bangkok commuter trains", "BTS and MRT lines". Attractions near the Bangkok Skytrain - this page has a map for each major skytrain station and details of nearby attractions including hotels and restaurants. Gets traffic from phrases like "bangkok mrt and bts map", "bangkok rail link map", "how to get to siam on MRT" and "bangkok airport rail link map" (so mostly gets key phrases with "map" in them). Best shopping from the Bangkok Skytrain - this page talks about the shopping centres in easy walking distance of each skytrain station. Doesn't really get a lot of traffic and probably pulls that from the other two. Ideally, I probably should combine all of these into one page now. But how to optimise for all those key phrases? Should I just optimise within each Heading 2 as I would within a page? Does that risk confusing the overall page SEO?
On-Page Optimization | | Gavin.Atkinson0 -
Multiple Organization Schema on the same site
I creating a preferred supplier list on my site and wanted to use the Organization Schema for the company details. Is there a issue with having more than one org schema on the same site? or should I just use the one for my company. Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | gregdicksonuk1 -
Schema: Multiple Locations on a Single Page
Can adding multiple locations on a single page be confusing to Google? Is using "LocalBusiness" with "branchof" the proper way of doing this? Does anyone know of any resources that go into this type of thing in more detail? I've read everything Google, Schema and SeoMoz seem to have on this topic. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Kwilder0 -
What are the benefits of targeting one keyword phrase per page vs. multiple keywords per page
What are the benefits of optimizing a page for one keyword phrase versus a group of similar keywords, like this one that Rand posted on another blog entry http://bit.ly/7LzTxY: Ted Baker Ted Baker London Ted Baker Clothing Ted Baker Mens Ted Baker Mens Clothing Ted Baker Mens Collection
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340