Local SEO Question: Domain Wide Vs Specific Page
-
Hey Moz Community,
Question about Local SEO authority and how it applies to a domain vs. landing page. Let me elaborate...
Company is launching a new local out reach sales channel and merging it with our inbound sales channel under one brand. The plan thus far is to create a targeted landing page for local customers/leads.
I have been tasked with creating the written content and making sure we are optimized as much as possible for this landing page to show up for our city. Funny enough for a lot of relevant terms we are already in the top 10 with little optimization (Also due to low competition for most of these terms) Two questions:
1. Should the whole site be optimized for local - appropriate schema markup, G+ business local set up, contact page with correct address formatting, building citations/local links etc.? To accompany our targeted page?
2. Will taking a local first initiative hurt reaching our non-local target market? If so will a very targeted landing page for local customers do the trick minus rest of local optimizations ?
I guess what the question really boils down to is will optimizing for local hurt our broader inbound search reach/ranks in the long run? I want to be sure we are competitive to our broader audience and local audience on the same site with trying to get into sub-domains or considering re branding what is essentially the same department but for local purposes.
Responses and sharing previous experience would be greatly appreciated
-
Thanks for the Wisdom David! This really helped out ! I totally agree on EMD's - that said I don't believe I could swing this one on management and the developers. A lot branding already tied to the domain that would make this into more of a total re-brand project vs. just a merger.
Thanks again!
-
Hi Dylan,
Would you be able to explain your business model in a bit more detail? Is the business primarily local, with face-to-face transactions with customers in a given city, or is the business primarily virtual/non-local. The better you can paint a picture of what the business model looks like, the more tailored answers I believe you'll receive from the community here
-
1. Should the whole site be optimized for local - appropriate schema markup, G+ business local set up, contact page with correct address formatting, building citations/local links etc.? To accompany our targeted page?
If you are going to target that area specifically, then yes. If you still want to maintain a focus on national or boader match keywords, then no I would not modify the whole site.
2. Will taking a local first initiative hurt reaching our non-local target market? If so will a very targeted landing page for local customers do the trick minus rest of local optimizations?
You have to remember what the landing page's purpose is. You are trying to rank for one or a few things in a very specific area. One challenge I forsee in just having the landing page is that you are going to be up against companies that focus their whole effort to that one given area.
Depending upon what your long term goals are would determine how you move forward. To answer your question, yes it could hurt you on your national focus if you change your entire site to focus on that one given area.
Another aspect to look at is PPC and AdRank. Since you will have a local page that is highly targeted, your ad score will most likely go up for that ad if you choose to go the paid route. More on that here:Â https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBmPtduElkM. If you are going to run some ads, the landing page could work well for you, and not be that expensive.
So what are your options? Well, IMO the landing page may accomplish what you are trying to do if there isnt a lot of competition for the phrase and target area. If you have competition whose main goal in life is to rank for that one area and phrase then I do not see the landing page carrying enough weight to make a difference.
If there is strong competition for that area, you may want to investigate a exact match domain, and place your content on that site. Many people discount the value of EMDs simply because they do not understand the value and their purpose. True, an EMD will not be easy to get to rank for a lot of keywords, but that is not their purpose. An EMD is to target one specific area and keyword. Will one page be enough? Probably not, but by setting up 5-10 pages on an EMD could get you ranking very high if the content and site are put together well. You could also link to your local site from your main national focus domain, and help them both out since they are relevant to one another.
By having the other domain, you dont risk sabotaging your main sites traffic by changing to a local focus. This will also allow you the freedom to create local profiles (citation sites, Google+ personal and business, etc) for your new domain. I know it sounds like a lot of extra work, but I dont think that having the subpage on your main site will be enough unless the competition is weak, or you have a lot of ways to promote the new page through marketing.
-
Hi Dylan,
This is from my own experience:
1. If your local is a priority, then you have to do this
2. It won't, really. Since (I presume) that your company is primarily a local-first company, then you can just create other landing pages that can target those that are non-local. You can actually create a more targeted copy like that and promote it in more targeted channels.
It can also work the other way around but I'm just looking at your advantages by optimizing for local, especially with the new update.
Bottom line, check their priority and optimize for that first.
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
-
Negative SEO with Google Images
We have a client in the heavy equipment industry that is trying to "push down" images in a Google image search that are associated with an accident over ten years ago. This client has launched a new website, and we have applied the best practices of on-page SEO (page titles, unique meta-descriptions, alt-image tags, focused keyword targeting, etc.). The challenge we have is with Google Image results. It seems the image results shown in the Google Image search rankings are often not inline with how images have been labeled in the alt-tag section. I have checked these images with the Moz Chrome extension, and I have often found the way the image is labeled in the alt-tag is not related to the search query made within the Google image search bar. I certainly may not be factoring in other weighted items when it comes to how images are ranked. Are there other ranking factors associated with Google Image results outside of the Alt-Image Tag? If so, what are those factors? Our ultimate goal is to provide a strategy that would allow us to tag images within this specific sector that are relevant to this specific heavy equipment product, and at the same time, "push down" the rankings of the images that have a negative association to them. We certainly want to take the right approach here, and want to earn these rankings. However, the way Google ranks images seems to be a mystery of sorts. Is there a specific strategy relevant to Google Image rankings that would fall inline with the challenge listed above? I appreciate any advice on this topic. Thank you.
Image & Video Optimization | | JaredBroussard0 -
Can I make iframe video SEO friendly?
Hello there, Is it possible to make iframe SEO friendly? I have to use iframe to add video to the page. I know I can use the name and title attributes, but will it help to rank my page? Also can I put alternative content to describe the video? some iframe examples: <iframe<br>name="example-name-a"
Image & Video Optimization | | BBI_Brandboost
width="300"
height="300"
src="example-a.html">
Alternate content video a</iframe<br> <iframe <br="">name="Example-video-name-b"<br /> title="Example-video-title-b"<br /> width="300"<br /> height="300"<br /> frameborder="0"<br /> src="example-b.html"><br /></iframe>0 -
Google+ local SEO question regarding attorney services
Should attorneys check the boxes for: 1. My business has service areas where I visit customers at their location and
Image & Video Optimization | | cgman
2. I serve customers at my business address (within x miles) This is for a law firm that sees clients in the office, as well as making accommodations to visit them at their location when they are unable to come to the office.0 -
What are you most concerned about or interested in for Local Search?
Hi All, I'm speaking to a local SEO meetup at the end of this month. If you were attending (hypothetically), what would you be most interested in hearing about for local search? The audience is a mix of SEO professionals, web developers, internet marketers, and business owners. I suspect that there will be a number of people who understand the foundations of SEO, though not all of them will be practiced at implementing it. I believe the number of people who get really indepth with Local is quite small. At the moment, I'm thinking about covering things such as: The local search universe in general--which data sources are doing what these days, where it's heading. Google Local+ recent changes Migration to Local+, data cleanup, merging (or not merging!), and other Local+ nuances Current ranking factors, and where I think they're going. I'd love to hear, and greatly appreciate, any ideas you might have. Cheers, Bede
Image & Video Optimization | | BedeFahey0 -
Is city name really a no-no in Google+ Local description field?
I know that adding one's city name in the business name and category tags for Google+ Local is a no-no. And Google says so in its quality guidelines. But what about in the business description? I don't see that in Google's guidelines. Can anyone clarify?
Image & Video Optimization | | HammerandHand0 -
Google Places - Category Question
Hi All. Just wanted to double check something with you folks. I've always been under the impression that you should complete the first category option in Places with a default category from Google's list of options, followed by 4 categories of your choice. However, does the 1st category need to be a default option or can it be any one of the 5? Also, do you think anything is gained in the rankings by adding a category of your own choice as the 1st category? There's nothing in the Quality guidelines that suggests the 1st category needs to be a default option, so I thought I'd throw this out there... http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?answer=107528
Image & Video Optimization | | PerchDigital0 -
Google Places Local Submission
Hello We're going to upload a bulklisting to Google Places for multiple locations. However, there are existing Google places listings for these locations. The bulklisting is being used to undertake a refresh of all the existing data. How do we go about updating the existing data i.e. do we have to delete the existing information prior to submitting the bulkload, or does a new submission over write the existing data. In addition, how does Google Places verify a bulkload submission i.e. do they make contact with the designated business owner. How long does such a process actually take (roughly!). I know some of this is touched on in the Goolge Places help section, but it is not clear and I don't want to get this wrong for obvious reasons. Thanks in advance for your assistance. Rgds Neil
Image & Video Optimization | | mccormackmorrison0 -
Google local - is 7 pack really gone
According to a searchengineland post, Google has replaced "7 pack" results. But they are still appearing for local queries. Like for  query "pizza restaurant new delhi"  ( in Google.co.in ), i can still see 7 pack results. Has local and general search algorithms merged ?
Image & Video Optimization | | seoug_20050