How to target a site to only specific US states?
-
Hey Guys,
Does anyone have experience or can point me to the right documentation about geo targeting possibilities for specific states in the US or specific areas in the world.
Local SEO does not apply in my case, since my website is not a business nor have a physical address.
My website offers information that is only relevant for specific states in the US, how can I leverage my I optimisation to gain more exposure in those specific states?
I really appreciate any help.
A
-
Thanks Jeff and Andy,
We are already building compelling content focused in those specific states. I was also wondering if there is anything in the technical side to leverage position, but local SEO and schema doesnt really apply to us, since it is usually based on a physical address which we dont have it.
Building a landing pages targeting the state would be an option but we do want the user to arrive in the homepage which is not really geo targeted.
Ill try a few thing for the next few weeks and I would be happy to share some results.
Thanks a lot,
A
-
When I first read your question, I though that perhaps you might have wanted to personalize content or redirect people based on their geographic location. I've done that before using geo-location information, and the results have been very successful.
But it looks like you want to have a site that will reach people in a specific geographic region. In that case, I agree with Andy (above). You'll need to build pages of content that discuss that region.
For example, your business may be located in Florida, but you may be trying to reach people in Indiana. If that's the case, you don't necessarily need to have a local business address.
Instead, you need to create compelling content that addresses the needs of people in that area.
Let's say that you have a solar power system that you want to sell to people in Indiana, because there are amazing tax subsidies that give the end user 85% savings on an expensive installation. In that case, I'd create content, images, video and more that discuss how the subsidy works, why it's ideal for people in Indiana, and all of that...
I hope this helps!
- Jeff
-
---> build landing pages targeting the states you are after - as for other countries... that's a whole different topic, and requires considerable planning and implementation.
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
-
Will hreflang eliminate duplicate content issues for a corporate marketing site on 2 different domains?
Basically, I have 2 company websites running. The first resides on a .com and the second resides on a .co.uk domain. The content is simply localized for the UK audience, not necessarily 100% original for the UK. The main website is the .com website but we expanded into the UK, IE and AU markets. However, the .co.uk domain is targeting UK, IE and AU. I am using the hreflang tag for the pages. Will this prevent duplicate content issues? Or should I use 100% new content for the .co.uk website?
Local Website Optimization | | QuickToImpress0 -
Copying a Website For Better Rankings in a Specific Country
I've got a blog with some tools and business directories (https://www.webhostinghero.com). Actually my website is in English and is hosted in the US since its biggest source of traffic is from there. My second biggest traffic source is India. The issue is that while my website is really well optimized (in terms of speed), it is still slow for visitors from India. So my question is: Would it be possible to have a copy of my website on a web server located in India and use a sub-domain (ie.: in.webhostinghero.com) to access it without being penalized by Google? Would that be considered duplicate content? What would be the HREF LANG tag set to for India (EN-US, EN-GB... EN-IN??) I thought that having a sub-domain for a specific country could also help its rankings. Thanks in advance for your inputs. P.S. Sorry my english sucks.
Local Website Optimization | | sbrault740 -
Should I use Rel-Canonicals links for a News site with similar articles each year
Our small town news site provides coverage in a lot of seasonal areas, and we're struggling with the current year's content ranking above previous years. For instance, every year we cover the local high school football team, and create 2-3 articles per game. We'll also have some articles preseason with upcoming schedule and general team "talk". We've seen where articles from past seasons will rank higher than the current season, presumably because the older articles have more links to them from other sources (among other factors). We don't want to delete these old articles and 301 them to the newer article, since most articles include information/stories about specific players...and their families don't want the article to ever come down. Should we rel-canonical the older articles to the newer one, or perhaps to the "high school football" category page? If to the category page, should we rel-canonical even the new articles to that main category page? Thanks for the help.
Local Website Optimization | | YourMark.com0 -
Schema markup for a local directory listing and Web Site name
Howdy there! Two schema related questions here Schema markup for local directory We have a page that lists multiple location information on a single page as a directory type listing. Each listing has a link to another page that contains more in depth information about that location. We have seen markups using Schema Local Business markup for each location listed on the directory page. Examples: http://www.yellowpages.com/metairie-la/gold-buyers http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?CS=L&MCBP=true&C=plumber%2C+dallas+tx Both of these validate using the Google testing tool, but what is strange is that the yellowpages.com example puts the URL to the profile page for a given location as the "name" in the schema for the local business, superpages.com uses the actual name of the location. Other sites such as Yelp etc have no markup for a location at all on a directory type page. We want to stay with schema and leaning towards the superpages option. Any opinions on the best route to go with this? Schema markup for logo and social profiles vs website name. If you read the article for schema markup for your logo and social profiles, it recommends/shows using the @type of Organization in the schema markup https://developers.google.com/structured-data/customize/social-profiles If you then click down the left column on that page to "Show your name in search results" it recommends/shows using the @type of WebSite in the schema markup. https://developers.google.com/structured-data/site-name We want to have the markup for the logo, social profiles and website name. Do we just need to repeat the schema for the @website name in addition to what we have for @organization (two sets of markup?). Our concern is that in both we are referencing the same home page and in one case on the page we are saying we are an organization and in another a website. Does this matter? Will Google be ok with the logo and social profile markup if we use the @website designation? Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | HeaHea0 -
RE: Keep Losing Keyword Ranking Position for Targeted Keyword Terms Can't Figure It Out, Please Help!!!
Hey Mozzers, I am pulling my hair out trying to figure out why one of my clients keeps losing their SERP for their targeted keyword terms. We're actively pursuing local citations, making sure their NAP is consistent across the board and refining on-page content to make sure that we're maximizing opportunities. The only thing I've found is a 4xx error that my Moz 'crawl diagnostics' keep returning back to me, however, when I check to see if there's any problems with Google Webmaster Tools, it doesn't return any errors. Is this 4xx error the culprit? Are there any suggestions any of you could give me to help me improve the SERP for my targeted keyword terms. Anyway, any and all insight can help. I'm at my wits end. Thanks for reading and for all of your help!
Local Website Optimization | | maxcarnage0 -
Can I use a state's slang term for local search?
Have a business located in Indianapolis, Indiana. The business name will be BusinessName Indy. The URL will be BusinessName-Indy.com Since I am using Indy instead of Indianapolis or Indiana, is Google's algorithm smart enough to match up local results to my site?
Local Website Optimization | | StevenPeavey1 -
What is the best CMS Approach for Multilingual Versions of Site?
We have expanded into France and Brazil and now have a someone in-house that can translate to French and Brazilian Portuguese. I own ".fr" and ".com.br" versions of our domain. We are using Wordpress for our CMS. We are currently publishing about 2 articles a week on English site which we would be translating and publishing through new international sites (when appropriate). We will be changing out photos and videos at times in addition to all the text/copy. So, before I jump deep into this I wanted to reach out for help regarding the best modern approach to this. Should I use some sort of WP Plugin that will let me manage each of these through 1 WP install or is it better to run each separately through multiple WP installs? I want to achieve this while... avoiding any duplicate content penalties. provide easy admin/editor management of publishing content. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | the-coopersmith0 -
Local site went from dominating first page - bad plugin caused duplicate content issues - now to 2nd page for all!
I had a bad plugin create duplicate content issues on my Wordpress CMS - www.pmaaustin.com I got it fixed, but now every keyword has been stuck on page 2 for search terms for 4 months now, where I was 49 out of 52 keywords on page one. It's a small local niche with mostly easier to rank keywords. Am I missing something? p.s. Also has a notice on the Dashboard that says: "404 Redirected: There are 889 captured 404 URLs that need to be processed." Could that be a problem? Thanks, Steve
Local Website Optimization | | OhYeahSteve0