Use of Location Folders
-
I'd like to understand the pro's and con's of using a location subfolder as an SEO strategy (example: http://sqmedia.us/Dallas/content-marketing.html), where the /Dallas folder is holding all of my keyword rich page titles. The strategy is to get local-SEO benefits from the use of the folder titled /Dallas (a folder which is unnecessary in the over all structure of this site), but how much is this strategy taking away from the page-title keyword effectiveness?
-
Hello SEO5,
Since I'm a virtual business wanting to rank well here in Dallas, as well as build my ranking nationally over time,
you're feedback on these two examples would be interesting:
http://sqmedia.us/dallas-tx/customer-experience-optimization.html
http://sqmedia.us/customer-experience-optimization-dallas-tx.html
The first address is the easiest to work with, as I have a keyword in each page URL, although having the keyword not so far back in the URL might be better for keyword ranking. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Steve
-
Hi Miriam,
Yes, I have a local number and a unique physical address. I'll change the phone number on the site to the local number instead of the 888 number, and forward to my service. I'll also aim for organic results. I'm a virtual business wanting to rank well here in Dallas where I'm located. Many thanks, Steve
-
Hi Steve,
Do you have a unique physical office and dedicated local phone number in Dallas? This is the only way to go after true local rankings for any service. Without this, your SEO efforts will need to have organic, rather than local, results as a goal.
If you are virtual business attempting to get some organic traffic for different cities where you have clients, which is what I'm guessing the hope is here, it would be most typical simply to create a city landing page high in the architecture of the site for each target city. So you'd have: mysite.com/dallas-content-marketing-services or mysitecome/austin-content-marketing-services
I don't see a need to put these things in different folders, but, I definitely do see a need to be sure you are creating totally unique content for each of these landing pages. That is critical.
Does this help answer your question? If not, feel free to provide further details.
-
Hi Steve,
I'd like to reference this site www.cityfeet.com that i did in one of my earlier posts. This site ranks extremely well for any geo targeted search for the keyword "office space for lease" . Type in " office space for lease dallas" or "office space for lease new york" they are always in the top search results. Their URL structure is below:
http://www.cityfeet.com/cont/new-york-office-space
http://www.cityfeet.com/cont/tx/dallas-office-space
So it seems like you may have to adopt a dual structure on the site. For the more competitive search terms you can have the keyword close to the domain name. For the others , you can have a state abbreviation and the city keyword next.
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
-
301 Redirects from Subdomain to Location Pages
I have a client site that is getting redesigned. Its a multi location service provider. Currently (for whatever reason) the location pages are sub domains. https://<location-name>.site.com/ In the new design the locations will be on the main domain. https://site.com/locations/<location-name> We are considering using 301 redirects from the current sub domains to the new location pages on the main domain. The current sub domains are setup on a multi-site with A records for each one in our GoDaddy account. Would like to get feedback on any unforeseen SEO issues that anyone might have input on.
Technical SEO | | ColeBField12210 -
Using Rel=Author with Multiple Contributors
I have multiple contributors who provide content on our page. I have created an authors page that shows the picture and bio of each author along with their Google+ profile link. Each profile link goes to the authors respective profile where I have had them verify themselves as contributors. My question is will Google see each of these authors and attribute the rel=author tag correctly (even though they are listed on the same profile page) or will Google only take the first person I point to for Rel=Author?
Technical SEO | | PLEsearch0 -
How do I use only one URL
my site can be reach by both www.site.com and site.com. How do I make it only use www?
Technical SEO | | Weblion0 -
Should we use "and" or "&"?
Our client has an ampersand in their brand name. The logo has "&", their url is spelled out. I'm trying to get them to standardize the use of the name for directories/listings. Should we use "and" or "&"?
Technical SEO | | vernonmack0 -
Have you used the Addthis Widget and had your rankings drop
Just wondering what experience people have of this widget? I added it to a site I look after late last week and we took an noise dive over the weekend. Any thoughts / comments are appreciated!
Technical SEO | | RodneyRiley0 -
External Microsite VS Internal Folder
We would like to create either a new website or a new section of our existing website that will feature (in time) a lot of content including a forum, video training, tutorials and downloadable resources. Logistically, it would be much easier to create this in a new site (we'll call it newproduct.com) and refer people to the new site. We would, however, like to keep all of that content on our existing site for the sake of content building and SEO. Should we: Duplicate the content and use no index no follow and/or rel canonical? Host all of the content on our site and set up a vanity domain (www.newproduct.com) to point people to the deep linked area (www.mainsite.com/product/newproductinfo)? Host the content only on an external site with the occasional link back to our main site? I realize there are other options but they're mostly variants of the above. Our main objectives are to make it easy for people to get to while leveraging the new content for SEO purposes. What are the pros and cons of these different approaches? What seems to make the most sense? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | BeijerElectronics0 -
URL length - Moving from 6 folder deep to 3 folder deep
I have a website with friendly URL, My product page are generated from a database. When I click on the product, I go 6 folders deep. (ex. nameofthesite/courses-and-seminard/blablabla-catalog/information-technology/blablabla-window/blabla-server/active-directory-with-windows-server-2008.html I'm thinking about moving the product page to the thrid folder, so it would become nameofthesite.com/courses-and-seminars/course-catalog/active-directory-with-windows-server-2008.html I want to know, would it be a major element in my SEO. Is URL length is a really important factor. Because I need to move 450 pages. Second, if I move the page, do I only need to add redirect 301 or I need to do something else. I suppose I also need to change my breadcrumb navigation also.
Technical SEO | | Adviso0 -
Should I use a "-", ":", or "|" in the title tag?
Out of habit, I've always put a "-" or dash to separate items in the title tag. However, I've noticed that more and more sites are using either a ":" or "|" in the title. Is there one that is better to use than the other?
Technical SEO | | beeneeb0