Leveraging the authority of a blog to boost pages on a root domain.
-
Hi!
Looking for some link building advice. For some background, I work for a company that has over 100 locations across the US. So we are deeply involved with local SEO. We also do a ton of evergreen/ national SEO as well and the spectrums are widely different for the most part. We also have a very successful blog in our industry. It really is an SEO’s dream. I do not even need to worry about a link strategy for this because it just naturally snatches them up.
I’m trying to find some unique ways to utilize the blog to boost pages on my main root domain, more specifically, at the local level.
It is really hard, besides the standard methods for local link building, to get outside sources to link to our local office pages. These pages are our bread and butter, and the pages we need to be as successful as possible. In every market we are in, we are at a disadvantage because we have one page to establish our local footprint and rank, compared to domains that have their entire site pointed at that local area we are trying to rank in.
I’ve tried linking to local office pages from successful blog posts to attempt to pass link juice to the local pages, but I haven’t seen much in terms of moving the needle doing this. Are there any crafty ideas on how I can shuffle some internal linking around to capitalize on the blog’s authority to make my local pages rank higher in their markets?
Thank you!
-Ben
-
Wishing you luck, Ben, and totally see how scaling can be difficult, particularly if some of the managers are a bit tech-wary. Little by little, more companies are becoming aware of the need for local expertise that can be translated into marketing outreach. If you can get this business on track with that, you'll be doing them a big favor.
-
Thanks Miriam!
The community outreach approach is always on our radar. Because of the nature of each office being in a different area with different managers and different philosophies, this is really hard to scale. There are some managers that still want nothing to do with digital, which shows how old school some of these guys can get. I am going to check out that tool you suggested for sure. If I can present them with everything they need to know, I will have a much better chance of convincing them. Thanks again!
-
Thanks, Sean I will check this out!
-
Great topic, Ben! Thank you for bringing your question here.
Coincidentally, I've been working on a document regarding scenarios like this one. Unfortunately, it's far from ready for publication, but I can share some suggestions with you.
-
Does each location of the business, or at least each region, have something akin to a local community expert? If so, this is the person you need to be in contact with. If not, you'll have to do this research yourself. Find out what the major events of the area are (fairs, expos, conferences, events, concerts, workshops, celebrations). Next, find out what the most cherished and most influential local entities are (schools, organizations, associations, teams).
-
Now that you have this data, determine where the opportunity lies for a specific location of the business to sponsor, host, speak at, attend or otherwise support these happenings and entities. This could run the gamut from supplying the charcoal for the 4th of July BBQ, to sponsoring a little league team, to offering a scholarship at the community college, to hosting a seminar on a topic relevant to your business. Be SURE the landing page for the location showcases this information.
-
In return for participation and philanthropy, request that online recognition links to the desired landing page. If the local news, local bloggers or other community media can be nudged to promote the company's giving/involvement, and they are linking to the homepage instead of the landing page, follow-up and request that the link be edited to go the page that features your own story about what the business is doing (again, be SURE this exists on the city landing page).
-
If all these seems like too much work, given the scale of your client, I recommend you check out ZipSprout's sponsorship tool, which does much of the research for you.
Hope this helps!
-
-
I found this article on KissiMetrics blog to be quite useful as far as internal linking is concerned. Not sure why he dubbed them the "7 commandments", I'm pretty sure it was 7 deadly sins and 10 commandments but... whatever lol:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/commandments-of-internal-linking/
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
-
One locations page, or multiple pages?
Hi, I represent a franchisor who does all marketing- including local seo- for our franchisees. I've read a lot about local SEO and understand the basics, but have some remaining questions. 1- If our typical territories are quite large and encompass more than one major city, should we create multiple location pages for the same franchise owner? I believe the answer should be yes from an SEO stand point, but the problem is that most of our franchisees naturally just have one business address (their home). Since PO boxes and virtual offices aren't the way to go, what's the best course of action? And when I say major cities, I'm really talking about major cities (and not just small towns/boroughs). Can they just use a friend's/relative's address? 2- There's a lot of info out there about "locations pages," but it's not really clear whether or not you should really just have ONE page for each location, or several pages with different content? For instance, it looks like a lot of businesses are creating just one, "home-page" looking landing page for their individual locations, with everything from services to testimonials on just that one page. Is this preferred over creating several different local pages for that one location? The latter is what we currently do. From the user stand-point, it looks like each franchise location has it's own "mini website" on our main website. For instance, a landing page optimized for the local business name, a local services page, a project/photo gallery page, local review page, etc. It seems like a lot less work just building one landing page for each location, but is the payoff the same? I'm torn between the two strategies- is it really worth the extra work (in terms of traffic + local ranking) to build out the individual pages for the one location? Thanks Moz Community!
Local Website Optimization | | kimberleymeloserpa0 -
I have a Wordpress site that ranks well and a blog (uses blogger) with slightly different URL/domain that also ranks decently. Should I combine the 2 under the website domain or keep both?
I realize that I am building essentially 2 different sites even though they are connected, but on some local town pages i have 2-3 results on Page #1. Nice problem to have eh? But i am worried as for a lot of my surrounding towns my competitor has the top listing or definitely ahead of me, so i am wondering if i combine or convert my blog into the same domain as my site, then all of that content + links should hopefully propel my site to #1. Anyone have an experience like this? thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
Multiple My Business pages affecting local SEO?
Hey Moz! We have a situation with a dentist firm with multiple doctors at the same address. They have two locations for their dental offices, and each of the dentists operate at both offices. The issue: Each doctor insists on having their own by business page for each location and i'm afraid this is hurting their local SEO. We've been tracking keywords by week and we've seen some big fluctuations in ratings and i'm looking into why this is happening. The office in location 1 has it's own Google My Business page and the three dentists have their own my business page set up at the exact same address. The office in location 2 has it's own Google My Business page as well and the three dentists have their own my business page there also. This leads the two addresses of the main offices having multiple My Business pages at the same address competing against eachother since they are all are registered with similar names and specialties. Could this be hurting our local SEO? Thanks! -Z
Local Website Optimization | | zacgarrison_700 -
What more can be done to get Google to change the landing pages it uses for certain search terms?
For one of my SEO campaigns, Google is using the website's home page as the landing page for the majority of search terms being tracked. The website splits its products by region and so we want specific region pages to rank for search terms related to that region, rather than the home page. We have optimised each regional page to a reasonably high standard and we have ensured that there is a good amount of internal linking and sign-posting to those region pages, however, Google is still using the home page. The only complication is that for the first few months there were canonical tags on these pages to the home page. These were removed around 3 months ago and we've checked that the region pages are indexed properly. Is there anything we are missing? Has anyone had any success in getting Google to change its landing pages?
Local Website Optimization | | ClickHub-Harry0 -
For a generic domain say www.purplecola.com where the company is based in India (IP address there too), how should they best optimize for US search traffic?
Let's just say that they want to target the US market. Should they add a US based IP address? Would love to hear insight from people who have managed this, experienced this or have expertise. Obviously, a US based physical address would help. Thanks!! Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
Whats in a domain name in terms of SE ranking.
I'm curious. Whats in a domain name in terms of search engine ranking and keyword searches. Let me provide an example: If I sell umbrellas in New York City and my company name is Rainy Day Umbrellas am I wise to register both rainydayumbrellas.com and newyorkumbrellas.com as a way of targeting my customers and ranking better in a single search phrase for that subject? Second question. If it is a good idea do you just forward that domain to the primary site or have a second mirrored site? Or perhaps just a landing page?
Local Website Optimization | | Bvrettski0 -
Expert Advice Needed: Single Domain vs Multiple Domain for 2 Different Countries?
Hi MOZers, We are looking for some advice on whether to have a single TLD(.com) or 2 separate domains (.ca) & (.com) Our website will have different products & pricing for each of US users(.com) and Canada users(.ca). Since, we are targeting different countries & user groups with each domain - we are not concerned about "duplicate content". So, does it make more sense to have a single domain for compounding our content marketing efforts? Or, Will it be more beneficial to have seperate domains for the geo-targeting benefits on Google.CA & Google.COM? Looking forward to some great suggestions.
Local Website Optimization | | ScorePromotions0 -
Which internal page approach is better? Couponsite/Kohls OR Couponsite/Houston/Kohls
Google will use the user's location for a restaurant search but it doesn't look to me like it uses it for a national company like Kohls. Is there a way to determine that? Assume I have no physical local presence in Houston for answering the question. Assume also that the coupon I list is a national one that applies everywhere. It seems to me that a facebook post that uses the first one as a link is better because more people live outside of Houston than inside and will see it as relevant, AND I may list it for more than one city. But, for specificity perhaps it makes sense to have the second one as it may be more likely to show up in a Google search result by someone in Houston.. Your thoughts please? Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | couponguy0