Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Local SEO for a business serving multiple small cities
-
We have a local business that has a showroom in one city, and serve other 5 different small cities (in total 6 small cities). Search volume for the targeted keyword is very low (around 100 each plus minus) with a variety of competition levels. The product is expensive so this justifies the low search volume with a serious user intent.
My question is given the low search volume for each keyword, what would be the best local SEO tactic for this. The website has a DA of 20 with competitors who has similar and higher DAs.Options I am considering:
1. Create unique pages for each location with unique content (no address available so I will have to use a city name postcode)
2. Create pages with the same content (but changing the area of service on the URL, H1 and mention the postcode and the radius of coverage twice in the content) and using a canonical tag to solve the duplicate issue.
In this scenario, I will create the main product pages with the address of the showroom, and mention the area of service covered for the other 5 cities.
3. Given that the 6 cities are part of a greater area, use the greater area to target them all. The keyword of the greater area has a lower search volume than the city keyword. This might work for keywords with low competition but not for ones with high competition levels. Not sure how well search engines will rank the keywords that include the greater area and show the pages for searches in small cities.Any advice on which option to go with or any recommendations for other solutions?
-
-
I also want to improve the local SEO for my website. How can I do that?
-
Totally @Nadiamo, do let me know if you want to run any more thoughts or ideas by us, here..
-
Thank you Vadim!
-
Thank you Nigel!
-
I will answer your 3 specific options and general thoughts at the bottom:
-
Yes you have the correct game plan here. Postal code may or may not help unless it is specifically searched for.
-
Unique content is the name of the game, each neighborhood/area will have their own unique elements you can write about in your content and this will engage the user and bring familiarity and will rank better, and this solves duplicate issues.
-
Greater area reach is hard unless you are dominating with reviews or other local listing factors. The goal is having a physical location close to your area of intent.
"product is expensive so this justifies" - does this justify potentially opening another physical location to be closer to the searcher?
Also how is the current showroom main location doing, with search and its response? Is it in the target area, is it reaching customers well?
-
-
Hi
You have to be careful creating city pages. make sure they are as unique as you can make them and add some local content. Treat them like you would any other page when SEO'ing them.
Ensure correct and on a one page one theme basis - forget the greater area and concentrate on the town/village. if you try and hoof the local area in as well you will destroy them all, especially if the local area has its own page.
Title
Description
H1
Alts
Local contentmake sure it is in the form
City - Service - Company name
and not service first.
More here: https://moz.com/blog/do-you-need-local-pages
I hope that help
Nigel
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
-
Unsolved GMB Local SEO question
I am trying to diagnose how one particular competitor is smoking us in local rankings. I came across a text field “Service Details' within Google My Business Services. This allows me to put in a brief description of each service we offer. My thought is that this could be a good place for keywords. That said, the descriptions are not public facing (or to the best of my knowledge) so I am reluctant to do all the work for nothing. I am wondering if anyone has filled these out and if there were any noticeable results. Any insight is appreciated
Local SEO | | jorda0910 -
How to rank in Google against a business with the same name?
My client has a coworking space in London, but shares its name with a recruitment company also in London. When searching for my client's brand name, they don't appear anywhere on the first page as this recruitment company dominates. How can I rank prominently for my brand term if there is someone else in these top spots who isn't a direct competitor (in the typical sense)? Thank you!
Local SEO | | WhitewallGlasgow0 -
Does having a subdomains UK affect SEO in UK google results?
For exemple we set a UK subdomaine for : www.igomorocco.com www.uk.igomorocco.com Does having a subdomains UK affect SEO in UK google results? How this should be set up correctly?
Local SEO | | mounirigomorocco0 -
Strategy for [list of keywords] + hundreds of cities
Hi, hoping to get some suggestions on strategy in terms of building out my site as I'm a bit overwhelmed. We provide home services throughout hundreds of locations - some major cities, others smaller yet affluent towns where demand is sufficient, though have no physical presence in the majority. My question is really regarding ranking organically (given local listings will be so difficult). I am new to Moz and have been using the Keyword Explorer to generate a long list of keywords, which I've refined to those which offer the most opportunity. Do I simply now take this list and append [city_name] to each keyword/phrase? If so, working in [list_of_keywords] + [city] into hundreds of location pages is surely going to be a nightmare to make unique, and most likely a horrible user experience. All my customers really want to see is: that we service their area, some info on how we operate, that we are trustworthy (reviews/site quality etc) clear pricing/information (across mobile/desktop) and an easy way of contacting us. If I was searching for a lawn care service in Manchester for example, I couldn't care less about anything else other than the above information. So is padding out pages with content like 'Things to do in Manchester' etc. really the way forward? Would I be better off focusing on building relationships/links with other local complimentary businesses/influencers rather than building out tons of content (on the assumption of course that what content is there is high quality, contains a smattering of keyword + city, and optimised very well)? Any help hugely appreciated!
Local SEO | | Cleanily1 -
Does the physical location of a server effect the local rankings of a site?
I've just been running a report on a site and noticed that while they have a .co.uk domain it is hosted on a server in the United States and just wondered if anyone was aware, if the physical location of a server mattered to search engines for ranking purposes especially with local search?
Local SEO | | ben_dpp0 -
How to find best local websites?
For example, I'd like to type in a zipcode and get the highest ranking websites by DA/whatever metric the software uses, within a 25 mile radius? Does that type of service exist? I'm looking to build up our local links, but most of the websites have extremely low authority. I'm trying to find some good ones without having to manually check each one. Thanks, Ruben
Local SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
I am ranking for local broad terms, but I am not ranking when geo-modifier is included.
I have noticed that my rankings for broad terms have dramatically improved in the area I service. But, when I put the broad term in my search query with a geo-modifier I notice I am still not ranking even though my domain authority and page authority is higher than the competitor who is ranking. Why might this be? I am not penalized, or have a manual action. I am also featured in more hyperlocal niche directories.
Local SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0