Best Moz article on landing pages?

[cschwartzel]

From what I understand, building landing pages to link back to sites is a thing of the past. I am looking for a good article that explains best current landing page practices (post Panda and Penquin). Any suggestions?

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Courtney,

Reading your question, I'm not quite sure if you are talking about are microsites and doorway pages, or landing pages that target different geographical intent.  (I'll assume the later)

It's fine if your client wants to target different geographical areas with specific content. The best practice for this type of thing usually involves:

• Make sure the content lives on your domain (don't create a bunch of microsites)
• Make the content unique and valuable to the specific area you are targeting
• Don't publish the same content just with slightly modifies words (best plumber Houston, best plumber Atlanta, etc) all over the web

If your client wants to publish the same content in different places - ask him/her what they hope to accomplish. Not only does this create duplicate content, but it really doesn't add any value for the end user.

Sounds like your instinct are correct. I don't have a list of articles that act as "proof" that you can show your client, but this article on microsites still holds up pretty well http://moz.com/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites

And the dangers of duplicate content: http://moz.com/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world

Hope this helps! Best of luck.

[SEMServices]

Advantage of Subdomain (Revealed by Experts)

• A subdomain can point to IP Address (i.e. can have A Record) which can be used to host in the country specific hosting (cloud/blogging platform/shared hosting)

• It has separate Page Rank, Domain Authority and indexing preferences in Search Engine

• Easy to Manage

Refer http://moz.com/community/q/subdirectory-vs-subdomain

[cschwartzel]

These are all great tips. Thanks guys. I still am confused on how to build the URL's. Currently they have a subdirectory for each (25) cities they service. They want a "landing page" for each and the company they are working with wants them to build sub-directories...again...

Essentially they are reinventing the wheel and building them a bunch of subdirectories again. What about subdomains? Would this be a better route for building landing pages for the 25 different cities?

[SEMServices]

You try the below when creating country specific or sister sites in different geo locations

1. Pricing Information with the Country Specific Currency

2. Date, Time etc with Country Specific Format

3. Vocabulary and Typography

4. Local Testimonials

5. Local Portfolio

6. the company special focus for the local/geo location if any

7. country specific domain (if not restricted)

8. Meta Tag on the page for the country code and language

9. if possible hosting the site in the local hosting provider (if possible)

10.  Ofcourse content should be unique but need not have loads and lots of content.

[SEO5Team]

it really depends on the context for the landing pages. In the case of franchisees , they, quite often setup local pages and also have links back to the corporate site from the local site. With regards to the local address part, if you're trying to rank for the local listings then not having the address on the site will have an impact on your local rankings.

[cschwartzel]

Am I correct in assuming that the whole linking back to the sister site is the wrong way to do it?

I did suggest already to him that even if he has 5 url's to use, that each needs to be treated like it's own website with unique, engaging content. Will he be penalized with a link back to his main site? I know you don't want to inundate the site with links, but maybe one or two links? Will that hurt?

What about placing an address into the landing page? Will it hurt us significantly to not include a local address in the footer of the site? Since he really doesn't have locations in the areas he is targeting....if that makes any sense....How do you localize the content? Just on page?

[SEO5Team]

Based on what you're describing, i would advise the client not to go down that route. The idea for landing pages is to drive targeted traffic for a specific campaign with unique information. I would suggest adding some localized content for each of the pages to impact conversion rates and visitor interaction.The unique content will not only lead to a better conversion rate but can be optimized for geo targeted keyword phrases without being perceived as duplicate by Google.

[cschwartzel]

These are great,  I will start here.  Now how about building them so they are SEO friendly? I read that linking back to sister sites is not a way to do it anymore. My client basically wants to build a lot of pages in different geographic areas, but have the content the same as his main business website (which is a local company). Is he going about this wrong? Would google see this as a bunch of duplicate content with too many links pointing to the main website? I feel like this isn't an approved practice, am I wrong? #newtolandingpages

[SEO5Team]

Hi Courtney,

I've referenced a few links below that might be helpful for you.

Conversion Rate Experts - Moz Case Study ( this is a fantastic example of how to build landing pages. Their site has other excellent examples of landing page implementation)

Unbounce Article on Landing Pages

Landing Pages Guides on Hubspot

Ion Interactive Presentation

Cheers,

SEO5