Local SEO url format & structure: ".com/albany-tummy-tuck" vs ".com/tummy-tuck" vs ".com/procedures/tummy-tuck-albany-ny" etc."
-
We have a relatively new site (re: August '10) for a plastic surgeon who opened his own solo practice after 25+ years with a large group. Our current url structure goes 3 folders deep to arrive at our tummy tuck procedure landing page. The site architecture is solid and each plastic surgery procedure page (e.g. rhinoplasty, liposuction, facelift, etc.) is no more than a couple clicks away. So far, so good - but given all that is known about local seo (which is a very different beast than national seo) quite a bit of on-page/architecture work can still be done to further improve our local rank.
So here a a couple big questions facing us at present:
First, regarding format, is it a given that using geo keywords within the url indispustibly and dramatically impacts a site's local rank for the better (e.g. the #2 result for "tummy tuck" and its SHENANIGANS level use of "NYC", "Manhattan", "newyorkcity" etc.)? Assuming that it is, would we be better off updating our cosmetic procedure landing page urls to "/albany-tummy-tuck" or "/albany-ny-tummy-tuck" or "/tummy-tuck-albany" etc.?
Second, regarding structure, would we be better off locating every procedure page within the root directory (re: "/rhinoplasty-albany-ny/") or within each procedure's proper parent category (re: "/facial-rejuvenation/rhinoplasty-albany-ny/")? From what I've read within the SEOmoz Q&A, adding that parent category (e.g. "/breast-enhancement/breast-lift") is better than having every link in the root (i.e. completely flat).
Third, how long before google updates their algorithm so that geo-optimized urls like http://www.kolkermd.com/newyorkplasticsurgeon/tummytucknewyorkcity.htm don't beat other sites who do not optimize so aggressively or local?
Fourth, assuming that each cosmetic procedure page will eventually have strong link profiles (via diligent, long term link building efforts), is it possible that geo-targeted urls will negatively impact our ability to rank for regional or less geo-specific searches?
Thanks!
-
First question.
Tummy tuck is a unique procedure in itself i am guessing, so using NY in the title would benefit you a lot. For example just speaking generally, if you use a deep target keyword such as , albany-ny-tummy-tuck , You might be limited on the traffic you get but will be good traffic. Vs using ny-tummy-tuck. My personal experience, specially dealing with unique niche items, I think a person from manhattan would want to go to albany to get a tummy tuck. So that being said a broader net for that keyword would be awesome.
Side Notes:
A. you need to use your company info " full address " on every page. Either site wide footer to be indexed or text on every page.
B. To benefit best for that local based seo signal you need to make sure all your citations are in order. Use yext.com. AWESOME time saving and a must if you want to compete locally. Or you can manually make the changes but does take a lot of time.
Second question, i would recommend looking at what is the most traffic driven long tail or medium size keyword that would benefit you and put that as close to the main directory as possible.
ie: Home/ Procedure / Tummy Tuck .
It would awesome if you can post your current Site structure and maybe we can help you structure it better,
Hope it helps
Hampig M
Bizdetox.
-
I say, the shorter url with most popular keywords, related to the on-page content. Links, where are they coming from?..what are their Domain Authority and anchor text when linking to your page? That is where I would focus. Build it healthy, otherwise you are propping your business up on a leg that may get kicked out with a google change..
-
Hi
I had a similar issue to solve, so maybe it will help you to decide if not happened already.The listing results were very good!
The customer is providing services in a given area "State and City/Suburb or Town level".
I've created a hierarchical structure for both the services and the locations, then I've just linked them together via tags, so that the Services content had tags for locations and vice versa.
The Path structure:
For location: /locations/WA/Perth/Perth-Hills
For Service: /services/servicex
Regards,
Jim Cetin
-
As an add-on: more subfolders will also reduce the chances of getting hit by a manual or algorithmic penalization from Google on the entire domain or on a larger scale within the domain due to bad content in one of the folders.
-
Hey Bill,
I actually have direct and very relevant experience with designing a URL architecture to penetrate local search in both Google's 10 -pack as well as full organic listings.
A while back I was designing a site for a client in the medical services industry and needed to target a large variety of cities across the U.S. (500+) and conducted a number of experiements to find out which directory structure would have the greatest impact in ranking for the various geographies where he had satellite offices.
What we found was that creating a master 'locations' page, i.e. .com/locations that then drilled into a deeper geography structure by state, .com/locations/pa ans then finally ending up at the city .com/locations/pa/philadelphia
Ultimately we found that the term 'locations' was able to signal local search results and more so allow for immediate relevancy to be established at the individual city level which made it easier to build authority directly at the individual geography.
I would be happy to provide you with examples of how this strategy is still driving #1 positions for head keyword term + city in over 300 locations, if you're interested shoot me a message.
Best of Luck.
-
Just wondering if you're still looking for advice, or if you have any lessons learned you can share with us about how you'd do this differently next time. We're following up on a lot of the older questions that are still marked unanswered right now.
-
There's quite a lot going on here, so I'm going to chime in where I feel I can add the most value.
I think it is a given that using geo keywords within the URL indisputably impacts a site's local rank; however, few (if any) SEOs would describe that impact as dramatic. It is a signal, but it isn't the biggest factor, and will always be overshadowed by off-page efforts.
Google have said they're aware of too-powerful, keyword- rich URLs, though that's mainly referring to the domain name, as oppose to page/filenames. Your best friend kolkermd only ranks 6th for the query the page you specified is targeting (see: tummy tuck new york city), with superior <title>tags and, I'd wager, keyword-rich backlinks, winning the day.</p> <p>So my advice would revolve around two principles: focus your onpage efforts, including your site's structure, on usability (which is currently very good), taking the battle to your competitors instead with your link building efforts.</p> <p>Also, don't forget Places... perhaps the single most important thing when it comes to local search, particularly for the broader, more competitive terms (i.e. plastic surgery in...).</p></title>
-
Nice find thanks - though the google webmaster video you referenced doesn't cover question #1 (which was about geo-optimized keywords in url).
-
This one fleshes out Q2:
-
Q1 and Q2: You should review the bellow video from google main man regarding SEO that will not respont exactly to your question but it will bring light on what the diferences are...
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
-
Is good for SEO update blog post dates after update post content
Hello I am updating some posts of my Blog, adding new and fresh content and rewriting some of the existing. After doing that I am thinking to update de post publishing so that I appears on front page of the blog and user can read ir again. But I don't know if it is good for google to change the publishing date of the post that he had indexed 5 years ago. Also I don't know if google will read it again if it is old and see the new changes in order to improve it in search results
Algorithm Updates | | maestrosonrisas0 -
How should the Heading Tags be used in Blogs to gain the Best results in SEO?
There are various Heading Tags from H1 to H6. In what order and priority should they be used in order to get best reach and ranking in google. Is every Tag a must in a blog?
Algorithm Updates | | sne79790 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
What is the impact of HTTP/2 on SEO ?
I think it's good for the user experience and speeds up websites, especially if your site has a lot of requests. But i'm not sure if there are other side effects, and if there's an impact on SEO or technical configuration. Most of my websites are built with Wordpress, some with Joomla.
Algorithm Updates | | Croco_Web_Solutions1 -
SEO for mobile sites?
Let's say I have an ecommerce site and it has a separate theme via device detection. So I may even have different content on the pages. So for example, on desktop, on mysite.com/flowers I have a video about flowers. But on mobile, I have 10 000 words of text. Will this page rank better for people searching via mobile? Will google give different search rankings, based on desktop vs. mobile? Or how is Google calculating this? Are there any good mobile SEO tips or a knowhow base?
Algorithm Updates | | JaanMSonberg0 -
Does the Search Algorithm vary considerably locally?
Hey, i am from india and I just noticed that most of our searches are extremely different to those from the gooogle.com searches. Not some searches. I mean entire layouts. For instance, there were no google places in the search results in India. There was hardly any integration with the G+ for a long time after it launched, even though a large population on G+ was Indian. I got thinking on these lines. Any pointers?
Algorithm Updates | | rahul.bitmesra0 -
SinglePlatform's Restaurant Menu Across Web Properties vs "SEO-Optimized"
Surprised I wasn't able to find an existing answer given that SinglePlatform apparently serves 500,000 SMBs with menus that appear on over 150 publisher websites. Given Panda's razor-sharp intolerance for duplicate content, am I safe to assume that any claim of SinglePlatform's menu on a local restaurant being beneficial to your SEO is now spurious? If so, what's best way to handle this as a potential SEO liability while still having one of their nicely formatted restaurant menus on your site? For reference: http://www.openforum.com/articles/using-singleplatform-to-build-a-digital-presence Update May 7, 2012 Connected directly with the folks at SinglePlatform, and the answer here is a lot simpler than my over-thinking of it. The menu usually sits within an iFrame or widget so that's that. But the ability to truthfully show an up-to-date menu for any given establishment is a legit way to address the healthy amount of local search intent that seems to be directed at exactly that. Overall a pretty slick platform, looking forward to seeing how they grow into the SMB, local & mobile in the coming months, I think the space is ripe to benefit from products/services that take advantage of these sorts of economies of scale.
Algorithm Updates | | mgalica0 -
SEO ranking factors
Hello I am reading SEO ranking factor (very good informations) and I want to ask: what does it mean: of linking C bloks to page I think that: how many(#) links from the same server (C block) links to your homepage or some pages of your web... of linking IP adresses to page how many web links are going to my web and every links are from another server. if I understand it good, it is no different between, if you have links from webpages in one server (one C block) or from webpages on another servers as your web is, because both correlation is 0.25... THX Could anybody expalin me, what does it mean: # of External Links w/ Partial Match Anchor Text http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics-5 The number of external links and all these external links contain partial match anchor text from my query: (I am finding in Google "tennis" and see in SERP domain www.usta.com. # of External Links w/ Partial Match Anchor Text: tells me the number how many external links contain partial match anchor text "play tennis, tennis school, tennis info..."? )
Algorithm Updates | | PeterSEO0