Ranking a Website that Services Multiple Cities

[SEOhughesm]

We have a website that offers services to various cities in a state. However, since we don't want to do keyword stuffing, how do we rank this website for all of these cities when it comes to the **title tags? **For example, how do we optimize the homepage title tag? Obviously I know we can't put all the cities into it, so how do we choose which city to use?

I know we can add city/local pages and optimize them for those locations, but I'm referring specifically to the homepage and other main pages of the website. How do you determine which cities to use in those title tags?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Deedra,

Are you saying you have multiple physical locations from which you are serving multiple cities, or just one physical location from which you are serving multiple cities? And, also, are you meeting with clients face-to-face or is this a virtual business model? These nuances are important.

[PaulGG]

We're currently building a similar strategy. I would go for the towns that have the highest population and are most likely to want your services.

I would avoid using this kind of strategy on a national level, because you'd obviously end up with thousands of duplicate pages and likely be deindexed.

I also agree with the above points, don't just have a bunch of duplicate pages with different titles, keyword replacement, it's likely to work in the short-term but result in penalties later on.

[SEOhughesm]

Thank you Bryan. This was very helpful

[Lumina]

Generally speaking, if a page's content isn't specific to one location, I'd advise against putting location information in the title of that page. You mentioned that you're aware of the option to make pages specifically for locations - that's really a much better solution than to stuff your title tags with city names. Rather than the title tags, however, maybe you could add content that specifically targets some or all of those locations (depending on quantity of course).

You could also add a footer section that links to each location page. The point is that there are many ways to up your rank in different cities. Using title tags on general pages may not be the best option, though. I realize this doesn't directly answer your question, but it's what I'd advise a client if they were to ask the same thing.