undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Local SEO
  4. Local Website Optimization
  5. Is it worth it having different cities in your footer, each with a separate page?

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.

Is it worth it having different cities in your footer, each with a separate page?

Local Website Optimization
5
10
2.4k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • EcommerceSite
    EcommerceSite last edited by Apr 9, 2015, 11:57 PM

    I have been looking at the website of local web design companies and every single one in my area has a footer with links to a separate page for that local city. This seems like a bad idea to me, but everyone in the local pack has it. Does it work?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • MiriamEllis
      MiriamEllis Subject Expert @MrSem last edited by Sep 26, 2017, 6:32 PM Sep 26, 2017, 6:32 PM

      Hi MrSem,

      Thanks for re-launching this conversation with new questions, which are good ones. My advice here, numbered for clarity:

      1. You should only have one "Contact" page on the site, listing all 5 of your locations. You should also have a unique page for each location. These are typically called "location landing pages", "local landing pages" or "city landing pages" - not "contact pages". The contact page should feature the basic contact info of each branch. The landing pages should feature much more than this. They should each be a unique resource of information about that branch, including NAP, driving directions, a map, reviews, special offers, customized CTAs, proofs of community involvement and anything else you can think of that might interest, inform and persuade customers as to the desirability of choosing your company. If you're listing a toll free number, be sure you're designating it as such and that it is the unique LOCAL number you're most closely associating with each branch of your business.

      2. If the number of locations you have is beginning to create navigational concerns, you may be reaching the point where you need to consider a store locator widget. Typically, I don't see these being implemented for a business with just 5 locations. More like 10+. For major brands with hundreds or thousands of locations, store locators are an essential medium for helping consumers find the branch nearest them. For your business, with 5 locations, the function simply may not be necessary. You can list all of your location in high level navigation without clutter, and you can also put them in the footer, on the contact page, etc. This shouldn't take up too much room, and should provide good UX for your users.

      Does this help answer your questions? Please, let me know if you have others.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MrSem
        MrSem last edited by Sep 25, 2017, 2:46 PM Sep 25, 2017, 2:46 PM

        I'd like to rekindle this discussion two years later.

        What if you basically just have a contact page for each location that has the exact same form, but it has a different phone number, address, and embedded map (all with schema markup.)  ?

        Let's say you have 5 locations but expect to grow to 15 eventually.  I don't think it's good to junk up your primary navigation dropdown with a list of all these cities.  Seems you could list all the cities (separated by commas in the footer.  OR, what about just a "locations" link in the footer?  The main contact page has a toll free number so there's no need to drive people to the location contact pages, but I would expect it can help local seo a bit to have them indexed?

        MiriamEllis 1 Reply Last reply Sep 26, 2017, 6:32 PM Reply Quote 0
        • topic:timeago_earlier,2 years
        • MiriamEllis
          MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by Apr 11, 2015, 3:27 PM Apr 11, 2015, 3:27 PM

          Hi! If you don't yet have the clients in place to create this type of content, then you don't really yet have a reason to create it. While you're building up your client base in the other cities, some other ideas might be finding opportunities to network in these other cities. Perhaps attending Chamber of Commerce meetings, hosting or attending workshops in these other cities or finding other opportunities for building relationships within these communities that you can then write about. Until then, your pages would by necessity be blank and you don't want blank pages on your site.

          If you're talking about a retail business, it's the same thing. The fact that customers in cities B, C and D drive to city A to shop isn't really a compelling reason to develop content. Your other customers will not be interested in this. You have to discover whether you have some more real/interesting connection between the business and the other communities. For example a retail toy store might host a gaming event in city B, sponsor a little league team in city C, etc. Finding ways to become locally involved where your customers live builds relationships that you can then showcase on your website/blog.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • EcommerceSite
            EcommerceSite @MiriamEllis last edited by Apr 10, 2015, 11:15 PM Apr 10, 2015, 11:15 PM

            What you are saying about displaying projects in different cities makes a ton of sense. All they do is replicate content with the cities changed out. However, what about for a new business that has yet to build any clients? What if it is something like a retail store with one location? I am referencing suburban areas were it would be about 10 cities maybe less.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • MiriamEllis
              MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by Apr 10, 2015, 9:38 PM Apr 10, 2015, 9:38 PM

              Hey There!

              Good topic! It's my personal feeling that Google's doorway pages update will mainly affect thin, duplicate content that doesn't have a very good reason for existing. I think the scenario you are describing could well fall under that heading if your competitors are taking a weak approach to the task of developing city landing pages. Some thoughts:

              1. I can see the sense, if you have many clients, in breaking them up via city onto different showcase pages, but I would like to see more than just images on these pages. Project descriptions, customer testimonials, maybe even some unique content about the most powerful industries in that city could go far toward making these pages of value to human users, showing them your company's good work with neighboring businesses they recognize.

              2. I think you need to do a gut check to draw a line about where you might be going overboard on this. If you are a boutique agency located in 1 city and taking clients in 9 other nearby cities, I could see it as a reasonable goal to create 10 really excellent pages with unique, interesting content on them. But, if you are a virtual business and want to create 50, 100, 5,000 pages like this to cover every city in the state or country (and I've seen this approach!) I find it less reasonable to imagine that the content is going to be unique and valuable to human users. Not saying that it's impossible, if you have big resources - just that it's less likely. So, you need to see what feels right to you; Google isn't giving us a cutoff point to work with about this. It's up to each of us to see what feels authentic and what feels like an obvious, painful grab for the SERPs, right?

              3. I would not recommend putting these links in the footer, regardless of the strength of the pages. I would recommend including them in your main navigation menu. Even if the pages are great, it's my belief that Google expects spammy stuff in footers and you don't want to be accidentally lumped in with that crowd. If your pages are super, show them off in your menu with pride and leave the footer for your physical NAP, contact us link, copyright and other basics like that.

              This would be my take on how to approach this. I get that you're seeing your competitors' doing things a certain way, and maybe they've all produced fantastic content for those footer-linked city pages, but if there's any chance that they haven't, you doing a better job could wind up being a competitive advantage.

              EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Apr 10, 2015, 11:15 PM Reply Quote 0
              • EcommerceSite
                EcommerceSite @Alick300 last edited by Apr 10, 2015, 5:41 PM Apr 10, 2015, 5:41 PM

                That was before the doorway page update. I am wondering if that changed anything.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • EcommerceSite
                  EcommerceSite @TheWebMastercom last edited by Apr 10, 2015, 5:39 PM Apr 10, 2015, 5:39 PM

                  I never had any intention of doing it, I was just surprised that so many other people still did it. There was not one single site that didn't do it.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • TheWebMastercom
                    TheWebMastercom last edited by Apr 10, 2015, 5:38 PM Apr 10, 2015, 10:30 AM

                    You need to be really careful doing this.  Whilst that used to be pretty much the industry standard, Google recently updated its guidelines to do with Doorway pages.  I am not sure that these new algorithm changes have been implemented but it is exactly this method that it will affect.

                    So, until we know what is up with that you will need to proceed with a bit of caution, and at least ensure that all content on those location pages are completely unique.

                    http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/an-update-on-doorway-pages.html

                    EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Apr 10, 2015, 5:39 PM Reply Quote 1
                    • Alick300
                      Alick300 last edited by Apr 10, 2015, 2:09 AM Apr 10, 2015, 2:09 AM

                      Hi Niners52,

                      I am quoting a very detailed answer on this by a moz staff Miriam Ellis. It is third consecutive day when I referring Miriam Ellis post 🙂 but she really answered very well. Please check this

                      To begin with, it's important to understand that Google will typically see any local business as most relevant to its city of location. So, if you're located in San Francisco (i.e. have a dedicated local area code phone number and street address there) your prime location and best opportunity for achieving high visibility will be for searches that include the phrase 'san francisco' or performed by san francisco-based users.

                      You are in a very common situation in which you operate in a wide service radius. The typical process involves creating city landing pages for each of your main service locations, and though you typically will not be able to locally outrank competitors who are physically located in those service cities, you can strive for secondary organic rankings for these geo terms.

                      To make this manageable, make a list of your 10 most important service cities/towns. Develop unique, non-duplicate content for each of these 10 cities. Create a section in your main site menu labeled 'Cities We Serve' or something along those lines and begin listing the pages in this menu. If you don't feel you can create useful, creative copy, hire a copywriter for this important task. Then, move onto your next 10 most important service cities. Build it in manageable chunks and do your absolute best job on every page.

                      Beyond this, linkbuilding to the pages would be next steps.

                      Hope this gives you a plan of action that makes sense! "

                      You can read full post here @ http://moz.com/community/q/how-to-optimize-for-multiple-cities-on-website

                      Thanks

                      Thanks

                      EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Apr 10, 2015, 5:41 PM Reply Quote 0
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • boxinghunter

                        Which are the best off-page SEO techniques for 2020?

                        I have just published an awesome website or blog, and i really worked hard keeping everything perfect. Do you think it’s enough? Having a perfect blog, website or business is  just enough. i need readers for my blog, visitors to my website, and customers for my business. So, what to do?

                        Local Website Optimization | Jul 15, 2023, 8:22 AM | boxinghunter
                        0
                      • Greenery

                        Service Area Location Pages vs. User Experience

                        I'm familiar with the SAB best practices outlined here. Here's my issue: Doing local landing pages as described here might not be ideal from a user experience point of view. Having a "Cities We Serve" or "Service Areas" link in the main navigation isn't necessarily valuable to the user when the city-specific landing pages are all places within a 15-mile radius of the SAB's headquarters. It would just look like the company did it for SEO. It wouldn't look natural. Seriously, it feels like best practices are totally at odds with user experience here. If I absolutely must create location pages for 10 or so municipalities within my client's service area, I'd rather NOT put the service areas as a primary navigation item. It is not useful to the user. Anyone who sees that the company provides services in the [name of city] metropolitan area will already understand that the company can service their town that is 5 miles away. It is self-evident. For example**, who would wonder whether a plumbing company with a Los Angeles address also services Beverly Hills?** It's just... silly. But the Moz guide says I've got to do those location pages! And that I've got to put them high up in the navigation! This is a problem because we've got to do local SEO, but we also have to provide an ideal experience. Thoughts?

                        Local Website Optimization | Jan 22, 2018, 8:10 PM | Greenery
                        1
                      • wearehappymedia

                        Suburb Pages

                        Hey Mozers, This is an old and often criticized method of SERP however we have a client who has requested we create suburb specific pages for their site. PLASTIC PLANTS "SUBURB" NEED PLASTIC PLANTS IN "SUBURB" They have shown us a competitor who is ranking for hundreds maybe thousands of suburbs in Australia using this method. Any thoughts or experience in this area would be appreciated.

                        Local Website Optimization | Jul 13, 2016, 6:38 PM | wearehappymedia
                        0
                      • edward-may

                        How can i optimize my pages for local areas if we are not in that area?

                        Hi Mozers! So I watched a video about Matt Cutts he talks about creating multiple web pages just for one keywords is an absolutely no go.  So I was wondering we serve a clients in NZ Australia and USA, If we target phrase like Psychic Readings California, Psychic Readings San Diego etc (USA) Psychic Readings Melbourne, Psychic Readings Sydney (AU) Psychic Readings Auckland, Psychic Readings Wellington (NZ) What is the best practice or right way to go about structuring my pages to do this without going against googles guidelines. Many thanks

                        Local Website Optimization | Jun 18, 2015, 1:56 AM | edward-may
                        1
                      • MiriamEllis

                        How Google's Doorway Pages Update Affects Local SEO

                        Hey Awesome Local Folks! I thought I'd take a proactive stance and start a thread on the new doorway pages update from Google, as I feel there will be questions coming up about this here in the forum: Here's the update announcement: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/03/an-update-on-doorway-pages.html And here's the part that will make local business owners and Local SEOs take a second glance at this: Here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages: Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic? I think this will naturally lead to questions about the practice of creating local/city landing pages. At this point, my prediction is that this will come down to high quality vs. crummy quality pages of this type. In fact, after chatting briefly with Andrew Shotland, I'm leaning a bit toward seeing the above language as being strongly geared toward directory type sites and large franchises. I recommend reading Andrew's post about his take on this, as I think he's on the right track: http://www.localseoguide.com/googles-about-to-close-your-local-doorway-pages/ So, I'm feeling at this point that if you've made the right efforts to develop unique, high quality local landing pages, you should be good unless you are an accidental casualty of an over-zealous update. We'll see! If anyone has thoughts to contribute on this thread, I hope they will, and if lots of questions start coming up about this here in the community, feel free to link back to this thread in helping your fellow community members 🙂 Thanks, all!

                        Local Website Optimization | Mar 9, 2016, 8:50 PM | MiriamEllis
                        9
                      • ChaseMG

                        Local SEO: City & County Pages

                        I'm working on developing some local pages for an HVAC company. They cover two counties, so I was planning on having two county pages, then linking them to individual city pages to keep the menu simpler and not cluttering it up with a couple dozen city pages for people to slog through. Has anybody ever done county pages before for local SEO? Or at least seen them? Just curious to see if there's any real benefit overall for have separate county pages, or if I should just stick to city pages.

                        Local Website Optimization | Jan 15, 2015, 5:25 PM | ChaseMG
                        0
                      • Inevo

                        Ecommerce: different product price in different regions

                        Hi, If an ecommerce site has different prices for the different regions within the same country (based on IP location), will this impact Google somehow? Case: Furniture website in Norway. Shipping is expensive when you ship a sofa, so prices will differ depending on where in Norway you're located. Switching location is easy, but the default price you see will be based on your IP location.

                        Local Website Optimization | Apr 22, 2014, 1:09 PM | Inevo
                        0
                      • lfrazer

                        Local Business Schema Markup on every page?

                        Hello, I have two questions..if someone could shed some light on the topic, I would be so very grateful! 1. I am still making my way through how schema is employed, and as I can tell, it is much more specific (and therefore relevant) in its details than using the data highlighter tool. Is this true? 2. Most of my clients' sites have a footer with the local business info included on every page of their site (address and phone). This said, I have been using the structured data markup helper to add local business schema to home page, and then including the footer markup in the footer file so that every page benefits from the local business markup. Is this incorrect to use it for every page? Also, I noticed that by just using the footer markup for the rest of the pages in the site, I am missing data that was included when I manually went through the index page (i.e. image, url, name of business). Could someone tell me if it is advisable and worth it to manually markup every page for the local business schema or if that should just be used for certain pages such as location, contact us, and/or index? Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks

                        Local Website Optimization | May 4, 2017, 11:30 AM | lfrazer
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.