Any insight on optimizing a single URL for locations in different states?
-
What good/bad experiences have people had trying to optimize a single URL for multiple locations in different states? eg optimizing a page of the site for "dentist atlanta", "dentist orlando", and "dentist miami" (the client has offices in all these locations).
Has anyone found that Google has an algorithm that get's suspicious if you try to optimize a given URL for either too many locations and/or for locations that are too far apart?
-
Hi Adam,
Excellent advice from Laura. While Google has never taken a stance that I know of against putting all of your locations on a single page (and you'd be doing so on the Contact Us page, of course), it's considered a better practice in Local SEO to develop a unique, high quality landing page for each physical location for the following reasons:
-
Ranking a page that's clearly focused on a single city is going to be easier that ranking it for three different cities. You'll be sending a clearer signal to both humans and bots that 'dentist orlando' is a primary topic for the business than you would be if you're diluting the focus of the page with multiple cities.
-
It's very likely that your competitors will be making use of the practice of developing these landing pages, and you want to be able to compete with that.
-
Establishing a unique page for each office will enable you to link from all of the citations you build to a dedicated page on the website for each. Historically, this has been viewed as helpful in preventing against accidental merges of your Google+ Local pages, though there seems to be fewer cases of this in recent times. Regardless, it's very clear to be able to link your Orlando Google+ Local page and other citations to your Orlando page on your website, where the first thing one encounters in the compete NAP for the business, identically matching the NAP on the citations. It lessens the potential for error.
The prerequisite for developing these types of landing pages will be the willingness of the business owner to invest the necessary time/funding to creating high quality pages with unique content on them. If this is lacking, then it's better to wait until the owner is ready to devote the necessary resources to the project so that the pages are an asset rather than a liability.
-
-
Yes, I have seen that work as well. I'm not saying that you can't do it. but those are highly competitive keywords in large metropolitan areas. It will take longer to see results. Local landing pages will work to build authority for the entire domain for those locations. I have seen this happen many times with our clients. Both the optimized local page and the site's home page can end up ranking well for geo-targeted keywords.
-
Thanks for the reply. Why do you say "You'll be fighting a steep uphill battle if you try to optimize one URL for all three."?
That's what I tend to think also, but to my knowledge Google hasn't ever discouraged this, and I've seen this approach work pretty well for two different websites.
-
You'll be fighting a steep uphill battle if you try to optimize one URL for all three. You should, of course, mention that you have offices in all three cities on your home page, but why not create local landing pages for each city?
I don't mean that you should create one page, copy it, and replace the city name. That would be bad.
Each city page should have unique content with a local focus. In addition to contact information and directions, there's probably plenty of ways to add unique content to each local page. Highlight key staff members for each location, add location photos (inside and out), add customer testimonials, etc.
More about location pages:
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
-
Same URL-Structure & the same number of URLs indexed on two different websites - can it lead to a Google penalty?
Hey guys. I've got a question about the url structure on two different websites with a similar topic (bith are job search websites). Although we are going to publish different content (texts) on these two websites and they will differ visually, the url structure (except for the domain name) remains exactly the same, as does the number of indexed landingpages on both pages. For example, www.yyy.com/jobs/mobile-developer & www.zzz.com/jobs/mobile-developer. In your opinion, can this lead to a Google penalty? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vde130 -
What's the best way to A/B test new version of your website having different URL structure?
Hi Mozzers, Hope you're doing good. Well, we have a website, up and running for a decent tenure with millions of pages indexed in search engines. We're planning to go live with a new version of it i.e a new experience for our users, some changes in site architecture which includes change in URL structure for existing URLs and introduction of some new URLs as well. Now, my question is, what's the best way to do a A/B test with the new version? We can't launch it for a part of users (say, we'll make it live for 50% of the users, an remaining 50% of the users will see old/existing site only) because the URL structure is changed now and bots will get confused if they start landing on different versions. Will this work if I reduce crawl rate to ZERO during this A/B tenure? How will this impact us from SEO perspective? How will those old to new 301 URL redirects will affect our users? Have you ever faced/handled this kind of scenario? If yes, please share how you handled this along with the impact. If this is something new to you, would love to know your recommendations before taking the final call on this. Note: We're taking care of all existing URLs, properly 301 redirecting them to their newer versions but there are some new URLs which are supported only on newer version (architectural changes I mentioned above), and these URLs aren't backward compatible, can't redirect them to a valid URL on old version.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | _nitman0 -
Where is the best location for my primary keyword in my URL?
http://moz.com/learn/seo/url says: http://www.example.com/category-keyword/subcategory-keyword/primary-keyword.html However I am wondering about structuring things this a little backwards from that: http://www.example.com/primary-keyword/ (this would be an introduction and overview of the topic described by the primary keyword)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheEspresseo
http://www.example.com/primary-keyword/secondary/ (this would be a category landing page with snippets from articles within the niche described by the secondary keyword, which is itself a niche of the primary keyword)
http://www.example.com/primary-keyword/secondary/article-title/ (in-depth article on a topic within the scope of the secondary, which is within the scope of the primary) Where http://www.example.com/primary-keyword/ is the most important page targeting the most important URL. Thoughts?0 -
Mixing static.htm urls and dynamic urls on a Windows IIS Server?
Hi all, We've had a website originally built using static html with .htm extensions ranking well in Google hence we want to keep those pages/urls. We are on a dedicated sever (Windows IIS). However our developer has custom made a new DYNAMIC section for the site which shows new added products dynamically and allows them to be booked online via shopping cart. We are having problems displaying them both on the same domain even if we put the dynamic section withing its own subfolder and keep the static htms in the root. Is it possible to have both function on IIS (even if they may have to function a little separately)? Does anyone have previous experience of this kind of issue or a way of making both work? What setup do we need to do on the dedicated server.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | emerald0 -
Clean URL help!
Hi all, In short, i'm looking to redirect examplepage.html to examplepage .I've got rid of the .html, sitewide this morning. However I want to redirect Google & people who have bookmarked the old url structure. Currently if you have the extension on or not, it will show in your browser. I'm wanting /examplepage.html to 301 redirect to /examplepage I've gone the normal way I'd do it by adding in .htaccess: Redirect 301 /examplepage.html http://www.example.com/examplepage I'm assuming it isn't redirecting as the example.html page is no longer... what is the way around this? Thanks for any help! In firefox the error of the page is: The page isn't redirecting properly Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Whittie0 -
Google tagged URL an overly-dynamic URL?
I'm reviewing my campaign, and spotted the overly-dynamic URL box showing a few links. Reviewing it, they are my Google Tagged URLs (utm_source, utm_medium_utm_campaign etc) I've turned some internal links to Google Tagged URLs but should these cause concern?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Canonical URL Tag Usage
Hi there, I have a .co.uk website and a .ie website, which have the exact same content on both, should I put a canonical tag on both websites, on every page? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
URL - Keywords
My domain name contains my top two keywords. Am I penalized if I create another page where I add my domain key words a 2nd time after the domain name along with a subcategory and the name of a state. I don't know what white hat and black hat is so I want to make sure I stay white hat. Also I didn't know it but is it true that your title shows up in your domain name?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux0