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.
Local SEO for National Brands
-
Hi all,
When it comes to local SEO in 2015, I appreciate that having a physical location in the town/city you wish to rank is a major factor. However, if you're a national brand is it still possible to rank for local searches when you're based in one location?
The reason I ask is that, although our service is national, the nature of what we offer means that it is not inconceivable that people would search for a local variation of our top keywords. Other than the standard things - location in the content, the H1/H2s, title tag, meta description, url etc. - is there anything national businesses can do to help?
Thanks in advance.
John
-
Hi Caleb!
That's a good question. It's very important for me to state here that Moz Local is not a ranking tool. We do not guarantee rankings in any way. Likely, you already know this, but just wanted to be sure this was clear. Whether using a tool or working manually, citations are built for 2 main reasons:
-
To build up the 'trust' it is perceived that Google places in widely available, correct business NAP+W.
-
To help customers locate your business on a variety of platforms.
#1 is believed to help you with your Google local pack rankings and #2 is believed to directly market to customers on platforms they frequently use (like Yelp or Facebook). Citations are not widely recognized as a means for improving organic or national rankings.
So, in your case, as you don't really see customers between normal business hours, citation building may not be the most important investment for your business. On the other hand, if you have a B2B relationship and your business associates are coming to your office between normal business hours, citation building could help them find you in the local packs of results. Additionally, citations are normally listed in the organic results below the main result for a branded search, so, it could be postulated that this could help B2B customers feel more secure about how established your business is. But, it would not like help you rank better for your software keywords.
*However, there is one grey area related to this that deserves mention. The majority of citations include a link to the business website. So, in a sense, citation building is a form of link building. It would be possible, then, to parlay that out into thinking that earning citations means you've earned some new links for the business, right? And links do influence organic rank, right? But, it's my gut feeling that, because the links contain in citations are not merit-based (in other words, you're not actually earning them based on something great you've done) they probably do not have a ton of value in the current, more sophisticated Google environment. Could they help at all? My guess is that they might be of minimal help, but that you would likely benefit more organically from other efforts.
Hope this helps!
-
-
Great discussion, folks. I'd like to add a question, if I may. First, some background.
I'm the Marketing Manager for a software company who has a physical location, and occasionally clients come to visit, but no one just drops in. I'm interested in national rankings, not local. I cannot think of many (if any) examples where someone would search for our products and services in our city (i.e. guided selling tool in Richmond, VA).
Here's the question. Would submitting my company to a service like Moz Local help our national rankings? In other words, is there enough of a ranking boost from having our NAP and business categories correct across the web to warrant the fee and work, or does it not make a difference if I'm not interested in ranking for location-specific searches?
Thanks, all!
-
Thanks everyone - some very useful feedback here and certainly food for thought.
We've got some locality-centric data we can draw on so we should be able to get some unique content for each area together. There are also some links pointing to the home page from businesses located in certain cities/towns - could changing these links to the relevant local landing pages negatively effect our national rankings?
John
-
Hey John,
You're receiving good input from the community. I'll just summarize a couple of points here:
-
Without physical locations, no, you cannot rank in the local packs of results.
-
This leaves you with trying to rank organically via a combination of website content and optimization (see the landing pages article Patrick linked to) and trying to shore that up with things like link earning, social media, video marketing, etc. The main pitfall to be aware of in this practice is that many companies end up building a large number of thin, duplicate content pages for their service cities. This should be avoided. The main goal of this practice is to gain some organic visibility for local searches in the absence of being able to gain local pack rankings.
Hope this helps!
-
-
Hi there
I would check out Moz's post Local Landing Pages: A Guide To Great Implementation In Every Situation, particularly in the section National company desiring a local presence.
I would also take a look at Google's Service area maps resource.
Hope this all helps! Good luck!
-
Adding to this I found this https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors The comments by Nick Neels speaks directly to your question methinks.
-
I am sure you will receive more informed answers however I am facing a similar situation. I do know that local SEO greatly affects national rankings and recommend you optimize all local listings using a service like MOZ local (there are others too.) I track our rankings nationally and in a variety of markets where we compete or wish to compete.
I also recommend doing keyword research to determine your product is being searched locally (where to buy "your product" in washington dc) It may not be a large volume of searches but they could be very targeted meaning high value prospects. And the branding you get from it won't hurt either. And chances are those phrases will have a low difficulty as well.
I hope that helps and also gets more responses for you.
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
-
Local SEO Over Optimization
We are targeting a bunch of services for our local business that works in and around their location. I'm concerned about over optimization and need some guidance on whether these points should be resolved. The company is based in a city and works mostly in the city but also in the surrounding areas. Currently, the site has 6 services pages (accessible via main nav) targeting the same location i.e. “Made Up Service London”, “Imaginary Service London” (with URLs and H1 tags etc. in place containing this location). However this is soon going to become 9 services pages, I am concerned that the repetition of this one location is starting to look spammy, especially as its where the company is based. Initially, I also wanted pages targeting the same services in other nearby areas. For example “Made Up Service Surrey”, “Imaginary Service Essex”. This has not happened as the info available has been too sporadic. I was going to add links to relevant case studies into these pages to beef up the content and add interest. To that end, we came up with case studies, but after a while, I noticed that these are also largely focused on the primary location. So out of 32 case studies, we have 19 focused on the primary location again with URL’s and H1 tags etc containing the location keyword. So in total, we have 25 pages optimized for the location (soon to be 28 and more if further case studies are added). My initial feeling was that the inclusion of pages targeting services in other locations would legitimize what we have done with the main pages. But obviously we have not got these pages in place and I question whether we ever will. What is my best course of action moving forward?
Local Website Optimization | | GrouchyKids1 -
Local Business Schema Image requirement
Hello, I work exclusively with Dentists and we have been putting our json schema in the footer for a while now. Just recently they made 'image' a requirement for the Dentist category. We already use the logo in our schema and that is an image. Since the schema is in the footer, it is on every page, and the only image on every page is the logo. Does the image we add to our schema need to be on the actual web page or could it be anything related to the business, like an image of the practice or the dentist? Would it hurt to have the logo listed twice in the schema - once as the logo and once as the image? Trying to figure out what the best thing to do is for the required 'image' field for a dentist. Thanks! Angela
Local Website Optimization | | tntdental0 -
Does having an embedded Google Map still count as a positive SEO signal?
I know this was true a few years ago, however is there still an advantage to having an embedded map vs. a pop up map in 2017?
Local Website Optimization | | BigChad21 -
Local Service pages guide?
There are a lots of Local landing pages guide on the internet. Is there any guide for Local service pages? How to create them, what to include?
Local Website Optimization | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Title Tag, URL Structure & H1 for Localization
I am working with a local service company. They have one location but offer a number of different services to both residential and commercial verticals. What I have been reading seems to suggest that I put the location in URLs, Title Tags & H1s. Isn't it kind of spammy and possibly annoying user experience to see location on every page?? Portland ME Residential House Painting Portland ME Commercial Painting Portland Maine commercial sealcoating Portland Maine residential sealcoating etc, etc This strikes me as an old school approach. Isn't google more adept at recognizing location so that I don't need to paste it In H1s all over the site? Thanks in advance. PAtrick
Local Website Optimization | | hopkinspat0 -
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 | | edward-may1 -
Duplicate content question for multiple sites under one brand
I would like to get some opinions on the best way to handle duplicate / similar content that is on our company website and local facility level sites. Our company website is our flagship website that contains all of our service offerings, and we use this site to complete nationally for our SEO efforts. We then have around 100 localized facility level sites for the different locations we operate that we use to rank for local SEO. There is enough of a difference between these locations that it was decided (long ago before me) that there would be a separate website for each. There is however, much duplicate content across all these sites due to the service offerings being roughly the same. Every website has it's own unique domain name, but I believe they are all on the same C-block. I'm thinking of going with 1 of 2 options and wanted to get some opinions on which would be best. 1 - Keep the services content identical across the company website and all facility sites, and use the rel=canonical tag on all the facility sites to reference the company website. My only concern here is if this would drastically hurt local SEO for the facility sites. 2 - Create two unique sets of services content. Use one set on the company website. And use the second set on the facility sites, and either live with the duplicate content or try and sprinkle in enough local geographic content to create some differential between the facility sites. Or if there are other suggestions on a better way to handle this, I would love to hear any other thoughts as well. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | KHCreative0 -
Does the Location of my Server effect my SEO?
Does the geographic Location of my Server effect my SEO? HELP US! We are arguing for 3 weeks already. My partner has mentioned multiple times in the past that "since 2013 google does not require your server to be in the country you are targeting for seo"
Local Website Optimization | | DanielBernhardt
And that actually all they care about is if its a good and fast server - not where its physically located in the world. I am a strong believer that the geographic location of your server directly effects your SEO ranking... lets say if you want to target www.google.ru for your seo, best you have a server located in Russia for hosting your website.. WHO IS RIGHT? Choose the winner and base the facts.
If anybody has the correct answer and information to base it on it will help us alot - and maybe even spare some unnecessary violent between us two! we found some articles across the web, sadly they are all dated back to 2012.... Thanks in Advance for all the help guys!0