Local SEO: City based landing pages....?

[JBroyer44]

HI guys,

building a site for a client that is a specialized restoration contractor. Was wondering what people think of city based landing pages.

for example:

main domain: http://acmerestoration . com
main service page http://acmerestoration . com/roofing
city based page http://acmerestoration .com/roofing/albany

so in this example we have a page dedicated to our roofing services and then we make a separate page for the city Albany which would be one of many serviced cities.

The content on the albany roofing page would be similar but NOT DUPLICATE. Pretty much it would be re-written but the same stuff. I would then replicate this for each of my main service areas. For this particular client he wants to target 10 different cities where he gets a lot of work.

does anyone have experience with this type of site set-up? Does it work? Is it unnecessary? If it is is this how you would set up the url?

or would you make the url/page http://acmerestoration .com/albany-roofing ?

thanks for your time.

[professorrosado]

At mycbh.com, we would offer a client such as yours another alternative: more localized seo. Albany is a city but buyer's online seeking "local" options are not thinking "city" necessarily. They are more into neighborhood searches.

Mycbh.com would advise your client to secure neighborhood pages for better and more precise seo for many reasons and even more seo benefits.

This translates to more work for you -more pages need to be created, more unique content and more locally-based seo services. Your client will notice more calls than if you only targeted city-wide singularly plus enhanced Google search results.

The searches would look more like: "neighborhood" roofers, or "neighborhood" roofing contractor. Your client will usually dominate for their keywords in their markets. Remember that everyone else is taking the lazy road and going citywide to save time and money. What they're doing is also losing customers!

Then my suggested urls would focus on neighborhood and then service, i.e., http://company.com/neighborhood-roofing-contractor.htm or http://company.com/neighborhood/roofing-contractor.htm

[Tech Straightforward]

Not sure I agree with the neighborhood approach unless you're trying to do that in a big city - I know personally that in the city I live in (of 120k people), there aren't really defined neighborhoods (or at least ones that people search by) but maybe in Albany there is. I know that searches including a city name are typically very low in search volume, so I can only imagine how low it is when you get down to neighborhood.

What I can say is that I've employed the strategy of different landing pages based on city (and sometimes county) to great success. For an example of someone doing this very well (not myself), check out http://www.socalworkout.com (scroll down to the footer and see all of the regional pages he created)

You can also check out a landing page I made for a client of mine here: http://www.northshoreshutters.com/shutters-winnetka/
this is the link structure I like to employ as it has the exact keyword in the url

[JBroyer44]

thanks for the input! I agree that if we were talking NYC or LA neighborhoods would be a good idea but I am targeting subrubs of a major city which do not really have neighborhoods.

I will check out those links.

I am planning on building these pages today basically cloning the main service page then manually re-writing the content for the city based keyword. Its a lot of work but if this site ranks and devlops leads the commission structure I ahve is pretty nice!

[professorrosado]

Originally Posted by Tech Straightforward

Not sure I agree with the neighborhood approach unless you're trying to do that in a big city - I know personally that in the city I live in (of 120k people), there aren't really defined neighborhoods (or at least ones that people search by) but maybe in Albany there is. I know that searches including a city name are typically very low in search volume, so I can only imagine how low it is when you get down to neighborhood.

Yes, of course you're correct. Also, since the OP mentioned Albany, my assumption was Albany NY. In NY we have that happy context of multi-layered neighborhoods, areas, counties, cities, etc.

However, these low numbers are also well-defined and highly targeted! They reflect people who know what they want, where they want it and are anxious to deal with someone local now. That's why they're specific about a local search.

In small towns there are other centers of interest around which to focus a marketing effort. In leiu of geographical you might want to base it on demographical or other locally-defined and identified terms.

Originally Posted by JBroyer44

thanks for the input! I agree that if we were talking NYC or LA neighborhoods would be a good idea but I am targeting subrubs of a major city which do not really have neighborhoods.

However, if you are in the suburb level - then you are already in a precise location for geographical SEO.

There are other reasons to use geographical SEO. First Google has the local Map business locators - Google Places. The businesses listed in Google places usually will get first page ranking above the others who do not. I had a client recently who had neglected this aspect and could not get to page one against the others in his industry who were indeed listed.

Another aspect is market share. I have been experimenting with micro-geo seo for awhile and have seen increased calls and search traffic based on this technique. It is a business marketing tool even moreso than just seo - more customer inquiries will be had from this method.

Then to top it all off, you know that the Internet is full of websites that pull information based on varying criteria. One of these is geographical. Sites that pull info let's say from Albany NY, will find and re-post your url and info because of its relevance to this criteria. As a homeowner myself, I would search for roofers who service my area and may even be looking for a local joe I saw the other day in the neighborhood.

I can go on and on with many other reasons and techniques associated with the one I presented above. I am not suggesting that this be your one and only strategy - NO! But I know that you're missing out on some easy non-competitive contacts and seo by not adding this to your arsenal.

[Seofarmer]

Very interesting topic. Thanks for the information guys.

Just wondering, if I am willing to spend more money into local campaigns, will it be a good idea to get EMD domain for each city instead?

For example; www.roofingneighborhood.com

Then do this for every neighborhood. Considering my city only contains 3-4 neighborhoods anyways.

[JBroyer44]

Hi SEO farmer, my client gave me enough money to get 10 EMD domains for each city though i am re-thniking this strategy and might use those domains to make my own link pyramid.

I will be making geo targeted landing pages which I think will be enough to rank after looking at the competition. However another thought I have is to 301 redirect those EMD to the geo targeted landing pages on the same site. Anyone done that, or are you just splitting SEO juice between the main page domain and the redirect?

[Seofarmer]

Hey JBroyer44,

Glad you pull that up. I was thinking something similiar, but I am also concern about 301 redirection. Redirecting a few seems ok, but something like 9-10 seems a little unusual, dont you think?

[Nutria]

Back to the first question I think and seen that http://acmerestoration .com/albany-roofing type of URL is most used.
Also think about the mobile site. And the different landing pages with geo-targeted URLs sounds good, with a link back to the main website or somelike that.

[Seofarmer]

how does subdirectory (geo-targeted) vs. EMD (geo-targeted).
Which one is more effective?

[dburk]

Hi JBroyer44,

Before you attempt this, I think you should review Google's Webmaster Guidelines:

Doorway pages
Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.

Whether deployed across many domains or established within one domain, doorway pages tend to frustrate users, and are in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines.

Google's aim is to give our users the most valuable and relevant search results. Therefore, we frown on practices that are designed to manipulate search engines and deceive users by directing them to sites other than the ones they selected, and that provide content solely for the benefit of search engines. Google may take action on doorway sites and other sites making use of these deceptive practice, including removing these sites from the Google index.

Source: Cloaking, sneaky Javascript redirects, and doorway pages - Webmaster Tools Help

All it takes is one of your competitors reporting your Doorway pages and "poof" there goes the client's website, deleted from Google's index.

If you take the time to build unique content that adds value to each page (not the same information regurgitated with slightly different wording) then you can safely build out those city specific pages without concern.

[professorrosado]

Build out and don't worry about linking back. Remember that the purpose of the business is to do more business - not just rank no.1 in Google search.

Each site is a separate work and should be treated as if it were a separate entity. SEO by number and location!

In either case, I get three to four of my local websites pop up for a general search term all for the same company. So it doesn't matter to the company that 4 or 5 of page 1 results are theirs! Isn't that better than just being no. 1? I prefer 4-5 links than only 1!

[JBroyer44]

Don thanks for the response.

My take is that these are not doorway pages as I am giving them a 100% relevant result. Each new page will have completely re-written content regarding the service provided in that city. I am not building a page and then redirecting them somewhere else. I am giving the user exactly what they are looking for.

The search for "restoration services Burbank, CA" and a I have a page optimized for restoration services Burbank CA, they see my clients address and phone # is local, then fill out the contact form or call.

I actually just read a great blog post about local landing pages vs. doorway pages. I wish I could find it.

[professorrosado]

Originally Posted by Seofarmer

how does subdirectory (geo-targeted) vs. EMD (geo-targeted).
Which one is more effective?

I think its commonly opined that Google looks at content. I have also experimented and it does not matter what the url is if the content is neither unique or relevant.

In my opinion, domains are more important to website purchasers than to Google. Why does Google love Wordpress? Because wordpress, when configured with correct permalink structure, provides easy content indexing format: post url with relevant term in the title, tags and content. All three things are essential for high relevancy ranking - think spoon feeding, really.

Also, if you're just thinking sub-directory, you may be short changing your effort. Sub-directory is really a benefit for the webmaster - it helps keep things in order. But for Google, it doesn't mean anything - it's just another url. But as such, then it should be better to use key terms with the geo targeting for SEO purposes and forget the webmaster's easy way out (unless you are building a massive local network - then subdirectory is your only option to avoid early insanity)!

So it might go: www.companyname.com/neighborhood-roofing-contractor-free-estimate-licensed-bonded-guaranteed-references.htm

If the company is paying for domain names, then: www.neighborhood-roofer.com/contractor-free-estimate-licensed-bonded-guaranteed-references.htm

The sites can act like affiliates or sales reps for the company - the site simply refers contacts to the company!

The rest is your run of the mill SEO.

There are other steps the company can take or be advised to take by its seo agent that will enhance its local market share. But this goes beyond the scope of this thread.

[JBroyer44]

Hey professor,
thanks for all your input btw!

This client has a couple different services I am going to try and rank for. By now i should state the clients site is in my sig as I am trying to get on with indexing the main pages.

So we have: Water Damage Resorption and Fire damage Restoration.

should I set up my city based pages http://restorationservices. com/water-damage-restoration/Burbank-CA and vice versa with fire damage

or trim it down

http:/restorationservices. com/water-damage-restoration-Burbank-CA

Does it matter at all how close the kw is to the root domain?

[professorrosado]

Originally Posted by JBroyer44

Hey professor,
thanks for all your input btw!

This client has a couple different services I am going to try and rank for. By now i should state the clients site is in my sig as I am trying to get on with indexing the main pages.

So we have: Water Damage Resorption and Fire damage Restoration.

should I set up my city based pages http://restorationservices. com/water-damage-restoration/Burbank-CA and vice versa with fire damage

or trim it down

http:/restorationservices. com/water-damage-restoration-Burbank-CA

Does it matter at all how close the kw is to the root domain?

Avoid duplicate content! The more you keyword it down, the more the potential is for duplicating content even for the customer. I would opt to include everything having to do with restoring from water damage in one site. If you are using the main company site, duplicating content will be more haphazard. If you have 4 suburbs, then how many ways can you describe what the company is going to do about water damage and restoration without duplicating content? Spinning will embarass the company (and you) unless it is done expertly well.

What are you doing to avoid this?

[JBroyer44]

I was not planing on spinning, I was going to manually rewrite it.

I'm not a huge fan of spinner, I've done it for article clients but for my own SEO stuff, nota fan.

I'm almost think I whould focus more on google places and city based anchor text.

[professorrosado]

Try to acheive uniqueness in each page / geo-locale. Better that a customer find different items in each location, then the same item re-written in each location. Each is another shot at reaching and keeping a new customer.

Re-writing content is not what I would do. I would write different articles (uniqueness) relevant to each locale. Make the content locally based as well, not just the url.

[Seofarmer]

Originally Posted by JBroyer44

I was not planing on spinning, I was going to manually rewrite it.

I'm not a huge fan of spinner, I've done it for article clients but for my own SEO stuff, nota fan.

I'm almost think I whould focus more on google places and city based anchor text.

Wouldnt it be wise to do "neighborhood-service.com" in addition to unique contents and proper SEO on top of it? I think thats what prof suggested above? (since he mentioned subdirectories dont mean much to G etc.?)

[Tech Straightforward]

Originally Posted by JBroyer44

Hi SEO farmer, my client gave me enough money to get 10 EMD domains for each city though i am re-thniking this strategy and might use those domains to make my own link pyramid.

Just want to comment on this - make sure if you are going to build a link pyramid that each domain you register is on a separate C class IP address otherwise Google will see that each of those domains are from the same IP and actually penalize you.

If I were you, I would build one site with the url structure as follows:

acmerestoration. com/water-restoration-town
acmerestoration. com/water-resorption-town2
etc

Why not focus all your SEO efforts on one domain and build it up to be the primary water restoration service in the geographical area? And if you're manually writing the content, you shouldn't worry about duplicate content. Just throw in a few blurbs here and there about the town you're writing about and you'll be fine (as well as rewriting the other content a bit differently)

I also don't include the state in the URL because honestly I don't think people are including their state in the search (unless it's a city that is popular in multiple states, such as pittsburg PA vs CA. Then I could see it being important).

[JBroyer44]

HI Tech - that is kind of what i mean about re-writing the content, write about water restorations services in general but make it unique to that town. Meaning each town is going to be totally unique 300-500 words of content.

Thanks for chiming in!