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

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

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.

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.

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).

Hi JBroyer44,

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

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.

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.

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.

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.?)