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How To Google + Local In An Adjacent City

by rickmor
11 replies
So, in my area there are many small communities, cities and towns in between several large cities that make up the metro area. I have several small businesses that want to rank for the community that is adjacent to theirs as that is where the population density is higher and more affluent. One location in particular sits in one city on one side of the road, but i want to rank him for the city that is across the street. However with NAP being so important in Google Local listings, he is first page for his own city on Google Local but page 2 for the city across the street.. So I'm wondering if others have had an issue like this. I cant imagine that i am alone in this. Im looking for best practices or tips that others have used in this scenario that worked.
#adjacent #city #google #local
  • Profile picture of the author linkmetro
    Get a domain also for the city across the street and optimized it.
    Have to see your situ, but seo can help also.
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  • Profile picture of the author PaulintheSticks
    What is NAP?
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  • Profile picture of the author Cyborgaus
    NAP is an abbreviation for Name, Address and Phone Number. Your website should show the same NAP citation that is showing in Google Places. It is the most primary requirement and should be fulfilled.

    A consistent NAP should be present across the web as well as other data providers such as InfoUSA, Super Pages, Yelp, City Search etc.
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    Internet Marketing Australia | SEO Company Australia | Sydney SEO Service | Social Media Marketing
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    This is a great question!

    First... a common error is people change their business city to match where they want to rank. ie: a plumber in Coral Gables just listing business as being in Miami. It just doesn't work. You'll get a ranking penalty at best and a deleted listing at worst.

    So... how do you rank for other areas?

    It's hard to quantify when it's possible to rank in adjacent city local listings. Organic is easy... local listings - not so much.

    But as a rule of thumb, if the adjacent areas are not large and not far away and competition is rather weak, it's very possible.

    Here's how you can help widen your area of influence when you're a service area business:

    - create location-specific pages.
    - instead of re-writing the same business description / service descriptions for each area, share information that is specific to that area.
    ---> ie: if you're a plumber, you can keep a running blog on the projects you complete. Optimize each post for that particular location. Add pictures, videos and descriptions. There are ways I feed these blog posts into a static page for that particular location. I use categories to sort the blog posts, of course, and I have each category fed into my specific location pages.

    For other businesses, like contractors, you can get creative with providing links to local town hall offices where permits may be obtained.

    If you're a company that services clients at a static business location (lawyer, dentist, doctor, chiropractor) you have to get a little more creative. You can share case studies, photos, videos and links to local events that may be useful / interesting to your clientele in that area.

    You definitely have to think outside the box, but you can accomplish a lot with taking this approach.

    For my own work, I like to go even further with geo-tagging the posts / pages, and really optimizing the static location page well. It works wonders and the client has something really robust at the end of it all. They'll love you for it.
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    G+ LOCAL SETUP ___and____ Custom WordPress - Genesis Child Themes (see portfolio here)

    SCHEMA.ORG + GEOTAGGING + KML + PUBLISHERSHIP + so much more...
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    • Profile picture of the author rickmor
      Originally Posted by Kung Fu Backlinks View Post

      This is a great question!

      First... a common error is people change their business city to match where they want to rank. ie: a plumber in Coral Gables just listing business as being in Miami. It just doesn't work. You'll get a ranking penalty at best and a deleted listing at worst.

      So... how do you rank for other areas?

      It's hard to quantify when it's possible to rank in adjacent city local listings. Organic is easy... local listings - not so much.

      But as a rule of thumb, if the adjacent areas are not large and not far away and competition is rather weak, it's very possible.

      Here's how you can help widen your area of influence when you're a service area business:

      - create location-specific pages.
      - instead of re-writing the same business description / service descriptions for each area, share information that is specific to that area.
      ---> ie: if you're a plumber, you can keep a running blog on the projects you complete. Optimize each post for that particular location. Add pictures, videos and descriptions. There are ways I feed these blog posts into a static page for that particular location. I use categories to sort the blog posts, of course, and I have each category fed into my specific location pages.

      For other businesses, like contractors, you can get creative with providing links to local town hall offices where permits may be obtained.

      If you're a company that services clients at a static business location (lawyer, dentist, doctor, chiropractor) you have to get a little more creative. You can share case studies, photos, videos and links to local events that may be useful / interesting to your clientele in that area.

      You definitely have to think outside the box, but you can accomplish a lot with taking this approach.

      For my own work, I like to go even further with geo-tagging the posts / pages, and really optimizing the static location page well. It works wonders and the client has something really robust at the end of it all. They'll love you for it.
      Thank you. Now that is some really useful information!
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      no agenda

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  • Profile picture of the author Adwizard
    I've noticed lately that Kung Fu really likes doing that chit... giving out some really useful and good info.

    Question there Kung Fu.... are you saying to build a specific page for each of the neighboring cities and this will help with the local listings for that city?

    Thanks in Advance,
    Ed
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    Building Businesses Beyond their Four Walls by
    Thinking Outside the Box... since 1993.
    Is anyone capable of designing a mobile site for
    this e-commerce site for a fee:
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    Thanks for noticing, I've tried to do just that since becoming a member. I've gotten a lot from here, so it's only fair.

    Now, doing what I explain above (creating optimized pages for each surrounding location) COULD help with local listings, but keep in mind you're always fighting against Google's relevance filter. They are called LOCAL listings, and if your city doesn't match the city you want to rank in, then, technically, you ain't local LOL

    It's worth doing anyway, though, because you just never know AND doing this will also really strengthen your chances of ranking in your main city.

    I have managed to rank a Coral Gables businesses in Miami (and in a very competitive niche), so it's possible and definitely worth the effort if you're in one of these smaller places.
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    G+ LOCAL SETUP ___and____ Custom WordPress - Genesis Child Themes (see portfolio here)

    SCHEMA.ORG + GEOTAGGING + KML + PUBLISHERSHIP + so much more...
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    • Profile picture of the author mrtrance
      Originally Posted by Kung Fu Backlinks View Post

      Thanks for noticing, I've tried to do just that since becoming a member. I've gotten a lot from here, so it's only fair.

      Now, doing what I explain above (creating optimized pages for each surrounding location) COULD help with local listings, but keep in mind you're always fighting against Google's relevance filter. They are called LOCAL listings, and if your city doesn't match the city you want to rank in, then, technically, you ain't local LOL

      It's worth doing anyway, though, because you just never know AND doing this will also really strengthen your chances of ranking in your main city.

      I have managed to rank a Coral Gables businesses in Miami (and in a very competitive niche), so it's possible and definitely worth the effort if you're in one of these smaller places.
      Thanks for all the help you have given me by answering my questions in this area. So after reading your responses can you comment if doing the following will help my client rank for their new office location that is 60 miles away in new city, but offering same 6 types of services as their 1st location. Their website is currently optimized for their main city as far as homepage and internal pages.

      So what I was thinking of doing is adding a new page titled "Locations" or "Offices" (i.e. domain.com/offices) (add this to the menu navigation on the homepage as well) and then on this "Offices" page now list the two 2 locations that they serve with just the address, phone#, map, hours, etc. Then hyperlink the new location to a new page that I will create that will have content (300-500 words) about the specific location of this new office, describe all the services that they offer (give brief overview from the 6 service pages, but have it all in one page), possibly add a few images. etc. So this new page will be sort of a summary of the 6 service pages (within a link going back to each of the service pages) plus incorporating the new city in the content as well as mention a few of the surrounding cities as well. Then I would build backlinks to this new page using the various service keyword + new city combinations. Hopefully we start to see this new page to start ranking and the link juice from the established domain helping it along the way. This way I keep all my content the same and keep the rankings that I have already got and start working on the new page to it ranking for it's new city.

      So will this strategy work fine in my situation? By just giving a brief overview of each of the specific services (and not a 1 whole page dedicated to each one) and using the new city a few times in the content will that be more than enough for onpage optimization and then I would just build backlinks using all the keyword combinations for this new page? Anyone have any other suggestions or feedback that might work better or be used instead?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    I think this will help everyone.



    https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink

    Hopefully you'll be able to zoom in and see the notes. I don't write down all my tricks, but what you find there is very useful.
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    SCHEMA.ORG + GEOTAGGING + KML + PUBLISHERSHIP + so much more...
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    • Profile picture of the author mrtrance
      Originally Posted by Kung Fu Backlinks View Post

      I think this will help everyone.



      https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink

      Hopefully you'll be able to zoom in and see the notes. I don't write down all my tricks, but what you find there is very useful.
      Thank you for posting that diagram. That really clears alot of the confusion I've been having.

      Please let me know if I understand it correctly.

      So overall on the homepage we would have navigation links for these pages: Services/TOS/About/SiteMap/Contact/Locations/Areas Served

      On Services page (domain-name/services) we list each of the services offered with a short description and then provide a link for more details on each to the actual service page (domain-name/services/service1, domain/services/service2, etc..). So I have that setup that way right now. Now with the actual service pages (domain-name/services/service1) themselves I have their main location city name used once in the description, title tags, meta and keyword descriptions and url(domain-name/services/service1-city). Otherwise the rest of the info on this page here is generic. These services pages are ranking high for their main city and surrounding cities so I don't want to really change them.

      As far as the Contact page goes up to now there is only 1 page which has a contact form and have their NAP (first location). So should we make multiple contact pages now as well with each one having a contact form with no NAP? Do I need to take off the NAP from my current contact page or not?

      Are you suggesting that on the Contact page (domain-nam/contact) we just add a short content about the different offices/locations they have (just use the city name, with no address, telephone#, etc.) and then link each of those to the "office/location" page for that location. Is that correct? For the location pages do we need an actual location (domain-name/location) where we list each location and then link to their respective location pages (domain-name/locations/location1) or do we just setup the actual location pages (domain-name/location1, domain-name/location2)?

      Also couldn't we just incorporate the other areas (surrouding cities they serve within the location pages since Google would think they are relevant to that location anyways?

      So which pages do we now build links to get them ranking? The Location pages (domain-name/location/location1). If you can give me some insight on which pages we will be trying to rank now for the service and location keywords such as "service 1 city"?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    On Services page (domain-name/services) we list each of the services offered with a short description and then provide a link for more details on each to the actual service page (domain-name/services/service1, domain/services/service2, etc..). So I have that setup that way right now. Now with the actual service pages (domain-name/services/service1) themselves I have their main location city name used once in the description, title tags, meta and keyword descriptions and url(domain-name/services/service1-city). Otherwise the rest of the info on this page here is generic. These services pages are ranking high for their main city and surrounding cities so I don't want to really change them.
    No need for the parent "services" page. I would rather have a menu item titled "services" that doesn't link to anything, and put the service pages below the in a dropdown. Any decent theme will accommodate dropdown menus.

    So for a dentist it will look like:

    www.dentist-site.com/cosmetic-dentistry/
    www.dentist-site.com/family-dentistry/
    www.dentist-site.com/dental-implants/
    www.dentist-site.com/teeth-whitening/

    As far as the Contact page goes up to now there is only 1 page which has a contact form and have their NAP (first location). So should we make multiple contact pages now as well with each one having a contact form with no NAP? Do I need to take off the NAP from my current contact page or not?
    This is entering the realm of user experience design / architecture. Sometimes I like to add a contact form on the Location Page and not have the additional contact pages, but when there is other info the client wants on the contact page, I create something like above. Each contact page CAN have NAP. Read the notes in red.

    What you do with your current page depends on the business. You can keep the NAP there and make a 2nd contact page for the next location, or you can remove it and make the contact page nothing more than a link list to the location pages where visitors will find specific contact info.

    Are you suggesting that on the Contact page (domain-nam/contact) we just add a short content about the different offices/locations they have (just use the city name, with no address, telephone#, etc.) and then link each of those to the "office/location" page for that location. Is that correct? For the location pages do we need an actual location (domain-name/location) where we list each location and then link to their respective location pages (domain-name/locations/location1) or do we just setup the actual location pages (domain-name/location1, domain-name/location2)?
    Yes to everything. You decide.

    Also couldn't we just incorporate the other areas (surrouding cities they serve within the location pages since Google would think they are relevant to that location anyways?
    See "Service Area" pages. I will generally link relevant service area pages from the appropriate Location Page. That isn't obvious from the diagram. I just do it all intuitively at this point, so I don't realize when my diagram isn't clear to others.


    So which pages do we now build links to get them ranking? The Location pages (domain-name/location/location1). If you can give me some insight on which pages we will be trying to rank now for the service and location keywords such as "service 1 city"?
    Most links will be to location pages and the main page.
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    SCHEMA.ORG + GEOTAGGING + KML + PUBLISHERSHIP + so much more...
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