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Google + Multiple Provinces

by 9999
9 replies
I have a offline business that is located in Canada, right now we are operating in 1 province but are branching out to other provinces. Wondering show I should handle my website & Google Plus Local Pages.

Say for example, we are operating in Vancouver and have a Google Plus Local Page in Vancouver. I want to branch out to Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg & Toronto.

The office is in Vancouver but I do have addresses & phone numbers in the rest of the provinces as well.

My website is www.mycompany.com, should I make a new page related to each province and set up a Google Plus Local Page in every province & use the link:

www.mycompany.com/calgary
www.mycompany.com/toronto
www.mycompany.com/edmonton

I am not sure how to handle the above because right now we have our www.mycompany.com ranking for keywords & have built up citations for the specific province.

OR

Do I create a exact match domain for all the provinces & claim a Google Plus Local Page for each domain.

Not sure which is the best route to go.

Thanks
#google #multiple #provinces
  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    I'd stick with the directories on your main domain. Keep all the work you do on your main brand's site as Google prefers brand building. Then each location can and should have it's own local google profile and just use the the correct URL for that listing location.
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  • Profile picture of the author CageyVet
    You can use your Root Domain for the URL in the Google Local profiles for the different cities you have locations in...You can use a sub-directory as well but that means that you have to always keep the same directory structure intact or make sure you keep all locations updated if you ever change directory(URL) structures, which can be a pain. Thus is why I keep it to the root domain, since that should never change.

    From there if you want to attempt to rank in the various local areas, you can add them as directories onto your root domain to have more geo targeted content, just be sure not to over optimize your URL structure with the geo location.
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    • Profile picture of the author 9999
      Thanks for the replies!

      If I am reading you guys correctly, just use www.mycompany.com to set up the Google Plus Local Pages in all the other provinces. To do that, I can just login to my Local Page and add additional locations right? Then use the province appropriate phone # & address.

      I am not understanding this part:

      From there if you want to attempt to rank in the various local areas, you can add them as directories onto your root domain to have more geo targeted content, just be sure not to over optimize your URL structure with the geo location.
      How would I add the additional provinces as directories onto my root domain?

      Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author AussieT
      Originally Posted by CageyVet View Post

      You can use your Root Domain for the URL in the Google Local profiles for the different cities you have locations in...You can use a sub-directory as well but that means that you have to always keep the same directory structure intact or make sure you keep all locations updated if you ever change directory(URL) structures, which can be a pain. Thus is why I keep it to the root domain, since that should never change.

      From there if you want to attempt to rank in the various local areas, you can add them as directories onto your root domain to have more geo targeted content, just be sure not to over optimize your URL structure with the geo location.
      Interesting.
      Can you give an example of how we might "over optimise your URL structure with the geo location"?
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  • Profile picture of the author CageyVet
    Directories = Categories, Folders, pages etc depending on what website platform you are using.

    If you have wordpress, then I would just go with a either categories or with pages/subpages. Either way, it should look similar to

    www.mycompany.com/Toronto/
    www.mycompany.com/Edmonton/
    www.mycompany.com/Calgary/

    Then you can either make those the service pages or if there are individual services or verbage you want to use differently per city you can then do...

    www.mycompany.com/Toronto/Dog-Poop-Removal
    www.mycompany.com/Edmonton/Horse-Poop-Removal
    www.mycompany.com/Calgary/Dog-Cat-Poop-Removal
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  • Profile picture of the author CageyVet
    Sure....

    www.mycompany.com/Toronto/Dog-Poop-Removal-In-Toronto
    www.mycompany.com/Edmonton/Edmonton-Horse-Poop-Removal
    www.mycompany.com/Calgary-Services/Dog-Cat-Poop-Removal-Services-In-Calgary

    www. poopremovalservices .com/Toronto/Poop-Removal-In-Toronto

    To many people(especially wordpress users) make the title of the page/post targeted to the keywords they are going after and as a result the URL reflects that title. I BOLDED the areas where the over optimization is happening. There is no reason to have Toronto twice in the first example, Edmonton twice in the second and Services as well as Calgary twice in the third. These are all over optimized for the city and the last one is over optimized for the term services.

    In the 4th example, the domain name is more of an exact match domain and it over optimizes the URL even further, since you have "poop removal" twice and the city twice.

    There is no reason to not have Poop Removal +City in the Title of the page/post but making sure the URL(permalink) is edited to remove the over optimization is the best route.
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    • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
      Originally Posted by CageyVet View Post

      Sure....

      www.mycompany.com/Toronto/Dog-Poop-Removal-In-Toronto
      www.mycompany.com/Edmonton/Edmonton-Horse-Poop-Removal
      www.mycompany.com/Calgary-Services/Dog-Cat-Poop-Removal-Services-In-Calgary

      www. poopremovalservices .com/Toronto/Poop-Removal-In-Toronto

      To many people(especially wordpress users) make the title of the page/post targeted to the keywords they are going after and as a result the URL reflects that title. I BOLDED the areas where the over optimization is happening. There is no reason to have Toronto twice in the first example, Edmonton twice in the second and Services as well as Calgary twice in the third. These are all over optimized for the city and the last one is over optimized for the term services.

      In the 4th example, the domain name is more of an exact match domain and it over optimizes the URL even further, since you have "poop removal" twice and the city twice.

      There is no reason to not have Poop Removal +City in the Title of the page/post but making sure the URL(permalink) is edited to remove the over optimization is the best route.
      People really need to listen to this advice. Because I completely lost my mind doing this on my sites. My oldest one was ranking #1 on G both organically and in local listings... for like 9 months. Then G did an update last summer, and slammed that site like a boulder falling on a mouse.

      Do you think that could be the reason why?

      Here is one of my geo targeted pages -

      w ww.mymoldremovalguys.com/mold-remediation-removal-atlantic-highlands-new-jersey-nj-07716/

      On my newer site I've been making the same mistake -

      mymoldremediationguys.com/locations/mold-remediation-testing-monmouth-county-nj/middletown-nj-07748/

      But I'm going to change everything to just the location keywords.

      I have other sites ranking #1 that made it through all the updates, but those are younger sites. So if I reoptimize everything now hopefully they'll make it through the updates.

      -RS
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      • Profile picture of the author CageyVet
        Redshifted, your URLs could definitely be a contributing factor to your loss in rankings. If you could those URLs with pages that have similar titles, internal anchor text, image alt text etc and you are way over optimized.

        It all just adds up and compounds on top of each other....
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  • Profile picture of the author bluesteele
    I too prefer the folder route suggested by the folks below, but only because I am confident in what I am doing (not doing anything too dodgy) and find it to be the most efficient use of my time and resources. The subdirectory route toronto.mydomain.com or EMD routes are very valid routes to go as well. If I have the budget, I will often go the EMD route because in the event Google does hit me with a penalty for whatever reason, all my eggs are not in the single basket that is the folder option.
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