URL Importance In Search
-
This may have been addressed before. If it is, please link me to the thread. I'm trying to SEO for local surrounding cities my client services. It was suggested I purchase domains relevant to those cities and create separate pages optimized for those local keywords. Wondering if this is a good tactic.
For example my client's business is located in Chicago, but services the surrounding suburbs of Chicago. Whats the current, best way to SEO?
-
One website with cities n url's for other pages is strongest I would think.
-
Hi Russel,
If you were my client, I would advise you to stick with your one website and then work on building out awesome content for your surrounding cities. Why would I advise this:
-
Everything you build on your one website serves to strengthen your overall presence. Rather than dividing things up onto a bunch of different domains, you're building a big, powerful website.
-
I seldom find it warranted for a single business to have more than one website. For example, a San Francisco-based plumber is offering identical services, whether within San Francisco, or traveling to serve clients in San Jose, Oakland and Mill Valley. I'm not convinced of the genuine need for him to have millvalleyplumbing.com, sanjoseplumbing.com, etc. To me, it looks like an obvious attempted grab for rankings rather than a client-focused decision.
-
Tied into that is the fact that few plumbers have the time to develop enough truly unique and helpful content to flesh out multiple websites. This puts the client in danger of suffering EMD or duplicate content penalties for publishing a bunch of thin content (or worse, duplicate content) websites. From my experience working with local business owners, I've found that an attainable goal is creating a really strong, unique page for each of their service cities...not creating whole websites for each of their service cities. There could, of course, be exceptions to this, but this is what I've found to be the case most of the time.
-
It's so much easier for the client (and you) to manage a single website than a bunch of different mini sites.
So, those are some reasons I'd advise going with a single website and creating city landing pages on that site for the client's service cities. Do not create duplicate pages. Create fantastic, unique pages. This is a must. Hope these make sense. And yes, write good URLs, for the city landing pages when you create them.
-
-
how does duplicate content affect this strategy?
-
One website, one URL with internal pages dedicated to regions.
The only reason for separate sites would be if you were trying to get exact match domain names.
-
Hi Russell,
You can either purchse separate domains for each location or create separate pages for each city under the same domain. Both way works. But I would prefer using the same domain and create different pages for each location. This way, you will have all the backlinks/link juice to one website instead of having to build differetn backlinks for each website.
For each location, you can create a page and insert the location name in the URL so that Search Engines and visitors will know that that page is for that location. For example: www.sample.com/locationA/services/folder, www.sample.comlocationB/services/folder
Hope this helps. .
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
-
404s in Google Search Console and javascript
The end of April, we made the switch from http to https and I was prepared for a surge in crawl errors while Google sorted out our site. However, I wasn't prepared for the surge in impossibly incorrect URLs and partial URLs that I've seen since then. I have learned that as Googlebot grows up, he'she's now attempting to read more javascript and will occasionally try to parse out and "read" a URL in a string of javascript code where no URL is actually present. So, I've "marked as fixed" hundreds of bits like /TRo39,
Algorithm Updates | | LizMicik
category/cig
etc., etc.... But they are also returning hundreds of otherwise correct URLs with a .html extension when our CMS system generates URLs with a .uts extension like this: https://www.thompsoncigar.com/thumbnail/CIGARS/90-RATED-CIGARS/FULL-CIGARS/9012/c/9007/pc/8335.html
when it should be:
https://www.thompsoncigar.com/thumbnail/CIGARS/90-RATED-CIGARS/FULL-CIGARS/9012/c/9007/pc/8335.uts Worst of all, when I look at them in GSC and check the "linked from" tab it shows they are linked from themselves, so I can't backtrack and find a common source of the error. Is anyone else experiencing this? Got any suggestions on how to stop it from happening in the future? Last month it was 50 URLs, this month 150, so I can't keep creating redirects and hoping it goes away. Thanks for any and all suggestions!
Liz Micik0 -
Key Word in URL - To Include or Exclude?
Hi MoZ Community, Key word inclusion in URL has been discussed a fair bit on here and curious for some feedback on two options on URL structure. Ran’s #3 tip from his recent ‘15 SEO Best Practices for Structuring URLs’ states that key word inclusion still has some value but I’m not too sure if we’re going too far with the below examples. We sell footwear and only footwear for Women, Men & Kids and use those words as our key menu headings at the top. Under each of the main headings within a mega menu the users then has the choice to ‘shop by style’, ‘shop by brand’ etc… The key question or feedback is about including the word ‘shoes’ in my URLs as many of the top ranking competitors do it. e.g. /women-shoes-heels, womens-shoes-sandals or womens-shoes/heels, womens-shoes/sandals I think Google is smart enough to determine we have a shoe store and not sure of the value from a SEO or user experience perspective of adding the additional word. Thoughts on going with option A or B would be valued.... Option A - http://shopname.com/womens/sandals, http://shopname.com/womens/heels OR Option B - http://shopname.com/womens-shoes/sandals, http://shopname.com/womens-shoes/heels Thanks, | | |
Algorithm Updates | | chewythedog
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | | | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |0 -
What are the advantages and disadvantages of having multiple folders in URL?
Example: http://www.domain.com.ph/property-for-sale/city/area/ (3 folders) Would it be great if we'll just use http://www.domain.com.ph/property-for-sale-area-city/ (All pages will be under 1 folder)? Thanks in advance! 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | esiow20130 -
Importance of Links for Local Search
**According to an article about the "no no's for local SEO" links are not very important. Here is an excerpt: "**Local SEO is very different when compared to traditional SEO. The importance of backlinks in local SEO isn’t as important. In other words, links simply don’t matter as much when it comes to local SEO. Googles’ local search algorithm treats links completely differently than its standard algorithm." How accurate is this statement? Wouldn't more links help your local pages rank better in non-local organic results such as the results outside of the new carousel?
Algorithm Updates | | pbhatt0 -
Where can I find research on consumer search habits for fashion items?
I will be pitching to an established major UK-based fashion brand in a few days. Their brand is well-known within their target demographic and they have only recently starting selling their collection online. They are currently unconvinced of the need to use SEO for any terms other than their own brand names for which they would naturally rank with little extra effort. Can anyone point me to any research or data that shows consumer trends to research fashion purchases online or trending away from shopping mall browsing habits?
Algorithm Updates | | richdan1 -
Regarding site url structure
OK so there are already some answers to questions similar to this but mine might be a little more specific. OK website is www.bestlifeint.com Most of our product pages are as such: http://www.bestlifeint.com/products-soy.html for instance. However I was trying to help the SEO for certain pages (namely two) with the URL's and had some success with another page our Soy Meal Replacement I changed the site URL of this page from www.bestlifeint.com/products-meal to www.bestlifeint.com/Soy-Amazing-Meal-Replacement-with-Omega-3s.html (notice I dropped the /product part of url and made it more seo friendly. The old page for this page was something like www.bestlifeint.com/products-meal The issue is that recently this new page and another page I have changed http://www.bestlifeint.com/Whey-Milk-Alternative.html I have dropped the "/product" on the URL even though they are both products. The new Meal Replacement page used to be ranked like 6th on google at the begining of the month and now is like 48th or something. The new "whey milk" page (http://www.bestlifeint.com/Whey-Milk-Alternative.html) is ranked like 45th or something for "Whey Milk" when the old page...."products/wheyrice.html" was ranked around 18th or so at the begining of the month. Have I hurt these two pages by not following www.bestlifeint.com/product.... site structure? And focusing more on the URL SEO? I have both NEW pages receiving all link juice inside web site so they are the new pages (can not go to old page) and recently seeing that google has pretty much dropped the old pages in search rankings I have deleted these two pages. Do i just need to just wait and see? According to my research we should rank much higher for "Whey Milk" we should be on the first page according to googles own statements of searchers finding good relevant material. Any advice moving forward? Thanks, Brian
Algorithm Updates | | SammisBest0 -
Benefits of "other" search engines
Hi all, Newbie here. I am looking at ways to drive traffic to my new site and wondered if it's worth attempting to rank in the lesser known search engines. Getting to the top of these may be easier but I wondered if anyone has ever targeted traffic in this way? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | stebutty0 -
What determines rankings in a site: search?
When I perform a "site:" search on my domains (without specifying a keyword) the top ranked results seem to be a mixture of sensible top-level index pages plus some very random articles. Is there any significance to what Google ranks highly in a site: search? There is some really unrepresentative content returned on page 1, including articles that get virtually no traffic. Is this seriously what Google considers our best or most typical content?
Algorithm Updates | | Dennis-529610