What is the best way to get found for different areas within my County.
-
my business is based in the UK in the county of East Sussex. It is not a large County and its neighbour is West Sussex. In terms of local search optimisation I would like to be found when people search for East Susses, West Sussex and Sussex. What is the best way to attack this?
e.g.
I could use the keywords, "my business is based in East Sussex, but we work across West Sussex too.
But would this cover me if someone searched "business in Sussex" .
I need some guidance as to the best way to handle this kind of local search conundrum.
Thank you
-
My pleasure! And you might like to know, I have an article coming out on the Moz Blog on this topic later this month. Stay tuned
-
Great response Miriam,
I appreciate you giving such a thorough answer !!
-
Hello There!
Here are a few tips I hope may help you.
-
Local SEO, at its core, is city-based rather than county based. So, the very core of your identity as a local business is based on the city/town/village where you are physically located. This is the locale you will be using in your Google Business Profile and in all of the citations you build, and it's the place in which you'll proclaim yourself to exist on your website.
-
Your Google local rankings will then be based on this physical location as it relates to the locations of searchers when they search for what you offer. How large of a search radius Google will show when someone makes this kind of a search will be based on how much competition there is for the particular keyword phrase. For example, if your business is the only Italian restaurant in a 10 mile/km radius, then you could well show up for searchers quite far away from your business, because Google has few options to return as results. But, if your business is one of 20 bakeries in the center of your town, Google might set a radius that is only a couple of streets wide, and keep changing the local rankings up as the searcher moves around town. In sum, your ability to rank in the local packs for an entire county is entirely predicated on how dense competition is for what you do. If competition is low, you might possibly do this, but it would be the exception rather than the rule, unless your business category is truly unusual. Ranking across two counties would be even less likely.
-
Because local rankings are so highly influenced by user location, the effort to become visible for searches beyond the true local search radius has to be shifted to other campaigns. Instead of local pack rankings for other cities and counties, you can work to achieve:
-
Organic results visibility via a combination of content development and link acquisition
-
Social media visibility via participation
-
PPC visibility via investments in ads
-
Offline visibility via community involvement and paid offline media
In general, this is the lay of the land for any business hoping to ranking somewhere beyond its city of location. 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
-
What are SEO best practices for Java Language Redirections?
We would like to get some insight on what is the best practice of setting up canonical URLs in the below scenario. CMS used: Liferay – we believe they are using java. The URL structure at this stage can not be changed to best practices (/en/ and /ar/). Currently the language redirections works like this: English: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en Arabic: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar Depending how you entered the website last time the root URL will show English or Arabic content without the ‘sufix’: https://www.website.com/page1 All 3 different URL’s are being indexed on Google - which is causing duplication and confusion. We have a few ideas: Have 2 main URLS: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en and have the canonical set to https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar and have canonical set to https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar However, how would you handle the root page which does not have a specific language attached. If we need to make a choice we would go with Arabic, as mainly Arabic pages are indexed on Google with the root domain. This way we would (hopefully) retain the rankings for this. Question: did anybody had to deal with a similar situation? What would you do in a similar situation and why? Thanks for all your input.
Local Website Optimization | | skrauss0 -
Is there any way to report a website that is not complying with webmaster guidelines to Google?
Like how we can "suggest an edit" in Google Business Listings, is there any way to report Google about the webmaster guidelines violation?
Local Website Optimization | | Alagurajeshwaran0 -
Best SEO Option for Multi-site Set-up
Hi Guys, We have a Business to Business Software Website. We are Global business but mainly operate in Ireland, UK and USA. I would like your input on best practice for domain set-up for best SEO results in local markets. Currently we have: example.com (no market specified) and now we are creating: example.com/ie (Ireland) example.com/uk (united kingdom) example.com/us (united states) My question is mainly based on the example.com/us website - should we create example.com/us for the US market OR just use example.com for the US the market? If the decision is example.com/us should we build links to the directory or the main .com website. To summarize there is two questions: 1. Advise on domain set-up 2. Which site to build links to if example.com/us is the decision. Thank you in advance, Glen.
Local Website Optimization | | DigitalCRO0 -
Does having a host located in a different country than the location of the website/website's audience affects SEO?
For example if the website is example.ro and the hosting would be on Amazon Web Services. Thanks for your help!
Local Website Optimization | | IrinaIoana0 -
I can't get my page to rank. What am I doing wrong?
I'm new to this forum and this is my first question. So if I'm not supposed to ask this type of question, please forgive me. I'm trying my best to get http://www.westcoastflenterprises.com/#!roofing/bbb1e to rank on the first page in Google for "roofing contractors" in the following SW Florida cities: "Naples, Bonita Springs, and Fort Myers." Our company has a physical address in Fort Myers only so I understand it's going to be harder to get it to rank for Naples and Bonita Springs. But I can't even get this page to rank well for "roofing contractors in Fort Myers." The page authority is 25 and our domain authority is 27. Our home page authority is 39. Our primary category in Google is building restoration & preservation. But we have divisions in our company: Roofing Concrete Ornamental metals I would love it if our roofing page could rank higher than the third page, which is where it currently sits. I worked really hard to get each of our roofing-material manufacturers to link directly to our roofing page, not the home page. My hope is that you can help me because I'm really discouraged. Thanks in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | Jason_Taylor0 -
Best practices for 301 redirect to a new location website.
We just opened a new location in a nearby city. We were already servicing this location from our main base. As such we had a special page for this location which raked fairly well. The new location will have its own website. Would it be better to 301 redirect the current location page to the new location website? Or should we simply link from the old page to the new location's website? Any best practices?
Local Website Optimization | | Vspeed0 -
Local SEO: City & County Pages
I'm working on developing some local pages for an HVAC company. They cover two counties, so I was planning on having two county pages, then linking them to individual city pages to keep the menu simpler and not cluttering it up with a couple dozen city pages for people to slog through. Has anybody ever done county pages before for local SEO? Or at least seen them? Just curious to see if there's any real benefit overall for have separate county pages, or if I should just stick to city pages.
Local Website Optimization | | ChaseMG0 -
What is the best type map for local SEO?
Hi mozzers, Can someone tell me which type of map is best when embedding it into your service pages? or any map is good enough? Why? Thanks guys!
Local Website Optimization | | Ideas-Money-Art0