Is it worth creating separate local landing pages for different sites? Here’s what you need to know.
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Intended landing pages don’t get enough respect.
You can organize them using your name, address, phone number and times. Maybe you can include Google Maps for driving directions.
Maybe you write copy that no one will read, and if you have multiple sites, you repeat the same copy on every page and just change the site name.
If you’re concerned, I’ve called for action on it – maybe.
I set it up, then forget about it.
And imagine what? This actually works very well for local SEO.
I mean, what more could a potential customer want from a website page? Maybe schedule appointments?
But who cares about the customer? We smuggle in types of SEO and everyone knows that Google is our #1 client.
So, what does Google want from a site page? Let’s start with the basics.
1. What is the purpose of the website page? (PAA FTW)
I can’t believe I have to explain this, but ChatGPT doesn’t train itself. (At least, I don’t think that will happen.)
For retailers, site pages are divided into four basic categories:
1. Site details page
This usually represents the physical location of the business (for example, SideTrack Bar & Grill at 30 W. Angela St. Pleasanton, CA 94566).
2. Website service/department page
It typically represents a specific service or department category available at a physical location (for example, Sidetrack Bar and Grill Catering).
3. City page
It usually represents the city (#duh) where different physical locations are located (for example, Pleasanton, California),
4. Country page
This typically represents the state (#duh2) where the various physical locations are located (for example, California).
Depending on your industry, you may want to consider county pages (or districts, provinces, provinces, or whatever name your country uses).
For example, attorneys who specialize in the laws of a particular county may find it helpful to set up a page for that county.
There are likely countless other options, but these are the main ones that 99% of location-based businesses need to consider.
For businesses in your service area (also known as “SABs”), it’s basically the same setup, except that you’ll usually want to create additional city pages for the different areas you serve (e.g., plumber in Livermore, CA, plumber in San Ramon, CA ). , etc.)
This will help you target these queries in your local organic search engine results pages (SERPs) – the results that typically appear below/above the local pack – and they will appear on your Google Business Profile (GBP) to be more relevant to questions in these areas.
2. Why are website pages important for SEO?
Despite their simplicity, website pages can play a huge role in a brand’s SEO.
There are two basic types of search queries that these pages are designed for:
Brand Questions
These are probably the most important queries to appear on Google.
When a searcher queries [Starbucks], [Starbucks near me], or [Starbucks Pleasanton], Google usually wants to show a location page for that brand.
Google may display your home page, a page for a neighboring city, or possibly a page from a third-party website like a local business directory that utilizes your brand name if you don’t have a page for a certain place. As well as specializing in search engine optimization. Goals.
Naturally, there are all kinds of related queries like “Starbucks opening hours,” “Starbucks address,” etc.
Local, non-brand related inquiries
These are financial questions with which you can attract potential customers who may not have heard of you before – or thought of you through the specific question.
Think of search queries like [pizza], [pizza near me], [monster pizza in Pleasanton], etc. Single-location businesses can often filter these queries through just their homepage, which essentially acts like a location page.
But multi-location businesses will typically need a page for that specific location to rank those high-value queries in organic results.
Links
Outside of the home page, site pages are usually the best source of external links to a site. A number of local business directories link to them (also known as “local referrals”) and they tend to accumulate backlinks from local and other media sites over time.
They can then post the link across the website.
3. How do website pages affect local packet rating?
It’s very clear. If you have a Google Business Profile (GBP) that links to a site page in the area you’re trying to rank in, local packages are a key ranking factor.
We’ve done a lot of testing where we changed the link to go to a page that didn’t target the city we wanted to rank for, resulting in local package rankings being affected. When we returned it, the rating was restored.
It’s important to note: Your homepage may have more site charm than your site page, so you’ll need to test which ones work best for your pound.
As mentioned above, having a page for a specific service area can help you categorize questions specific to those service areas.
4. What are the essential elements of a well-optimized website page?
Name, address and phone number (NAP)
Your location’s business name, address, phone number, and business hours. Make sure the name and all other information you use on this page matches your business’s sterling information.
Last year, we looked at 100,000 SERPs and found that pages from local directory sites that exactly matched the business name and other information in relevant GBPs performed better than those with partial or no matches.
Organize your data
Highlight all NAP items in the LocalBusiness diagram. There are many charts for business categories, so if your company has a different goal, you may want to use this chart.
For brands with multiple related brands (e.g., IHG, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, etc.), you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the organization chart so that our robot masters can organize things properly.
Don’t forget to link your breadcrumbs to the home city/state URL highlighted in your breadcrumb chart.
Use targeted meta data
The page title and H1 tag should ideally target the business name and location (for example, “Starbucks Pleasanton, CA”).
You can certainly test adding additional targeting to see how it impacts performance (for example, “Starbucks Coffee in Pleasanton, CA” and “Starbucks Coffee Near Pleasanton, CA”).
Our research shows that outside of the target category (for example, “coffee”), city is the most important factor to include in the title tag for “near me” searches — then state.
The use of the word “nearby” helps, but only marginally. However, an extra 1-2% of clicks wouldn’t hurt, right?
5. Participation in intangible assets
“Engagement” is one of many confusing SEO factors.
So think about what else a potential customer might need to find the site page useful.
Calls to action (CTA), such as the ability to make appointments online, order something online, etc., are likely to send a positive signal to Google about the usefulness of the site page.
6. Advanced site page SEO
It’s not rocket science, so when I say “advanced,” I really mean “the SEO strategy of someone who has somehow bought into the rest of the page-ranking enterprise.” Let’s prioritize the updates that everyone forgot about.
Here are some things we’ve seen work over time. Your mileage may vary, of course:
Optimized Copy
It’s a good idea to start with basic copy that contains the location/city name and a search and replace that describes what your business offers.
It’s relatively cheap and easy, and you can always come back and update the version later. Before you spend a lot of time or money on it, see what it will do for you.
However, we find that targeted copy performs better than using the same copy on every page. I remember that the client’s site did not move up in the rankings for six months until we updated the copy on the site pages to be unique.
As with everything SEO related, try it on a small scale before making a big investment.
Hopefully this goes without saying, but I’ll say it: it doesn’t hurt to use phrases that are relevant to the topic you’re targeting in your copy.
Some businesses can also benefit from including “points of interest” (also known as “POIs”) in the copy. For instance, when looking for hotels, many individuals use modifiers like “near airport.”
So adding these important phrases and points to your site pages can make your page more relevant to these queries while improving its relevance to your target city.
This is a fancy way of saying that since you mentioned JFK Airport, Google thinks you’re related to the wonderful borough of Queens, New York. It’s also a good idea to mention the neighborhoods you serve.
Link to nearby Locations
Multi-location businesses should link to their site pages from nearby locations (the distance depends on what you think is best for customers).
Besides customer convenience, there are two good reasons to do this:
- The more sites you have, the harder it is for Google bot to find them, so linking to them from these pages gives Google bot more reasons to crawl them.
- Adding other site names to your site’s page copy can make it more relevant to Google. For example, if there’s a link to “Starbucks Livermore” on the “Starbucks Pleasanton” page, the phrase “Livermore” might give Google more confidence in the Pleasanton location, since Livermore is the next city over.
Use relevant images and videos first
Since these low-ranking pages don’t get any respect when they launch, they often launch with just a copy.
But check this out: We’ve found that for some niches, simply adding relevant images to pages can help improve rankings.
For example, if you have a truck driving school, consider adding a photo of the person driving the truck (#duh3). If you’re a design guru, you might include some shots from recent projects.
A good rule of thumb is to look at the top-ranking pages in the Local Pack for your query and make sure you have images and/or videos on your site page that are just as good, if not better.
Use Google Vision API to make sure it understands what your image is about.
Link to product/service category pages
Last year, localpack looked at 10,000,000 keywords for 40 e-commerce categories in 5,000 US markets (the things we do for SEO…).
One of our key findings was that site pages that linked to category pages (for example, Target.com’s Dublin, CA page linked to its video game category page) on these sites left behind those who did not.
This simple tactic can have a big impact.
Identify the categories you want to prioritize and associate them with them.
Add local reviews
Adding a feed of customer reviews to these pages, especially if the reviews are from the targeted area of the page, can often improve performance.
One of my theories is that a regularly updated review feed gives Google a good reason to look at the page more often and prioritize it.
Before doing this, be sure to read Google’s guide to user reviews and its rules for flagging reviews as “self-submitted.”
Note: I’ve rarely seen a site get penalized for violating these rules, but you may not want to be patient with this site.
Meet the team!
We recently did a project for a moving company where we noticed that many of the top-ranking pages in the market contained images of a local team.
According to my friend Kerry Hill from Sterling Sky,
“When someone visits a customer’s home, car, or business, I recommend putting the employee’s face on websites, confirmations, and reminders.”
kitchen sink
Other meaningful elements on your site pages that can improve engagement include:
- Charitable work and community outreach.
- Local care.
- Employment and career information.
- Pricing information (marked with the pricing chart, of course).
- Commercial licensing/insurance information.
- Social proof and trust indicators like BBB approval for each location and/or “Voted Best Boba Store in Pleasanton!”
Use data from Google Merchant Center to increase conversions
If you’re running Product Listing Ads (PLAs), you likely have a significant amount of data in Google Merchant Center that can give you guidance on how to improve conversions on your site’s pages.
TL;DR: Check your Google Merchant Center (GMC) to see which products get the highest impressions and click-through rates (CTR) when linked to your GBP in the SERPs.
This can be found in the Local Levels report. These products must be displayed on the relevant website page.
Google shows you that people are already interested in them.
7. What should I not do with the pages of the site?
Over the past decade or two, we’ve tried almost anything you can think of. Here are some things you’ll want to pay attention to:
Unnecessary website + service pages
We’ve seen many brands link their site + service/section pages to the site details page. For example, Home Depot has pages for its home services, truck rentals, and garden centers.
There are many good non-SEO reasons to get these pages. If you want to rent a truck, a dedicated page about renting a truck in your city may be helpful.
But it should be noted that this will often not be a new traffic game.
Why am I saying this?
Because after looking at organic traffic data on tens of thousands of site + service pages, we noticed that most of the time, 90% of the organic traffic coming to those pages is brand traffic, and that traffic is likely to kill searches is what you’re looking for. You get it already.