Category: Local Website Optimization
Considering local SEO and its impact on your website? Discuss website optimization for local SEO.
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Looking for suggestions
Thanks Miriam, I appreciate you taking the time to look things over for me. I will definitely check out the Local SEO Check list and will try and update tags and content to our specific town. I'm guessing that will help with google relevance some. Thanks Again
| kminch0 -
Yodle Possible Nightmare? Help Please!
Hey There, Like Andy said - oh, dear! Just want to confirm: No, you do not want more than 1 website for the business Call tracking numbers, if utilized improperly, can really harm a business Never give GMB access to anyone you don't trust I have never worked with Yodle, but I do recommended reading and sharing these with your client: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/11/25/guide-to-using-call-tracking-for-local-search/ https://moz.com/community/q/yodel-anyone-have-insights-into-their-process
| MiriamEllis0 -
Using IP Detection to Filter Directory Listings without Killing Your SEO?
Just to be sure - you want to present something like this: IP Address = New York Visitor is seeing a page domain.com/results_for_new_york with canonical domain.com/results_generic This might work - but it's not really a correct use of a canonical url (which is intended for duplicate content which is not really the case here) - so not sure if Google is going to respect the canonical in this case (canonical = hint - not a directive) Personally wouldn't do it this way. Dirk
| DirkC0 -
Website ranking issues
Hi, Install the Moz Toolbar (Chrome Extension) this is a great indicator for the structure of your website. The <title>for instance is too long and not to the point. The alt text behind your images is a little vague.</p> <p>15 second load time needs obliterating! Mine loads in 2 seconds when it's slow! avg 1.3 seconds.</p> <p>The homepage is returning a 403 Error too! WOW that's not good Forbidden! This could be some external code which cannot load. That would kick you right off the top!</p> <p>Then think about implementing Schema, backed by Google, Yahoo, Bing and Yandex!</p> <p>I hope this goes someway to helping you Good Luck.</p> <p> </p> <p>Dave</p> <p> </p> <p> </p></title>
| danwebman0 -
Do duplicate street addresses on 2 website affect SEO?
Hi Anton, Good question! To my eyes, these appear to be two legitimately unique companies. One installs windows and doors, and the other is selling blinds and curtains. I see you have separate phone numbers for the business, so checking that off my list. Good. Here are the 3 things I'd suggest you make certain of: Be sure NO content is being shared between the two websites. Sometimes, businesses get a bit lazy about this. Audit both sites to be sure they aren't sharing content. Beware of any linking strategy the companies may have undertaken to try to boost one another. Be careful about Google categories. If possible, do not share Google categories between the two businesses. I mention this, because if you're using shared categories between two businesses at the same address, there is some chance that Google could mistake the intent and wrongly decide that this is really just one company trying to pose as two. Those would be my 3 little provisos. Hope they help!
| MiriamEllis1 -
Looking for SEO advice
Hi Anton! EGOL is truly a content expert, and I second his suggestion that more content would be the top priority here. You mention ranking failures. What terms, specifically, are you failing to rank for? And are you looking at local or organic rankings? Do you feel you've built strong enough content for those terms? Have you gone through something like our Local SEO Checklist to try to identify problems, like citation inconsistency, reviews, technical issues, etc? https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-checklist The truth is, there are a couple of hundred factors that are believed to impact local rank. Auditing your own presence and comparing that to an audit of your competitors generally yields many clues as to why you are being outranked. Hope the Checklist will be a good jumping off point!
| MiriamEllis0 -
Will my hosting IP affects local SEO?
Chris has covered this pretty well. It shouldn't make a difference, but from a best-practice point of view, you should really try to keep everything local if you are a local business. As a business based in London, you should really have UK based hosting, or a CDN that will deliver your site to those in different countries. There can also be speed issues, but a lot of that depends on the host and their infrastructure. If a client comes to me for an audit, if I see thier hosting in a different country, this is then flagged as a possible issue. -Andy
| Andy.Drinkwater0 -
Moving from html to wordpress site - 301's
Thanks Thomas Will redirect the old pages to all the most relevant new pages.
| sfrediktru80 -
Schema for same location on multiple sites - can this be done?
Hey There! If your scenario is like those in which two brands share a location, Google speaks to this in the guidelines, which read: ------ Two or more brands at the same location If your business location combines two or more brands, do not combine the brand names into a single listing. Instead, pick one brand’s name for the listing. If the brands operate independently, you may use a separate listing for each brand at this location. Not Acceptable: "KFC / Taco Bell" or "Dunkin' Donuts / Baskin Robbins" Acceptable: "Taco Bell", "KFC", "Dunkin’ Donuts", "Baskin Robbins" ------ So, in this scenario, Google does permit a unique GMB listing if the brands 'operate independently', and, one could infer from this that separate Schema would be okay. To be honest, the part of this I'm not totally clear on is Google's personal definition of what 'operate independently' means, and my best advice would be to get on the phone with them to request a specific definition. In your shoes, if your brands do not have the recognition of KFC or Taco Bell, I would feel some concern about merging or listing takedowns, if Google were to determine internally that you've got 1 brand trying to appear like 2. So, best advice: call Google on this and be prepared to show exactly what the 2 businesses are. Hope this helps!
| MiriamEllis0 -
What Is your view on wix domains?
Wix always had and always will have problems. They are slowly trying to understand the importance of SEO for their users. They do a wonderful job giving you a "DIY" site creator which is super easy to use and setup but for that you comprimize a lot of other things. What Dmytro mentioned about funny #! characters in the URLs was actually Wix users nightmare. Around last october (2015) majority of Wix sites got deindexed just because of poor development QA and laziness of Wix programmers. They assumed whatever they want to assume to cut corners with Google Ajax issue. IMO Wix never was good enough SEO wise.
| Yoav-Blustein0 -
Targeting Asia Pacific region with .com.au
Hi Aleyda thanks for confirming that I look fwd to meeting you in person at BigDigital Adelaide
| Saijo.George0 -
Diagnosing a likely Penguin Penalty that's never been recovered from
For the reasons given in my last post (May 2), could someone from the staff please mark this discussion as "not answered" rather than "answered"? Thanks.
| ChuckBraman0 -
Should I use Rel-Canonicals links for a News site with similar articles each year
Thanks for the feedback, and I'm leaning towards the archiving mentioned. I have a follow-up on that though...in this high school football example, usually several times a year, we'll get a flood of traffic from a former student that did something "big" in college or pros. Since we have articles that rank well for his name, due to coverage of him/her back in highschool, we'll often double/triple our normal monthly pageviews in a situation where the student receives national attention. If I archive the articles (many 4-5 years old), then I'm assuming we'll lose the rankings for that former student's name, and therefore lose these burst of traffic we've seen in the past. Thoughts?
| YourMark.com0 -
HTML Page in PHP Website
Having different file types in of URLs in your site doesn't affect SEO. It may confuse you, and you may inadvertently link internally to pages that don't exist on your site, but there is no effect on SEO. There is a way to parse HTML files as if they were PHP pages--but nowadays I don't recommend that. If you do have HTML pages on your site, you may just want to leave them alone. But if you do think you need to change or update their functionality, then setting up a 301 Permanent Redirect from the old HTML page to a new .PHP page, for example, will do just fine. It should not have any effect on rankings.
| GlobeRunner0 -
Local Service pages guide?
Hi Michael! There are 3 common approaches to your scenario which can be described as follows: OPTION 1 This represents a very basic, good structure to be used when all service cities are deemed of equal importance: Build a unique landing page for each city served, optimized for each city + general info about your work in that city Build a unique landing page for each service, optimized for each service but not optimized for geo terms. OPTION 2 Given Google's extreme bias toward physical location, this option can be used to maximize your optimization for your city of location, while still giving secondary focus to additional service cities where you lack a physical location: Build a unique landing page for each city served, optimized for each city + general info about your work in that city Build a unique landing page for each service, optimized for each service and also optimized for your city of location, strengthening the association between your services and your core city. OPTION 3 This option should only be considered by companies with significant funding and exceptional creative resources that will ensure that all pages are unique and useful rather than duplicative, thin and harmful: Build a unique page for every possible keyword/geo combination. So: Cloud Computing Sherman Oaks Cloud Computing Van Nuys Computer Repair Sherman Oaks Computer Repair Van Nuys etc. *Again, this last approach should only be undertaken if you are positive the content you'll be developing has a definite purpose for users and that you won't end up weakening your website with a big menu of weak pages. Options 1 & 2 tend to be the best bet for smaller companies with reasonable resources. Option 3 can work, but only where creative possibilities and big budget are available. Hope this helps lay this out in a way that makes sense!
| MiriamEllis0 -
Google can't discern the identity of my site
That's great, Chuck. So glad you found someone you might work with. Hope it works out really well!
| MiriamEllis0 -
Is this local guide best to follow?
Hey There! That infographic looks like it has some good stuff in it! It does look like it's a few years old, so beware of any outdated terminology. You might also like to check out some of these resources on the Moz Blog: https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-checklist https://moz.com/blog/why-good-unique-content-needs-to-die-whiteboard-friday Hope they help!
| MiriamEllis0 -
Targeting different cities for my service - Geo landing pages
For the sake of convenience, I prefer this: /service-area/dallas-tx Hope that helps!
| MiriamEllis0 -
Company sells home appliances and commercial appliances. What is the best way to differentiate the two on our site for the best user experience/SEO?
Hey Dustin! You might actually look right here on Moz for inspiration. Check out how our main Product page is divided up to feature the two separate major products we offer: https://moz.com/products You could do something like this right on the homepage of your website, as well as having it within the top nav.
| MiriamEllis1