Link Building: Location-specific pages

[AngieHerrera]

Hi! I've technically been a member for a few years, but just recently decided to go Pro (and I gotta say, I'm glad I did!).

Anyway, as I've been researching and analyzing, one thing I noticed a competitor is doing is creating location-specific pages. For example, they've created a page that has a URL similar to this: www.theirdomain.com/seattle-keyword-phrase

They have a few of these for specific cities. They rank well for the city-keyword combo in most cases. Each city-specific page looks the same and the content is close to being the same except that they drop in the "seattle keyword phrase" bit here and there.

I noticed that they link to these pages from their site map page, which, if I were to guess, is how SEs are getting to those pages. I've seen this done before on other sites outside my industry too. So my question is, is this good practice or is it something that should be avoided?

[ResslerMotors]

From the Matt Cutts video I saw earlier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9vD9KGK7G8&feature=player_embedded

It seems like it would be better to put the Geo specific pages on a subdirectory of your website, and geo target it with Webmaster tools.  Then, you can start building local, and relevant, links to that page or directory.

[AngieHerrera]

That. Is. Awesome. Thank you. Somehow I missed that video this summer (I subscribe to those Google Webmaster videos).

[ResslerMotors]

Glad I could help

[Robbie8299]

Angie,

I would have to say this is not a "bad practice" Matt does not say it is bad or spammy nor does Google. It also would really depend on your site structure as what the best way to do this. My site it structured just like this as well as all of my major competitors except for one.

They do use sub domains for example: Seattle.mydomain.com

And I have to tell you in my opinion it is not as effective as the way I and many others do it. A good example of what I am saying is in the real estate industry. Go to Google and search "seattle homes for rent" or "seattle homes for sale" And you will see what I am talking about. You also will see one company uses a sub domain plus a directory to target the location for the users search. the result looks like this:
washington.theirdomain.com/Seattle.

In this instance it does work well but if you do some searches in other major markets or just some different terms for this industry you will see all the big sites have the structure of www.theirdomain.com/target-city
And it works well and always have for years. But who knows if Google wakes up tomorrow in a bad mood or not?

Good Luck!

[ResslerMotors]

Yikes! Who would want to start over with link building to a subdomain!?

[Robbie8299]

I agree!

[AngieHerrera]

Ah, I do see what you mean. Thanks for the input. I tend to stay away from subdomains as general practice anyway. My own personal bias as a web designer/dev I think.

[ResslerMotors]

That's the right bias to have!

[Robbie8299]

Sub domains can also turn into a real mess!

[Thos003]

As stated, having a sub directory works, but I don't think it gives that much of a benefit over the example you gave. But yes location and geo targeting with specific pages can be a great strategy. It works well for me, but I'm a local business so everything I do is defined by location. What you want to avoid is creating pages with duplicate content just to appear local. Simply changing out keyword locations in the content is not going to give you a sustainable advantage. If you are going to create GEO specific pages then make content unique to that location. This is just good for SEO but it's good for selling and converting as well.