Am I turning a non geo-keyword into a geographic one?

[Fueled]

Our client has a high powered site with tons of authority.  They dominate in the eastern united states for multiple keyterms that relate to their service based company.  However their closest competitor, a site with literally HALF of their authority, ranks ahead of them all over the world in markets outside of NYC.

The client is using the terms "NYC and New York" all over their site, is it possible that they are giving themselves a local limitation by doing so when their competitors dont?

The keyword itself doesn't necessarily lend itself to a local geo-based search result, but are we artificially CREATING that situation ourselves?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Rameet,

Could you please provide a little more information here? Are you saying your company is a LOCAL service based business (like a plumbing business, a general contractor firm, a carpet cleaning company) or is your business model virtual (like a phone company or IT support provider)? In other words, does your company have face-to-face transactions with clients either at your office or their homes/offices within a certain geographic radius? Or, is all business conducted virtually, over the phone or Internet?

[Fueled]

Hi Miriam,

The company is a mobile app development company, so its arguable.

The work can be done remotely so its not necessarily local, right now most clients are face to face.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Rameet,

Thanks for the additional details. So, as I see it, there are 2 paths here:

1. You think of and market your client's business as a local business, in which case, everything will be focused on their NAP (name, address, phone). This means that you are aiming for LOCAL rankings for any terms that stem from local devices or include their city of location. Google's local product doesn't have a category for mobile app development, so it's likely you'd be categorizing the business as something like 'Software Company' (see Mike Blumenthal's Category Tool: http://blumenthals.com/index.php?Google_LBC_Categories). If the client is, for example, located in Boston, then the focuse of your Local Search Marketing strategy will be for its core keyword phrases + Boston. You will be building local business listings/citations around this geo location and will be optimizing the website to focus on Boston. This means the titles, tags, headers and content of core pages will include mention of Boston and that you will be putting the complete NAP on the site (typically in the footer and on the contact page).

The goal here would be to become dominant in the client's city of location.

Then, in addition to all of the work you've done for Boston, you can develop additional content and back it up with linkbuilding for cities where the client serves but has not physical location. The goal of this work would be ORGANIC rankings, rather than local ones.

2. Alternatively, you think of and market the business as purely virtual/regional/national. You do not center their marketing on a physical street address, because the client doesn't want to operate as a local business and wants to target a larger region. In this case, you would proceed as usual with traditional SEO tactics. You could create content that speaks to specific regions of the nation, perhaps showcasing apps the client has developed for various regional businesses, and you could build/earn links to this content.

The goal here would be ORGANIC rankings only.

From your description of the client's competitor, it sounds like they have clearly decided that ranking for NY-related terms is most important to them. Your client needs to weigh a similar decision. Would Local dominance in their city of location yield the business they need, making it appropriate for them to put Local SEO front and center in their marketing plan, or do they need to put main focus on regional or national rankings? This, I believe, is the big question.

[Fueled]

Thanks for the response, but unfortunately it doesn't answer my question :(.

I understand the difference between targetting geographically or non geographically.

My questions is...when I throw in things like "NY and NYC" into titles and headers to target that region, am i LOWERING my rankings in other markets as a result?

(i.e. My rank in chicago would be number 7, but because I included "NYC" in the title it drops to 30?)

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Rameet,

Sorry my first reply didn't answer your question. Let me take another stab at it here.

If the business is truly local (i.e. has a unique physical address, local phone number and face-to-face transactions) then it can rank for multiple cities by utilizing city landing pages for each office tied to the Google+ Local pages for each location. In such a case, you would not be optimizing the entire site for a single city. Instead, you would be building out your basic service pages without gearing them towards a single city and then you would be building your city landing pages that would target each of your physical location cities. That would be the best way to approach this, in my opinion, and you should be able to work towards high LOCAL rankings for each city where you have a physical presence.

But if we are not talking about a truly local business and are talking about a virtual one that has to compete for ORGANIC rankings, then yes, if you optimize all of the site for NYC terms, you are sending a pretty clear message to the bots that you want to show up organically for NYC-related searches - not Chicago-related searches. I would expect the SERPs to reflect this choice, meaning that you could well lose organic rankings for Chicago if the whole site is optimized for NYC.

*I will add, though, with as little detail as we have about the client, I have to speak in general terms here. I'm not auditing your specific client's situation so my reply needs to be seen as a rule-of-thumb suggestion rather than a carefully planned marketing strategy. Hope that makes sense!