Local SEO: City & County Pages

[ChaseMG]

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.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Marty!

Good topic! Honestly, the only reason you should create county pages is if keyword research indicates that people search this way. They may in some cases, but for an HVAC company, this might not be the case. What your research teaches you will dictate whether this type of page will actually be useful to users.

[TheeDigital]

As Miriam said, check if people search for the county. In the particular area where TheeDesign is located (Raleigh, NC) we are referred to as the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) but almost no one searches this way. The county is Wake County, but few people search by the county name either (more in some industries than others,) and typically the city is the highest search terms. So you have to debate whether the extra effort and planning is worth the extra visitors or not.

[ChaseMG]

Thanks! There's some search volume for county-related keywords, so I'll probably end up creating them. That, and I hate having a messy menu.

[ChaseMG]

Thanks! Wish we had something as catchy as the Triangle out this way, but we don't. It looks like county-related keywords have enough traffic to make it worthwhile to make pages for them. And I hate messy menus, so they'll help in that regard, too.