Building a National SEO Stratergy

[PaulGG]

Good morning Mozzers!

I've just started working in-house for a local company who want to go national. I want to build a long-term strategy but the competitors all appear to be building short term strategies and I fear this is pushing the company towards following a similar approach.

The competitor companies and even my company at present are trying to target "Green Widgets in TownX" and then duplicating the page and switching out TownX with TownY. Naturally there are competitors having success with this, but for how long? I really don't want to go down this route.

My aim for a long term strategy would be going after "Green Widgets" and then rank naturally for "Green Widgets in TownX" with our generic green widgets page.

Now if I'm told I have to go with the competitor strategy regardless of my concerns, are there any good examples of companies that have done this, without the need for being a huge brand first?

I know I can obviously try to create unique content on each page and that will help prevent penalties, but it still seems a short-term strategy?

Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

[EGOL]

If you want something to toss back at the people who are advocating this approach.... yesterday, google announced going after doorway page spam (which they have been successfully killing for at least ten years but must be mounting a more dedicated effort).

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/03/an-update-on-doorway-pages.html

[PaulGG]

That my friend, has made my day. As SEO's, our strategies must be in line with Googles. Your link has given me the perfect defence for not following our "competitors".

Thanks again

[PaulGG]

I've just started tracking all these "doorway pages" that are currently 1-3 and hopefully in the near future, we can see them slowly disappear.

[EGOL]

That's a good idea.   Then you will have some evidence that you were correct in advising not to go down this path.   I would get screenshots to document.

There are lots of interesting comments on that google announcement, and lots of articles about it, as it was only released yesterday.