Removed huge spammy location footer, looking to rebuild traffic the right way

[BobGW]

Hello,

On this site, I removed a huge spammy location footer with hundreds of cities, states, and dog training types. The traffic and rankings have gone down a lot, and I'd like a discussion on how to rebuild things the right way. There's some local adjustments to be made to the home page content, but other than that:

My plans:

1. Analyze top 10 Google analytics keyword queries and work them into the content as best as possible, though I am debating whether the client should make new pages and how many.

2. I'm going to suggest he add a lot of content to the home page, perhaps a story about a dog training that he did in Wisconsin. I'll think about what else.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Bob!

First off, way to go in advising the client to remove footer spam. That's really a big first step. Here are some thoughts:

1. This is not great, on the homepage:

Larry has worked with clients from Milwaukee and many other locations including Chicago and the Racine Kenosha area.  Dogs from Waukesha, West Allis and Wauwatosa have been trained at Salty Dog Farms.  Clients from Sheboygan, West Bend and Fox Point have been pleased with Larry’s dog training skills.

I understand what you're trying to do here, but it's coming across as forced. Here's how I would recommend approaching this, in a totally natural way:

• I see that Larry is located in Cedar Grove, so from a truly local standpoint, he is only 'entitled' to rank in Cedar Grove packs, right? So, we have to think of organic rankings and the only connection I can see is that his clients (the dogs) are located in various towns and cities. So, here's what you do.

You get Larry to document with text, photos, videos and whatever else you think would be good for 5 dogs he has trained or is going to train - one from each of the cities he is hoping to associate his business with - and in addition to documenting key moments of the training process, you also get a text or video testimonial from the happy owner at the end of the program.  For example, "Sunny used to jump on the table whenever the family was eating. Here he is doing that. Here's Larry training sunny that this is not good. Here's Sunny behaving at dinner time."

You create 5 new pages on the site - one for each of his 5 most important target cities. These pages are something like "Dog Training: Chicago - The Case of Sunny, The Adorable Pomeranian" and "Dog Training: Waukesha - The case of Bingo, The Tough Terrier". You'll need to carefully choose very happy customers who are willing to participate in having their dog featured in a training story.

The videos don't have to be professional, but they need to be socially shareable. If the dogs are funny/cute/weird, that would help! The stories need to be told very well.

You create these pages with a good balance of text to images/videos and, finally, to make the link to the city authentic, Larry goes to visit the dogs in their homes and takes a short video, which he transcribes to show how Sunny and Bingo are now happy dogs in their Chicago/Waukesha homes. You put this on the pages, too. It would be nice if he could meet up with the owner and the dog at some recognizable landmark in the town.

Further, you take the welfare of Chicago and Waukesha dogs to heart, and also on these city/dog pages, you do some homework and surface resources for them ... dog parks, pet food shops, most popular vets (based on reviews) in that specific city. You include these as resources for dogs there.

And, finally, think of something other than what I've suggested. Brainstorm with Larry. What would really help dogs/owners in the cities? Include this in the pages, too.

Pick the 5 most important cities and start with those. It will be a big project. Don't just aim for good, unique content - aim for 10x content and try to make it as share-worthy as possible. Fortunately, people are crazy about dogs, so this is a really good industry to try this for! What you will end up with is a stronger page than many competitors will have, that not only ties Larry to cities, but also showcases his expertise.

2. The website needs some local work. It's not clear from the first impression where this business is located. Look at the homepage. You have to scroll to the bottom of the text to get a hint of geography. Improve geo-signals, not just with text but with visuals, too. How about a photo of Larry and his dog entourage somewhere geographically recognizable?

3. Nothing about the way the business is currently being presented is immediately telling me why I should use this company instead of another. What is the key selling point? Gentle training? Satisfaction guarantee? 30 years experience? Find the message that persuades and make it much, much clearer.

4. Some usability work is needed. Logo doesn't link back to homepage, etc.

5. If the footer was spammy, have you checked out NAP consistency in the citations?

I think you know you've got a ways to go with this, Bob, but the good news is - it's a very 'friendly' industry and there is definitely hope of taking this business from where it is to where it wants to go! Hope you'll get further feedback!

[BobGW]

Miriam,

Superb advice. Can you give me an example of a website that has implemented this 5 or more page testimonial idea really well as well?

The client also wants to see a website that has done a really good job of showing where they are at immediately when they come to his site. He had a hard time understanding that it wasn't clear enough. I can find one, but do you have a superb example?

I want to make this good.

Thanks so much,

Bob

[ChrisAshton]

Hi Bob,

You're mostly on the right track here, especially with taking out that footer spam. Rather than just relying on Analytics to locate your keyword targets (most of this is obscured these days and it only shows how people are finding you now rather than where they could find you), take a quick look at the Moz and Backlinko guides on advanced KW research.

These guides are very thorough and the process involved is time-consuming but worth the effort. If you are very heavily time-restricted, I'd suggest at least grabbing data from Google's Keyword Planner and SEMrush to point you in the right direction.

In terms of the content, there are two things to be mindful of there; both quality and quantity. The quality should be the most important factor, addressing the user intent rather than just filling an arbitrary word count. As for quantity, my recommendation is always 1500+ words per landing page. Of course, this much content should be styled in a way that doesn't just appear as a massive wall of text.

In terms of creating new pages, just create the ones that are going to make sense to the user.  Rand did a great Whiteboard Friday that I find myself referencing a lot around here on how to go about ranking for multiple locations when you only have the one office.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bob,

Not that I can share with you, no, but hopefully the ideas are enough to go on. So glad if they helped! A company whose city differentiation I've always admired is REI's. But, it's a big franchise so a somewhat different model. The way they do their city pages is quite nice, however

[BobGW]

Mariam,

We're still working on this. He refuses to do video, though he has pictures. How do you recommend we pull this off without video?

[MiriamEllis]

Hmm, I'm not a huge fan of clients who refuse to implement their marketers advice, but photos are at least a start, accompanied by stories.

BTW, Bob, this would be a good article to share with a client in this market:

https://www.ethicalseoconsulting.com/25-email-lead-generation-tips-from-social-media/

Some good marketing ideas in there that your client might latch onto, given the visual nature of his business.