Title and Meta Description Best Practice

[oomdomarketing]

Hi guys,

I need some creative input on this.

I'm working on a Hyundai dealership's website, and I want it to rank well for "used cars" in its local market. I need it to rank well for four cities for "Hyundai Dealer" also. Can you pick apart a dummy meta title and description I put together?

In the example "Metropolis" will be the home city

Title, "Hyundai Dealer serving Metropolis, Gotham City, Star City & Red City, NY | Used Cars Red City, NY"

Description, "Visit Bob's Hyundai in Metropolis, NY. We're a new & used car dealer near Gotham City, Star City & Red City, NY."

Be brutally honest and let me know what I can do to achieve this objective beyond this too if you can. I want to know how I can achieve this objective.

Thanks a bunch!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael!

Because of Google's bias toward physical location, simply mentioning the names of neighboring cities in which you have no physical location is unlikely to earn you a place in the local pack of results for 'used cars' in these cities, and will not typically be enough to gain you a spot in the organic SERPs, either. The exception to this would be if you are in such a niche with such low competition that it's easy to rank for anything - which isn't typically going to be the case with a used car dealer in a big city.

Meanwhile, the mention of these other cities in the titles of pages that you are trying hard to get to rank in the local pack for that main, physical city may actually somewhat dilute your ability to achieve that goal. Rather than saying, "Hey Google, THIS is our city of physical location!", you are splitting up the title to say, "Well, we're relevant to a whole bunch of places," when, in fact, you're really only strongly relevant to the main one.

Chances are that you'll need to consider whether the development of landing pages for these other cities is a good marketing decision and a user-friendly strategy. This typically involves brainstorming to see if a business has a legitimate presence in other cities, beyond the fact that it's near to them and that customers travel from there to the business.

With SABs (service area businesses), this decision is quite easy, because the plumber may be based in Metropolis, but is traveling to Gotham City, Star City and Red City to fix sinks. With something like a car dealership, the link is less obvious.

Does the dealership do something in these cities that would warrant the development of content specific to these locales, that would then provide a sensible set of pages to be optimizing for each individual city? For example, does the dealership offer unique specials based on the customer's city of origin (Red Star customers get 5% off their purchase of a used car this summer). Or, perhaps, does the owner send a mechanic to vocational schools in another city to give presentations. Does the company participate in seminars or events in these other cities? Maybe vintage car shows or charity events? If you can find a legit connection between the business and neighboring cities, then you have something interesting to write about and a user-centric reason to be building and optimizing pages for these cities. If no such connection exists, you may need to consider PPC ads, instead, targeting these cities.

You might like to read about this whole concept of city landing pages further at:

http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide