Local Search without the user typing local?

[StraightRazorDesigns]

Hi,

I'm a somewhat regionally based voip provider for businesses. So I'm not interested in getting the #1 ranking for voip, but I'd like to get the top for my region. So in this case asheville voip and related searches.

However, I know that alot of users in Asheville are not typing in Asheville voip when they google. They're just typing in voip or free voip, or cisco voip.

Here's my Google Insight Search: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=voip&geo=US-NC&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q

So what I was thinking about doing was in addition to my main site. Building several smaller 'educational based sites' about the benefits of VOIP. Based on google insights something like ashevillevoipphone.com. And use it to capture leads and link to my main site.

So my question is this: Is this a good strategy? If people in Asheville are just typing in voip phone, will ashevillevoipphone.com automatically have a better chance at a higher ranking?

Thanksd

David

[stevecounsell]

Hi David

In my experience you'd be better off adding the educational content to your own site with the addition of local (Ashville) references within the content.

More experienced SEOmoz'ers may have a better answer

Building a very full and rich content base within your own site / domain with healthy links within the site that will provide the user a better experience has got to be the first target for any website.

be good to see the URL for the site too.

Regards

Steve

[StraightRazorDesigns]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the response. The URL is www.ringfree.biz. However, there's nothing but a maintenance page there now. New stuff goes up this week.

What about buying those other domains (ashevillevoip.com) and pointing them towards the main page. Is there any use in this?

Thanks

David

[AlanMosley]

Steve is correct you are better of promoting the one site.

As for local, when a searcher makes a query SE's know his ip and his location fromit, they will offere him local results, but are you local to Asheville?
I live in Perth Western Australia where it is thousands of miles to the next major city, so its easy for a SE to work out if you and the searcher are local. in the US your towns are much closer and there may be a lot of overlap, it may be a bit harder for a SE to nail you down to the one town.

in short the user does not have to enter a location, but i would make sure your ip number is known to be from the ASheville area, I would also have a asheville address on your website marked up with microdata to make sure the SE understads it.

You can check your ip numner location on the web, do a search for ip number locations

[EricaMcGillivray]

So you can use the MozBar to set up local searches when you're not local.

I'd suggest building out content in subfolders on your site, instead of being microsites to link to your larger domain: www.example.com/asheville

Why would you want to put content on your microsites that people are going to want to link to and then only have one link pointing from them to your main domain? Additionally, Google is smart enough to realize that you own all the domains and you could get penalized. And, as someone who spent years in e-commerce, having more than one domain to maintain (when it sounds like you have one domain you're taking care of) is a pain in the butt.