Internal pages targeted for local keywords

[BobGW]

Hello,

Simple question: how do you target local SEO with internal pages, where the home page may or may not be local?

[Serpstone]

I'm going to have to make some assumptions for this.

Lets take a florist in Boston as an example of an internal page.  Once you've taken care of the on-page SEO (url, title tags, h tags, mentions in content and of course unique content) then I'd start looking for links from pages about both floristry and Boston.  That should give a strong indicator of local and product relevance.

Where you can run into problems is when you have the same text with only minor changes for location.  If you have a page about florists in Boston, one in New York, one in Dallas etc and the only text that differs between those pages is the location then you are going to have to rethink your site / database structure (Panda no likeee).  Unique information is vital.

If on the other hand you are a florist with branches in each of those places then I don't see a problem with creating individual location pages, but again with unique content. I mean all unique, not substantially unique or slightly unique.  In your google local you could use each branches internal url as the website url.

Hope that's of some help. You may have to be a bit more specific with your question though.

[Chris.Menke]

Make those pages co-citation worthy and worth linking to from local directories and other local resources, just like you would do for a home page if you were trying to get that to rank for local terms. Be sure to use your geo-terms on those pages and use those terms in your internal linking.

[MiriamEllis]

Bob,

Has your question been answered by the thoughtful responses on this thread? If not, could you please provide a bit more detail (like an example) so that we can work to get to the heart of the matter? Thanks!

[BobGW]

A client of mine may only target 2 local keywords, where his home page is for national keywords and an internal page is for local. Is this even a good idea?