Keyword use in city specific "homepages"

[mkornbl2]

My company, RightFit Personal Training, is a marketplace for people to find independent personal trainers based on preference. I am currently in the process of expanding nationally, and each city essentially has it's own homepage. Currently, the url of each city page ends in the name of the city only. For example, the url for the Houston page is www.rightfitpersonaltraining.com/houston/.

The issue here is that I actually wanted my contracted developer to add the state abbreviation as well as the words "personal trainers" to the end of each city page url. So what I really wanted to see out of the Houston personal training page was www.rightfitpersonaltraining.com/houston/tx/personal/trainers. Do you think it is worth it for me have my developer go back and change the URL structure of the city homepages to reflect the latter? This should also benefit the structure of the personal trainer profiles, because they could all fall under their specific city homepages. For example, I think it would be to my benefit if each trainer profile url ended in /city/state/personal/trainer/trainername. Thoughts?

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[mkornbl2]

Thanks for the quick response, Josh.

So don't you think that I would be better off changing the structure from the current format of "rfpt.com/city" to the more descriptive "rfpt.com/city/state/personal-trainers"? We are a directory of personal trainers, so I think Google values what we provide.

[David-Mihm]

I think in the era of mobile, the shorter your URLs are, the better. So I'd go with

rfpt.com/houston/trainers, which it sounds like would also be easier to implement from a development perspective.

Copy Yelp's implementation in terms of site architecture and getting around what Josh is referring to as 'doorway' content above.

[mkornbl2]

Thanks so much for the response, David. Here is my last question... If I make these URL changes, will it hurt my SEO by causing more redirects?

[David-Mihm]

Well, I should have clicked through to the link...sorry.  Your page is fine as-is.  I had thought there were multiple categories of people/products on those pages.  IF/WHEN you add those at a future date, that's when you'll want to build out the /Houston/trainers page with trainers (and no redirect would be required).

[mkornbl2]

Oh I see... So because my entire site is a marketplace of personal trainers (and only personal trainers) I won't need to create another category?

Alongside that, wouldn't it still help Google recognize us as a reputable marketplace of personal trainers if we end each city page in "city/trainers"? I am also a bit concerned because each trainer profile seems to fall under the general quick search page (http://www.rightfitpersonaltraining.com/personal-trainers/), but not under the trainer's corresponding city. My thought is that the SEO of each city page would strengthen if each trainer profile was listed as "rfpt.com/city/trainers/trainername". Currently, the trainer profiles are listed as "rfpt.com/personal-trainers/trainer/city-state-trainername".

Thank you all so much again for all the help. I really appreciate it. This means a LOT to me, as having a strong organic search presence is essential to the success of my business.

[David-Mihm]

So because my entire site is a marketplace of personal trainers (and only personal trainers) I won't need to create another category

Correct.

URL structure is such an infinitesimally small ranking factor, it's not worth your time trying to change it at this point.