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At the moment, to my knowledge, Search Console does not necessarily show any local data.

However, like you mentioned, Google My Business has added some awesome data and insights over the past year. My agency has been loving the recent updates that show how many times your listing has appeared, how many users have asked for directions, how many users have called, and more!

I agree with Charles-Oliver, I would definitely document where these pages currently rank, and then assess after making your changes.

As long as you're not removing the keyword / key phrase you're ranking for from the title, or dramatically changing the intent, you probably don't have anything to worry about!

It's my understanding that simply having them in the same body copy, and perhaps in some headings as well, will suffice.

Moz Bar has a Keyword Difficulty tool that generates right on your SERP - if you don't have Moz Bar downloaded, I would highly recommend!

Hey David,

I apologize, help me understand. Your problem is that your new website's homepage is not at the root  (newdomain.co.uk) – and redirecting all URLs at the top level will not work because of this?

Hello!

I think what you're referring to is "semantic search," regarding searcher intent and closely related keywords.

Here is a fantastic Whiteboard Friday from Moz on the subject: https://moz.com/blog/related-topics-in-seo-whiteboard-friday

I would say the goal in any content writing is to provide quality content that thoroughly answers your users questions. Google's related searches and "People Also Ask" features are a great way to find out what kinds of questions your audience has regarding a given subject - like online spreadsheets.

All in all, I would say the answer to your question is yes: using keywords that Google considers closely related to your targeted keyword can make your post more helpful and thorough to users, thus more than likely increasing your chances of ranking highly.

I've personally found (legit) industry specific and city specific (for local businesses) directories to be very helpful.

I utilize these search commands pretty often:

• “industry” inurl:directory
• “industry” intitle:directory
• “city” inurl:directory
• “city” inurl:businesses
• “city” intitle:directory

Hope this helps!

Yeah I would highly recommend the Keyword Suggestions within Moz's Keyword Explorer.

Utilizing "People Also Ask" feature on a Google SERP can also be helpful for identifying semantic keywords.

Also, not entirely related, but found this recent twitter thread from Rand interesting on topical keywords / LSI: https://twitter.com/randfish/status/947959624858079232

I agree that voice search will only continue to grow and grow in 2018.

The results that are read aloud as answers are primarily featured snippets. So when you ask how to optimize for voice search, what you're really asking is how to optimize for featured snippets. A few optimization tips I've come across:

• Utilize a Q&A format: ask questions in your headings, and then include an explicit answer in the following paragraph.
• Use conversational language: seek to optimize for long tail conversational questions
• Consider frequently asked questions: by your customers, and other searchers (check out the "People Also Asked" section of the SERP when applicable)

Here's a post that answers your question as well.

Hope this is helpful!

Agreed.

I don't have any data to prove it's usefulness, but there's something really nice and satisfying about a solid, short, and effective meta description.

My agency just launched a new website and in the process updated many of our meta descriptions. Though in optimizing, we realized some really just didn't need to be any longer than 160ish characters.

However, for other pages, such as our services pages, the additional characters gave us a chance to introduce the page, detail what the user can find, and sort of "preview" the call to action.

We've already seen a little increase in CTR for some of our services pages.

Best of luck!

^^ these are both great answers.

I'll add one thing: I often view FAQ pages as a great opportunity to earn featured snippets for specific questions related to a brand. I can't say for certain, and this may not at all be a goal of yours, but the HTML structure this WP theme element utilizes probably doesn't lend itself to stand out for earning any featured snippets. If you break them out of the FAQ element, utilize headers well, and maybe even consider schema markup, there's a chance you could earn a featured snippet or two among those frequently asked questions.

Does anything still live at the old site URL? If so, I would recommend using a noindex meta tag.

If not, you should be able to use the remove URL's tool  from Search Console. Is this what you used in the first place?

We run into this a lot at the agency I work for. Many of our clients have outstanding sub-pages for their specific services – such as bike tours – but none of those sub-pages ever rank. Their home page ranks for just about any relevant keyword.

We find that 9/10, this is an authority issue. Any backlinks the site has are to the homepage, and the majority of their sub-pages have zero backlinks, therefore very little authority – if any at all.

Our solution to this is do short-term link building campaigns with a focus on the sub-page. Perhaps writing content specifically on bike tours, with a link from the post to the service page, could be helpful. You can even submit your site to local directories, and when appropriate, link to that specific page, opposed to the home page, to gain some authority.

Best of luck, I hope this helps!

I would agree with you, there are pros and cons.

One site I keep up with almost religiously is backlinko.com. Brian Dean is a popular SEO thought leader. If you checkout his post sitemap, you'll see he only has around 30 posts - one on just about every topic. You'll find that each post wholly answers his users' questions, with examples, further resources, media, and more.

In my opinion, this is the direction the internet is heading. One exhaustive post on a popular topic in your industry, updated yearly, is going to outperform (in terms of overall traffic and individual ranking) 4-5 posts on one single topic.

So, the pros of lots of posts on one topic might be the potential of having multiple, specific long tail keywords rank and the opportunity to have a specific and quick answer to multiple searchers' queries. But the big con is that none of those posts will have a great chance of ranking well for a high volume keyword.

Hope this helps!

Hello!

@ThompsonPaul is correct, this is a kind of rich snippet.

Schema.org has some documented microdata markup around nutrition information. The item type is NutritionInformation, and you can utilize properties like "calories," "fatContent," or "caffeineContent."

Pete at Moz updated his "How Long Should Your Meta Descriptions Be?" post last night:

He says this:
"At the end of the day, I think it comes down to control. For critical pages, writing a good meta description is like writing ad copy — there's real value in crafting that copy to drive interest and clicks. There's no guarantee Google will use that copy, and that fact can be frustrating, but the odds are still in your favor..."

Like he says, I think it ultimately comes down to what makes the most sense for that page. For some pages on our website, a very short description seems to suffice. These can be as short as 50 characters. For some of our more "weightier" pages, like our services pages, we try our best to entice the user to click with a true description of what they will find on the page, as well as the action they might be expected to take. These may be around 300 characters. We're pretty confident (Dr. Pete is too) that this is a safe number that won't get cut off, regardless any features or "Jump To" links Google may add to the result.

Cheers!