Are Location Pages for SEO An Effective Strategy? 7 Steps to Creating the Best Location Pages
It’s likely that your business either:
- Has multiple locations
- Serves customers/clients in different cities
And, you’re thinking that putting together a comprehensive location page strategy for SEO could benefit your business.
But you’re not sure local SEO location pages work work. Or how to do them. Or where to start.
This guide walks you through if location pages for search engine optimization are a fit for your business or not, how to do them, and what to expect in terms of results.
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Contents
What are Location Pages?
Location landing pages for SEO are pages that indicate cities/areas that you:
- Have a physical office for
- Serve your clients
Most businesses think that they can only create landing pages for specific locations if they have a physical office in that location. That is not true.
However, location pages for your physical addresses are very important as well. We will discuss both of these types of location pages for SEO in this article.
But first, let’s give an example of each of these different types of location pages for search engine optimization.
Location Pages For Physical Offices
If your business has an office, retail store, restaurant, or any other physical location where clients/customers can come visit, you’ll want a location page for it.
For example, let’s say that you’re a dentist in Portland and you have 3 locations, one near Hawthorne, one in the Pearl District, and one on Mississippi. You’re going to want a different location page for each of those locations.
The URL structure could look like this:
- .com/locations/hawthorne
- .com/locations/pearl-district
- .com/locations/mississippi
Location Pages With Areas That You Serve Your Clients
If you’re a service business and you help clients in different areas, it might make sense to create location pages for SEO for those cities or neighborhoods even if you don’t have a physical office there.
For example, let’s say you’re a graphic designer in Portland serving clients in the entire state of Oregon. You’ll want to find clients in the main cities of Oregon, even though you may not have a physical office in all of those cities. Location pages for SEO might be a great choice.
The URL structure could look like this:
- .com/areas-we-serve/beaverton
- .com/areas-we-serve/bend
- .com/areas-we-serve/lake-oswego
- .com/areas-we-serve/klamath-falls
- .com/areas-we-serve/medford
You may also have a satellite location. It’s also possible to create SEO location pages for satellite locations.
And, here at Portland SEO Growth, we service Portland-based businesses and businesses across the United States. Click the link to learn more.
Do Location Pages Work For SEO?
Yes, location pages can work really well to help boost your website SEO.
However, building a landing page without the correct structure, on-page SEO factors, and correct copywriting may not lead to great results.
This is kind of like a “build it and they will come” situation. But you have to build something pretty special that aligns with SEO best practices.
Why Do They Help SEO?
Location pages can help with SEO because they give Google context about where you serve your clients or customers.
Think about it like this:
You’re a plumber in the state of Oregon and you have locations in a couple of different cities, like Portland, Bend, Hood River, and Medford.
However, your website is a simple landing page. On the homepage of your website, you do mention that you help people in those different cities, but it’s only a short sentence. You don’t share your address, phone number, and other important information for each location.
That’s not giving Google enough context. And therefore, when someone searches for “best plumber in Hood River”, it’s unlikely that you’ll rank in Google.
However, let’s replay that scenario:
You’re a plumber and service Portland, Bend, Hood River, and Medford.
And you’ve got a location page for each one of those locations.
Each of those pages is incredibly comprehensive, sharing details about the average prices of plumbers in each city, how long it takes to get a plumber in that city, your location information (name, address, and phone number) and even a list of FAQs.
Now, when someone types in “Bend Oregon Plumber” Google has more context that you’re located in Bend and you’re a reputable plumber. Therefore, you have a better chance of ranking for high-value keywords.
How Can They Hurt SEO?
Many businesses try to game the system and create dozens and dozens of location pages for SEO that appear spammy to Google.
For example, don’t create location pages for every single zip code in the city that they serve.
Now, for the average plumber, that would make zero sense and Google would likely flag that content as being manipulative to targeting search engines.
Are Location Pages a Fit For Every Business?
No, they’re definitely not a fit for every business. Location pages for search engine optimization are a fit for the following businesses:
- Retail locations
- Medical offices
- Professional services (lawyer, CPA, etc)
- Online service businesses targeting certain cities
There’s one main business that should NOT have location pages (but many of them do):
It’s the single-location business that is trying to “game the system” to rank for other cities. Now, we aren’t going to name names, but there’s an Oregon-based SEO company that has location pages for nearly EVERY city in Oregon.
Good news: we’re dominating them in rankings.
Bad news: their rankings continue to get worse and worse over time.
If your business does NOT actually have a location in that city (i.e – an office), then you should NOT have a location page for that city.
A location page is different than a page sharing that you service that city. A location page is sending signals to Google that you have a location (i.e – office) in that city. Two very different things!
How to Create Effective Location Pages for SEO - 7 Easy Steps:
Here is a 7 step, easy-to-follow process to build high-performing location pages for SEO.
1. Figure Out Which States/Cities/Neighborhoods Your Business Serves
This should be pretty straightforward. If you are a multi-location business and have locations in different areas, then you simply need to create a landing page for each one of your physical locations.
If you were a service area business, such as a photographer, and are willing to travel to different cities or neighborhoods around where you live, then you would likely want to create location pages for cities within a certain radius around where you live.
2. Do Keyword Research:
After you figure out which cities or neighborhoods that you want to target, you need to do extensive keyword research to determine if people are actually searching for what you offer in those locations.
Let’s say you’re a piano teacher in Portland. However, you’re willing to travel up to 30 miles to visit a student’s home in order to do in-home lessons.
You gather all the cities you’re willing to travel to, even the small cities. Let’s say that the city of Yamhill shows up on your list.
So you go to a keyword research tool like Ubersuggest or SEMrush and you type in queries like “piano teacher in Yamhill Oregon” or “Yamhill piano instructor.”
And, you quickly discover that those keyword research tools are showing that zero people per month are searching for them.
However, when you type in a larger city, like Beaverton, OR, you find that 480 people per year are searching for “Beaverton piano lessons” – that’s worth targeting!
3. Write Localized Content
Now that you know which locations you want to Target, you need to write localized content on those pages.
What does localized content mean?
It means targeting certain local keywords in your copywriting. So, instead of saying…
“You’ve been struggling to find a good piano teacher for your child, but I’m different. I take a customized approach…”
You can add in a local keyword. Read it again below with the local keyword….
“You’ve been struggling to find the best piano teacher in Beaverton for your child, but I’m different. I take a customized approach…”
The content isn’t that much different, but it makes a big difference to the Google search algorithm.
4. Understand What Questions People Want Answered On Your Location Page
A great thing to add on each location page is an FAQ. This stands for Frequently Asked Questions (you probably already know that).
So, what types of questions might people ask around your service?
- How much it costs
- If it actually will help them
- How it works
- How long it’ll take to get done
- If you have good reviews
- If you have examples of your work
- And more
So, let’s go back to the piano teacher example. For their location page in Beaverton, they might answer the following FAQs:
- How much does a piano teacher in Beaverton cost?
- Do piano teachers in Beaverton do remote lessons?
- Can you help my child prepare for an upcoming recital?
- Do you have other piano students in Beaverton?
5. Add Localized Contact Information
What is especially important about each location page is making sure that you share contact information. This is particularly important if you actually have multiple physical locations, such as multiple doctors offices, retail stores, and the like.
For each location page, you need to make sure that you clearly state the following information:
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
If you have a physical location, you need to ensure that you have registered a Google My Business property for that location. Then, it’s important to also embed that Google My Business location onto the page.
You can even take it a step further and add local schema to the page, which gives Google even more context about your location.
6. Have a Strong CTA For Conversion Best Practices
One thing that many businesses forget to do when creating location pages for SEO is to make them conversion-focused.
They’re often so worried about ensuring that those pages rank well in Google, that they forget that once people land on the page the goal is for them to take action, whether that be filling out a form, sending an email, or calling.
Always have a call to action above the fold so that when visitors land on the page, they can immediately take action and work with you.
Want to learn more about location pages for SEO? Contact one of our SEO consultants in Portland for help.
7. Link Your Google Business Profile to the Bottom of Your Location Pages
Your website and Google Business Profile are NOT mutually exclusive.
They interact with each other and Google knows it. Therefore, Google wants you to intentionally link the two entities together.
How do you do that?
- Well, you actually link them together. On your Google Business Profile, you make sure that the are to insert a website link is linked to your location page, not to the homepage of your website
- The next way to “link” the two entities together is to embed your Google Business Profile on the bottom of your location page
Joey Randazzo
CEO of Becoming Media
