More threads by Travis Van Slooten

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My client has two physical locations in two different states. She provides translation services.

On her website I have both locations in the footer and on the "Contact Us" page. However, I'm wondering if I should have a location landing page for each location. If this is "best practices" these days, do I point her two Google My Business listings to their respective location landing pages or the home page of the site? And if location pages are ideal, what the heck do you put on them? It seems to be we would essentially be copying the content from the home page (obviously rewording to avoid duplicate content issues).

Travis
 
Typically I do recommend have a page for each location. I also recommend marking up the NAP data on each location page with local schema markup.

You can add the Name, Address, Phone of the location, as well as directions and photos of the location, as well. I'd add some text on the page, but it doesn't need to be "salesy". The visitors really just want to view the location and maybe a map and directions. Contact info, as well.

I'd also work on building location citations and links to those pages. Each GMB listing can have a link to the location page.
 
Thanks! I always go back and forth on this. I know at one point talking to Phil Rozek he said it's best to link your GMB listings to the home page (because the home page often has more juice than the location pages).

I think I will create two location landing pages but I'm torn on whether or not to link to them from GMB and the citations. Hmmm....

Travis
 
Hi Travis,

Location pages are essential when you have multiple locations. My approach in 90% of cases is to link GMB to the page that ranks highest organically. Sometimes it's the homepage and sometimes it's a location/service page.

I recommend using a service like Get Five Stars to generate reviews that you can add to the location pages. They are automatically marked-up with schema (so you can get gold stars in the serps) and it's a great way to continuously add fresh content.
 
Colan:

Where do you point your citations to then? Do you link to the home page or the location pages?

I already use Get Five Stars with my clients so I'll definitely be using it on this site too!

Thanks,

Travis

Hi Travis,

Location pages are essential when you have multiple locations. My approach in 90% of cases is to link GMB to the page that ranks highest organically. Sometimes it's the homepage and sometimes it's a location/service page.

I recommend using a service like Get Five Stars to generate reviews that you can add to the location pages. They are automatically marked-up with schema (so you can get gold stars in the serps) and it's a great way to continuously add fresh content.
 
Generally I will use the location page for citations.
 
Great question Travis! I would definitely recommend creating 2 separate internal pages for these two locations with a navigational hierarchy of the 2 pages as a sub-page under the parent location page. For example, in the navigation let's say you have contact us page, about us page, services page, and then a locations page. If someone puts their mouse over the locations page, a drop down of the 2 location pages would display. Here is the sequence:

Locations
- Location 1
- Location 2

Perform keyword research to see what are the best keywords to target for the service that your client provides as a location based keyword (i.e. services + locations).

A lot of our clients are dentists, so for example we would focus our keywords on "dentist austin texas". There are a ton of various keywords relevant to the main targeted keywords in a specific area and then there are more specific keywords related to a specific area based on the services your clients provide, so for us instead of just targeting the main keyword "dentist austin texas" on that location page, if the dentist provides let's say dental implants, we would focus that location's content on that secondary keyword (i.e. "dental implants austin texas".

When you create location pages, think about the content and adding value so that the visitor can get the most information possible, but you have multiple targeted keywords and content on that location page to rank for all types of keywords rather it is the main keyword or secondary keywords.

We have seen our clients' location pages earn significant targeted traffic to their location for location based keywords over just adding them to the homepage or contact us page.

To answer your next question, for each location we do set up a GMB for each location. One of our dental clients has 25 locations, and there are 25 GMB listings. When someone searches locally for certain keywords, the Google local pack pops up and for your client's location to rank in the google local pack, they need a GMB.

If the business has locations in any city, we create a GMB so that we can have the opportunity for them to get reviews on their GMB and utilize other local seo strategies to get their GMB profile in the top 3 of the local pack for their targeted locations.

Hope that helps!
 
Thanks Lamar! Great explanation with lots of detail. I set up my client's site exactly as you described. Thanks!

Travis
 
I might dissent a bit here in terms of purely SEO (not user experience).

Are the two locations in different cities?

If they are, I think your best bet is to use the homepage here. Your inner pages will never be as powerful as your homepage and a homepage can handle two locations.

At 3 locations, however, you need to separate landing pages. It just "is what it is" at that point.

If they're in the same city, you're really still only targeting one location so having multiple landing pages won't help SEO more than likely but will help UX.
 
Kind of piggybacking, but question relates, (sorry new poster here)...

Do you recommend having the GMB URL listing for each of the locations (Say 5 different cities in 5 different states) all point to the Geo URL page on the site like:

paintingcompany.com/columbus
paintingcompany.com/atlanta
etc..

Or do you make the URL in each GMB listing the homepage? Any recommendations?
 
Kind of piggybacking, but question relates, (sorry new poster here)...

Do you recommend having the GMB URL listing for each of the locations (Say 5 different cities in 5 different states) all point to the Geo URL page on the site like:

paintingcompany.com/columbus
paintingcompany.com/atlanta
etc..

Or do you make the URL in each GMB listing the homepage? Any recommendations?
Hey! Welcome to the LSF. From my experience it has the greatest impact if you link to the URL that ranks highest organically. I recommend using that as your base guideline.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 
Hey! Welcome to the LSF. From my experience it has the greatest impact if you link to the URL that ranks highest organically. I recommend using that as your base guideline.

Would you recommend using the same link for the citations? So if GMB link to the homepage build the citations to link to the homepage and if it GMB links to the location page the citations should too?

I know you previously said:
Generally I will use the location page for citations.
but I wonder if it's best to match the NAPW.

Thanks
 
Would you recommend using the same link for the citations? So if GMB link to the homepage build the citations to link to the homepage and if it GMB links to the location page the citations should too?

I know you previously said:

but I wonder if it's best to match the NAPW.

Thanks
For citations I go with the location page. Google can make the connection pretty well these days so I don't feel the W part of NAPW is that much of a factor as long as the root domain is the same.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 

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