Local Search for a location that borders 3 cities

[ValerieM]

Hello, I have a client that has a location that is sits at a crossroads of 3 cities. He wants to be found under his KW for each city so I optimized the tags with all 3 cities for each page that I have the ability to optimize (this is a franchise so I only have 12 pages to work with). Is this the right way to do it or should I chose one city per page for the tag and content. I was told that Google may look at the way I did as "keyword stuffing"

I am a newbie to Local Search so excuse me if I should know this already - and I TRULY appreciate your insight

 

[Phil Rozek]

I presume you're referring just to the title tag of your homepage? (The other meta tags don't affect your ranking.) If so, and if your client is right on the border of 3 cities and he/she serves those cities, then I'd say it's fine to have all 3 cities in the title tag.

It's probably wise to have a landing page for each of the 3 cities, provided that you (1) use a light touch on the keywords and city names, and that you (2) can say something on each page that's specific to the city. (Boilerplate content may or may not help you rank well, but it's unlikely to help your client get any more phone calls.)

 

[ValerieM]

Thank you Phil- I so appreciate your insight! Yes, it was the title tag that I was mostly referring to but in addition, the meta description and keywords.. I wasnt sure if I should put each of the 3 cities with each MAIN keyword in each section. At this point, on each page I can optimize (12 pages total), I am listing out each city + KW which could I guess seem spammy??

 

[Phil Rozek]

At this point, on each page I can optimize (12 pages total), I am listing out each city + KW which could I guess seem spammy??

Yeah, I'd suggest not having the same keywords in each title tag. Variety is good. It's not like all those pages could rank for the same search term in the same city anyway.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yep Phil is right location pages are best.

Although you seem to be worried about if Google would think it's KW stuffed. I would say even if you can stuff 3 cities, should you?

Even if allowed, you aren't going to rank for all the keywords in all the cities.

Having all 3 cities in all the title tags is sort of a shot gun approach that won't usually yield high rankings. See some of the advice I gave this user who has 3 cities in title tag: http://localsearchforum.catalystema...-delete-start-over-showing-old.html#post28503

Would help to see the site, but in VERY general terms you are only usually going to rank on page one in the city the address is actually in. (Depends on KWs and competition.)

So again in VERY general terms the home page should be optimized for that city and then you should have city pages designed a very specific way to rank in those cities. Those other cities you likely won't be able to rank in local pack, just organic, which makes it harder to get on page one.

Think about it this way. Google is trying to show the very most relevant results so if you are in city 1, trying to rank in city 2 and there are 40 other providers that really are located in city 2, why would Google rank you high in that city other the other businesses that are there? You need to do some really specific and well thought out location pages to even have a chance to rank against businesses with addresses in that city.

You can find some really good advice about doing location specific landing pages at this hashtag:
#multi-location - Search Results