Multi-locations and multiple keyword targets

[HoosierBuff]

Hi,

A complicated question here:

I have a local storage client that has 5 locations in Chicago. They have unique location pages for each location.

What I'm trying to figure out is ranking for some of the second tier terms and what would be best. I know that I want to rank the location pages for as much as I can (terms like "storage units", "self storage" etc.).

but, how do I best rank for "RV Storage", "Boat Storage" or "self storage prices".

I can put those terms on the location page, and I think that is ok - but, you start to run out of room on the page and title tags - you don't want to make the focus of the page soooo wide. I could create a page on the main site about RV Storage, and Boat Storage. . . I think that might help.

OR: One other thought would be to have a page for each location, for those sub-products.

So the conventional way would be:

Home page
Page about RV storage
Page about Boat Storage
Location page for downtown chicago
Location page for Evanston
Location page for Naperville

But, I was wondering if It might work better as:
Home page
Location page for downtown chicago
Page for boat and RV storage downtown chicago
Location page for Evanston
Page for boat and RV storage Evanston
Location page for Naperville
Page for boat and RV storage Naperville.

I guess the ultimate goal is to help google understand that the locations all have RV and Boat Storage. The location is a sum of all that is on the website, the links in, the google places format etc. If this is correct, we probably don't need the RV and Boat storage for each town right?

am I thinking of this correctly?

 

[Dillon Brickhouse]

But, I was wondering if It might work better as:
Home page
Location page for downtown chicago
Page for boat and RV storage downtown chicago
Location page for Evanston
Page for boat and RV storage Evanston
Location page for Naperville
Page for boat and RV storage Naperville.

I wouldn't personally recommend this method for one reason: this causes duplicate content issues. Instead, you may consider having all of your locations' NAP in the footer (with appropriate schema markup of course, and providing a link to each location page) across all pages on the site. Alternatively -- or in conjunction -- you could have the names of all three cities as a subheader to your h1.

As a side note, the similarities between these terms cause me to raise an eyebrow. Not that there is anything wrong with pages for those specific terms, but you may want to be careful to keep the pages very specific and informative to avoid keyword cannibalization and thin content.

 

[DanLeibson]

Hi,

But, I was wondering if It might work better as:
Home page
Location page for downtown chicago
Page for boat and RV storage downtown chicago
Location page for Evanston
Page for boat and RV storage Evanston
Location page for Naperville
Page for boat and RV storage Naperville.

I guess the ultimate goal is to help google understand that the locations all have RV and Boat Storage. The location is a sum of all that is on the website, the links in, the google places format etc. If this is correct, we probably don't need the RV and Boat storage for each town right?

am I thinking of this correctly?

Lots of multi-location business do this, it's essentially a microsite for the location off the location sub-page. I have seen it done very successfully before. You just have to be able to both ensure your content is both unique and localized for all service + geo pages and also make sure that your site has enough links to be able to support ranking all the pages you are going to add.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

To add on to Dan's comment, that method is just a form of silo'ing. It does work as long as the strategy behind it is mapped out correctly. Like Dan mentioned - content needs to be unique for each page (no cookie cutter/{insert city here} content). I'm somewhat familiar with the Chicago area, so if you think each location can show it's own "identity" then i'd say go for the second option to target each city. As long as you have enough resources to put time into each one, that would be the way I would start with.