What URL Structure to Use for Local SEO

[JoyHawkins]

I wanted to start a discussion around URL structures for a website and see if anyone has any case studies to reference.

1. What URL structure do you use for a city page? Do you include the keyword (domain.com/chicago-keyword) or just the city (domain.com/city)?

2. If a business has tons of folders on their site, do you shorten the URLs? Ex: domain.com/locations/usa/tx/austin vs domain.com/austin-tx

 

[jeff_taylor]

If the site is small enough you could use internal links in GSC. I do think there is a plug-in but I cannot recommend anything. Screaming Frog shows this too. On the bottom of the app - inlinks - I believe.

If you're talking about a specific service anywhere and you have a page that focuses on this you should link to it for UX. As a customer, if I need a plumber for a leak - I don't want to see all your services. I need to know if you can get here ASAP and how I get in touch. If this is easily linked on the homepage - that's okay. But if you have a choice send them directly to that 24-hour emergency service page.

Or if I need a builder to do a sunroom addition to my house I would really want to see you can do sunrooms - while the home page can work too because a ton of people want to know who is doing the work as if they can do the work and sunrooms can be similar to other add ons.

 

[RJhart]

Great advice, thanks very much Jeff!

 

[polli3]

Hi there,

A question on service areas...

I have a client who runs a trades business and has one office location but services 3 main areas within one city.

Service areas are: 2 council areas and one additional adjacent suburb.

The client wishes to rank on page 1 for 'service name + council area’ for one of the council areas. That’s the priority.

At the moment the homepage is the only page ranking for the service name + local council area keyword (page 2).


Would I be better simply optimising the homepage to see if it is enough to get to page 1 or should I be creating location pages so that it has a better chance of competing? All the sites on page 1 seem to have numerous location/ service area pages.

I was thinking of creating 3 new pages for the service areas, with a service areas navigation so that I cater for all the locations and have a chance to rank for all.

Prioritising the council area he wants to rank on page 1 for, the structure might be:

/council-area1
/council-area2
/council-area3/suburb1

The domain name contains the service name (so excluding this from the folder structure). However they do offer another service, so would I be better to include the service as well in case I need to do location pages for the other service later on?​

Then later possibly creating landing pages for all suburbs in those council areas with unique content. I've seen other websites doing this, some of them hiding from the navigation and just appearing in the sitemap.

Appreciate any advice on the best way to set this up.

 

[polli3]

Great - thanks so much!

 

[polli3]

Makes sense - thanks great advice

 

[Johndavid]

Hello. I see this thread started a while back and have a question...

What url structure would you do?

Large City • Several Service (that get searched) • Lot of Suburbs

Scenario 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
domain[dot]com/appliance-repair/dallas
domain[dot]com/appliance-repair/richardson
domain[dot]com/appliance-repair/garland

domain[dot]com/refigerator-repair/dallas
domain[dot]com/refigerator-repair/richardson
domain[dot]com/refigerator-repair/garland

domain[dot]com/dryer-repair/dallas
domain[dot]com/dryer-repair/richardson
domain[dot]com/dryer-repair/garland
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Scenario 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
domain[dot]com/appliance-repair-dallas
domain[dot]com/appliance-repair-richardson
domain[dot]com/appliance-repair-garland

domain[dot]com/refigerator-repair-dallas
domain[dot]com/refigerator-repair-richardson
domain[dot]com/refigerator-repair-garland

domain[dot]com/dryer-repair-dallas
domain[dot]com/dryer-repair-richardson
domain[dot]com/dryer-repair-garland
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

[Professor M]

scenario 3
domain[dot]com/refigerator-repair
domain[dot]com/dallas

then internal links from each service to the location pages and from location pages to each service

Keep it simple for you, Google will know and it's easier to get links to a smaller number of pages