As a local business owner, you provide the same service to multiple cities. Doesn’t it make more sense to have a generic page that specific service?
Actually no, but there are strings attached.
Here’s why.
The more tailored communication you are able to provide for each city the greater the possibility that Google will opt into ranking you highly for the service in that city.
However, if the pages between the two cities have the same basic content this will work against you because Google will see what you are creating duplicate content.
How Not To Build Multiple City Service Pages
Your a busy local business professional and don’t have time to trouble yourself with creating new pages for every city served.
So…
You create one awesome page of valuable content and simply change the city names on each page. Mission accomplished.
Not so fast.
That would be Google’s definition of duplicate content.
What Google Wants To See In Multiple City Service Pages
One word…
Originality.
Each page needs to provide its own unique content. The beautiful part is that very few businesses are doing this so your ability to outrank your competitors increases greatly as a result.
Just as long as you appease the Google gods in the process. Click To TweetWhat To Put On Multiple City Service Pages
Assuming that you are targeting a city that you don’t have a physical office in you still want to be sure that your NAP is on every page.
DEFINITION
Define NAP: The name, address and phone number of your company exactly as it is listed on your GMB page.
Define GMB: Your Google business page that ranks in Google Maps results.
Let’s say you service 3 cities.
- Kent (3 clients)
- Auburn (10 clients)
- Puyallup (50 clients)
All your clients rave about your services and have taken time to leave reviews on Google for you.
Instead of putting all these reviews together on a single page, share them on the separate city pages.
The 3 posts for Kent go on the page you are creating for Kent while the 10 reviews for Auburn go there. When it comes to the 50 reviews for Puyallup, it is not necessary to list all 50 reviews. I recommend 3 to 7 for any one page.
Beyond reviews, you can talk about different local aspects that are related to your service which is locally targeted to that city.
Is there a particular type of service that one city receives over another? Talk about it.
Are there related services to what you do in each given city? Talk about them.
Has there been something newsworthy take place in one of the cities you are targeting? Talk about it – but only on that cities page.
The more you do to segregate the different cities into their own entities the more you win this game.
The actual service that you provide also needs to be written differently for each page. This is more than just changing a word or two, but a full rework of exactly what you do within that service.
HOT TIP: While more content is better, Google would be far more interested in the uniqueness of each separate location than the associated word count. However, if possible targeting between 300 and 500 words per page would be recommended.
What Else Can I Do To Optimize These City Pages
If you are using WordPress, then I would recommend creating separate and distinct categories for each city to be listed under. Each category would host its own city page for that service.
If you have 5 services that you offer you can create a different city page for each service and the associated categories would have 5 articles each.
Trusting that you are doing the math, you should be aware that this equals 15 pages and doing this all correctly takes work.
Visit this LinkedIn article to find out how to create separate categories for each of your cities.
Creating Internal On-Page Backlinks
When people start talking about backlinks most think of external one-way entities pointing to your site.
DEFINITION
Define Backlinks: A clickable hyperlink referenced on one page which identifies the attributes of another which can be external or internal to the given page being referenced.
Here we are talking about internal backlinks which are one page within your site that is referencing another.
We’ve determined that you offer 5 services within the different cities identified. Why not link each of these 5 pages together for each given city so that people can check out the different services that you offer within that location.
This increases the value of your information within that category which Google will see as a value-added attribute within your marketing strategy.
HOT TIP: Determine how many different services you offer be it 1, 3, 5, 7 or however many and create different service pages within each city under each separate category to get the best value from implementing this multiple city service strategy.
A Word About Targeted Keyword Phrases Within Multiple City Service Pages
So far we have been speaking about targeting results based on the city and service being identified. This in and of itself will be of great help to your being found in organic search results within all cities as well as map results for the city wherein your physical location exists. However, within this process, you should also be targeting desired keyword phrases.
For example, let us say you are an Accountant that offers BookKeeping, Tax & Payroll services. You want to be identified for each of those terms within each city. That’s where keyword phrases come into the picture.
DEFINITION
Define Keyword Phrase: A particular set of words which identify the specific service that you offer.
Using the scenarios put forward in this document so far a possible conclusion would be…
Puyallup Tax Accountant
The beautiful part is that this process of breaking up everything by targeted city and service brings out the keyword phrase without a great deal of effort. However, what if you want to get even more specific about the type of tax accounting that you do?
You want to be sure to create that within the content that you are producing. That might look something like:
Puyallup Business Tax Accountant
Which would be a long tail keyword phrase.
Ramping Up Your Results With Long Tail Keyword Phrases
DEFINITION
Define Long Tail Keyword Phrase: A combination of targeted words connected together to increase the length of the keyword phrase (defined above) that is being targeted.
In this case, your original keyword phrase started with:
Puyallup Tax Accountant
Because you wanted to target this page to a specific type of accounting the phrase became:
Puyallup Business Tax Accountant (This is considered long tail compared to the initial phrase that was targeted).
However, let’s say you wanted to really get the best results from your long tail approach. That might look something like.
Puyallup Quarterly Business Tax Accountant Service Near Me
No one would ever search for that phrase, you say.
You might be right but having targeted a phrase like this you find results returning for the following.
Puyallup Quarterly Tax Accountant Near Me
Puyallup Business Tax Accountant Service
Puyallup Tax Accountant Service Near Me
Puyallup Tax Accountant Service
Puyallup Tax Accountant Near Me
Just to name a few.
- 1 city
- 1 service
- 1 long tail keyword phrase
Multiple results
HOT TIP: Many people use words like “near me” when searching via mobile devices. While this isn’t necessarily the case when typing into a Google search. Click To Tweet
Concluding Thoughts About Multiple City Service Pages
As should be clear by now, taking the initiative to create multiple city service pages really is a good idea because you are identified within a larger sphere of influence for a greater number of results. Having this process put into motion correctly can result in a steady stream of clients finding and securing services from you rather than one of your competitors.
While I have attempted to be very thorough in this article, I’m more than open to answering related questions that may not have been covered.
Feel free to ask them below.
I also welcome related thoughts, ideas & views. Feel free to leave those below too.
Guy Siverson
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Hеllo this is somewhat of off topic but I was wanting tߋ know if
blogs ᥙse WYSIWYG editorѕ or if you have to manually coddе with HTMᏞ.
I’m starting a blog soon but hɑve no coding knowledgｅ sso
I wanted to ɡet guidance from someone with experience.
Any help would be enormousⅼy appreciated! https://www.jargoneer.com/
Thanks for asking.
With the power of resources like WordPress manually coding is a thing of the past. Sure, understanding HTML is still good for those deeper more advanced issues but there is no reason that I blog cannot succeed without it.
That’s especially true if you use category strategies like I share in this multiple city/service concept that I put forth for local business builders. With a product-centric focus like you have creating targeted categories is just as critical though with a slightly different twist.
Let me know if you would like an article created covering how product promoters can optimize category power within WordPress.org and I’ll be glad to put my thoughts together for you to follow.