Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should I Add Location to ALL of My Client's URLs?
-
Hi Mozzers,
My first Moz post! Yay! I'm excited to join the squad
My client is a full service entertainment company serving the Washington DC Metro area (DC, MD & VA) and offers a host of services for those wishing to throw events/parties. Think DJs for weddings, cool photo booths, ballroom lighting etc.
I'm wondering what the right URL structure should be. I've noticed that some of our competitors do put DC area keywords in their URLs, but with the moves of SERPs to focus a lot more on quality over keyword density, I'm wondering if we should focus on location based keywords in traditional areas on page (e.g. title tags, headers, metas, content etc) instead of having keywords in the URLs alongside the traditional areas I just mentioned. So, on every product related page should we do something like:
example.com/weddings/planners-washington-dc-md-va
example.com/weddings/djs-washington-dc-md-va
example.com/weddings/ballroom-lighting-washington-dc-md-vaOR
example.com/weddings/planners
example.com/weddings/djs
example.com/weddings/ballroom-lightingIn both cases, we'd put the necessary location based keywords in the proper places on-page. If we follow the location-in-URL tactic, we'd use DC area terms in all subsequent product page URLs as well. Essentially, every page outside of the home page would have a location in it.
Thoughts?
Thank you!!
-
No website in particular that springs to mind, I'm afraid. But it's not uncommon practice, and I'm sure you'll find plenty within your industry from a little competitor research.
Good luck!
-
This is great stuff. Thank you! Would you happen to have an example of a site that does this well? I think you're spot on in your suggestions and would love to see it in practice.
-
(I had posted my response, but Moz didn't fancy saving it for some reason and it's just gone. So I'll try and remember what I typed and repost it...)
I wouldn't dilute the site authority by using subdomains for your locations.
As a user, I would recommend your main site navigation lists the different event types (weddings, parties, corporate, etc) and branch your locations from there.
e.g.
-
Weddings - /weddings/ (Weddings)
-
Miami - /weddings/miami/ (Weddings in Miami)
-
Planners - /weddings/miami/planners/ (Wedding Planners in Miami)
-
DJs - /weddings/miami/djs/ (Wedding DJs in Miami)
-
Ballroom Lighting - /weddings/miami/ballroom-lighting/ (Ballroom Lighting for Weddings in Miami)
That structure seems the most logical to me, but you should do your own research to back this up. Conduct thorough keyword research for each service in each location and structure your landing page content accordingly. For example, main category pages broadly targeting root keyword, but display "cards" or sections that link to each location without optimising those main category pages for the locations - save this for the location-based landing pages. So this sub-navigation is in the body, rather than in the main navigation, for user-friendliness.
I think with something like events, you don't want to shove the locations in the user's face first thing. Let them see what you offer (the different event types), then delve down into the locations, and the specific services within those locations.
People are free to disagree with me, and I welcome critique on these thoughts. I do think with SEO, it gets to a point after "best practices" that it comes down to more of personal preferences.
-
-
Excellent advice Ria. I'll likely give that advice to the client.
Another question that brewed from this: how then should main navigation be handled as we expand? obviously we can't have D.C. centric keywords in the main navigation as the business expands. I think we could create unique content and landing pages for each individual service and location, but how would that be incorporate into the overall user flow and URL structure?
Would it be more of a sitemap play? If someone goes to www.example.com, should they be given an option to choose their location then be routed to that specific city's subdomain and yhenbrowse from there?
I guess my main question is, how exactly should we structure the site navigation for users from multiple cities to both please UX and the big G?
Thank you!
-
For a handful of different locations, it's quite common to structure them as different subdirectories, as you said. site.com/weddings/miami/planners or /miami/weddings/planners - whichever makes the most sense for your customer base and how you're targeting the content.
Just ensure that these are not considered doorway pages or appear to be too templated. Make each landing page for each location unique, and tailored specifically to your customers in each location. If you have nothing unique to say, then you don't need separate pages. It would be best to target the different locations on the same landing pages. But you being the expert in the industry, I can imagine it'll be easy enough to cater toward each audience specifically. Especially when you're not dealing with tens if not hundreds or thousands of different towns.
If you are certain on expanding to different cities soon, then it might be best to begin the URL structuring with /washington-dc/ subdirectory somewhere, so you don't have to change this later.
-
Thank you, Ria. That's very helpful.
Im curious, when the business expands to different cities in the coming months (for example, Miami and Chicago are being considered, not yet finalized), then in that case I would assume we need to have location in the URL path for the sake of designation and differentiation. This may be a sub folder in and of itself though. Thoughts?
-
I'd avoid adding the location in the URL if you only work with those services for a single location. It looks messy to the user, and can look spammy to Google. And it would save you from having to change the URL and set up redirects, if you need to remove the location keywords from the URL at a later date in order to please the Big G. Optimising for location within the content, title and meta can be easily tweaked with time. Tweaking URLs can be a lot messier.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can subdomains hurt your primary domain's SEO?
Our primary website https://domain.com has a subdomain https://subDomain.domain.com and on that subdomain we have a jive-hosted community, with a few links to and fro. In GA they are set up as different properties but there are many SEO issues in the jive-hosted site, in which many different people can create content, delete content, comment, etc. There are issues related to how jive structures content, broken links, etc. My question is this: Aside from the SEO issues with the subdomain, can the performance of that subdomain negatively impact the SEO performance and rank of the primary domain? I've heard and read conflicting reports about this and it would be nice to hear from the MOZ community about options to resolve such issues if they exist. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BHeffernan1 -
What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity?
Hello everyone, Maybe it is a stupid question, but I ask to the experts... What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity from those noindexed pages? For example, let's say I have many pages that look similar to a "main" page which I solely want to appear on Google, so I want to noindex all pages with the exception of that "main" page... but, what if I also want to transfer any possible link equity present on the noindexed pages to the main page? The only solution I have thought is to add a canonical tag pointing to the main page on those noindexed pages... but will that work or cause wreak havoc in some way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau3 -
One of my Friend's website Domain Authority is Reducing? What could be the reason?
Hello Guys, One of my friend's website domain authority is decreasing since they have moved their domain from HTTP to https.Â
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Max_
There is another problem that his blog is on subfolder with HTTP.
So, can you guys please tell me how to fix this issue and also it's losing some of the rankings like 2-5 positions down. Here is website URL: myfitfuel.in/
here is the blog URL: myfitfuel.in/mffblog/0 -
Brackets vs Encoded URLs: The "Same" in Google's eyes, or dup content?
Hello, This is the first time I've asked a question here, but I would really appreciate the advice of the community - thank you, thank you! Scenario:  Internal linking is pointing to two different versions of a URL, one with brackets [] and the other version with the brackets encoded as %5B%5D Version 1: http://www.site.com/test?hello**[]=all&howdy[]=all&ciao[]=all
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mirabile
Version 2: http://www.site.com/test?hello%5B%5D**=all&howdy**%5B%5D**=all&ciao**%5B%5D**=all Question: Will search engines view these as duplicate content?  Technically there is a difference in characters, but it's only because one version encodes the brackets, and the other does not (See: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_urlencode.asp) We are asking the developer to encode ALL URLs because this seems cleaner but they are telling us that Google will see zero difference.  We aren't sure if this is true, since engines can get so _hung up on even one single difference in character.  _ We don't want to unnecessarily fracture the internal link structure of the site, so again - any feedback is welcome, thank you. 🙂0 -
Bing flags multiple H1's as an issue of high importance--any case studies?
Going through Bing's SEO Analyzer and found that Bing thinks having multiple H1's on a page is an issue. It's going to be quite a bit of work to remove the H1 tags from various pages. Do you think this is a major issue or not? Does anyone know of any case studies / interviews to show that fixing this will lead to improvement?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Removing Dynamic "noindex" URL's from Index
6 months ago my clients site was overhauled and the user generated searches had an index tag on them. I switched that to noindex but didn't get it fast enough to avoid being 100's of pages indexed in Google. It's been months since switching to the noindex tag and the pages are still indexed. What would you recommend? Google crawls my site daily - but never the pages that I want removed from the index. I am trying to avoid submitting hundreds of these dynamic URL's to the removal tool in webmaster tools. Suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeTheBoss0 -
Is there any negative SEO effect of having comma's in URL's?
Hello, I have a client who has a large ecommerce website. Some category names have been created with comma's in - which has meant that their software has automatically generated URL's with comma's in for every page that comes beneath the category in the site hierarchy. eg. 1 : http://shop.deliaonline.com/store/music,-dvd-and-games/dvds-and-blu_rays/ eg. 2 : http://shop.deliaonline.com/store/music,-dvd-and-games/dvds-and-blu_rays/action-and-adventure/ etc... I know that URL's with comma's in look a bit ugly! But is there 'any' SEO reason why URL's with comma's in are any less effective? Kind Regs, RB
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichBestSEO0 -
URL Length or Exact Breadcrumb Navigation URL? What's More Important
Basically my question is as follows, what's better: www.romancingdiamonds.com/gemstone-rings/amethyst-rings/purple-amethyst-ring-14k-white-gold (this would fully match the breadcrumbs). or www.romancingdiamonds.com/amethyst-rings/purple-amethyst-ring-14k-white-gold (cutting out the first level folder to keep the url shorter and the important keywords are closer to the root domain). In this question http://www.seomoz.org/qa/discuss/37982/url-length-vs-url-keywords I was consulted to drop a folder in my url because it may be to long. That's why I'm hesitant to keep the bradcrumb structure the same. To the best of your knowldege do you think it's best to drop a folder in the URL to keep it shorter and sweeter, or to have a longer URL and have it match the breadcrumb structure? Please advise, Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Romancing0