You may be confused by the terms “geo-targeting” and “local landing pages” but it is not hard to understand the basics with a bit of study. Once you learn what these terms mean, you can begin the job of ranking your local landing pages for geo-targeted terms that will result in real, live customers to your business!
What Is Geo-Targeting?
Geo-targeting is a term used when you focus on a geographically specific area that is pertinent to your product or brand. For example, when you travel around holding exhibitions in various locations, you might want to target specific cities with your brand information. You may also want a geo-targeting strategy for local businesses that do not serve customers worldwide.
What Is A Local Landing Page?
A local landing page is an extension of the idea of geo-targeting. Instead of just dealing with a temporary event, however, a local landing page is designed to give you continuous exposure. When you have a local landing page, local visitors always have a place to go for information about your company. You can also use geo-specific, targeted keywords to rank for certain local terms.
Working For and Against Google
Google presents search results in two very specific ways. First, Google shows local searchers local results through maps. This makes it very easy to work with Google, targeting users in a particular area. However, when you want to target users in a specific geo-location and you are not physically located there, it can become much more of a challenge.
How To Rank Locally Even If You Are Not There
There are a couple of ways you can rank locally even if you are not physically located in a city. One is to make a city-specific landing page for each city in which you want to rank. While effective, this can be time-consuming and expensive, especially if you must pay someone else to write your website content. One big no-no is simply copying your city page over and over with a different city name; Google sees this as duplicate content.
However, you can scale out your results for every city with city-specific information. Think about Yelp and TripAdvsior. They have very specific links on each of their pages for cities you might want to visit. Be sure to include some city-specific information in each of your pages and you will be much more likely to draw in local visitors.
Good luck with geo-targeting!