Recently we had a client in need of a localized search engine optimization strategy. We were able to come up with creative ways to market using traditional PPC avenues such as Google AdWords and we created a FaceBook campaign but it just wasn’t enough. Also, both PPC and FaceBook advertising require time and energy on a daily basis.
So we went to the drawing board. The question that needed to be answered was how to get a site to rank for 20 keywords in 170 different towns. The issue is the keywords were too general for optimizing as it would make no sense for a Massachusetts company to rank for keywords in other states. Imagine if you were in Boston and you searched the keyword “hair salon”. What if the search results that were returned were in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Phoenix?
With this search engine optimization issue affecting so many local businesses, we decided to study other industries and see what was working online. After scouring the web and researching hundreds of potential strategies, the decision was made to dynamically generate a page for each town and each keyword. After this strategy was implemented, long-tail search increased dramatically as well as conversions because the traffic is now more qualified.
A few things to keep in mind when implemented dynamically generated localized pages:
- Create SEO-friendly code
- Use variables within the content to dynamically generate pages per region
- Figure out a way to include unique content for each town to avoid duplicate content penalties from Google