Leveraging Location in SEO

I’ve seen all extremes where location on pages for SEO is concerned. Some people ignore it entirely, others emphasize it over anything else. The issue is not as simple as saying there is one rule for every site, because there isn’t.

Whether or not location is important as an aspect of SEO depends largely on your business focus. If you cater to a local customer base, then location is very important. If you cater to a national, or international customer base, then it is less important.

Sometimes, when you have a dual customer base – local for those who prefer to work with someone local, and national or international for those who are willing to work long distance, it is a matter of balancing location references.

Consider – if I emphasize Wyoming in my website too much, I may in fact get traffic for people looking for a Wyoming Web Designer. But I may lose national clients who see the word “Wyoming” and assume that we do not serve clients elsewhere. Not a good thing!  Especially since the potential for Wyoming clients is so much smaller than the potential for national ones – this is taking into consideration that Wyoming clients will convert more easily than national clients. Wyoming is just not a populous state.

It is also important to avoid placing location over product. You are not selling your location, you are selling a product. That has to be clear on the site.

Search engines will pick up on a location that is mentioned only once on the page, once in the description metatag, once in the keyword tag, and once in the title tag. If you have several towns, in addition to a region, then mention the primary one, or maybe two, in all of those places, and then list the others on the page in a “we serve” listing. That is enough.

There is no need to put it into alt tags, repeat it on the page anywhere else (other than where it is conversationally relevant), or give any further attention to it.

There are also times when you do NOT want to mention location, except on your contact page. This is when you have a business that does not have local relevance. Many do not. We have several clients who sell various types of jewelry through an online store. They have no storefront. Location is not an enhancement to their website. Another of our jewelery website clients has a storefront in a nearby town. For her, since her website also gains walk-in customers for her store, the location is important.

Using the location helps to give you better search engine traffic when people search on your terms, combined with a local area name. Competing nationally or internationally is harder than competing locally.

It isn’t a magic bullet, but it can get additional traffic for sites that have a local presence, especially in crowded and highly competitive marketing arenas.