The importance of location listing...

Scotty #

I am listed first on Google.ie for my main search term. Lets say it's "Red Shoes" for example. But, if I add Ireland to the search term, Red Shoes Ireland ( Ireland not mentioned on my site oddly!) then I am not in the top 30 results. I also notice in Googles suggestions it lists as follows...

Red Shoes Ireland
Red Shoes Dublin
Red Shoes Cork
Red Shoes Waterford
Red Shoes Galway

...and so on.

So just wondering has anyone else implimeneted all the county names on their pages or any suggestions as how to best apply this without making it look really terrible. I'm thinking just list out the counties in small font in a horizontal list at the bottom of pages? Black hat?

jmcc

It may have to do with the general flakieness in the way that Google categorises sites from particular counties. It is still, at heart, just an American search engine with limited knowledge of country level markets. Is the site a .ie site or a com/net/org one? Sometimes a .com site without the geolocation target set in Google Webmaster Tools can display that kind of problem. Also are these the SERPs from a general (all pages/sites) search rather than an Irish pages only search?

Regards...jmcc

Scotty #

Hi Jmcc, don't get me wrong, I have no problem with how Google indexes the site. Google should by all means rank a site with all three keywords higher than a site with only two.

My point is that more and more 'searchers' seem to be adding a location to their search string and if you don't have the location as part of your content you will lose out.

I did not have 'Ireland' mentioned on any of my pages bar the Contact page so although I was first for my main keyword I was not even on the first page for my main keyword when Ireland was included in the string. Then consider Dublin, Cork, Galway, etc

Here's an example search for 'Camping Equipment'. You see in the predictive strings what the most popular strings are....



Without Ireland being added to the string Halfords.ie are first in the SERP and outdooradventures.ie are 2nd. But add Ireland to the string (2nd most popular search string) and outdooradventures are 1st and halfords drop to 3rd. 'Camping equipment Cork' is the 3rd most popular string so even if my bricks and mortar shop is in Donegal I want my ecommerce shop high for 'Camping equipment cork' and to do this I need 'Cork' somewhere in the content (and Galway, Dublin, Wicklow, etc). I wonder how many extra visitors (and sales) adding Blanchardstown would get?

So back to my original question, what is the 'nicest' (and least black hat) way to add the county names to my content?


PS: I'm not in the business of camping equipment, it's just an example.

Edit: If any mods feel this question would be better asked in Web Design then feel free to move. Ty.

cormee

I rank #1 on both 'red shoes' and 'red shoes Ireland' (not the real search terms. obviously) and I'd say I get about 10x traffic from 'red shoes Ireland,' I think a large percentage of people have qualified their search queries with the location for a long time now.

A good start would be to make sure Google knows your location, everywhere - from adding your site to Google Places, right down to the details on Contact page, and everything in between. Not suggesting that's the solution but it's a good start.

Scotty #

10x... wow! I've been missing a lot of hits!!

The Ireland part is easy though, just stick it at the end of every title. Have you tried implemented the county names? or any suggestions? Just listing them out at the bottom of the page seems to be the easiest way but not very pretty.

cormee

Scotty # wrote: »

10x... wow! I've been missing a lot of hits!!

The Ireland part is easy though, just stick it at the end of every title. Have you tried implemented the county names? or any suggestions? Just listing them out at the bottom of the page seems to be the easiest way but not very pretty.

I have 'Ireland' in the domain name, I also have a .ie, which is registered to an Irish address, I have Ireland set in Google Places, in Webmaster Tools, and on its Google+ page, I have an Irish address and telephone number on the contact page, and most links into the site have anchor text that includes 'Ireland' in both the domain name itself and in the link description.

I mention counties in the URL and h1 on the search results pages on the site.

The fact that the CTR is so high for the 'red shoes Ireland' might be somewhat attributed to the fact that sometimes Adwords ads don't appear on the SERP.

Mrs OBumble

Is there something about your "red shoes" which does make them relevant to people in Irelnad?

TBH, if you don't mention "Ireland" in your site, then I'm struggling to see why you think you should get a good SERP position when someone is clearly looking for local, or at least country-specific results.

Or to use your other example, you may want your bricks-and-mortar camping equipment shop in Donegal to rank when someone searches for "camping equipment cork" - but I'm not sure that the search-er would regard it as a good thing. If I'm searching for "camping equipment Cork" then I want results from Cork, or at least from people who are specifically addressing something in Cork.

Scotty #

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

TBH, if you don't mention "Ireland" in your site, then I'm struggling to see why you think you should get a good SERP position...

Because it's a .ie domain, hosted in Ireland, and registered in Ireland on Google places and webmaster tools.

On Google.ie I'm first in both 'The web' and 'Pages from Ireland only' but then add 'Ireland' to the search string and I'm not even on the first page. As Cormee pointed out 'randomkeyword ireland' is an extremely popular search, followed by 'randomkeyword dublin', 'randomkeyword cork', etc, etc so this is something I need to address.

To do that I need to add these keywords to my content. My original question was, how to best implement this? For the moment I've added Ireland to the end of all my page titles and I've added something like 'Next day delivery to Antrim, Armagh, Carlow.... and so on' to the footer of every page.

blue4ever

Adding a county to each page would be keyword stuffing - big style and to be avoided. The thing that's missing here is traffic- is randomkeyword traffic lower than randomkeyword ireland?

'Trophy keywords' dont make money!!!

cormee

blue4ever wrote: »

'Trophy keywords' dont make money!!!

Oh yes they do!

Long-tail makes as much, possibly more, though

seachto7

I have often noticed that even if I put in a very generic search word, automated results will give me a list of results quite similar to what I have been browsing on the web the previous few hours...