How to Rank in Cities Where I’m Not Located

Do you need help getting your business to rank in multiple cities? Learn how from our SEO experts!

As a business owner, you want to see your business grow. Other than providing quality customer service from within your company, how can you accomplish this? Ultimately, your goal is to reach the greatest number of people with your marketing efforts and page listings. Have you noticed that your pages aren’t showing up for Google searches in the areas that you provide service to? You are not alone! In fact, many businesses just like yours will need to put in some extra effort to spread their rankings over multiple cities or states.

Some examples of businesses who likely serve areas beyond their physical office space include: pet sitting services, plumbers, remodelers, and HVAC contractors. While they have one central office location, their employees can service a wide geographical range (and would like to rank in the organic search listings for that entire area).

It is very possible for you to get your pages ranking in multiple cities; however, it will take some additional time and effort on your part.

• Up for the challenge? Keep on reading to find out how you can improve your rankings.

• Would you rather spend your time running your business in other ways? Understandable. That’s what our leading SEO company is here for. Simply fill out one of these and we can get you started!

Using Geo-Targeted Pages for Local Listings

Have you ever heard of a geo-targeted page before? If not, then these guys may become your best friends during your SEO efforts to increase listings across multiple cities. Because search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing all rank individual pages, instead of whole websites, it’s important for you to build out pages specific to each city you service. If your office building is located in Cleveland, Ohio, but you also service the surrounding areas of Akron, Middlefield, Strongsville, Beachwood, and Hiram, you will want to create individual web pages for each one of these cities. These pages will use the unique city name along with the service you are offering to generate the specific listings you are after.

Writing Content for Your Geo-Pages

Once you have your list of cities down, it’s time to start writing content for each page. Now, one option is to take a shortcut by creating a generic template used for each geo page. The thought here is that work can be minimized by using identical content for an entire geo-page set, while simply swapping out the city name on each version. While we recommend monitoring the traffic to these pages and keeping an eye out for potential Google penalties, we have found this method to be not only okay in Google’s eyes but also effective at helping improve clients’ rankings, traffic, and leads. The key? Keeping it simple and natural. Don’t do anything crazy like create 100 identical pages stuffed with the city name and keywords you want to target.

Helpful hint: It can be beneficial to make sure each city specific page you create has some unique content (intro and closing paragraphs are a great way to achieve this), as well as a descriptive title tag and meta description related to the geographic area. (Hint: keep reading to find out about keywords and why you want to include these in your pages as well!)

Ideas for Unique Geo-Page Content

Unique content for every single city page you want to rank for? We know, this task can seem quite daunting. For the business owners among you who would rather hire a professional SEO company to create and track geo-targeted pages for your site, look no further. Blue Corona has an expert team of SEO and content specialists specifically for this purpose. All you have to do is give us your list of cities and we will get to work creating lead-generating pages for your site.

For those of you who are ready to take a stab at creating geo-pages yourself, here are some tips to help you create unique content for each city specific geo-page:

• Begin by researching each area so you can write content that applies to your different audiences
• List reviews on each page from customers living in that specific location
• List and describe any showrooms or special services you provide in that area
• Post any city specific photos you have on each page

Need more ideas from our team? Give us a call at 800-696-4690 and we will be happy to help.

Importance of Keywords

In addition to filling each city page with unique content, you will want to include targeted keywords to increase rankings. Google’s Keyword Planner tool is one great way for you to see an estimate of how many searches a particular keyword gets each month in your city or state. A high search volume associated with a keyword means that lots of people are searching for that word or phrase each month (these are the keywords you want to go after). Where exactly should you put these keywords? We recommend adding them to:

• Page content
• Meta descriptions
• Title tags
• Headings
• Sentences

Don’t worry, we won’t leave you hanging here. We’ve put together an example of what your page might look like after the keywords are properly placed throughout your content. For this reference, let’s assume you own Tim’s Heating and Cooling, based in Tampa, Florida and you would like to rank for air conditioner service in St. Petersburg. Using Keyword Planner, we have found the keywords for this page to be: St. Petersburg, Air Conditioning, AC, AC Repair, AC Maintenance, and AC Installation.

Title tag: Air Conditioning Service in St. Petersburg, FL | AC Repair, Installation & Maintenance

Meta description: Do you need air conditioning service for your St. Petersburg home or business? Our company provides quality AC repairs, installations, and maintenance.

h1. Air Conditioning Services in St. Petersburg

h2. AC Repair for Your St. Petersburg Home

h2. Schedule AC Maintenance in St. Petersburg

h2. Install a New Air Conditioner in Your St. Petersburg Home

Did we lose you at the terms h1 and h2? These are indicators for heading tag. Headings are what organize your pages into unique sections to make reading your content easier. Why are headings important? Because Google considers the keywords used in each heading as one of many ranking factors.

Using Images to Help Your Pages Rank

Images are another great opportunity to get your pages ranking in cities outside of your primary location. If you have an image specific to a location you are creating a geo-page for, then go ahead and use it! Once the image has been inserted, you need to tell Google where it was taken. Although Google’s algorithms are quite advanced, they cannot read your image without some help on the backend. Let’s say you have uploaded this image to your St. Petersburg geo-page for Tim’s Heating and Cooling:

To get the best results, you can ignore the image caption option and fill out the following with text related to the location you’re trying to rank for:

• Alt text
• Image title

(Think of an image alt tag like the title tag of a page—it’s how Google reads the image!)

For this image example, we would use the following alt text and image title:

Alt text: St. Petersburg, Florida Air Conditioning Installation & Repair

Image title: St-Petersburg-Florida-AC-Services-Company

Need some assistance obtaining quality photos or videos to post on your pages? Blue Corona conveniently has a video production team ready to help you out! Check out the latest video we made for a client here »

Get Help Ranking in Cities Outside Your Primary Location

Are you ready to start ranking in every city and town that you service? Don’t let your business take a backseat when it comes to ranking in areas outside your primary location. Try out these strategies to begin your online success. To learn more tips and tricks from our SEO experts, or to sit back while we do the work for you, simply fill out this form or give our team a call at 800-696-4690.

We are dedicated to giving your business the results you deserve!