SEO and multiple cities

[Dylan Andersen]

I came across a pair of websites today and it triggered a question that I've been meaning to post here:

Scenario: A law firm has offices in two different cities. They currently have two websites:

JoesBankruptcyLawFirmCity1.com
JoesBankrupctyLawFirmCity2.com

The sites have a large amount of duplicate content, identical "About Us" pages and so forth. I understand why they wanted to have two separate sites in order to rank locally in each city, but that clearly isn't working. If they have one site, is it possible to rank in both cities? If not, what is the best workaround for a business in this situation?

Thanks!

 

[Grilled]

Good question, I as well am interested in hearing answers to this question.

 

[john statom]

I would recommend you to make URL structure like this abc.com/location/1.html & same for another location abc.com/location/2.html

This way you can save your money to buy domain and increase ranking on local keywords.

 

[enlytend]

If they want to rank in local search, it's more than just the site. But really, 6 of one half dozen of the other. They don't HAVE to have sites that are identical, they can make them different. Or on one site, separate pages for each office location.

 

[Rojer Martin]

You can create two separate cities pages at the same domain and target regional keywords accordingly.

 

[Dylan Andersen]

Thanks everyone. Does anyone have an example of this working? (one domain with two pages, one for each city, and still ranking)

 

[webmarshals]

As john mentioned URL structure should use sub directory technique in this case. You may check Google's webmaster book where they have mentioned about this and the seo benefits of the same

 

[enlytend]

Google says nothing about using a subdirectory to target different cities. A subdirectory isn't necessary and can be counterproductive - just a page will do. Multi location businesses who don't want or need multiple sites should have separate pages profiling each location.

Oh and useful information on those pages , not just some cookie-cutter bs with the city name changed.