We see literally hundreds of websites every week, most of which are
submitted for a website
review and service quote via
our website.
Most websites submitted for review are from various businesses that
serve a very specific geographic area. Some websites we see are for
businesses that serve larger urban areas, counties, states or provinces,
and national or international clients.
At the bottom of documents in sites serving many geographic areas
we sometimes find a list of dozens to hundreds of individual place
names, often listed in alphabetical order. Every SEO or SEM sees
this, often several times a day, especially on real estate related
sites.
The lists of geographic names are placed there in the hopes that
the major search engines will associate the site with the various
locations. We have no idea why some webmasters would assume this
method would achieve placements relating these geographic locations.
It won't.
A better idea would be to establish a unique content page for each
of those locations, provided the location was truly large enough
to warrant it. This is easier said than done as each page should
be relevant to its topic and specific location and useful to site
visitors. In other words, each page should contain location-specific
information and content.
This will provide search spiders a good reason to consider documents
highly relevant for Kalamazoo Real Estate or Hotels in Billings
Montana or Tours of Madrid. When thinking about locations, search
engines and local search options, keep in mind the major spiders
really do know how and why a particular word is being used on a
page. It is no longer a matter of simple character recognition.
It is now a matter of contextual relevance.
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