Locality In Anchor Text - Is It Needed?

[morestar]

Many SEOs, link-builders and online-marketers use the locality in their link anchor text. I use the locality as well. If I'm promoting the web/seo design firm I'm working for during the day and am writing a few articles with links back to the site, I'll generally add the locality into the anchor text in the hopes that we'll get ranked for those regional or localized keyword searches.

A number of weeks ago I was wondering if adding the locality was really necessary. For starters we know things have changed with Google quite a bit with respect to personalized search results and a lot of the search results being displayed are in relation to where the user is - their locality.

Do I really need to add "[locality] web design" or "web design in [locality]" in my anchor text?

I found our rankings for "web design in [locality]" were showing us on the second page - this after a pretty decent off page SEO campaign. About 6 months back our site was listing at the 6th page and now we're actually #1 on the second page (as I like to consider it) and we've been sticking at that mark for a few months now.

A few weeks ago I then started writing articles and cross posting and re-posting and recycling articles without the locality in the anchor text and also without the locality even in the same paragraph or on the page - namely the anchor text I was using was simply similar to the following:


web design services
web design companies
web design company
affordable web design
ecommerce web design
web design hosting
business web design
professional web design
web design site


Now, a number of weeks later I have found that we have moved to the first page, bubbling at the 10th and 9th spot.

I cannot yet say for sure if this minor jump was related to my none regional/localized anchor text and it probably isn't but if I continue writing articles, cross posting etc. without using the localized anchor text will my SEO work come to naught? At the moment I don't believe so.

The way I am going to fully test this is my continuing to build links back to the site without any regional keywords in the anchor text until I reach the #1 spot which should be in the next few weeks.

What are your thoughts? Do you always use regional keywords in your anchor text for on-page and off-page SEO/marketing? Do you think I won't get the #1 spot without doing so?

[mgandy]

In my opinion its not needed. I run a site called San Diego Sign Printers and I don't build links with with the local city in the anchor text and I rank well for majority of the keywords that deal with my products and services. If you have the name of the city in the url or sub url and have the name of the city within the content then there is no need to included the local keywords in anchor text.

I Hope This Helps,

MG

[Jlee350]

I think it depends on the situation...for example, if you offer the services in multiple markets, and have content for each market, I think it makes sense to include geographic modifiers.

[claybutler]

I'd say yes, include it. I've experimented a bit with it myself and it indeed helped my localized rankings across the board. And if your business isn't located in the locality you must definitely use it. For example, if you business is in San Diego but you want LA are as well you better have at least one page targeted for LA and have LA anchor text pointing to it.

But it all depends on you top level goal. Some terms I want to rank localy for and some I want non-locality. This is based upon competition and user preferences. If users search with locality in mind I tend to optimize for it. If not, I tend to focus on non-locality phrases.

[LD]

...About 6 months back our site was listing at the 6th page and now we're actually #1 on the second page (as I like to consider it) and we've been sticking at that mark for a few months now.


Sorry - a little off topic, but I read an article somewhere that the first spot on the Page 2, in terms of SERPs, would tend to get more clicks than position 9 or 10 on the first page. Since your domain was at the top of page 2 and now at the bottom of page 1, I'd be interested in knowing if the amount of clicks you receive have changed.

[morestar]

In my opinion its not needed. I run a site called San Diego Sign Printers and I don't build links with with the local city in the anchor text and I rank well for majority of the keywords that deal with my products and services. If you have the name of the city in the url or sub url and have the name of the city within the content then there is no need to included the local keywords in anchor text.

I'm finding on my second signature site that a lot of the authors are continually throwing the region into their anchor text and that removing the regional references make the article look and feel more legitimate, genuine and not a mere marketing/link-building ploy especially when the title says it all (regionally speaking).


I think it depends on the situation...for example, if you offer the services in multiple markets, and have content for each market, I think it makes sense to include geographic modifiers.

it does and it depends on the campaign as well. Now that we're being displayed in the Google places results for those keywords (Google business listings, regional map area) I know we've been we're associated with those keywords in that region. This was the result of previous articles and link-building tactics that did include regional keywords.

Now, in my opinion I can write better articles - articles that look more genuine as it does make an article look messy with the city names all over it. Plus in as we know, changing our anchor text here and there spicens up our link profile - natural looking links.

So yes I'd agree with you that it does depend on the nature of the campaign.


Sorry - a little off topic, but I read an article somewhere that the first spot on the Page 2, in terms of SERPs, would tend to get more clicks than position 9 or 10 on the first page. Since your domain was at the top of page 2 and now at the bottom of page 1, I'd be interested in knowing if the amount of clicks you receive have changed.

I read this somewhere as well and it seems like there's a good probability that a user who has just scanned the results page would maybe click on the first result on the second page. For this site, lately I haven't been watching traffic (busy busy - shoemakers site...) but in other sites I've witness decent traffic from a second page result.

[Web Res]

We build websites for accommodation providers. Their service, or value proposition, is extremely locality based. If they ranked first for the term 'motel' it is doubtful that it would be of any value. People need to have a product (in this case accommodation) that is found in the locality and locality would almost always be a part of the long-tail in any search. So, it makes sense to use these locality keywords for our industry.

If I was doing a website for a group of accommodations, then I would also use the locality in links that point back to specific pages targeting that provider/location as again I can see any need for a buyer to buy accommodation that is not in the target location. But, I would at the same time probably be able to convert a portion of generic searches for a 'motel'.

In most businesses, there is a 'radius of serviceability' that relates to how far a product can be delivered. A plumber in a metro area might find they could cross many city localities to deliver a service. In that case, how would you target locality? Perhaps there, you would target the sweet spot, but not give it the same emphasis that you would for a restaurant or Bed and Breakfast where the radius is really pretty much delivered onsite.

I'm always surprised that we can't add a lat/long code to a meta tag that would indicate the physical location. The fact that we can do that in Google Places makes up for it in some ways. I also like to add a footer with address and phone number at the base of every page. I think this also boosts your Google Place result. At the same time, I add a link in the footer to a 'Map of XXX' as I am often surprised at how many people are searching for maps of a location.

[pj1000]

Many travel businesses are totally dependant upon locality, where the spread of coverage drills down from country, region through to resort level. It seems, that by virtue of this process, long tail keywords are widely used and as a result extremely competitive making good results in SE's difficult to achieve. e.g. holiday accommodation in [country]. Unless someone thinks different or knows a better approach?

[SemAdvance]

You could put the location data in each pages meta data and that should be enough to give the search engines the information they need for serving localized results. I have found this works for quite a few different localized businesses quite well. I have not needed to add any localization aspects to links pointing to a site in order to hit the front page of Google.

Morestar if you want to send me the URL in PMB I might be able to offer you some thoughts on moving up in the SERPs

[morestar]

Many travel businesses are totally dependant upon locality, where the spread of coverage drills down from country, region through to resort level. It seems, that by virtue of this process, long tail keywords are widely used and as a result extremely competitive making good results in SE's difficult to achieve. e.g. holiday accommodation in [country]. Unless someone thinks different or knows a better approach?

Well the thing that keeps coming to me is quality - article quality. I've noticed with my second signature site that many submitted articles contain the region, country, state, etc. in their anchor text and even several times in the same paragraph. It sometimes makes the article look so dirty and un-healthy. I don't believe every article that uses the region in it's anchor text looks bad or is of low quality - I use the region in the anchor text all the time and especially when trying to establish a site, SEO wise, with a certain region.

Articles do look better without the region plastered all over the place but adding the region does help in your SEO efforts. I believe a time comes when you don't have to use the region anymore especially if you're taking the top spot. That's my opinion so far and I will get back to you once we're #1 for our region. Again over the next few weeks I'm going to refraining from optimizing regionally.

;)

[ireneherz]

I just googled "antique restoration westchester county" and "antique restoration" My client showed up 2nd or 3rd in Google for the first phrase, way down for the second. So yes, if it's a brick and mortar business, definitely include the region.