Should You List Locations for SEO?

Is listing hundreds of locations on a webpage effective SEO? Learn smarter, strategy-driven approaches to boost local visibility.

Video Transcript

David: Well, let’s get started. Onawa, you asked the first question today about a client requesting a page with approximately 400 city and county names. Tell us a little bit about this.

Onawa: Yes. Okay. A client request came through to me, and it’s just a list of cities and counties in one state for whatever this company does. And I said, “This is a bad idea. Don’t do this.”

David: Yeah.

Onawa: And I kind of over-said why. But obviously, the art director doesn’t care. She’s just like, “Whatever-just do it, and then we’ll tell the customer.” So, I thought, well, I’ll ask you and get a better version of what I said, basically. Which is don’t do it. I said, “Google might punish you if you try it.”

David: Oh, you pulled out that thread.

Onawa: Yeah, but it didn’t matter.

David: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I agree with you. It’s not a good idea. It’s really because it’s a waste of time. It’s not that Google will punish you. It’s likely that Google won’t rank this page for anyone because it offers no value. It’s wasted time that could be spent more productively elsewhere.

So, the way I push back is: What do you really want to accomplish? Rather than giving us tactics, help us understand the intent, and we can provide the strategy that will follow. I had a client this last week say, “David, we want to do domain rank backlinks.” What’s a domain rank backlink? I’ve never heard that phrase before, and sometimes I feel a little self-conscious. I realized they were just trying to discuss backlinks and were thinking about it in terms of the domain’s rank value. We discussed that acting without a strategy isn’t as effective as having one.

Clearly, they want to be found locally for that, so we can discuss strategies to help.

One of my favorite strategies for this is the blog. Let’s pretend this company serves many cities as a bathtub refinishing company. So, rather than having a page that lists cities in which they happen to do bathtub refinishing, what if they were to have a 500-word summary of a project in every town that they’ve ever served, with pictures before and after? A 500-word summary, anybody can write that. In Fredericksburg, Maryland, we did this bathroom refinishing project. Here’s what it looked like before. Pink tile from the 1950s. Here’s what it looked like afterward. Sleek, modern, comfortable. Wouldn’t you like to do that? That would accomplish what this tactic is intended to do. Yes, it’s more work than a page-long list of locations, but this would work. But the best thing I like about this strategy is that even if it doesn’t work for SEO, it’s still a great way to showcase what you do on the website.

That’s how I would approach the problem. I feel the frustration. I’ve sometimes threatened clients with “Google will ban you” when it’s not warranted. Right? I get that. In this case, it’s a waste of effort. If you want to accomplish what I think you want to accomplish, there’s a much better way to do this. Yes, it’s much harder, but it will actually do something for you. Even if we don’t have 400 blog posts next month, with 400 different projects in 400 different towns across the state, two posts will be more effective than a page listing 400 locations. Does that help give you some ammunition?

Onawa: Yeah. Unfortunately, I already built the page.

David: Okay.

Onawa: And it did take me hours.

David: Yeah. So, the value-add is to say, “See how it hasn’t done anything? Let’s do something different.”

Tricia: And can I add a recommendation? I assume they’re a local business with a Google Business Profile and are eligible. So, I would also have whatever link on their Google Business Profile may not be their homepage, or maybe it can be, but whatever page that’s linking to, to not list like you have the areas, but talk about the area that the business is in. Like we’re in whatever area, or we cover this area, and talk a little bit about the area that will help, and the services offered in those areas. Kind of like a homepage probably should, but be specific about those areas. If they want the homepage to be more general, create a location-specific page with the information and set the Google Business Profile primary link to that page.

David: Okay.

Tricia: When they see it doesn’t work, then you can recommend those two things.

Onawa: Okay. I usually try, and I strongly advise people to create a Google Business Profile, because often they skip that step and go directly to SEO. And that seems too valuable to miss.

 Tricia: Yeah. Especially for local SEO, definitely.

David: Yeah. Yeah, great, great question. Unfortunately, that tactic hasn’t gone to bed yet.

Onawa: Yeah, I said it was a very outdated way to try and do what I think you’re doing. There’s no other reason to do that. It’s not going to do what you think it will.

David: So, the hours that it took you to build could have been much better.

Onawa: Yeah.