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Quick Seo Question

Marketing, social media, advertising

Menery

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Hey, I ll try to keep things short.
I m doing webdesign and google ads for local businesses and I want to expand my services to seo. Im struggling to find reliable sources of information on some questions that I have as everyone is saying different things, mostly regarding the duplicate content issue.

Lets say I do a website for a local Service business serving nearby cities in a Radius of 15 miles:
- 2 different types of services
- the service is searched by synonyms with the exact same meaning, think like "lawyer" and "attorney".
-client is serving 4 different nearby locations

How should my page structure look? Moz recommends a structure of :
-1 page for every single service
-1 unique landing page for every single city where you list al you services.
- every page accessible from a top level menu

Another recommended strategies I found was:
- Normal page structure: Home, about, contact, services (for most important city) , blog
- hidden landing pages for every single important keyword and city.

Im a bit clueless as to how I should approach this:
-What exactly is seen as duplicate content ?
Highest ranking local competition is full off duplicate content just swapping out city names for each landing page. Besides that its all the same. Note that Im in Germany so maybe the google algorithm is not that advanced yet like in the US.

- How do I rank for synonyms?
-Do I create a completly unique page for "lawyer+city" and "attorney+city" ?
-or do I create one page with a main exact keyword [lawyer+city ] and sprinkle in attorney+ city here and there in the copy?

Forgive me my spelling, I highly appreciate any help on this regard.
 
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minivanman

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These are GREAT questions. Personally, I use 1 page for 1 thing.
 

Fid

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- How do I rank for synonyms?
-Do I create a completly unique page for "lawyer+city" and "attorney+city" ?
-or do I create one page with a main exact keyword [lawyer+city ] and sprinkle in attorney+ city here and there in the copy?

Google is smart enough. They know that lawyer and attorney are synonyms.
Focus on the one with the highest search volume, sprinkle in the rest.

Google's AI is so smart, you will show up for search terms like "legal help" even though you don't use it in the page body. They assess what the page is meant to be about, not particular words and phrases used. This was the case in 2010 or so.

Highest ranking local competition is full off duplicate content just swapping out city names for each landing page. Besides that its all the same.

Well, duplicate content hurts you most if those duplicated pages compete for the same search terms. Google's "confused" which one is the proper one and shows neither.

But when someone searches "divorce attorney in London" you only have one page relevant to that. You have another page with similar content but it's completely irrelevant since it mentions Dublin, not London. No self-competition here.

Having said that, I'd aim for the structure pictured in @Primeperiwinkle 's post above.

One page for each service in each location. It's 2 services x 4 locations for you, 8 pages total. You can create unique content for 8 pages, it's not that much.
 
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SEBASTlAN

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How should my page structure look? Moz recommends a structure of :
-1 page for every single service
-1 unique landing page for every single city where you list al you services.
- every page accessible from a top level menu

That should work fine.

-Do I create a completly unique page for "lawyer+city" and "attorney+city" ?
-or do I create one page with a main exact keyword [lawyer+city ] and sprinkle in attorney+ city here and there in the copy?

No, search engines know what you're talking about. If you want to sprinkle synonyms around, that's no problem either.
 

Bekit

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@Fid and @Primeperiwinkle and @Sebastya 's advice is solid.

Couple more tips...

- How do I rank for synonyms? See below
-Do I create a completly unique page for "lawyer+city" and "attorney+city" ? No
Here's an experiment to show you why the synonyms probably won't matter.

Type into Google "lawyer in dallas." Then scroll through the search results that appear. Notice how the word "attorney" is bolded just like the word "lawyer" in the search results. Notice also that even though your search is singular ("lawyer"), Google also bolds the plural version ("lawyers" or "attorneys.")
29042

This is a signal to you that Google knows the two words mean the exact same thing.

Therefore, "keyword-optimized" writing like this just ends up looking silly:
29043
They shove in both terms even though it makes the writing super redundant and unnatural. Nobody talks like that. They even have "Dallas" in there three times, as if they think that the only way for them to rank for the keywords, "Dallas area," "North Dallas Bar Association," and "Dallas Texas" is to put them all in separately.

Don't do this. Google is smarter than that.

Back in 2008 you might have had to make individual page clones for every conceivable keyword combination, but not today.

Now, repeat this search query with your client's product + city. Look for whether Google is also bolding both versions of the term. If it is, great! If not, that's a sign that Google has NOT yet caught up with the fact that both search queries mean the same thing.


-or do I create one page with a main exact keyword [lawyer+city ] and sprinkle in attorney+ city here and there in the copy?

That can help.

You probably already know this, but where you sprinkle the keyword matters.
  • H2 and H3 tags are better than paragraph text.
  • The first 100 words of paragraph text are better than further down in the article).
Don't overdo it, though (see the above "attorney or lawyer" example). I would say put each keyword on the page a max of 3 times.

Im struggling to find reliable sources of information on some questions that I have as everyone is saying different things, mostly regarding the duplicate content issue.
Part of the reason why people say different things is because Google's algorithm changes. Therefore, a blog post that was relevant at one point may completely contradict the advice of a more recent blog post.

Here's how I handle this. Two ways: (1) I prioritize more recent advice and (2) I find and listen to the most reputable sources I can find.

Some of my favorites:
  • Moz
  • Brian Dean at Backlinko
  • Marie Haynes (her "Search News You Can Use" newsletter is absolute gold. I've only ever gotten the free version, but she keeps you up to date on the changes that are happening, and she does deep research to explain the reasons WHY behind an outcome.)

Another recommended strategies I found was:
- Normal page structure: Home, about, contact, services (for most important city) , blog
- hidden landing pages for every single important keyword and city.
We did this as part of a large marketing agency I was working at. I was a bit skeptical but it did seem to work.

Also, don't overlook the role of blogs. 2 years later, a keyword-optimized blog post I wrote is still ranking on page 1 for "annuities denver co."

Highest ranking local competition is full off duplicate content just swapping out city names for each landing page. Besides that its all the same.
I think you should rewrite these pages so that they are not exact copies of each other. In my opinion, the danger of having exact duplicate content on your site is NOT that it will be counted as duplicate content by Google (see Fid's post for why).

Instead, it's that the people on your site will very quickly develop "reading blindness" when they see one or two different pages and they are the same. That's boring. Their eyes will glaze over. They will stop reading. And when someone stops reading, you stop getting the chance to communicate with them. Not good for conversions.

Hope this helps!
 

Menery

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View attachment 29041

thanks for the advice! The structure makes perfect sense to me. I have questions regarding the implementation tho.

The service my client is doing is exactly the same for every city and has individuality regarding the cities.
Questions:
1.
how will the content on domain.com/service-one be different from the content on domain.come/service-one-city-A
2.
Will the service pages be completly location independent ?
If I want to rank the page domain/service-one/city A in the given city what keyword do I target om domain/service-one page anyway?
And why do it need it anyway ? Someone reading the page /service-one-city A will gain nothing from reading /service-one will
 
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Menery

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Well, duplicate content hurts you most if those duplicated pages compete for the same search terms. Google's "confused" which one is the proper one and shows neither.

- The way I understood it was, that google sees pages where you just swap city names or keywords as doorway pages which they penalize you for or at least dont rank you
 

Menery

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Also, don't overlook the role of blogs. 2 years later, a keyword-optimized blog post I wrote is still ranking on page 1 for "annuities denver co."


Now, repeat this search query with your client's product + city. Look for whether Google is also bolding both versions of the term. If it is, great! If not, that's a sign that Google has NOT yet caught up with the fact that both search queries mean the same thing.

- yes the page will also have a blog, there is actualy a lot to write about.

I did the suggested research. Neither does google bold the synonyms nor do the same domains rank for the different synonym.

I actually believe that the Google AI is not as developed here in Germany yet.

Some examples:

-No1. for "serice-one + city A" has extremly poor onpage seo but 700 backlins, 500 of them being from some shady forums from the US that are not even remotly industry related.

-No1 for "serice-one + city B" is stuffing like 100 keywords at the bottom of this landing page and gets away with it.

- This domain ranks in the top 5 for most nearby cities and has super obvious doorway pages just swapping the H1 title and thats it. 2904529046
 

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MHP368

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Neil Patel is legit , id listen to him.

The short of it is each business location should have one page with services branching from these , this will help with SEO.

If you try to rank 6 different service pages for each clients location you'll never get past page 7 in SERPS
 
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Bekit

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- The way I understood it was, that google sees pages where you just swap city names or keywords as doorway pages which they penalize you for or at least dont rank you
No, the penalty for duplicate content is a myth. I wouldn't worry about it.

- yes the page will also have a blog, there is actualy a lot to write about.

I did the suggested research. Neither does google bold the synonyms nor do the same domains rank for the different synonym.

I actually believe that the Google AI is not as developed here in Germany yet.

Some examples:

-No1. for "serice-one + city A" has extremly poor onpage seo but 700 backlins, 500 of them being from some shady forums from the US that are not even remotly industry related.

-No1 for "serice-one + city B" is stuffing like 100 keywords at the bottom of this landing page and gets away with it.

- This domain ranks in the top 5 for most nearby cities and has super obvious doorway pages just swapping the H1 title and thats it. View attachment 29045View attachment 29046
That's actually pretty crazy. It looks as if Google's algorithm is pretty archaic in the case of the German sites. In that case, you may get good results from 'old school' SEO that no longer works in English. Just be aware, though, that when the algorithm does catch up, sites can be de-ranked quickly. So make it a big part of your focus to provide value all along the way.
 

Menery

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No, the penalty for duplicate content is a myth. I wouldn't worry about it.


That's actually pretty crazy. It looks as if Google's algorithm is pretty archaic in the case of the German sites. In that case, you may get good results from 'old school' SEO that no longer works in English. Just be aware, though, that when the algorithm does catch up, sites can be de-ranked quickly. So make it a big part of your focus to provide value all along the way.


Im focusing a lot on value and user experience. All of the ranking site have terrible user experience. Ill have explaination videos, infographics, testimonials, good structure all the good stuff.

I dont know what old school seo would look like. What would you recommend?

I actually just had a call with the client and we agreed to focus on his main city first and take things on from there.

What if I start like this:

Home, about, services, contact, blog,

with the accessible submenu services being

/service-one-main-city
/service-two-main-city
/service-three-main-city

In addition to that I ll make hidden landing pages for the synonyms.

And when we start adding new cities Ill just create general service pages and but the ones above in the locations categorie?
 

Bekit

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I think that's a solid plan.

When I say "old school" SEO, I mean things like keyword stuffing and making pages targeting every possible keyword combination.

It's hard to say if I would recommend using these methods today, even if they work, because it looks so spammy. It sounds like your approach is much better.

The company where I used to work had The Brake Squad | Virginia Mobile Brake Repair | TheBrakeSquad.com as a client at one point. Their blog was the most ridiculously user-unfriendly mess because it was full of hundreds of posts targeting hundreds of cities and small towns in northern Virginia. The post content was either identical or nearly identical on all the posts, except for the city name. I was horrified at the quality. But these posts ranked on page 1 for search queries such as "brake repair loudoun va." Now I see they've redesigned the site and taken down all those old blog posts. Their site is no longer on page 1 (except for their ad) but I have no way of knowing if they lost their ranking before they removed the blogs or after.
 
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Fid

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It looks as if Google's algorithm is pretty archaic in the case of the German sites.

Hmmm, this doesn't sound that likely to me. Their language models might be a little less precise for German, but it's hard for me to believe that the whole algorithm is *years* behind. These are language-indifferent factors.

@Menery how do other pages for these queries look like?

Maybe these are actually the best sites!
 

Menery

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Hmmm, this doesn't sound that likely to me. Their language models might be a little less precise for German, but it's hard for me to believe that the whole algorithm is *years* behind. These are language-indifferent factors.

@Menery how do other pages for these queries look like?

Maybe these are actually the best sites!

I posted some observations a couple replies above. Number one is keyword stuffing at the bottom of the page, numer two doesnt even have the keyword anywhere on the page besides in the footer but has 700 backlinks and a lot of reviews, although many backlinks come from shady unrelated forums in the US.

And No3 is the domain I posted above that is creating doorway pages.
 

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The only thing that needs stuffed is a turkey. Just write your articles as you would write a letter to your mother or 12 year old kid. Just be 'normal' and that is what people AND google wants. It hasn't failed me in a decade. All the 'professionals' can go on and on but I've proved my method over time. I will say it again, @Primeperiwinkle all my sites are 1st page. :rofl:
 

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The only thing that needs stuffed is a turkey. Just write your articles as you would write a letter to your mother or 12 year old kid. Just be 'normal' and that is what people AND google wants. It hasn't failed me in a decade. All the 'professionals' can go on and on but I've proved my method over time. I will say it again, @Primeperiwinkle all my sites are 1st page. :rofl:

Yes yes dear ancient one who does things best. Just eat your damn honeybun and let the young ones argue! ROFL
 
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Menery

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Yes yes dear ancient one who does things best. Just eat your damn honeybun and let the young ones argue! ROFL

The only thing that needs stuffed is a turkey. Just write your articles as you would write a letter to your mother or 12 year old kid. Just be 'normal' and that is what people AND google wants. It hasn't failed me in a decade. All the 'professionals' can go on and on but I've proved my method over time. I will say it again, @Primeperiwinkle all my sites are 1st page. :rofl:


I will do that, high quality articles and explanation videos.

Could you clarify what the difference between domain/service-one and domain/service-one-city-A
would be?

Which keywords do I target on the serivce pages and how will anybody landing on a domain/service+city page gain anything from reading a domain/service page?
29056
 

Bekit

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I ran across this article today and thought it was relevant to the question:


More discussion with John Mueller on twitter here:
View: https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1204289798460100609
 

Menery

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OP, find some information about so-called "Silo" structure. This is the most effective type of site structure in our days. Maybe it will change someday, but for now it's ideal.
Thanks for the reply. This was in December. I already wrapped my head around this a long time ago. The site I asked about already ranks all over the place for every location that is relevant
 
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Menery

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Yeah, you are right. It's logical to be more prepared before getting started the business on SEO optimization. From the other side, there are people that work with people like u or me, since I work on the site that I built too.

Sorry mate I did not understand that, what are u trying to say?
 

MattL

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Thanks for the reply. This was in December. I already wrapped my head around this a long time ago. The site I asked about already ranks all over the place for every location that is relevant
So what structure did you end up using? Quite confused by seo in general, seems like everyone is trying to game the system instead of just focusing on providing value and letting the chips fall where they may.
 

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Duplicate content for the most part is fake news for the most part.

Of course you can't and really shouldn't just copy someone else's content and paste it as your own...but people have done it. Often times you don't get caught right away from what I've seen black hatters talk about. But you do eventually get caught.

But that's for copying and pasting.

If you simply rewrite someone else's content in your own words you should have nothing to worry about. When in doubt run it through grammarly lol.

As far as where to get good information, you could check out my mentor ippei kanehara. A lot of what I've accomplished so far is because of his insights and my action behind it. He's got a website, I'd drop the link but I think the forum's don't like that and understandably so. Just google him and it'll pop up. He practices what he preaches with seo lmao.
 

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