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JoyHawkins

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With Miriam's recent Moz post (https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages) I wanted to start a discussion here to see what examples of great local service area pages you've seen from small businesses?

I'll start with a few:
 
Thanks so much Joy. You totally read my mind and I would've posted that if I had 2 hands.
Plus was really hoping someone would share Miriam's post.

Great minds think alike!
Thanks again.
 
We took a slightly different approach for our client -- a pet resort in Truckee that wanted to act as a "service-area" business for the larger resort area. They wanted to attract visitors/dog owners coming to various ski resorts in the Tahoe region. The goal was to have the owners bring their dog(s) on vacation rather than board them back home - and leave them with our client while on the slopes.

So we created a variation of location landing pages that addressed that goal:

Standard landing page:

Truckee-Tahoe Pet Lodge in Truckee, CA

Example ski tourist landing page:

Bring Your Dog to Squaw Valley - Luxury Dog Boarding Suites

Eventually, the goal is to rank for resort location keywords for searchers driving to the Tahoe region from the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto region.
 
Thanks for the very kind, mention, Joy, and what a great idea to start this thread! Enjoying the examples :)
 
Thank you Joy for the post. While we used email forms in the past with not real good results, I think its time to do it again. This is one of the landing pages we use EuroPerformance_BMW_Service_Repair I would love to hear your feedback.

Thanks Again.

Ed Burckhardt
 
Ed,

I like the landing page concept you have, but I do have a few suggestions for you. One, like you mentioned, it might be time to test the contact form again. Contact forms are critical for people who want to get more info about the service, but aren't ready to make that big step and call a person. I actually do this a lot... especially when I don't have time to make a call now; I'll fill out a contact form. Personally I find it better to schedule a call via email instead of making a call on first visit. Softer conversions are always a good idea to add in.

My second tip is to link back to your main website. I find it a little more trustworthy if I can visit a full website and check out a little more info before I give you my contact info.

Once again, these are both personal feelings about landing pages so the only way to figure out whether they will work is by running statistically relevant A/B tests yourself. Just because something works for another business, doesn't mean it'll work for you. Test, test, and test some more :)
 
Hi Erick,

Thank you for the good and helpful feedback.

You are right about the softer conversions, some people are hesitant to call the first time. Regarding the link back to the website, I am glad you mentioned it. We use to include it in all of them, but I hadn't noticed that our web designer is not doing it now. Time to have a nice conversation with her about the link and start adding the email forms. The A/B testing, yes its a definite must do.

Thanks again Erick.

Ed Burckhardt
 
Great topic! Very curious to see some good examples, preferably that not only look good, but also rank well organically in different cities.

Just today I was analyzing a competitor who has a large number of local landing pages that all rank really well for high-volume keywords. I would have posted them here as a success story, if backlink analysis in majestic hadn't revealed the truth behind their success - it's all bought/hacked backlinks with relevant anchors.

This edition of wbf is also relevant for this thread.

San Ramon, CA Plumber | Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Drain Services - this example from JoyHawkins' post while looks good and clean, seems suboptimal to me at the very least. All their landing pages have duplicate content (e.g. Antioch, CA Plumber | Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Drain Services).
 
Thank you Joy for the post. While we used email forms in the past with not real good results, I think its time to do it again. This is one of the landing pages we use EuroPerformance_BMW_Service_Repair I would love to hear your feedback.

Thanks Again.

Ed Burckhardt

Maybe it's just me, but for me that page doesn't look right. The footer area says "this is a bottom slider area" or something like that, and the content looks like it's supposed to be in columns but it doesn't seem to be aligned like it should. is that page no longer supposed to be actively in use?

Clipboard01.jpg

Clipboard01.jpg
 
I'll play devil's advocate here.

There's always a benefit to not linking back to the website because you can lose and confuse them there.

I feel if you can include everything they need on the landing page, there is no need to link away, and that, of course, depends on the product or service.

In your particular case, how much do you need? It's not like your customers are putting their life in your hands like you would with a doctor, a surgeon, or even an attorney or marketing consultant. The consumer here is just looking for a place to take BMW for repairs.

So what do they need to know to make a decision? Where you are, when you're open, do you provide what they need, are you good (testimonials), can they trust you (testimonials, BBB, etc), and what sets you apart from your competition? Other than that, what else would your customer need to make a decision?

Your landing page has all that except the trust factors. So, I don't know. I agree with Erik. You really need to test. Don't assume one way or the other is better.
 
Here's one I did for a property manager. This client is in San Jose but has no interest of ranking in that city because the demographic isn't right for him. He wanted to rank in Palo Alto, so I did this: Palo Alto Property Management

Because he deals in real estate investing and property management it was actually pretty easy to come up with content to include on the page. THen I asked him to create blog posts to support this page. Each of those pages lends weight to this geo-query, plus adds internal links to this landing page.

This page now ranks near the top for a search on "Palo Alto property manager" in the organic SERPS, above other Palo Alto firms. Because I expected this page to show up in the SERPS, I made sure the experience was convincing when the visitor landed there, so I mimicked the home page by including the video header, value proposition and business description and call to action.

We're now working on other cities and have one for Los Altos now appearing on the first page, and Menlo Park was just launched and is already approaching page 2. I expect it to be on page 1 within a month or two.
 
Kathy, it looks impressive. A couple of questions - I don't see any link to the local landing page from the home page, is it by design? Will it have any impact on the SEO?

Also, how did you get the organic search results to show the google star rating? Thank you.
 
The Rota Rooter landing page is fantastic. Especially considering the topic isn't the sexiest in the world.
 
Thank you Joy for starting this conversation. Love to see this list of examples grow!
 
Kathy, it looks impressive. A couple of questions - I don't see any link to the local landing page from the home page, is it by design? Will it have any impact on the SEO?
Also, how did you get the organic search results to show the google star rating? Thank you.
So sorry for not replying before now. I just saw this and I'm 3 years late. Since others still read these old posts, I'll answer anyway.

Apparently not linking to the Palo Alto page in the main menu has no effect on SEO, since they are #1. Same for Menlo Park since they are #2. However, I have linked them in the footer. This is by design. Those pages are meant to be landing pages from search. As such they repeat some of the same info that is on the home page, so I don't want to link there from the home page and then bore them with the same material. I'd rather provide less distraction and therefore have better control over where I want them to go from the home page. This is strategic "conversion optimization."

I got the stars to show up using JSON schema code. Look at the source code and you'll see it.
 
With Miriam's recent Moz post (Overcoming Your Fear of Local Landing Pages) I wanted to start a discussion here to see what examples of great local service area pages you've seen from small businesses?

I'll start with a few:

Does anyone knows what this template is - San Ramon, CA Plumber | Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Drain Services?

I would love to use it for a new client.
 
I don't think a company the size of Roto-Rooter would be using a template. It's very likely a custom design.
 
I don't think a company the size of Roto-Rooter would be using a template. It's very likely a custom design.

Thank you Joy, Do you have any recommendation as to WP template which is something closer to this? I would greatly appreciated it.
 
So what do they need to know to make a decision? Where you are, when you're open, do you provide what they need, are you good (testimonials), can they trust you (testimonials, BBB, etc), and what sets you apart from your competition? Other than that, what else would your customer need to make a decision?
That's it Kat! I have learned, there is a big difference between a landing for PPC and one that is used for SEO organic clicks. I further believe that different types must be incorporated for mobile and desktop devices. Mobiles don't like to read. When a client pays for every click, and they are all trackable, your CTA must be singular, simple and strong.
Kat hit it on the nose, (Less is more). Yes, we can solve the issue, we're open, closeby, friendly and affordable. It's easy, just click our map for directions. A friendly CTA is paramount, and you should say it all in a video with a map below.
Reviews, I've found you can appease them with images and a link. "Check out our five star reviews." Put it at the bottom of the page to make them feel comfortable. My testing shows that they'll assume you have 5 stars and won't click. Bottom Line: Once a customer leaves, there gone. I use to sell cars, and new sales people believed they would be back as promised. The veterans use to laugh and give them some "Bee Back Powder." It took them a while to realize, they're not coming back. Same thing applies to landing pages... NOW is all you have.
You Lose 97% of Leads on Leaky Landing Pages – Larry Kim, WordStream.
Using videos on landing pages will increase conversions by 86%. (Wordstream, 2018)
84 percent of landing pages have navigation bars, while studies show that removing navigation can boost conversions by up to 100 percent.
 

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