Duplicate Content

A common issue on local business websites is duplicate content. If you need to create multiple location pages or service area pages, it’s easy to simply copy each page and replace the city name in the URL, headings and in the body. Unfortunately, this is what many people do when creating location pages and service area pages.

Lazy Service Area Page Example

duplicate-seo-content-tampa

duplicate-seo-content-st-pete

In reality, each page on the site (no matter what type it is) should be as unique as reasonably possible. So how can you do that on location pages and service area pages? One way is to create localized content for each location page or service area page.

A tool you can use to see if you have internal duplicate content is Siteliner.

siteliner-dulicate-content-scan

siteliner-dulicate-content-scanner

Location x Service Pages and Service Area x Service Pages

Some people have used the strategy of creating multiple service pages per location. This could or could not be in addition to the main service pages on the site.

It looks like this:

  • domain.com/hvac-services/
    • domain.com/hvac-services/ac-repair/
    • domain.com/hvac-services/heater-repair/
    • domain.com/hvac-services/air-purification/
  • domain.com/hvac-office/tampa/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/tampa/ac-repair/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/tampa/heater-repair/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/tampa/air-purificaiton/
  • domain.com/hvac-office/st-pete/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/st-pete/ac-repair/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/st-pete/heater-repair/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/st-pete/air-purificaiton/
  • domain.com/hvac-office/clearwater/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/clearwater/ac-repair/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/clearwater/heater-repair/
    • domain.com/hvac-office/clearwater/air-purificaiton/

The main issue with this is that you may spend a lot of time making all of these pages but much of the content is duplicate or extremely similar. In my experience, I these types of pages don’t get much traffic, which means that the time spent creating them was wasted when it could have been spent on something else that would have been more effective. That’s not to say that they will never perform well, I just haven’t seen it myself when there are a lot of service pages on one site.

If you have more than one location or service area, I recommend creating your main service pages and targeting one to two cities on these pages. Then for the other cities that are not as important, you can create a location or service area page and target one to two service keywords on these pages. Here’s what that would look like:

URL Example Target Keyword(s) Example Page Title Example
domain.com/hvac-services/ Tampa HVAC Services, St. Pete HVAC Services HVAC Services in Tampa & St. Pete, FL
domain.com/hvac-services/ac-repair/ Tampa Air Conditioner Repair, St. Pete Air Conditioner Repair Air Conditioning Repair Service Tampa & St. Pete, FL
domain.com/hvac-services/heater-repair/ Tampa Heater Repair, St. Pete Heater Repair Heater Repair Service Tampa & St. Pete, FL
domain.com/hvac-services/air-purification/ Tampa Air Purification, St. Pete Air Purification Air Purification Service Tampa & St. Pete, FL
domain.com/service-areas/largo-hvac-service/ Largo Air Conditioning Service, Largo Heating Service Air Conditioning & Heating Service Largo, FL
domain.com/service-areas/pinellas-park-hvac-service/ Pinellas Park Air Conditioning Service, Pinellas Park Heating Service Air Conditioning & Heating Service Pinellas Park, FL
domain.com/service-areas/seminole-hvac-service/ Seminole Air Conditioning Service, Seminole Heating Service Air Conditioning & Heating Service Seminole, FL