Jeroen Hey! I'm thinking about changing my SEO strategy, but I'm not sure if it's A) a good idea and B) how to approach it. The homepage of my wedding photography business is optimized for local searches (the city where I actually live and work). To serve other regions, I have created specific local landing pages. Although this works fine, now I'm thinking about changing the content of my homepage so that it no longer is focused on a specific region. Not only does that make more sense, I think it would be possible to rank my homepage for main keywords nationwide (mainly 'wedding photographer'). The city where I live and work would get a specific landing page, just as the other regions. Since I have quite a few backlinks with local references to my homepage, I'm afraid this whole operation could easily backfire. So any suggestions would be highly appreciated! Many thanks!! www.jeroensavelkouls.nl 1 👍🏽138 💬🗨📰👈
Cody 🎓 Doubtful you would rank nationwide for it. If someone searches for wedding photographer they will get a localized and relevant result for them. The only thing "nation wide" you should be trying to rank for, is your blog and the common informational/commercial intent types of inquiries.
Jeroen ✍️ » Cody Thanks for your input. It won't be easy, but I see a few competitor that I should be able to beat. Cody 🎓 » Jeroen Well it looks like you already had your answer so might as well take down the post? Jeroen ✍️ » Cody I don't believe it was an exact answer to my questions, but I appreciate your input. If you feel the need to take down the post, please do. Cody 🎓 » Jeroen Ask yourself this question. How will your home page break through all of the proximity factors to rank for the one keyword? Jeroen ✍️ Okay, let's forget for a minute that I said I want to rank my homepage for this keyword. I still think it makes more sense to change my strategy a bit and dedicate a specific landing page for potential clients in my region. If you think that is unwise, I might leave things the way they are (and save myself the trouble). But maybe it does makes sense. And if so, how would I approach this?
Gupta Before taking the local content down from homepage, prime your location page first, let it compete with your homepage. Get it ranked in top 10 or atleast top 20 before taking local content down from homepage.
Jeroen ✍️ » Gupta Thanks! Daryl » Gupta My thoughts exactly. Gupta Thanks for the affirmation Daryl
Mike It would be possible to rank in the organic results for national. I would leave the home page as is but maybe add Nederlands into address, title, description and content and see whether that moves the needle in any way first of all.
Jeroen ✍️ » Mike Thank you!
Simon I've worked on a lot of photographer websites (and am a photographer myself). I use location based pages as the main strategy – and use the homepage mainly for user experience rather than ranking. Putting Wedding Photographer on the front page is fine – you're very unlikely to rank nationwide with it but it will be clear to your users what you're offering. An alternative is to choose a broad umbrella term that's linked to your location and build specific location pages related to that – eg South East Wedding Photographer. I can show you some examples if you like – one photographer from my course is generating $4,500 a month in keyword value from these tactics.
Jeroen ✍️ » Simon Thanks! Yeah, I think this would make more sense than my current strategy. I'm just a bit afraid changing things will hurt my current rankings & income too much. Simon » Jeroen Sure – as others have commented … build out the other location pages to give them a chance to rank before making a major change on the homepage. I feel .. personally .. it's a mistake to concentrate rankings on your homepage for this reason. If you want to change/expand area etc .. you have problems straight away Jeroen ✍️ » Simon Thank you! Exactly, now that I'm trying to target more areas, it makes less/no sense to focus my homepage on one of these areas. These tips are very helpful!
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Kathy Let me see if I got this right. You want to rank in a region not just a city because you have no problem traveling a certain number of miles for the job. Correct? For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area. If I were a wedding photographer, I'd want clients from San Jose to San Francisco. In this example, I would optimize the home page for San Francisco Bay Area. This would work even if you are a destination wedding photographer. Then you'd make another page for that query. To optimize for the many cities in the Bay Area then, you would create local landing pages. Those could include wedding portfolios shot in that area, wedding venues, and anything else related to the area and the industry. You are absolutely in the right track. And depending on the details, you could hurt your local ranking for a time, so do proceed with caution.
Jeroen ✍️ I already rank in different cities and regions throughout the country. The thing is, that people who search for city X now arrive at a landing page for city X (so far so good), but when they click on my homepage they will see it's focused on city Y. As a user, I would think that this doesn't make sense. So, to avoid that, I'm thinking about removing references to a specific city/region on my homepage.
Raihan If u thinking about about national Search Engine Optimization (SEO).. u need to remove city based keyword from home page add branded keyword and service in your homepage. in service area /location page mention all your location page and creat local landing page for specific city.if u able to manage GMB in those city include/link to that. Recently i make a note from different source for this purpose happy to share with you.maybe it will helps to grow your business.
Jeroen ✍️ Thanks, I"ll keep that in mind!
Karen I specialise in working with wedding photographers – and have worked with hundreds of photography businesses over the last few years – this is unlikely to work. Your homepage will still show in your local area and what is likely is that your homepage will compete with the location page for the corresponding area. Most searches only type in ‘wedding photographer' anyway – and Google shows them local photographers. If you dilute location signals it does not help with that. If you want to be shown nationally, then build national relevance through both content and links. If you need anymore help, feel free to get in touch.
Jeroen ✍️ Thanks! So according to this, it doesn't really matter wether I use local keywords on my homepage or not, it will show up anyway in my local area. If so, that would make things a lot easier. The main thing I want to accomplish here is avoiding that someone that searches for 'wedding photographer amsterdam' arrives at my homepage via a local landing page (dedicated to Amsterdam) and is confused by the fact that it's focused on another city. You are essentially saying that my homepage will probably rank anyway in searches from my area. Am I correct? Karen » Jeroen Not quite! I think it will make sense to use your homepage to explain what total area you cover and also put where you are based – that way someone landing on your homepage can figure out if you cover their area, and Google will u Fer stand where you are and where you cover too. Jeroen ✍️ » Karen And would you recommend to set up an additional landing my page for my specific area? Karen » Jeroen I'm in meeting in 2 min – will come back to this later. Jeroen ✍️ » Karen No problem of course, thanks!
