URL structure for targeting different towns

[Mattk1983]

I have an online tutoring company that currently operates in 20 different local towns

I want to create unique pages for each town, for a couple of different subjects. is it best to go:

domain.com/London-tutors/chemistry

or

domain.com/chemistry-tutors/London


does it even matter?

 

[Faevilangel]

I would go with #2, just looks better imho

 

[JonathanSEO]

domain.com/chemistry/london/

Looks best. If the domain name itself has tutors / tutor in then I'd leave it off the chemistry bit like in my example.

How narrow a geographic region are these towns in? It might be overkill having a dedicated page for each when it may be possible to rank for all of them with just 1 or 2 pages.

Effectively these are just doorway pages, not the sort of things google wants to see as hard to justify how having so many pages like that from a value add point of view.

 

[Mattk1983]

thanks fir the replies you two

what would be the reasoning for removing "tutors" from the extended URL?

 

[JonathanSEO]

thanks fir the replies you two

what would be the reasoning for removing "tutors" from the extended URL?

Well if your domain has tutors in, eg something like mattytutors.com

mattytutors.com/chemistry-tutors/london/ just looks slightly repetitive.

mattytutors.com/chemistry/london/

I would be wary of having 20 pages each for a different location that serve near identical content though as I said above.

 

[Mattk1983]

a lot of the content on each page will be dynamic, user generated... so should be classed as "unique" hopefully

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi Matty.

Just fyi, from an SEO point of view it makes practically no difference as Google have said that URLs no longer have any weighting in the algorythm.

With that in mind you should go with the URL structure that makes your pages most user friendly. Consider things like:

- If seen in search results, how obvious is it what that page is about?
- How easy to remember is it?
- How easy would it be to read to someone over the phone?

The better you answer these questions the more shareable and linkable your content will be.

Regarding duplicate content, from what you have said you should be ok, but it depends exactly where you pull the content from.

If you are pulling bios for each Tutor and those same bios appear in the Tutor's profile page your content may not be all that unique afterall.

I would recommend trying to get tutors to give several pieces of info so that you have something unique for each town page.

Of course I don't know what the content is so you may already have sorted that, but just a thought.

 

[Mattk1983]

many thanks for that

different profile snippets for each page is an excellent idea

 

[DanielD]

Hello, Matty,

I have a website that could be the answer to your question. As I am not able to post a link, visit domesticcleaners.co.uk - at the domestic-cleaning page, at the bottom, there are 4 categories, visit one and see at its bottom.

Or to put it simply - domain.co.uk/service/east-london/area-location-postcode

 

[Mattk1983]

thanks dan!

 

[LED Lightworld]

Jonathan SEO, i wanted to PM you, but your header says 'banned', and doesnt show the option to PM. If this function is working, please PM me, so I can reply, failing that contact me through my sig link.

Thanks