Page for local search optimization - how to?

[JohnnyBoy]

Hi all and hope your Sunday is good!
I'm a starter with web design so be gentle...

Been working on my 2 sites www.john-carwithen.com and exceptional-dog-portraits.com and would appreciate any comments.

With the dogs site, I currently have [www.exceptional-dog-portraits.co.uk directed to www.exceptional-dog-portraits.com/wales/location_pet_portraits_wales.html
so I can optimize this page for local searches and the page links up with all others in the main site. Visitors can get back to it via internal links, but from then on see .com in the URL.

Is this a decent effort or am I making a boo-boo?

Once I'm sure of what I am doing, I'll do similar with my other sites.

And one of those wierd annoyances, aside from SEO - Opera clips my nav (at http://www.john-carwithen.com ) as if the div around it is too small, but making it bigger makes no difference!? In my other site ( http://www.exceptional-dog-portraits.com ) the top nav bar is again messed up.

Anyone got ideas?

[AlanPalmer]

I dont understand why u have a .co.uk domain redirected to a .com?!

It would be better to publicize the .com and then have it redirected to the .co.uk; as the .co.uk address would make it more relevant for people search from the uk and help it rank higher in uk searches :)

Having additional pages within your site named as relevant keyword rich extensions will help with 'deep' links to that page from a search engine results page. For example exceptional-dog-portraits.co.uk/pet_portraits_wales.html is likely to rank highly for people searching for the term 'Pet Portraits Wales' - and if the page copy/title etc are also relevant to the this phrase you have a good chance of getting to number 1.

Using Google Local Business Center is good for optimizing for local searchers too.

Hope this helps

Alan

[JohnnyBoy]

Thanks for your time Alan -that makes sense.
I'll look into Google Local Business Center too.

I started thinking it would be good from a searches point of view to have a page optimized for general/global use and another for local/UK use. So are you saying I should make the site space the .co.uk, the /index.html within it the general optimized page, then the /wales/location_pet_portraits_wales.html the UK optimized page? If someone types in the URL exceptional-dog-portraits.co.uk won't it go to the /index.html, which wouldn't be best content for UK? Just trying to see the best way to make use of the one site for .com and .co.uk.

Thanks, John

[AlanPalmer]

Hello John - had a look at your sites at .com and .co.uk (nice site!). Its always best for your domains to point directly at the homepage /index.html - as your site is the same at both address i would point both to your homepage. Is there a reason why you want to show different content to uk visitors than to 'global' ones? i would assume that the majority of your clients would come from a uk audience?.

As for page optimization for a specific keyphrases, i would build separate pages to target uk audience (for example at /pet_portraits_wales.html or /pet_portraits_uk.html) as a simplified page linked into the rest of your website. Then optimize your homepage/main pages for more general terms such as 'pet portraits' or 'dog portraits' through title tags/content/alt tags/picture file names etc - alot of which you have done already.

I would still redirect .com to .co.uk if you are targeting a primarily UK audience - and market the .com address in your offline marketing (business cards etc) as .com is often a more easy to remember domain. Then use the .co.uk for online marketing/seo purposes to give the site a uk bias(.co.uk sites will still appear in global searches).

Incidentally your .co.uk site is NOT currently listed/indexed on google at all. But this forum page appears at first page number 8 for 'pet portraits wales' on google.co.uk :)

Hope this helps

Alan

[JohnnyBoy]

Hi Alan and thanks again for your help.
Glad you liked the site - I try to use my visual skills rather than snazzy coding, as that is where I work best.

Well I acted on what you said.

Now the .com and .co.uk both point to the /index.html and the menu item "Location" now points to www. exceptional-dog-portraits.co.uk/pet_portraits_wales.html using the page name you suggested and optimizing this page for UK searches.

I didn't want to lose out on global searches and knew /index.html would not accommodate both types. That's how it all started, but now am I right in thinking the present set-up is now good? see www. exceptional-dog-portraits.co.uk

many thanks again, John