Regional promotion in Yandex and Google

Many website owners strive to attract customers from different regions, for example, they provide delivery services and want to expand their customer base. To do this, they choose specialized strategies for promotion in Yandex and Google, taking into account popular queries and researching the positions of competitors.

There are several regional optimization methods that can be used to promote goods and services: through subdomains, within a single site, or across different platforms. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages, which helps you choose the best option for your specific situation.

What you need to know about promotion in the regions

Regional promotion has its own peculiarities, since search engines process requests based on the settings of local sites. Yandex and Google focus on content quality to provide the user with the most relevant information. For example, if someone searches for a veterinary pharmacy in a specific city, search engines should provide results specific to nearby locations.

Regional promotion is carried out using one of three strategies:

• through subdomains is a popular method;
• within one site – creating landing pages for each region;
• on individual sites – creation and optimization of sites for each region.

Before choosing a strategy and starting optimization, it is important to analyze competitors' sites to find out which keywords are most in demand in search results.

Regional promotion on subdomains

This method is most often used for Yandex, since Google's requirements for such content may be more stringent. In order for a website to rank effectively in search engines, you must complete the following steps:

• make a list of cities for which regional pages will be created;
• create a subdomain with the appropriate name, for example, ***.example.ru;
• for each subdomain, configure the https protocol, create individual sitemap.xml and robots.txt files;
• design the Title, Keywords and Description for each page, focusing on local requests to avoid sanctions;
• fill the site with unique content for each subdomain;
• add local contact information and mark the company on maps;
• confirm each subdomain in Yandex.Webmaster and Google Search Console services.

Pros and cons of such optimization

Disadvantages of this strategy: it is less suitable for Google, as it requires large amounts of unique content, and duplication of information is unacceptable. Also, the entire reference mass is distributed to child subdomains.

Advantages of this method:

• quick setup;
• effective work in Yandex;
• pages are quickly indexed by search engines.

Optimization by sections of one site

This method is suitable for Google, especially for companies with branches in different regions. Regional landing pages are created that attract users through search engines.

As with subdomains, each regional section should be filled with unique content targeted at local queries. Repeating text will result in sanctions from search engines.

Advantages and disadvantages of regional sections

Advantages:

• simplified control over optimization, since all actions are performed on one site;
• effective work at Google;
• Creating additional pages by region helps increase traffic and improve site rankings.

However, there are also disadvantages: such optimization is less effective for Yandex, since in the webmaster panel you cannot link more than one city to one resource. But you can add branches to the directory to assign priority cities.

We create several websites for regions

This method is used by large companies that create independent sites for each region. On such resources, unique texts are posted and individual Title, Keywords and Description are written for each page.

However, creating several sites requires care, since if the resources are similar, there is a risk of falling under affiliation filters. It is important that each site is filled with unique links and promoted separately.

Pros and cons of creating multiple sites

This method requires significant investment and professional specialists. However, if sites are properly optimized, they will rank well and attract customers from the region.

Advantages:

• effective work at Google;
• good results for queries, which contributes to rapid promotion in the regions.

However, there are also difficulties: if the sites are too similar, pessimization and gluing may occur. To avoid such problems, the text should be ordered by several copywriters, and specialists should carefully monitor the uniqueness of the content.

If you have any questions about regional promotion, write to the SEO COMPUTER studio at info@seo.computer, and our specialists will help you understand any aspects of SEO.

ID 8571