bam bam

Thought I'd post this in the newb section, not really a newb question.

ANYWAY...

What are your opinions on why Google will rank some sites for geo-specific terms but not others?

i.e.

Find property for sale in Cambridgeshire - Google Search
Find property for sale in Devon - Google Search
Find property for sale in London - Google Search
Find property for sale in Essex - Google Search

How would you go about conquering the top 5 if you're competing with sites like FindaProperty.com Estate agents property search for sale & rent UK & overseas properties & Primelocation: Homes & Houses for Sale, Estate Agents, Property Search when they boast upto 800,000 inlinks and a damn fine internal linking structure?

Name a county in the UK and they are in the top 3 for property based key phrases!

Any ideas?

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silentbob

Well, what is your objective exactly ? Do you want to rank for all those geo specific longtails or just for a specific region ?

If you want to create a site like findaproperty.com then you'll have to do it the way they do : good internal linking and a crapload of incoming links.

If you want to rank for just 1 county it will be much easier. The essex example you gave for instance only has 519,000 results. That shouln't be to hard to get into the top 10. Just buy a domainname like findpropertiesinessex.co.uk (<-available btw) and do some onpage seo and point some incoming links to it and you'll rank quite easily.

just my 2c

bam bam

I was looking into targeting specific regions, but with a site like the aforementioned.

For instance, focusing on Essex, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire.

As it's all on one site, you think it would be practical to buy unique URL's like you mentioned for each of the main targetted areas? Then just redirect them to the relevant page?

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Tedel

No, just increase the keyword count in the page's text.

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dogfighter

I can't recommend what business decision is best for you, but I will tell you that ranking in the UK is a fucking cake walk if you've got the right domain. That's why I get bored of all these UK affiliate marketers telling you to "buy a domain, put up a few blog posts about your product, and then collect your money".

Personally, I'd rather focus on building backlinks to one site on one domain than 12, especially if they're all in the same niche and general geographic region. Just make sure your specific areas get deep links as well as link love from your home page.

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ArtDeco

Check Smaxor's Blog
Making Big Easy Money with Google Local Search | Affiliate, SEO and PHP Coding Blog - OOOFF.com

This is US based but Google is Google everywhere.

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kofiannan

Those websites you mention have been around for absofuckinglutely ages, hence they have tons of relevant content (well not really but loads of local keyword for certain towns and counties) plus they advertise heavily in local press, so they are backlinked from local websites.