I was checking my keyword positioning one day, and I happened to notice that a local competitor was always number 1 (at Yahoo, which has 33% of the web traffic) in regards to geographic keywords. For example, ‘web design in Algonquin’, ‘web design in Aurora’, ‘web design in Dundee’, etc, etc. So I took a peek-a-boo at each related search result, and noticed a pattern. Each page from the competitor’s site was identical but they were targeting different cities in the Meta Keywords, and Title Tags.
For Example:
website-design.php?comm_pk=9 (meta name=”keywords” Web Design in Aurora)
website-design.php?comm_pk=7 (meta name=”keywords” Web Design in Bartlett)
WTF ! I was on to them, but was this a legitimate SEO Strategy, or was it ‘Black Hat’? If it’s ok to do this, I will do the same, and try to sneak up on them. I went to the SEO Forum I participate in, and presented the above for opinions, and feedback. The response was unanimous, it’s ok as long as the urls are different, and some related content was added to each page.
In conclusion, it has been said that website is never complete, it has to be dynamic, constantly changing to keep up with the competition, and the ever changing Search Engine algorithms. I have currently added some additional pages to try to counter the strategy of this particular competitor. So keep an eye on your competition, and hopefully there will come a time when they will have to keep a close eye on you.
