Location SEO keywords (e.g. 'content writer Manchester') are an important tool in getting your page to rank for searches in your geographic area. Even if your business is fully digital or mail-order, it's good to reach out to your local market and capitalise on the natural sense of 'togetherness' that comes from living and working in the same place.
There's a problem though. When you put the location at the end like that, it's very hard to use the keyword in a sentence that works grammatically. That's because in almost every grammatically correct usage of a phrase like 'content writer Manchester', you need a word like 'in' (which is a preposition - it's indicating that Manchester is where the content writer is located).
Without a preposition, a phrase like 'content writer Manchester' is a massive headache for your writer. I've been writing professionally for nearly 20 years, and this is still one of the biggest challenges I face when writing location SEO landing pages for my clients.
So what are the coping mechanisms when confronted with these kinds of location SEO keywords? There aren't many good options, but I've given my top three below.
1. Use it as-is
This is my least favourite option, as I think it stands out really obviously in the text, but the first solution is to just use the phrase exactly as it is, and almost ignore the location part of it.
On the finished page, this would look something like:
Bobble Bardsley is an experienced content writer Manchester, with clients across the UK and worldwide.
It feels clunky to me, and there ARE better alternatives, but I consider myself to be basically just a talented lackey, and if a customer wants their location SEO keywords included in this way, I'm quite happy to do it.
Pros: Easy to include in almost any sentenceCons: Clunky, shoehorned, and grammatically incorrect
2. Add a preposition
A preposition is a word like in, on, over, under etc, and is used to indicate the position of something in a sentence. In 'the cat is on the mat', 'on' is the preposition. In a phrase like 'content writer Manchester', the preposition is missing.
The grammatically correct solution is to add the preposition back into the phrase, and this usually will not have a negative effect on the SEO value of your page - search engines like Google are able to see past small connecting words like 'in' as if they weren't even there.
Using our example from above, this would look like:
Bobble Bardsley is an experienced content writer in Manchester, with clients across the UK and worldwide.
It's immediately and completely fixed from a grammar point of view, and it reads well to human visitors, helping to disguise the location SEO keywords shoehorned into your page.
Pros: Quick, easy and grammatically correctCons: Changes SEO keyword slightly
3. Reflexive sentence structure
This is MY preferred option, because it strikes the best compromise between leaving the location SEO keyword phrase unchanged, reading well to human visitors AND satisfying the rules of grammar.
What do I mean by a reflexive sentence? It's about pivoting the sentence around the location phrase so that the location itself is associated with the following phrase. This nudges the grammar along slightly so that a preposition isn't needed.
An example of this would be something like:
Bobble Bardsley is the experienced content writer Manchester brands trust to create compelling content for their websites.
If you're expecting 'content writer Manchester' to be a single phrase, reading that sentence might trip you up when you reach it. But for website visitors coming to a page cold, it's one of the best ways I've found to include the phrase as-is, without it feeling really forced.
Pros: Works well without adding a prepositionCons: Alters the semantics of the location
Which method works best?
Honestly it's completely up to you. I've listed these three options in (for me) reverse order of preference. I think using the original keyword phrase as-is looks really awkward on the page and is likely to be noticeable to most human readers of decent reading ability.
The risk with using SEO keywords in a noticeable way is that some readers may think the page is purely there for Google rankings, and will click off of it if it's too SEO-heavy. Unless you have some very ad-heavy pages, search traffic alone usually doesn't drive revenues, so you should always create content with real people in mind.
Adding a preposition (usually 'in') was problematic in the past, when the search engines would see that as a different phrase. They don't really do that anymore, and I'd say this has become the go-to option as a way to include the desired location without hurting the grammar of the page.
My own favourite option is the 'reflexive' sentence structure described above. It involves a bit of grammatical gymnastics but it flows well when reading a page cold, and it allows you to include the SEO location phrase exactly as-is.
Help with location SEO pages
If you want to create some location-specific SEO pages for your website, I can help. I'm happy to use any of the methods mentioned above - or a combination of 2-3 of them, if that works best on your page.
Location SEO has become one of the most useful ways to reach the top of the search results and taps into the natural rapport your brand already has with customers on your doorstep.
Contact me today to discuss your budget, your location, and how we can combine the two to generate new business for your brand.
