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I'm launching an endeavor, aerial photography/videography, one that I can do in all 50 states and will look to receive work in more than one state for sure, specifically South Carolina and Michigan. I own a domain and would like to have a main website there. My main state is South Carolina, which is where I live and would like to rank well here, but like I said I'd love to rank in Michigan too as I visit there often and plan to get work there.

I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the best way to handle SEO. I'd like my main website to be optimized for Michigan and S.C. both, but how? Separate state-specific landing pages? Buy state-specific URLs and point them to my home page at the above mentioned URL?

Is it feasible to make one website rank well for multiple states, or should I run multiple websites, each optimized for a specific state?

It would be nice to do all my emailing and communication from the single entity Eye In The Sky Drone Services with people being funneled there from multiple states instead of having to track and communicate from multiple websites each matching a state. Any advice?

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  • I removed your domain name to prevent your question from being closed. We are seeing more questions like this lately. There seems to be new concerns for proper locale SEO that does not fit past traditions such as languages and countries. Since we have not had but a few questions lately, this is a good question. We have not had too much opportunity to address these questions. It is typically quiet here on the weekends but please be patient. We have real experts here! Cheers!! – closetnoc May 13 '18 at 21:35
  • If they all use the same company name then it would be silly to use multiple websites, in fact its a massive bonus you will receive. This is because of Google Local allowing you to add the business with multiple locations, generally the more shops across the country the more receives you will receive which in turn will drive your SEO. Think Burger King, Walmart, and all other businesses, they don't create silly and endless gateway pages, local branches are returned in local results. – Simon Hayter♦ May 13 '18 at 22:39
  • Creating location pages are okay as long as they are unique and your not repeating yourself 50 times over with changing some of the wording. Generally its better to describe what you do as a global page then have direction pages for the branches with opening times. Google wants you to use Google Local and for Organics that appear have Google Snack Box, they want you to use Adwords... they hate repeating landing pages for organics. – Simon Hayter♦ May 13 '18 at 22:42
  • Thanks for the replies. Admin, I didn’t realize I could not mention specific locations, so thanks for editing my question. So I will not have a storefront anywhere, and I won’t have any actual locations. I am just available to do work in multiple states. If I understand correctly, if I just have my main website I can then have interior pages branching off the homepage specific to various states. So instead of having branch location pages within the website, I could have state specific pages within the website. Does that make sense and is that the way to go? – paulpoperocks May 13 '18 at 23:51
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There are a couple of ways on how to tackle this, regardless of your location:

  • Make sure that your pages are clearly stating where your services are being offered to. This is a content issue, not a logical one. So if you plan to offer your services in 50 states, make sure that you name them all, not just "in 50 states".
  • Give each state a separate landing page or product detail page if you will. Your goal is to offer as much relevant information towards that state in combination to your offered service.
  • Make these pages easily navigatable from your homepage and every other page you got.
  • Have your business location, phone numbers, etc. properly displayed on your pages. If you have several locations, make them available as well.

I know, this is vage advice, but you need to put yourself in your customers shoes. What are they looking for and what content do you present them? Is it relevant to their location and/or location search history? If you have that covered, you should be ok.

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I just want to complete the answer from David K.

Apply structured data. I understand that you are talking about your business. Therefore, it makes sense to apply the markup for type LocalBusiness. This type has Google support. Please note that this type also contains all the properties of the types Organization and Place.

To localize your business, you can apply the following properties:

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  • I thought about adding structured data to my answer as well, but didn't. I figured this would be a logical next step after the main content issues would be solved by OP. – David K. May 21 '18 at 20:36

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