I'm starting to work with a couple clients and was wondering what would be the best way to structure my site for local seo. The way I have it setup now, is have a main domain - for example: (not really my domain) repairservices.com then a city for the subdomain - houston.repairservices.com and I have articles/content written to target the city and keywords. If I get clients in other cities, then I will continue to add subdomains for each client/city.
Currently on the index.html page of the main domain I have links to the articles. Then on the subdomain which is the client's LP, in the footer I have a link to the main domain with the articles. The thing is that when I try to create a sitemap for the subdomain, it doesn't include the articles since they are on the main domain. I also have the about, privacy and terms on the main domain so those aren't included in there either, nothing except for the subdomain is in the sitemap.
I was thinking if I copy the index.html on the main domain as articles.html and put that on the subdomain and link to to articles.html then the links to articles will come up in the sitemap. the articles are hosted on the subdomain since it has keywords with the city name. the issue that i was wondering about, if i use the same index.html that's on the main domain and upload it as articles.html on the subdomain, will I get duplicate content penalties or anything else?
Or can somebody recommend a better way to structure the site? Or does the sitemap matter that much, if I start link building will the pages get indexed regardless? that also reminds me of another question, should I be building links on the main domain or subdomain? or does it matter? I really have no purpose for the main domain, I'm just linking to articles to have something on there, maybe I shouldn't put the articles on the main domain and only put them on the subdomain and come up with some generic content for the main domain to avoid duplicate content?
Since I guess if I start adding more cities, there's only so much to talk about as far as content is considered, the content will just basically be re-written and replaced with keywords for a new city so if all these articles are basically the same topics, just spun/re-written and all on the main page, maybe it will look spammy? If I have them all split up on seperate subs then it might not look as bad?
Thanks
Currently on the index.html page of the main domain I have links to the articles. Then on the subdomain which is the client's LP, in the footer I have a link to the main domain with the articles. The thing is that when I try to create a sitemap for the subdomain, it doesn't include the articles since they are on the main domain. I also have the about, privacy and terms on the main domain so those aren't included in there either, nothing except for the subdomain is in the sitemap.
I was thinking if I copy the index.html on the main domain as articles.html and put that on the subdomain and link to to articles.html then the links to articles will come up in the sitemap. the articles are hosted on the subdomain since it has keywords with the city name. the issue that i was wondering about, if i use the same index.html that's on the main domain and upload it as articles.html on the subdomain, will I get duplicate content penalties or anything else?
Or can somebody recommend a better way to structure the site? Or does the sitemap matter that much, if I start link building will the pages get indexed regardless? that also reminds me of another question, should I be building links on the main domain or subdomain? or does it matter? I really have no purpose for the main domain, I'm just linking to articles to have something on there, maybe I shouldn't put the articles on the main domain and only put them on the subdomain and come up with some generic content for the main domain to avoid duplicate content?
Since I guess if I start adding more cities, there's only so much to talk about as far as content is considered, the content will just basically be re-written and replaced with keywords for a new city so if all these articles are basically the same topics, just spun/re-written and all on the main page, maybe it will look spammy? If I have them all split up on seperate subs then it might not look as bad?
Thanks