How to better your SEO

[pillaw]

Hey,

I have a client who wants me to make roughly 585-630 pages for his website. And this is just one part of the website. I think it is completely pointless, and will cause people to turn away from the website because of the amount of clicks it takes to utilize this feature.

I am not the original creator of the website, but I was told to do it like this. He basically wants me to make 585 different pages that all basically say the same thing. I was wondering if this will help your SEO a little, a lot, or at all. I can think of multiple other ways to make it more efficient, but this is what he wants. Check out the part of the site I have to do [here](http://2niceguys.com/pest-control-service-in-missouri “here”) and tell me what you think. Note though that only St. Louis, St. Charles, and Jefferson are view-able. I have to change all of them because he wants them different and every page to say something completely different.

[Paulie_D]

>Why do you need to create that many pages?

Not his choice…he’s made that clear…it’s a client requirement.

Right or wrong…what the client insists on…they get.

[AlstonB]

As we all know “client is always right”. But you have to talk to your client and tell him all aspects of SEO.
After that you have to convince him to make site that is good for SEO as well as for his business and [enhance customer experience](http://www.clicktale.com/products/enterprise “enhance customer experience”).
Hope this work!

[Paulie_D]

..but that still doesn’t answer the OP’s question.

Assuming the the client is insistent (albeit misguided), and the pages have to be the way he wants…how does it affect SEO.

I suspect that it will make very little difference because of the repetitive nature of the pages…but I’m no SEO expert.

[jurotek]

Duplicate content found by search engine robots and spiders over many pages is never a good thing for SEO and can definitely harm your position in organic search. I was faced with it about 4 years ago redoing someone else’s site.

[will_wallace85]

The typical rule of thumb is 30%. If you want to have two pages with roughly the same content but target two different keyword strings (ie css new york and css los angeles) the content on the pages have to be at least 30% different to not get flagged as duplicate content.

That being said, every single on of those pages would need to be at 30% different from every other one of those pages so, yeah, pretty happy this isn’t my project :).

One final note, Google is getting smarter every day, and that 30% “rule”, which has little to no evidence backing it up, could changed tomorrow. by the time I post this google may re-tweaked the algorithm and now its 40% or 20%, who knows. There’s also the possibility that google will just get fed up with all of us doing location based pages and start docking people for targeting too many places. Just keep in mind, and inform the client, that he will have a continual investment of keep all of these pages up to date, or risk getting nuked when Google makes a change.

[pillaw]

Thank you everyone for commenting.

Everything found in the St. Charles county, and Jefferson County will be changed along with most of St. Louis. Previously, his son just told me to copy & paste the already made pages and change a few words on them to relate to the county they were being made for. Now, he wants me to go in and research the type of pest he takes care of like termites, bedbugs, hornets, etc. Thus, he wants me to create about 585+ pages that are ALL different.

Example: All counties have a termites page. Seeing how they’re 19 counties in St. Louis I will need to make 19 termite pages. He wants all of these 19 pages to say pretty much the same thing, but written differently. I’m no professional website designer and definitely not a SEO expert. This is requiring me to use creative writing, web researching, and then some website designing. Do you think this is a job for a website designer, or for someone like deeve007 said.. “have a copywriter write unique content for each page.”

Also, another question I have. What would you charge for this entire project? If you understand what needs to be done, what would you charged based on all of the information I provided. Currently, he is paying me $10 an hour. This project is going to take well over 80 hours, and roughly 55-65 hours just for the St. Louis county.

[scottnix]

The funny part about this is they are doing it for SEO, but the site has none of the basics down.

The only H1 on every single page of the site is the same “Speak With Us”.

[pillaw]

Scott, do you know where I could read on how to better your SEO? I am an ameatur website designer, and I have never really used much SEO. I am just following what the client is asking for.

[pillaw]

> That sounds like copywriting rather than web designer/developer; better to go with someone who’s focused more on writing/researching for that.

What kind of person do you think my boss should hire to do a lot of creative writing who does this stuff professionally?

[pillaw]

Sorry about that Melindrea for lack of information I provided. What my boss wants me to do is make pages for the nine different types of pest he controls. In one county they’re nine pages (all the pest). And they’re two different types of counties. 13 major counties, and an unknown amount of minor counties.

For example, in St. Louis they’re currently 19 counties listed. In each one of those counties they’re nine pages for the types of pest he controls. What he wants me to do is write about these pest. He wants me to list facts about them, what kind of damage they do, etc. But the catch is.. He wants me to make all of the pages unique.

So.. 19 minor counties in St. Louis, means 19 different termite pages. This means.. 19 pages about termites, that all pretty much say the same thing, but is reworded page to page. I am estimating having to do this 70-100 times just for termites. Multiply that number by eight and that will be my total. So I will have to list the same facts about termites in 70-100 different ways so then Google thinks these pages are filled with rich-content.

It boils down to this. Will this drastically help his SEO? And am I the right person for the job as an amateur website designer.

[pillaw]

I totally agree with you on that when you click on a termite page it should go to a general information page about termites, instead of spending dozens of hours making different termite pages and costing him hundreds of dollars. Now, all I’ll have to do is convince them that that is the best idea lol.

[pillaw]

Thanks guys for the replies! Really though..

I think I’m going to call him tomorrow and tell him that he would find better results by hiring a full time SEO/Copywriter expert. Obviously me being an amateur code junky I don’t do much work with SEO, nor have I been extremely interested in it. I’m more of a Java/Visual Basic/HTML programmer.

[kiera]

I don’t it would be a good idea to write same thing on those different pages, in stand point of SEO. Explain to him about duplication and what it can do with his website if penalize by google, but if he is not thinking of monetizing his website then no problem with duplication I think. It is my layman’s understanding on this situation.

[Jophiel]

I believe your boss is right. Having a unique page devoted to each region that has well-written unique content about each area and the pests that are there will absolutely help SEO. 585 is a lot of work. Start off practically with attainable goals at benchmark times and work your way up to all the counties.

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