31GeographicTargets,EightCampaigns:WhyEqualLinkDistributionWasn’ttheAnswer

A multi-location campaign creates an immediate allocation question:

Should every market receive the same amount of content and the same number of placements?

The easy answer is yes. Equal distribution appears organised, fair, and simple to report.

The campaign data tells a different story.

Across eight client campaigns in my portfolio, I found 31 named geographic targets. They included countries, cities, service areas, and luxury property communities.

The campaigns ranged from a single-city plumbing foundation to a 190-placement SaaS campaign operating across four countries.

One five-city campaign placed nearly 90% of its raw activity into three priority markets. Another spent its first 12 months building two cities before gradually introducing three more. A third focused all reportable placements on one city rather than dividing a short campaign across several areas.

The data did not support one equal-allocation formula.

It supported market prioritisation.

These geographic units are not directly interchangeable.

A country-level SaaS market is not the same as a local plumbing service area. A luxury real estate community is not the same as a city-level web-design market.

The total is useful for understanding portfolio scope, but allocation still has to happen inside each individual campaign.

Only the Tacoma plumbing campaign focused on one named market.

The other seven campaigns covered multiple:

• Countries
• Cities
• Communities
• Service areas

This means geographic planning was not a secondary detail. It was one of the main structural requirements across the portfolio.

However, the campaigns expanded in different ways.

The geographic count alone did not determine the campaign model.

The clearest allocation example came from the Colorado garage-door campaign.

Its 34 raw entries were distributed as follows:

An equal five-way distribution would have produced approximately 6.8 raw placements per city.

The actual campaign looked very different:

• Lakewood received 13
• Parker received 9
• Greenwood Village received 8
• Castle Rock received 2
• Colorado Springs received 2

The three larger markets received 30 of 34 raw entries—approximately 88.2% of the campaign.

The two secondary markets received four entries combined.

After preliminary QA, the three primary markets still accounted for 29 of the 32 candidate placements.

This resembles a primary-and-secondary market strategy.

However, the records alone cannot prove that the split was intentional. That should be confirmed before the campaign is publicly framed as a deliberate prioritisation model.

This illustrates an important rule:

Unequal allocation can be strategically correct, but the reason for the inequality should be documented.

The long-running digital-agency campaign began with Houston and Dallas.

For its first 12 months, the campaign recorded one placement per month across those two Texas markets.

Only after that foundation did it expand into:

• San Francisco
• Atlanta
• New York

This was not a five-city launch.

It was a two-city foundation followed by gradual expansion.

The subject matter also widened over time. The early phase focused mainly on web design, while later placements introduced:

• SEO
• Lead generation
• Full-stack digital marketing
• Social media integration
• Conversion-focused design

The geographic expansion was supported by service expansion.

That combination created more potential article angles and destination pages than introducing five cities with one repeated “web-design agency” topic.

The Texas web-design campaign originally focused on San Antonio.

After a 12-month inactive period, it resumed with two additional cities:

• New Braunfels
• San Marcos

The restarted campaign therefore required a different structure from the original phase.

It now needed:

• Three-market content planning
• Additional service-area pages
• More anchor variation
• New location-specific topics
• Updated destination URLs
• A review of older San Antonio placements

The correct strategy was not simply to restart the old monthly number.

The market map had changed.

A campaign that resumes after a long pause should be treated as a new planning phase, even when the client and website remain the same.

The San Diego plumbing campaign began with three placements and finished with 20 in its fifth month.

Its complete monthly progression was:

The campaign eventually covered:

• El Cajon
• San Diego
• Clairemont

Clairemont was introduced as the campaign reached its highest recorded monthly volume.

This shows how geographic coverage can be widened alongside placement capacity.

However, adding a new market should also add:

• Distinct customer questions
• Relevant services
• Suitable landing pages
• Location-specific anchors
• Additional publishers or content angles

Increasing volume without increasing topic and destination variety would create repetition rather than meaningful expansion.

The largest geographic count belonged to the real estate campaign, which covered six Bahamas communities using 36 recorded placements.

The four-location HVAC campaign contained 127 recorded backlinks.

The five-city digital-agency campaign contained 24 placements across a 27-month span.

The number of geographic targets did not predict total campaign volume.

The difference can partly be explained by the number of services, topics, pages, and campaign months involved.

A home-services company may need content for multiple combinations such as:

• AC repair in Hanover
• AC installation in Arbutus
• Heating support in Severn
• Plumbing services in Columbia

Four locations combined with five main service lines create up to 20 possible location-and-service combinations for planning purposes.

That does not mean every combination deserves a separate page or identical placement count. It means the campaign’s real scope may be much larger than the city count suggests.

The Tacoma plumbing campaign focused entirely on one city.

It produced:

• 20 raw entries
• 18 reportable placements after preliminary QA
• A three-month campaign span
• Several residential plumbing topics

The campaign could have divided its limited volume across nearby cities, but that would have reduced the attention available for Tacoma.

Concentrating on one city can be sensible when:

• The client relationship is new
• The website needs an initial foundation
• Service capacity is concentrated in one area
• Other location pages are not ready
• Budget is limited
• The primary market still has significant growth potential
• Geographic expansion is planned for a later phase

More locations do not automatically create a better campaign.

Sometimes the correct decision is to establish one market before adding another.

The SaaS campaign operated across:

• The United States
• United Kingdom
• Australia
• Canada

Its content covered product and workflow themes rather than local home-service problems.

The campaign could be segmented by:

• Market
• Product feature
• Industry use case
• Publisher type
• Customer role
• Search intent

A city-level plumbing campaign is more likely to be segmented by:

• Location
• Service
• Homeowner problem
• Emergency intent
• Property type
• Seasonal need

Both are geographic strategies, but the planning units are different.

A country-level campaign should not simply copy a local SEO model at a larger scale.

Before allocating content or links, every geographic target should receive a defined role.

Core Market

A market with high commercial importance, established operations, and enough website infrastructure to support deeper activity.

Core markets normally receive the greatest attention.

Growth Market

A location already producing some visibility or business value but requiring more content and authority support.

Growth markets may receive progressively increasing investment.

Test Market

A new or uncertain area receiving a limited initial allocation.

The purpose is to collect evidence before committing larger resources.

Maintenance Market

An established location that does not currently require aggressive expansion.

Activity may continue at a lower, steadier pace.

Hold Market

A location that should not yet receive campaign investment because:

• The page is incomplete
• Service capacity is unavailable
• Business Profile eligibility is unclear
• Conversion tracking is missing
• The client does not actively serve the area
• More important markets require attention first

A hold decision can prevent content and links from being wasted on an unprepared destination.

Each market should be reviewed against the same factors.

The answers should determine allocation—not an assumption that every city deserves an equal share.

Step 1: List Every Genuine Target

Record only countries, cities, communities, or service areas the business genuinely serves.

Step 2: Assign a Market Role

Classify every target as core, growth, test, maintenance, or hold.

Step 3: Map Available Pages

Identify whether each market has:

• A location page
• Relevant service pages
• Community content
• A suitable Google Business Profile
• Supporting articles
• A working conversion path

Step 4: Map Content Opportunities

List the distinct topics that can be created for each market without copying another location’s content.

Step 5: Allocate Initial Activity

Give deeper support to markets with stronger business value and page readiness. Use smaller allocations for genuine tests.

Step 6: Review Evidence

After the initial phase, compare:

• Rankings
• Impressions
• Traffic
• Calls
• Leads
• Conversion quality
• Placement acceptance
• Content performance

Step 7: Reallocate

Increase, maintain, reduce, or pause activity according to the evidence.

Geographic expansion should not produce dozens of near-identical pages with only the city name changed.

Google’s spam policies describe substantially similar regional or city pages created mainly to funnel visitors as doorway abuse.

Every location page should provide meaningful information, such as:

• Services genuinely available there
• Neighbourhoods covered
• Local contact information
• Original photographs
• Customer evidence
• Relevant local questions
• Distinct property or service considerations
• Accurate operating details

If a business cannot create a useful page for a market, it may not be ready to build links to that page.

Portfolio-wide traffic can hide weak or strong individual markets.

Reporting should separate each location wherever the data allows.

Placement distribution confirms where campaign activity occurred.

It does not prove that the highest-volume market produced the best business result.

That requires analytics.

The 31 geographic targets in the portfolio did not receive one standard campaign model.

Some markets launched together. Some were introduced gradually. Some received deeper priority than others. One campaign remained focused on a single city.

The five-city garage-door campaign showed the clearest unequal allocation: approximately 88% of raw entries went to three priority markets, while two secondary markets received a small initial footprint.

That distribution may have been strategically correct—but its reasoning should be confirmed and documented.

The right question is not:

How do we divide the links equally?

It is:

Which markets matter most, which are ready for investment, and what evidence will determine the next allocation?

I can help turn a list of service areas into a clear market-priority map—then align the pages, content, placements, and reporting with the role of each location.