Do You Know What's Triggering Your Local Packs?
-
Hey To All My Local Pals, Here
Recently, I watched a totally fascinating LocalU video in which Mike Blumenthal introduced a hypothesis that there may be a way to analyze what, specifically, is triggering a specific local pack. Now, Mike is stating that correlation is not causation in explaining this, but basically what he starts talking about at around 4:40 in the video is that what you are seeing rank well in the local packs may be demonstrably caused by what you see ranking organically beneath the pack, or may be caused by totally different signals.
Mike says,
_"If you're seeing the top 10 results are all IYP industry sites, and there's a pack showing, and the highest local site is 24 or something in organic, it's unlikely that that's what's triggering the pack. And so then you want to look at third-party triggers and see if that's what's actually triggering the pack." _
Obviously, all of us who do Local are familiar with the idea that a tremendous variety of elements contribute to pack rankings, but I am particularly intrigued by the idea of looking at the organic result beneath a pack and determining that there is little or no correlation between them, and this then driving one to look elsewhere for contributing factors.
In a recent response to another thread here on Q&A, I discussed some common local pack ranking failure causes when organic rank is high. What I'd love to see is whether, if you look at some of your clients' desired packs, can you tell if organic signals are driving them, or can you see that it's not organic signals driving the pack, as Mike suggests. What, in those cases, does appear to be driving the packs?
I'd be so interested in a discussion on this. What do you see? What do you think of Mike's suggestions?
-
Hey There!
Thanks so much for taking the time to contribute to this discussion. The geographic variations you mention sound normal to me, but the issue of the companies consistently ranking highly for no apparent reason is interesting. Are you saying the search is yielding a onebox (just one result) or a normal pack? Is the name of the business an exact or close match of the keyword phrase you're searching for? Is the business right in the middle of a cluster or similar businesses? Sounds like a good puzzle!
-
Good luck, Jason!
-
Miriam,
Thorough and as helpful as possible as always. Thank you so much. Right now my strategy is to really work on those reviews. I'm hoping to get that magic 25 reviews because I think that can help us get to the top. All of our competitors don't even come close and are under 10.
So our goal is in that aspect. My client's target base is made up mostly of those over 40 - 50 years of age so their not as prone to review. Our competitors have fitness members of a younger age, so that's where I'm thinking we have a disadvantage. But I'm hoping to work a little more on that end.
Thanks Miriam!
Jason Khoo
-
Hey Jason!
So glad those tips helped you identify an industry centroid that may be a contributing factor. Way to go! Some thoughts on this:
-
Go into this knowing that it can be VERY difficult to overcome something like this and that your best bet here is likely to be a full, professional audit by a skilled Local SEO consultant. A good place to look for one is the Contributors box on the right side of last year's Moz Local Search Ranking Factors. Here are some questions for you to ask yourself, either for your own purposes, or to share with a consultant.
-
Are you 100% certain that you are located inside of the official city limits? As I mentioned on your other thread, do the Maps lookup of your city name and be sure you are inside of the pink city border instead of outside of it. If you're outside, then the goal of ranking in the Local pack for that city/keyword combo is likely out.
-
If you are inside the city borders, how far are you from the industry centroid? Are any other players as far away as you are and still ranking in the top 10 or so results?
-
If so, do an audit of any competitor that is as far away as you are, but is managing to rank in the top 10 on the Map. Identify every piece of information you can that might be contributing to their rank (age, domain authority, reviews, vibrant content, citations, etc.). Mine this data to see if there is a pattern or a weakness you can identify that you would be able to use to your advantage, with the goal of helping you get into the pack.
-
Do not make the mistake of thinking that the industry centroid is the sole cause of what you are experiencing. If you're outside the city borders, then, yes, that's probably the main cause, but if you're inside the borders, a business which is supremely strong enough should have hope of overcoming an industry centroid bias. But, remember, there may be multiple causes contributing to low rankings.
-
Finally, don't forget that user-as-centroid is likely to overcome industry-centroid bias, in that your customers who are physically closest to you on their phones may be seeing a different set of results, which do include you.
Just some quick thoughts. Hope they help!
-
-
Hi Miriam,
I saw that our prior conversation was continued here. I went back and did some more researching and after reviewing everyting I think I found the issue, it was a Google industry cluster issue. I relooked at Google Maps and typed in "gym in [city]" and I noticed 7 of the 10 listings were all fairly close to the industry centroid designated by Google (which I found through Google MapMaker).
Now that I maybe have identified that issue, I'm wondering if there are any strategies we can to combat this. I don't like to think that our physical location has left us to have to accept lower listings on Google Local Pack. Let me know if you know anything?
As always, thank you!
Jason Khoo
-
Hi Kristen,
Yeah, I just don't think Google+ really caught on the way Google might have hoped. But Posts could totally be interesting, if it becomes widely available.
-
Thanks for the link, didn't know about that. Could indeed be game-changing!
-
Hey Bob,
Thanks for clarifying, and this does not surprise me:
I added keywords to the business titles of Google My Business listings and I saw a big improvement on categories the business didn’t already appeared on.
Good to test this out, but also important not to leave it that way, as adding extraneous keywords is a guideline violation (one which Google may not catch for years, but which they will definitely red flag once they notice it). So, your test confirms what is very easy to see in the local packs - that business title spam is still very much a ranking factor and that Google is still not up the task of policing this.
On the advice from the Google rep, yeah, they really shouldn't have been telling you to post on Plus, given the divorce of local from Plus, unless they felt your business model fits the whole communities thing Google is now promoting with that. Plus has kind of died in terms of its usefulness to local businesses, unless they fit a very specific model. Personally, I'm feeling a lot more excited about this new Posts things. Have you seen this: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2016/03/04/googles-newest-social-sharing-environment-google-posts/
It's a limited test right now, but it could be game-changing. Thanks again for the detailed response, Bob!
-
Hi Miriam,
I added keywords to the business titles of Google My Business listings and I didn’t see any big ranking improvements on categories the business already appeared at.
I added keywords to the business titles of Google My Business listings and I saw a big improvement on categories the business didn’t already appeared on. So adding “SEO” in the business title of an webdevelopment firm could result in them being shown on keywords like “SEO The Hague”.
I Removed keywords from (compeditors) business titles and didn’t see a drop in their ranking visibility.
At this point I believe keywords in the business title could help Google associate your business with a keyword or service type but isn’t (or is only a small) rankingfactor. It’s the difference between being shown, or not being shown at all. Not the difference between position 2 and 3.
Note: I only tracked this with a few Google my business pages for a short period of time.
About the advice from the Google support staff, heard it the last time on 10 dec. 2015.
-
Hi Bob!
Thanks so much for joining the discussion. Are you saying you added keywords to the business titles of Google My Business listings and saw a rise in rank/visibility? Or are you saying you removed keywords? Just want to be sure I'm understanding.
Was the chat with Google support desk some months ago? Google has disconnected Plus from Local, so I'm concerned you may have received outdated advice from Google's support, if it's the case that they are still telling people to post on Plus.
I'd love to hear more, on both points.
-
Hi Miriam and Kristen,
I didn't do a big case study or what so ever on this topic but I reported this kind of keywords in the business title through Google Maps and I didn’t see any noticeable changes after the changes were applied. At least not with the top 3 in the local pack. I can however confirm that adding this information causes fluctuations since I did some testing with a few websites. Although It didn’t cause a big boost it did help a tremendous amount with being shown on certain keywords. Since there isn’t a category for every niche this helped some business being showed on the right keywords on the first place.
This is a subject were a bigger case study will be needed I think.
Btw, another interesting aspect I found is the local business support desk recommending Google plus activity on the account. Views, followers, posts etc. Did get this tips 2 times after I called them a few times. Not sure it works, but we’re trying this out for our own account at the moment.
-
Hi Kristen!
Wow - yes! That's exactly the type of case I find interesting, too. Sadly, as you point out, the old keyword-stuffed business title can still boost a business, despite the guidelines (and, is, of course, something one could report to Google!). I like that you've noticed those authoritative links. Could be a real factor there. It would be interesting to know what would happen to these results if the naming violation were reported and acted upon. You could actually track that and see, then, if that had been the main factor, or if the authoritative links were still enough to keep the business ranking highly.
I'm very appreciative of you contributing what you've noticed, and hope we'll hear more from others
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Removing a duplicate local listing in same city
Hello, I see three locations for a client. Two legitimate which I have ownership of, the third is a duplicate of one of the locations. Ithink it is harming rankings and I want to get rid of it. It is service area business. Things keep changing, but how will I remove it? My client obviously set this up a while ago and it is left with wrong or missing info. When I click on the business under "more listings" on maps there is a chance to "edit it" AND "claim it" but not delete it. When I strart to claim it I go through adding in everything but then I worry I am legitimising the duplicate. How do you get rid of it? Thanks
Local Listings | | AL123al0 -
NAP question and Google local.
Hello, My client has successfully grown one of their event venues locally (lets call it venue A) and on the back of that bought two more venues (B & C). Then created an umbrella company to manage all three. He now wants to market the umbrella company and so redirected the original successful venue domain (A) to the new umbrella company domain. The umbrella company is located at the same address as the original venue A. So it shares the same address, phone number, website as venue A but a different name. All this done before me. He has a Google local page for the original venue - venue A- and changed the domain on it to the new one. He also has Google local pages for the other two venue locations. But doesn't have a Google local page for the umbrella company. Now he finds rankings are down. Looking around I can see that his citations are all based on the original successful venue name A - but he has changed the website URL on many of the citations to the new domain.So a bit of a mess as we have a mixture of addresses, same phone number for all 4 , different business names for all 4, same website for all 4. If all the venues plus the umbrella company are in the same city, but have different names and addresses but the same phone number (for bookings) and web address, are they allowed a Google local page each? I suggest just having a Google local page for the umbrella company and remove the others as they are not actually separate businesses although they do have different addresses. But unsure if this is correct or necessary. Not sure how to progress with this one and any help appreciated?
Local Listings | | AL123al0 -
Local SEO: Special charakters in brand name?
Hey guys, we run a local gym in Germany located in Nuremberg called: "STUDIO N°1 - natürlich fit". Our domain is: www.studio-no1.de We are currently working on a new website since our current Website isn't really SEO optimized. Until then I would like to start optimizing some off-page attributes. As far as I know one of the main points in Local SEO is that your firm is registered at important directories. In our case we are already registred in most of the important german directories. The problem is that our oficicial company name has a special charakter included. This means that in some cases we have "N°1" and in some others "No1! Our Google Business name for example has "N°1", facbook not (no special charakter allowed). Germanys most important site for listings: Gelbeseiten, doesn't even allow special charakters in brand names.... On which name should I focus to get all the business listings to have identical NAP informations? Does it even matter? Schould I focus on "STUDIO No1 - natürlich fit" or "STUDIO N°1 - natürlich fit"? I hope you could understand my problem. Big Thanks Jonas
Local Listings | | Jo_Da0 -
Don't Let Your Google My Business Dashboard Become Inactive
Google's Jade Wang has offered some important clarification on the scenario of set-and-forget Google My Business dashboards - Google could determine that they are inactive and un-verify the listings they contain. She writes, "In some cases, we may contact Google My Business users via email to confirm that they are still actively managing a business page. If a user is unresponsive to our attempts to contact him or her and has not logged into Google My Business for a significant length of time, then we may unverify pages in the account. We're doing this in order to continue to provide users with the best experience when they’re looking for local businesses like yours. If you find that a page in your account has been incorrectly unverified, please contact support to get assistance restoring verification. It's a good idea to keep an eye on the inbox associated with your Google My Business (Locations) account. It's also a good idea to regularly log into Google My Business (Locations) to confirm that your business information is current and accurate." Mike Blumenthal initially posted that it was necessary to perform a null edit (a tactic in which you view the edit screen of your Google+ Local listing and hit 'save' without making any changes), but Mike has since updated his post to clarify that a null edit isn't actually necessary. According to what Mike learned, you can simply log into the dashboard once every few months, or if you have to make real edits or you post on your page, that should provide an adequate signal to Google that the dashboard is still being actively managed. In the past, an agency with a limited contract with a local business could create the company's Google+ Local page and step away from it. Of course, it's the ideal that your clients are actively posting to their Google My Business page, if it's the right social strategy for them, but many clients don't do this. And so, they'll likely be getting an email from Google one of these days asking if they are still active. If that's the case, you may be hearing from past clients asking if the email is real and what they should do. Fortunately, they should be able to make the the quick visit to the dashboard without help. But for agencies with large numbers of long-term clients, this business of keeping track of how often you've logged into the clients' dashboards could be a bit of a hassle. Just one more task to add to the to-do list. Google has been going through some growing pains recently. With the lock-down of the editing function on Mapmaker and the further removal of Google+ links from more places, many Local SEOs and local business owners are wondering where Google is headed in the local space. To my mind, the fact that they are trying to police active vs. neglected listings is a bit of a sign the Google remains serious about delivering Local quality. And for all of us ... that's a good thing!
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis4 -
Local seo citation tools
Hi I have been manually adding my details to local/national directories in order to help my ranking in my google places placing. It is a bit of a grind, and I am aware there are tools out there. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with any of them? I am UK based. Also I was ranking for "Liverpool Photographer" on google places for a couple of months and it brought in quite a bit of work, although I have since slipped back to about 15th, so out of the visible results. I am mainly a wedding photographer so my home page was optimised mainly for "liverpool wedding photographer" Although I hired an SEO company who changed the home page title to "liverpool photographer", I cannot remember if I was ranking on places for this keyword because of this change or I was already in the results before the changes were made. So my question is how Can I rank for "liverpool photographer" and "Liverpool wedding photographer" on a places result at the same time? I hope this makes sense. Best wishes. David.
Local Listings | | WallerD0 -
Local Subdomain vs. Local Subfolder
I know this is an issue that's been discussed here ad nauseum but I have, possibly, an interesting case. A third party company created our local search pages, and they perform very highly in SERPs, but are subdomains (local.website.com). But my problem comes down to two things, one of which isn't necessarily a subdomain vs. subfolder issue. 1.a. With the subdomain local.website.com we rank much higher for local search than we do for regular search on our main domain and it's respective keywords, would changing these subdomains to subfolders keep the link juice that the subdomain currently possesses and actually help our website rankings? b. And what strikes me as the most puzzling is that on local.website.com ALL of the content is identical (I can thank Copyscape for that) to the other local search pages on our own site and various other sites in our industry. I know the duplicate content is hurting our domain, which makes it even more confusing that our subdomain is ranking so highly for things like "diamonds by the yard florida". 2. We're an online only company, and I feel as though gaming the local search function isn't exactly something we should be doing, both from an ethical and an SEO standpoint. Is there any evidence that abusing the local search functions can have a negative affect on a domain's rankings? Hopefully this makes sense, if anyone needs clarification please let me know and I'll endlessly clarify. Thanks,
Local Listings | | allurez0 -
Local Listing Question for Vet Office
We have done the off-page directory listings work for a veterinary office (submitting to the main data-aggregators, as well as sites such as CitySearch/Manta/Yelp) & now want to supplement those with submissions for each individual doctor. There are 8 doctors at their practice. The plan was to submit them to only 3 sites - the main data-aggregators of LocalEze, ExpressUpdateUSA & Factual. They only have one phone number (their main number) to use for listings. So can we submit the doctors all with the same number? Or is that a total waste of time b/c listings will end up being duplicated/merged down the road? What do you recommend that we do?
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
Change in Google local ranking
So we have a WA construction client that we're working on doing some local SEO stuff. This month all the keywords that we're tracking but one is on the first page. It's easy to say "yay, we're so damn good at what we do", but it seems like there must have been a shift in the way google is ranking local results. Anyone else experiencing this??
Local Listings | | SoleGraphics0