Any ranking success with Moz Local?

[KempRugeLawGroup]

In the last three months, our Tampa office has gone from a listing score of 2% to 72% and is considerably higher than everyone else on the first page for Moz Local...but we are on the 13th page! We have not improved at all, even though our score has dramatically.

I know that the listing is only a part of the local equation, but it just a little shocking to me we haven't moved up even one page. Anyone have any success with this tool that translated to increased rankings for local? If so, how long did it take you to see results?

Thanks,

Ruben

[MiriamEllis]

Excellent discussion going on here, ladies and gents! I am so impressed by the deep questions and answers present here. Our community makes me proud!

Ruben, I'd like to bring up a couple of things to add to this good topic.

1. You might like to read my Moz Post http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide which covers the concept of building out pages for various locations in some depth.

2. Citations are a big part of the picture - absolutely! They serve 2 main functions which are a) to help customers find you on a wide variety of platforms and b) to build a consistent, trustworthy body of information about your business on the web, which is then crawled by search engines, causing them to have confidence in the cluster of data they have about your business which can then increase your chances of being considered a relevant answer for certain queries.

So, it's a 1-2 punch kind of thing, building citations. There are direct benefits in a customer finding your listing on a site like Superpages and indirect benefits in the consistency and prevalence of your citations helping search engines to feel confident about the validity and prominence of your business.

This being said, it's my belief and understanding that it takes time for validity/prominence to actually start affecting rank. Every local business platform has its own schedule for taking a citation from zero to live, and then I have to think about search engine bots picking this up and stirring it around in the bucket in which they've got all my other business data. Then, I have to take into account whether my citation building has, in fact, surpassed what my direct local competitors have done or has simply brought me on par with them, meaning citation building will not be the difference-maker I'd love it to be, because my toughest competitors have done the same thing I have (meaning, I'm going to have to find some other way to distance myself from the field).

In sum, citation building is a must-do for any local business that doesn't want to fall behind in their niche, but it takes time to see the positive effects from it and the level of positivity is going to directly relate to the stiffness of the competition. You are in a tough market - law in major cities, which I would consider one of the most difficult ranking environments. Yes, you've got to get those citations in good shape, but my honest appraisal of this is that you are going to have to go way beyond these basics to surpass what is doubtless a highly active/ heavily marketed competitor base. The usual advice of build excellent content, implement on-page Local SEO, build citations, earn reviews is going to be common to all your competitors', so finding something that they're not all already doing may be necessary to see yourself rise in the SERPs by dint of some extra creative, superior effort.

Hope these thoughts are helpful! Glad you brought up this topic, and I hope once Moz Local has had a few more months to bake in the oven, we'll be able to publish some case studies that prove a correlation between participation and positive results!

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Will do, thanks!

• Ruben

[DonnaDuncan]

I concur wholeheartedly with every point Robert has made.

Bottom line, and you know this - you said you did - Moz is only one piece of the puzzle. As Robert said, it's in its early days, but I like it. For $49 it doesn't promise the world. It says it'll update 10 of the most important recipients and aggregators of local data with our your most important local data. It does that. And it provides a wealth of educational material to accompany it.

I recommend you take Robert up on his offer or continue down the path of self-optimization making sure you fill in remaining blanks. I have a post on how to do local SEO if you want to start there. It won't answer all your questions, nor will it result in as good an outcome as you'll get from hiring a pro like Robert, but it might help.

Donna

[RobertFisher]

Ruben

I did not mean for that to come off as harsh or a judgement, it was meant really as being based on what you had written. When I re-read it, to me it seemed a bit blunt. Sorry.

With what you are trying to accomplish around Tampa, there are some things you need to change with all you are doing and, unfortunately, they are a bit long for this format. I am willing to provide you a site you can look at that I know they will not mind where you can see in real life the way to approach this. If you will email or PM me, I will provide that to you. (I am unwilling to put a site name out for this forum since it is a client site and not one I own.)

With your last statement:_ Though, now it looks like I have some other strategies thanks to you all to implement, and that's exciting, but I'm still disappointed. MozLocal, at least for me, has been completely worthless. _I think you have to put it into perspective.

For me, as an agency, most of these Local tools we do not use. I am speaking to any like Yext, etc. and including Moz Local in that. I want to be clear that my respect for Moz is only 1000 times more than Yext, and their product has been out a relatively short amount of time. If there has been a company I have come to trust it is Moz, so if they are not providing a service at the highest level, I believe they will make it right and you should email them or put in a support ticket. 
With any SaaS, you have to be very clear what it is they are providing and I will tell you oftentimes I have to force myself to take the time to read everything they say they are supplying so I can be clear as to what I will or will not receive. As an agency and having a bit of notoriety, I get a call a day about ranking software, linking software, Local software, etc. I try a lot of it, but only end up using any of it rarely. We use Moz analytics, megalytics (which IMO is the best reporting software in the business), MajesticSEO, SEMRush, ahrefs, etc. 
With the Local like Yext, I think it is simply not appropriate to accept money over time and then if someone quits paying you take down all their info. There is NO WAY that taking it down will improve the outcomes of Yext and certainly it will damage the business. In essence a person/business is held hostage. I do not know what Moz does, but IMO Yext is in it for the money based on their actions. It is not about improving outcomes. 
So, with the local, once you have your listings correct, you are at a place where you then must maintain your NAP and guard it and then make sure your site is as optimized as possible to take advantage of Local.

I know that is a lot to take in, but I hope it provides clarity.

Best,

Robert

edited to provide info on valuing Local SaaS

[KempRugeLawGroup]

"I think the issue you are having is looking at Moz Local as if it is a tool to guarantee you will show up on page one of the 7 pack.:"

I do not think that at all, and that's the part I want to make clear. I have not seen ANY change in the ranking. When I saw Moz's pitch about this product, yes, I thought it might get me a really good ranking, but at the very least, I would have sworn there would be some improvement.

When I went through the Moz Pro software and optimized all my pages, etc, etc, I saw massive improvement. This product...nothing.

Though, now it looks like I have some other strategies thanks to you all to implement, and that's exciting, but I'm still disappointed. MozLocal, at least for me, has been completely worthless.

[RobertFisher]

You can rank in both Ruben. We handle several law firm clients and about 30 sites for them. Yes, I have clients who are in Houston and other near areas and we do have them ranking in both areas. You are doing overkill if you are trying to do a separate page for every service at the firm for each location for simply business reasons. First and foremost, a search on Tampa is more "locally" global. In other words there are people in Trinity or St. Pete, etc. who will search on attorney Tampa. There are not that many in Tampa who will search attorney Trinity. So, you need a Tampa page minimally for the Tampa office. Kemprugelawgroup.com/Tampa... /Trinity, etc. Here is how I would set it up. The site would be a Tampa site with dropdown menu for "areas Serviced" or something similar. You might have Trinity, St. Pete, and Clearwater. (Just because a bunch of people will want to say you cannot do that- yes you can. What you cannot do is say you have an office in those other areas when you do not.) Frankly, if you handle it correctly, you can even show up for those searches.

I think the issue you are having is looking at Moz Local as if it is a tool to guarantee you will show up on page one of the 7 pack. I think that is a much more dynamic process than listing with data aggregators, citation sites, etc. It would be nice if someone from Moz Local would chime in here.

I suggest you create two pages for any city you want to rank in. One will be your "contact" page and one a "content" page. We try out variations until we find which works best for a given site in terms of ranking in local and organic. One page for each.

LMK if this helps you understand it a bit better.

Robert

[DonnaDuncan]

Sorry. It's a best practice and has been for a while. Extra work, but adds clarity for visitors and search engines alike.

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Hi Donna,

Well, I was under the impression, if you have two brick-and-mortar offices then you can rank in each location, but I didn't know I needed separate pages for everything. I...guess that's wrong. I will check out the SEJ article; I appreciate you providing it for me.

Thanks,

Ruben

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Robert,

I understand what you are saying about how to check where you rank, but not how we are optimized for Trinity and not Tampa. Earlier this year, we opened a second office in Tampa. After we got verified by Google and everyone else. I got MozLocal to help us rank there.

I made sure to add our new phone, address and everything else to the site. So, I'm not sure what else I could do other than that for on-page optimization? I guess I could build out separate pages for each location as Donna suggested?

Either way, I'd greatly appreciate any concepts you'd like to share with me on any ways to improve our performance. Feel free to respond here, message me or email me at [email protected]

Thanks,

Ruben

P.S. I'm glad you liked it here!

[DonnaDuncan]

I agree with Robert, you're mixing apples and oranges - trying to rank in Trinity and Tampa at the same time. You're also correct in noting that listings are only part of the equation.

Search Engine Journal published a post back in April that succinctly summarizes what you need to do to rank well in multiple locations. It also points you to the Google's Places Quality Guidelines if you're not already familiar with them.

Bottom line though, you need a dedicated page per location on your website. Each location page has to be clearly differentiated with a unique (and local !) phone number and content. This is the page you should be submitting to Google Places via Moz Local.

Make sense? Or am I telling you something you already know?

[RobertFisher]

Ruben,

I hate to hear anyone is struggling to rank locally and I have an agency and we do Local for clients. I am a huge Moz fan, but do not use the Moz Local. I am answering because you are making an assumption that I think I can assist in. When I read what Moz Local does, they get you listed on the major data aggregators (easy big picture version). You are located in Trinity, FL. (I had a business in Tampa for several years). 
When I search from a computer based in Trinity with an incognito search for - Personal Injury Lawyer - you are ranked second in the 7-pack and 4th in organic.

When I add - Tampa - to the search (and computer still in Trinity) you are not in the 7 pack, but you are ranked 20th in organic (page 2 # 10) for ..../personal-injury.

The issue is you are locally optimized for Trinity FL where you are. (So, I guess, it is working for you.) The problem is if you are trying to rank locally in Tampa even though really your are in the Tampa/St. Pete/ Clearwater area, you are really in Trinity and you are ranking well there. To truly know how you rank, you have to be set to an incognito or &PWS=0 search and have the computer geo located to the area you are searching for.

I know this is confusing and I also know it makes people want to go get virtual offices ( don't do it please), but there are other tools you can use to assist you beyond just optimizing locally and still being able to rank in some of these areas. LMK if you understand and I will be happy to lay out a few concepts that might help.

Best of luck

Robert (I miss running around the bay there!)