How come I get different rankings on same word in local search results of Google?

[newtraffic]

Dear fellow Mozzer's, for one of my clients I get different local results in Google.

My client is a real-estate broker and when I search on "real-estate agent" + the city name we are on top. So whoohoo you would say BUT when Firefox has the exact city name determined as the location I am in and I only use "real-estate agent" I get also the local results but we are listed as number 8??

Hope anyone can give me insights as I have no idea what's causing this. Thanks in advance for your help!

[MiriamEllis]

You are very welcome, Mark!

[newtraffic]

Hi MIriam, thanks for answering my question, the article also looks promising, many thxz.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Mark,

This is a good question about a common phenomenon. So, basically, you are performing 2 different types of searches.

When you search for 'real estate agent', by itself with no geo modifier, you are performing what I would call an 'organic search', and leaving any geo personalization up to Google. I'm not in the Netherlands, but this appears to me to work the same in the US.  So, the local results you are seeing for a broad organic search like that are coming from Google's identification of your location, rather than a signal of intent you would be sending to the search engine by including a city name.

But, when you add  your local city name to your query, you are clearly telling the search engine that you are interested in local results. This is actually a different type of search than the first example I've given.

Also, you can perform a third type of local search. For example, let's say you live in Los Angeles, but are looking for a real estate agent in San Francisco. You may, again, get slightly different results when you search for 'real estate agent san francisco' because you're not actually located in San Francisco.

So, each type of search is different, and Google is going to display somewhat different results for each query type.

I have a fabulous article for you to read more about this phenomenon. Here is Nyagoslav Zhekov's piece on this from August. Think you will really like it:

http://www.ngsmarketing.com/the-two-types-of-local-search-and-how-local-seo-should-reflect-them/

Read that through, as I'm sure it will give you some very good information.

So, basically, what a question like this boils down to is...if I rank at the top in one type of search, and lower down in a different type of search, what factors are at play that are affecting this? This will require an analysis of your own marketing efforts as well as an analysis of your competition. From this, you may be able to discover that in one set of results, on-page SEO strengths are enabling some businesses to outrank others, where as in another type of search, off-page factors such as proximity to centroid, linkbuilding, citations or reviews are the reason for some businesses outranking others.

Hope this helps!

[donford]

Hi Mark

Consider this

real-estate agent San Jose

and

real-estate agent

are not the same keywords. While you may search for real-estate agent from San Jose, the results are based on the actual keyword searched for.

Localized results do offer more "local" feeling but they do not auto append city names to keywords. Which would make since, you maybe in a suburb and not necessarily want to only see San Jose agents..

Hope that helps