Local search results question
-
Hello,
I wonder if anyone can help. I have a client who is based outside the main city that he is wanting to rank in. The address on his website is his own home which is about 20 miles from the city. However, he services the city and the surrounding area.
His ranking for the very competitive keyword is on page 2 and won't budge. We have made his Google+ page show the servicing area to include the city. We add new content regularly. The onsite SEO is strong and the city name is in the Title and H1 tags. We have lots of local consistent citations for him. This usually results in movement in the SERPS in my experience. But after 3 months this keyword is stuck whilst his other less competitive keywords are moving up. He is ranking 1st for the local area to his home address for the competitive keyword.
So my question is - is this purely a result of his local address. Does Google rate him less local than his competitors who have addresses in the city even after we do a lot of citation building etc for him? Will it be possible to rank him for the city? I know 3 months isn't long but still would expect to see some difference. Anyone got any thoughts?
-
You've very welcome!
-
Thank you for the clarity.
-
Hey There!
Samuel has provided good advice and resources. Very nice! In answer to your recent question, yes, it would definitely help if the client were physically located in his desired city, and sometimes, clients will ask if they can swing this with a virtual office, a Regus office or P.O. box. This question comes up all the time, because the temptation is so great, and in such cases, it's up to the Local SEO to tell it like it is. Some people get away with this for a time, but chances are, they will eventually get caught. Linda Buquet just started a great thread at her forum on this:
Might be useful to have that link on your browser when you talk about this with the client
-
Thanks Samuel.
Reading the link you included about city landing places makes sense. Without a physical address in the city though it will be hard to get my client to outrank as quoting from the article:
And, don’t expect to outrank your competitors who have physical locations in your service cities. Google will generally favor businesses with physical locations in a target city over businesses that simply serve there.
It may be worthwhile having an address in the city too to make any real impact?
-
Unfortunately, I have news that might be a little disheartening. Google's main goal is to provide users with good search results. How many people would consider going to a local business that is located 20 miles away when there are countless others very close? Obviously, few of them. So, Google will reflect that fact.
But all is not lost! Read this great guide to local SEO on Moz -- specifically, point number two on physical address. I'll summarize:
because of Google's bias toward physical location, these businesses are unlikely to ever appear in the local pack of results. As things presently stand with Google, the best hope for these types of business owners is to begin developing city landing pages that showcase their professional association with these other cities, whether this involves windows they wash on the skyscrapers of Dallas or lectures they give at a Denver hospital. The goal here is to gain additional visibility in the organic results for these other geographic terms.
There are some exceptions that may overcome Google's bias. If you search for a niche business model in or around a major city, or search for any business model in a rural location, you may see listings in the local pack of results that stem from several cities. For example, if there is only one gas station serving a large radius in a rural area, it may pop up as a local result for any of the towns in that region. This scenario, however, tends to be the exception rather than the rule.
In sum, it is generally wise for local business owners to set the goal of earning local pack rankings for searches related to their city of location, and organic rankings for any other geographic terms they feel are important.
Good luck!
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
-
???? "Google My Business", Search Console, Google Webmaster Tools
I added a Google+ Page for my business several years ago. Now when I click on "Search Console" within Webmaster Tools it is asking me to provide business information that I entered several years ago for Google+. Is this normal? Should I fill it out? It seems that this info is redundant with what I filled out for Google+. When I enter the name of my business (Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc. ) in Google, a listing appears to the right, so it seems that Google already has my details. Thanks,
Local Listings | | Kingalan1
Alan vkpDA XgCcQ0 -
LOCAL (city of 500k) Keyword Research - am I just wasting my time?
I have tried numerous tools, my team of freelancers, (fiver I admit) and a couple people from Upwork and still not getting a GOOD response to - How much search volume is there for "home builders" JUST in WIchita, KS (for example) I get local results like that are challenging because a lot of them show no search volume. Am I missing something? Can recommend a resource? I would be really grateful! 🙂 I am trying to figure out a nice long (ideally) list of keywords for 'plumbers, wichita ks', 'dentist, wichita ks' - Local service businesses and everything I try shows next to nothing. Thanks for ANY advice! 🙂 Matthew
Local Listings | | Mrupp441 -
Local Profile Struggling
Hi guys, we have a client that we are having some issues with. We have done extensive directory work for them, so this is unusual. Their Google My Business profile isn't ranking hardly at all, although they have decent organic rankings. Here is the company: https://plus.google.com/+ComfortAireHeatingCoolingPlumbingWisconsinRapids/about We have two possible reasons, but before we spend the time fixing these we were hoping for some reassurance from the Moz community. 1)Name in GMB looks spammy. This truly is their name, but we thought it may be an issue due to the keywords. 2)Address inconsistency: The client wanted us to use 880 Highway 73 South, Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494 so that is how we submitted it to aggregators and directory sites. Google didn't accept that, they changed it to: 880 WI-73 Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494. The USPS Zip code checker didn't accept either of these, they use 880 STATE HIGHWAY 73 S, WISCONSIN RAPIDS WI 54494. Do you guys think one of these is our issue, or could it be something else. Thanks in advance for your insights!
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
The Local Stack Rollout - A New Day In Local
Hey There, all my fellow Local SEOs! Yesterday morning, I was searching for a car wash and was really puzzled to see my search return snack pack-style results, given that I wasn't looking for a restaurant, hotel or an entertainment venue. Sure enough, what I had run into was the rollout of Google's latest local SERPs, which for the sake of clarity, let's call the Local Stack. This is happening in multiple countries and across thousands of keywords and your local clients (or your local business) are likely to be affected by it, so I thought I'd post a heads-up here. Good Reading: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/08/06/7-pack-becoming-3-pack-with-mobile-like-snak-pack-rollout/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/08/07/thoughts-about-the-new-local-stack-display/comment-page-1/#comment-859275 http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/35481-goodbye-7-packs-only-3-packs-no-phone-address-all-local-results.html http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/35515-new-local-3-stack-local-pro-opinions-roundup-change-rocked-our-world.html That last one has a bunch more great links in it. In June, I wrote a post here on Moz itemizing my concerns about the Snack Pack and its impacts on the hospitality/entertainment industries. Now, these same concerns are coming to me local-search-wide, with the rollout of the Local Stack. My early days key points from looking at the new Local Stack: No phone numbers without clicking through to Local Finder, which I consider to be really poor usability, given the invention of the cell phone and the way we use it call businesses. No links to the Google+ Local page, meaning that consultants like ourselves may have a really hard time explaining the value of creating a Google listing when so few SERPs will now actually lead to that listing. 3 chances to rank when your city has dozens or even hundreds or businesses in a single industry seems next-to-impossible. It's not a good reflection of the diversity of the business scene in the real world. There aren't 3 Italian restaurants in San Francisco or 3 lawyers in Boston. There are scores of them. Google's Local Stack is a poor reflection of the real world, in my view, and makes every city look like a one horse town. On the other hand, the baldness of the Local Stack is making the 'more' link at the bottom of it really jump out at me, and if you click through, up to 20 businesses will show with the Local Finder. So, I'm a bit torn on this. Are the 4 businesses that just fell out of prominence with the removal of the 7 pack worse off or are 13 businesses now jumping for joy because they are in a sort of pack today that they weren't in 2 days ago? I guess this depends on how willing consumers are to click that 'more' link. Given the meagerness of the Local Stack, organic is likely a great deal more important now for every local business, but I'm concerned by SERPs I'm looking at which are mainly taken up by directories rather than any actual local business websites. So, those are some first thoughts from me and I would totally love to hear yours on this thread as you are trying to assess how you see this impacting your clients or your business. It's definitely a new day in Local!
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis4 -
Do canonical links effect local search rankings?
Hello, I have just been doing some reading about canonical links. Part of my role at my family business is to look after all of the SEO and digital marketing for our business. I've been really pleased with the results i've managed to get as we currently rank in the top 3 in the organic search for all of the keywords we've been trying for. My question is though, The Moz scan of my site came back and said we have some duplicate content. Although i've written every page completely from scratch I am sort of saying the same thing. We cover a few different areas for our business and we are in the service industry and i've always thought it was better to have a page dedicated to an area. We are a removals company and I would always type in for example 'Removal companies in London' I wouldn't just type in Removal Companies. It is very location specific which we've found out by asking our customers what they have/would type in. Because of this, I was thinking perhaps this duplicate content is harming our sites SEO so I wondering, if i implemented a canonical link from all of my local area pages to my main House Removals page to say that there is where the content originated.Would it negatively affect the current ranking of my local pages (as it's pretty good) or would it actually increase the strength of our SEO and improve it? Any help would be hugely appreciated 🙂 Cheers, Robert P.S i'm only self taught and i'm trying to learn as much as i can, please be kind.
Local Listings | | BearPaw880 -
A site is preforming well for 1 local term, but with a slight change to the term it dosnt rank.
Ive got a site thats currently ranking #2 in the local 7 pack listings for the search term : "garden design [city]" but is not ranking at all for "garden designer [city]" (note the "er" at the end of designer). The search traffic for these 2 terms is pretty much the same, and id like to get the site ranking for "garden designer [city]". The only thing i can think of is thats different is that in the <title>tag for the homepage of the site we have "Garden Design [City] - .....", is there any other way i can try and up the local 7 pack ranking for my site other than changing the title tag ?</p> <p>Im thinking of running a link building campaign for the phrase "garden designer [city]", but apart from that i cant think of anything else that could help up my rankings for this, any ideas ?</p></title>
Local Listings | | Sam-P0 -
Google Maps: Submitted Feedback Changed Results
I came across something interesting today. So there is a business in one of my clients areas that had submitted and was being listed on google maps for some spammy locations. I went in and submitted feedback informing google of bad listings. Within 30 minutes or so my results for the same key phrase was different. I decided to see why. I went to other browsers on my computer and searched that key phrase and the results went back to how I originally saw them before the feedback submission. I then erased my browsers cache and after this the results now showed the original results. Does anybody know what cookies and such get placed in a browser that affect listing results? Sincerely, Garret
Local Listings | | eWebify0 -
PO Box for a Local Client
I have a local client who is adamant about not publishing their address anywhere online. They are a local (regional) company, and work out of their home. I advised that PO boxes do not fill within "accurate guidelines" for Google Places (and moving forward any citation building is going to be tough). Any way to get around this besides buying a generic mailbox that isn't a PO Box? They feel putting their home address anywhere leaves them vulnerable to people showing up at their home, and considering the industry they are in, it is possible this could lead to negative confrontations and I understand their concern. Any ideas for me?
Local Listings | | cschwartzel0