Top Local Organic Rankings, But Nowhere to be found on Google Snack Pack

[JasonKhoo]

I've been working with a local gym for a while now. We successfully got the gym to beat out all its competitor and now it consistently ranks in the 3rd or 4th result for all major local industry keywords. For example "gym in [city]". The only thing above us is Yelp and other directory sites.

The problem I am running into is we do well organically, but when it comes to Google Snack Pack we aren't in the top three or even 10. You have to go deep into the next pages of the map to find our business. I did find that we use to be categorized as health club in Google My Business, but I changed that three months ago.

Some more additional info, the site when I got the account moved to a different url. So many directories and sites that linked to us in the past link to the old url. The old url is 301 redirected to our current url.

I haven't found much info about this topic and am looking for any experience or insight?

[kbates]

Hey Miriam,

That is interesting...and complex! Considering the location of the user at the time the search take place makes so much sense...especially for Google to rank them that way.

Unfortunately, that also makes it harder to help clients who want to be in the top three all the time.

Thanks so much for your time and insight.

Kirk

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Kirk,

Good question. Answer is, this is not an exact science. It's something you get a 'feel for'. Do this experiment. Look up "car dealerships" in the city nearest you and see if you see them clustered around a certain street in town on the Google Map. Look at the rankings next to the map (called the local finder view) and see if most of the high ranking businesses are in or around that cluster and if car dealerships that happened to be on the other side of town, away from this auto-row kind of setup common in much of the US, are not ranking quite as well as those physically located on the auto row.

If so, then this could be the concept of the industry cluster at play. I still see this phenomenon, but important to mention that, with every passing year, we are seeing more and more emphasis on the user being the centroid  rather than the industry being the centroid. In other words, if me and my cell phone are on auto row in a town, Google will predominantly show me businesses there. If we drive across town, Google will show me the car dealerships over there. So, I am the moving centroid!

But, if you are searching from your house in San Diego for a car dealership in Santa Fe, NM, you're not much of a centroid in that scenario because you're awfully far away. In that case, you might see these clusters being more obvious than you would if you were physically located in Santa Fe.

Complex ideas, huh? But interesting!

[kbates]

Hi Miriam,

This is a great response. I have one question; how can one tell what Google's industry cluster is for a city? What is the standard or resource for measuring an area where a client is located?

Thanks!

Kirk

[marshalllj]

Thanks Miriam

[MiriamEllis]

Hey There!

It's very important to remember that citations are just one of several hundred estimated factors that contribute to local pack rankings. In my earlier reply from March 3rd, I recommended some things any local business owner should consider when they aren't ranking in the local pack. I'd suggest you investigate all of these. Hope it helps!

[marshalllj]

I've had Moz Local for my site for over a year and I have a 98% score, but I'm not in the local pack at all. Moz shows 0 vs my three competitors that show 40-60. I don't get it. We're a new kid on the block but we've been up and running over 2 years now.

Thanks,

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jason,

So glad if this helped get your troubleshooting started! Regarding redirecting URLs, while I can't accurately state exactly how much the redirecting URLs might be causing trouble, they are something I would absolutely recommend cleaning up, partly for consistency purposes, but also to be sure your branding is cohesive across the board. So, yes, definitely put citation cleanup on your to-do list.

[JasonKhoo]

Thanks Matt. Yeah I've had an inkling its all about the consistency of the citations. I'll have to go through and see if I can start cleaning them up.

[JasonKhoo]

Thanks Miriam! I'm glad you were able to provide all that info into one post. What I'm thinking is it might be a Citation consistency. But I'll have to investigate more and see what it might be from all the factors you listed.

Quick Question: Because we just changed URL's in the last year, many citations have our old URL listed. Though that old URL is 301 redirected to our new one, would that still count as inconsistency because the URL itself is listed differently?

Thank you for all the help!

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Jason!

The most common reason for what you are describing is geographic. The high-organic-ranking-but-low-pack-ranking business is either outside of:

1. The user's centroid (where the user is physically located at the time of search)

2. Google's industry cluster (business is far from the industry centroid Google has assigned)

3. The business isn't actually inside of the city of search

Joy Hawkin's actually wrote a very good article about the 3rd issue over at Search Engine Land recently: http://searchengineland.com/rank-high-organically-not-locally-case-study-240692 I highly recommend reading that and doing a thorough study of any geographic limitations that may be holding you back.

Now, if it turns out not to be any of the above 3 things, the next thing to look into is whether something is wrong with the way the business is using Google My Business. Namely, if you've violated any guidelines, that can tank your local pack rankings.

Finally, if neither geography nor guideline violations are at play here, then you have to go back to the basics, like:

1. Organic strength

2. Citation consistency, spread and age

3. Reviews

etc.

Pretty much every case I've ever seen like the one you're describing can be diagnosed by investigating all of the above, and will it will turn out that one of the above things, or a combination of them, is the answer.

Hope this helps!

[MattAntonino]

Generally a huge difference in local vs organic rankings is one of citation authority. You need to build more citation strength with full NAPs (name, address, phone) - things like what Moz Local does.

Doing that type of citation-building should help move you up the local charts. Make sure your GMB page is optimized for the location, you've added photos to the listing, the keyword is prominent across the description and such ... consistent NAP on other sites that list the business, and then just build more. Should rank fine after that.