Had a local SEO client completely drop off in all rankings...?
-
Hey everyone!
I wanted to ask the Moz community on what I should be on the lookout for in this situation; I have a local SEO client, an orthopedic clinic, who out of nowhere completely dropped off the map. Their Search Visibility is now at .001%.
I really have no idea what would have caused this... I have dozens of other local SEO clients and have never seen this before.
-
You might have received a manual or an algorithmic penalty? so this situation must be fixed by your SEO company.
-
Hi Taylor,
While I don't have the necessary time to do a complete audit, let's take a quick look at a few things here:
-
Your client is at least not suspended. Their listing still exists at: https://www.google.com/search?q=orthopedic associates boise idaho&oq=orthopedic+associates+boise+id&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l3.6373j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&npsic=0&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=43612266,-116292485,1&tbm=lcl&rldimm=14815419333811269136&ved=2ahUKEwiIvfWg3P7cAhUmwcQHHWPdB0sQvS4wAHoECAEQEw&rldoc=1&tbs=lrf:!2m1!1e2!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:2#rlfi=hd:;si:14815419333811269136;mv:!1m3!1d15.045442483230412!2d-116.29248519999999!3d43.612266299999995!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1!2i1!4f13.1;tbs:lrf:!2m1!1e2!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:2
-
On the Contact Page of the Website, you are listing no street extension and a suite number. On the listing, you have no suite number. While Google doesn't pay attention to suite numbers, I am wondering why there is this discrepancy, which at the very least, is confusing for patients. So, that's something to clean up. The website is listing your client at W. Emerald. The GMB listing at Emerald St. Which is it? Choose one and clean the rest up. Your phone number is not the same on your Contact Page as on your GMB listing. Why is this? It should be cleaned up.
-
On the GMB listing, you have listed no hours, have no photos, have only 1 review from a first-time reviewer, are not using Google Posts, or G Q&A. Your listing for this client is pretty empty and can definitely be improved.
-
You have what I'm guessing is a practitioner listing for a Jeffery G. Hessing. It also features some NAP discrepancies you should check out.
-
The fact that you have no Knowledge Panel appearing in the organic SERPs when I search for the brand "Orthopedic Associates Boise Idaho" leads me to believe that Google just doesn't feel it knows much about the business. So, I'd fully utilize all of the GMB features and put a review acquisition campaign in place to help this business start having more information for Google to dive into.
-
When I do non-branded search for just "orthopedist boise idaho" you are not being filtered out by Possum, which is good news. You are ranking in the 11th spot and likely need to invest in both local and organic SEO to start moving up the rankings.
-
On August 1st, there was a Google algorithm update released. Some have called it the "medic update", though Gary Illyes of Google says it didn't specifically target health-related sites. Have you read up on this? If the date your client's rankings dropped is around August 1st, it would be important to read everything you can about this update to see if your client appears to have been impacted by it. Dr. Pete wrote a good post here on Moz: https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/googles-august-1st-core-update-week-1
-
Firing up Moz Check listing, it looks like there is a lot of work to be done with your citation completeness, and, of more concern, look at the duplicates tab. https://mza.seotoolninja.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMk9ydGhvcGFlZGljJTI1MjBBc3NvY2lhdGVzJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyODM3MDQlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjJPcnRob3BhZWRpYyUyNTIwQXNzb2NpYXRlcyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjg4NTQlMjUyMEVtZXJhbGQlMjUyMFN0JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyODM3MDQlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjIyMDgzNzgyODY4JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIydXMlMjUyMiUyNTVE You have a serious issue going on with duplicate Google listings both for the practice and for Dr. Hessing. Each of these must be appropriately addressed. This article may help you: https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/delete-gmb-listing The presence of claimed duplicate listings is a violation of Google's guidelines, and even if they are unclaimed, they could certainly be impacting your ability to rank as this client as you'd like to.
So, those are some issues I'm seeing at a glance. I recommend that you investigate all this, do a complete competitive audit for this client, and perhaps, hire a Local SEO to consult with your agency to help get basic local search marketing going for them. There are quite a few issues going on here that could directly or indirectly explain your client not ranking very well. Hope this helps and good luck!
-
-
The client is called Orthopaedic Associates, based out of Boise, Idaho.
You can view their site here: https://orthoa.com/
-
Hi Taylor,
Are you able to share the identity of the client? If not, my best advice is to investigate
-
Filters (like Possum)
-
Hard/soft penalties.
-
Bugs
-
-
This is an actual client who almost disappeared from Google.
I don't see how they could have gotten hit with a penalty, to be honest. We have been working with them for a while and haven't done anything different. Maybe a few tweaks to meta descriptions / title tags as we update their site.
-
Probably has some penalty? what is the situation is this a new client with no visibility, or an actual client who almost disappear from Google.
A Google penalty is a punishment against a website whose content conflicts with the marketing practices enforced by Google. This penalty can come as a result of an update to Google's ranking algorithm, or a manual review that suggests a web page used "black hat" SEO tactics.
Recently Google made an update to the algorithm so you will need to check it is affecting that website.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Unlinking Google Local Listing from your GMB Account with other locations you have
I have listings that I need disconnected from my main Google My Business account. I can close, or remove which is similar as closing, but the goal is not to close the listings, just to remove the association to my google account, and im not transferring the listing as well. Anyone know how to accomplish this? Goal is to clean up old listings that are exist but I dont manage Thanks for all the help
Local Listings | | vmialik0 -
Question About Replying to Yelp Reviews and SEO
Hi guys, I was wondering if responding to negative yelp reviews would in turn boost yelps seo ranking for my business name. I'm trying to direct attention away from yelp being that we've had little success having real clients get through the review filter. We unfortunately have nasty competition that seems to be leaving fake negative reviews incessantly.
Local Listings | | Dsv2 -
Why is my local page is ranking better than yellow pages for that particular search?
My search query is "façadier bastogne" in google.be which in English would translate as "plasterer" and bastogne being the local city I am targeting. I can't seem to understand why my site peintre-plafonneur-facadier-bastogne.be/fr would rank higher than our local directory "Pages d'or" (Yellow Pages) which has a high DA and almost always ranks first for similar searches as "peintre bastogne" (painter)? Not to mention my site was created by Pages d'Or. How did they manage to rank this so high whereas if you look at it you'll see that they have not made any SEO work on it whatsoever. Could anyone help me understand this or tell me which way to look in order to get that information? I really need this as I am paying a lot to this directory for my site and was planning to launch my own WordPress website.
Local Listings | | Thomaspdt1 -
Local Optimization for Multiple Businesses Issues/Strategy
Hello Everyone, So we have a client with a geo-focused ‘sports’ site but they also have a second site they are using to promote the seasonal camps they run. Local demographics and traffic would be a priority and main source of traffic. We know it would be ideal to have all of it consolidated but in this case a separate site was needed. The camp site would be under a different Name but they do not really have a different physical location from the primary site. Assuming we can’t find a discernable different location we could use; from a local optimization perspective we have two questions: Does that mean that we shouldn’t venture into local listings that need an address and trying to rank for map results and instead shift focus to other local strategies (i.e. geo-relevant content, link acquisition….etc.)? – We don’t want to dilute or devalue the primary site at all but if possible would like to be able to come up for both. Should we avoid listing the address on the camp site as text for similar reasons? We know the same business could be listed for multiple locations but any suggestions on the opposite approach or input would be very appreciated. Please let us know if there is anything we could provide details for that might help. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you in advance. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R0 -
Are there any services like Moz Local for Canada?
Was wondering if there would be a way to simplify getting NAP data out there and consistent for a business in Canada like we have here in the US with Moz Local? If not, are there specific sites besides Yellow Pages Group and the government site (ic.gc.ca) to submit their information? I'm sure Yelp, Facebook, Google, Bing, Yahoo, and all the usuals...but where else?
Local Listings | | JaxMediaTeam0 -
How valuable are citaitons/consistency (Moz Local) for a NON-local business?
Hi All! I'm doing some research for non-local SEO clients and finding that many of them have messy and extremely inconsistent listing profiles (via Moz Local checker). It seems to me that this would be a good thing to take care of, even for a non local site. Anyone have insights on whether or not this is something we should take care of? If so, any details on how or why it would or would not be a good idea? Thanks! Ricky
Local Listings | | SUCCESSagency0 -
Why I'm I ranking so low on Google Maps
About 3 months I started a website (www.guyetteroofing.com) for my roofing business in Montgomery, Alabama. The site is still a work in progress, however, because the competition doesn't really market via internet it was fairly easy to rank on Google Maps. Within 1 month the business was letter "A" in Google Maps. About 3 three weeks ago my ranking was dropped considerably, not showing up at all in letters A through G. The business is still indexed in Google Maps, but only represented by a small red dot. My website is still ranking pretty high for "roofers in Montgomery", but my position on Google Maps has all but disappeared. I have no idea what I've done to be rank so low on Google Maps but still have a solid position on regular Google Search. I've checked my citations and my NAPs, there are a few inconsistencies but nothing major. How can I rank so far below my competition if I have twice as many citations, an actual website, and a Google Plus page?
Local Listings | | billyguyette0 -
Why would a domain rank well in some markets and poorly in others?
We are having an issue with our SERP results. Basically here is what’s happening. We offer training in 47 cities. Our main sales page is [http://example.com/product/city-name]. Whenever we change our location preferences in Google, and that URL format is the landing page for our main 3 keywords, we rank no worse than 15. Most of those are on the first page. However, if that is not the landing page in the SERPs, we rank poorly. Depending on which keyword is used, one of three URLs will ALWAYS appear instead of the desired city-specific landing page, and we rank somewhere between pages 6 and 9. The other landing pages, depending on which keyword is used, are http://example.com (home page), http://example.com/product (without the city), or http://example.com/product/san-francisco (regardless of how close this is). Out of the 141 keywords, there have been between 9-25 keywords that have this issue. Having all 3 of these keywords in the top 10 for each city is the number one priority from our CEO. We have noticed if a page starts moving down the ranks, once it goes past 15, the landing page changes. Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this, or how to fix it? Any insight into this is much appreciated!
Local Listings | | PM_Academy0