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Category: Local Listings

Examine the impact of maintaining consistent and accurate local listings on your local SEO strategy.

  • JasonKhoo


    In the latter half of the year I've noticed some changes with Express Update. When I get to the phone call verification point, everything works fine. The call goes through, I get the code on my screen and input it. However, what I've noticed is that the voice prompt says everything is complete, but on the screen it doesn't go to the dashboard. It loops back to the phone call verification phase. Every time I've had this issue, which is about 6 - 7 times now, I send an email to Infogroup and they tell me to customer support. Each time they tell me that their system has a bug. Express Update has not worked for almost 6 months now. The person helping me will always ask if I'm an SEO company. If you say yes, they will start pushing a new package. I'm just checking if anyone else has had this issue. I'm not sure if this is how they are vetting SEO companies. I'd like to make the phone call verification process easier.

    | JasonKhoo
    0
  • muzzmoz


    What do you say to a client who recently purchased an online business and says 'I don't really care if the phone number or address on a directory is old or incorrect'?I've tried to explain the value from an SEO point of view, but he's not really buying it.Anyone encountered this skepticism before and if so, how did you handle it?

    | muzzmoz
    0
  • formandfunctionagency


    I have 2 locations and 6+ different Google Business pages due to a company merger and automatic page creation. Some of the GMB even pages rank in maps above the ones we use for certain terms and most bring traffic to my site, but I know the dupes are hurting our maps rankings. Is there a way I can consolidate these pages by combining them? Or am I better off just biting the bullet and deleting the pages I don't want to use?

    | formandfunctionagency
    0
  • ChoChauRice


    Hello Mozzers, Today I ran across a knowledge-graph-esque bar in Bing. My first thought was "how do I get in there?" I set to work trying to check out what competitors are in this bar for clients in other industries. These listings seem to be for doctors only. Here's what I found: These listings came up for: [city] doctor, [city] orthodontist, [city] pediatrician, [city] optometrist, etc. After I did this research I realized the listings were individuals and not businesses. I set my search to professional services focused on a single person, like attorneys or accountants. Still no dice. Has anyone seen or know what this is? Update: These profiles also appear on mobile search. Xsvqz

    | ChoChauRice
    0
  • Gavo


    We have a mortgage broker client, ABC, who shares an address with another business, XYZ who is a loans company. A previous SEO agency created GMBs for these 2 businesses using the same physical address and recently, we had to resolve this issue of duplicate address with Google. ABC was happy for us to fix the issue up by putting a unit no. "A" thus making their address "#7A Smith Street" and business XYZ now has #7B on their GMB. Our question is will this affect consistency if we were to build citations without "#7A Smith Street" but just using "7 Smith Street" which is their REAL physical address? Business XYZ has also just contracted us for SEO which means we will end up building citations for 2 businesses with the same business address (but different phone numbers). Should we actually continue using "#7A" and "#7B" for citation building even though that's not what their address is? Thank you in advance for your response!

    | Gavo
    1
  • jpeg80


    Id like to be able to drill down into the local search traffic for a site in google analytics, i know i can get some analytics data via google's local places dashboard, but id like to see a more detailed chart in google analytics. I read this article and installed this filtered view dashboard from Local U, but it seems its stopped working since it was originally published back in July 13. Is there a more up to date method for capturing this data ?

    | jpeg80
    0
  • SwanseaMedicine


    Hi all, Under many title tags, you see a list of sub-pages that Google suggests. So, if you search for Amazon, for example, it'll show you 6 options: Full Shop Directory - Try Prime Books - CDs & Vinyl Your account - Today's deals Can you dictate these choices with markup? Cheers, Rhys

    | SwanseaMedicine
    0
  • donsilvernail


    I have a client who is a lawyer and used to work at law firm. Since he has opened his own practice. But if I do a search for my clients name a google feature box comes up and says he works for this previous law firm. How do I get this removed. There is no mention of him on the competitors web site.

    | donsilvernail
    1
  • lunavista-comm


    Does anyone have experience correcting the Google branded knowledge graph for a local listing? We have an issue with the knowledge graph not displaying telephone numbers on a clients local knowledge graph panel in the SERPs (for desktop searches). We manage over 1,500 local listings for the same company and the majority of those listings display telephone numbers on the right hand side of the branded knowledge graph panel. However, a handful do not display a telephone number. If you click through the map section of the knowledge graph panel, into the Google Maps/Google My Business page the numbers are listed, they are just not showing up on the knowledge graph panel in the SERPs. The local numbers are listed on the Google My Business page. Does anyone have any experience with this and can recommend what other items we should check for that could help get the numbers to show up on the on the knowledge graph panel in the SERPs? Thanks for the help! 

    | lunavista-comm
    0
  • Kingalan1


    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,
    Alan vkpDA XgCcQ

    | Kingalan1
    0
  • Beachflower


    Hello everyone, I need help about this. My client sent me this "I have a question about doing local SEO for other locations for the same company.
    The Brisbane data recovery business is linked to Corporate data recovery and are physically based at the same address. Now we have other website for the same business, but named after other cities (eg sydneydatarecovery, melbournedatarecovery etc.). The business has only one physical address, which the one used for Brisbane and Corporate. How can we do Local SEo for the other location website with our Brisbane address. 
    We do have the Google location registered to a local address we have in each cities, but not display to the public." N.b I already build citation using the address for Brisbane Data Recovery business name. And I didn't know about this before. Please help me to fix this mess.

    | Beachflower
    0
  • varun1800


    "Suggest an Edit" feature of Google My Business is allowing the competitors to change your business details, that too without your prior permission! I have put together a piece on the issue we faced and you can review the same here: https://www.kvrwebtech.com/blog/issue-in-suggest-an-edit-in-google-my-business-is-it-a-bug-or-a-major-pitfall/ What are your thoughts on the same and what should be the right solution?

    | varun1800
    1
  • GabeGibitz


    Should I delete them? Simply give them a different address like "City, State, Zip"? I see the benefit of having key buildings on campus in Google Maps, but I don't want those to affect my accuracy score and, thus, my local rankings for SEO.

    | GabeGibitz
    1
  • JohnWeb12


    I have a client whose name in not currently showing up on Google maps. Their business location only shows once their name or related keywords are searched, but their business name does not show when you only look for it on the map regardless of how far zoomed in you are to the actual location.  I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this, or knows of a way to fix this. I have already contacted Google multiple times, and they told me that “business’ names are just randomly pulled”. The client is an HVAC store front business with good rankings and a fully optimized Google profile, so these reasons did not answer the issue. Client’s GMB profile: https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=rothheating oak creeek&oq=rothheating oak creeek&rlz=1C1JPGB_enUS685US685&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.5919j0j4 DBZfF

    | JohnWeb12
    0
  • RickyShockley


    Had a question from a freelance project I'm working on and have to admit..I was stumped. When you Google the business "Salute Market Palm Beach Gardens", in the right sidebar there is a short description that reads "This patio bar serves small plates, wine & cocktails in a cozy space with an attached upscale deli." I have no idea where that text is coming from or where it is controlled..thoughts? Thanks! Ricky

    | RickyShockley
    0
  • nathangdavidson2


    I have client that has developed a new brand targeting a specific segment of their wider market - the more price sensitive customer. They have launched a website for this brand, which specialises in promoting special offers. Both operations have the same physical address and the new brand - that targets this niche, I believe has been set up as a service-area business on Google My Business. I think they should change this as they do publish their address on their website and do on occasion welcome customers on their premises. My question - at last! - is that can both businesses exist on Google Maps - with the same business address and is this the right way to proceed if I want to target directory listings for the new brand. Any thoughts welcomed! thanks.

    | nathangdavidson2
    1
  • OliverNeely


    I wish Google wouldn't keep changing things!  For a while now, I have been optimizing descriptions for the images that I upload to Google my Business through Google+, since the latest update I can't find where to do this anymore.  Has anyone else experienced the same problem?  I have tried inputting descriptions into the images themselves through metadata, however Google seems to strip this out when I re-download the image. Perhaps the ability to add a description to these images has now disappeared for good?

    | OliverNeely
    0
  • IsaCleanse


    Hoping that someone may be able to advise if they've come across a hosting plan that offers multiple server locations within 1 plan? ie. One in Australia and another one in UK for example?

    | IsaCleanse
    0
  • HectorCortes


    Hello, A website I am working on made it to Google's Local Pack. However, it does not have the website, hours, or location info. What is the best way to add it? I added an image link for context. http://imgur.com/rT3lQ4K Thanks!!

    | HectorCortes
    0
  • Decagon_Digital


    The medical clinic listings I manage for a client are showing zero customer actions for the last week (since Oct. 9). Visit your website, request directions, calls -- all dropped to zero. Only the View Photos metric is continuing as normal. The same thing has happened to the "Where customers view your business on Google" and numbers from listings on search and on maps. This has happened across multiple (20+ so far that I've checked) listings. Has anybody else seen this?

    | Decagon_Digital
    0
  • Marcus_Miller


    Hey folks I have a fairly complicated SEO issue we have been looking at for a few years now. There are two parts to this problem so would be interested to get the input of the community here and any experienced in Penguin and Local SEO issues. I am going to have to change the names to protect the innocent a bit here as some of the issue relates to a competitor and a shared address. History My client originally worked for company A which we will call Events R us. He then set up on his own at a new address and lets call his company Fantastic Events. EventsRus never had a good website or SEO Fantastic Events set up a great website and really focused on adding tons of relevant content for all the myriad event options available and subsequently did really well. This is a few years back and they were also doing some article marketing on sites like ezinearticles.com to build links (1). As time went on they did get a bit carried away with these low quality links and were buying $5 spun content articles and other low quality links. They ranked really well for a few key terms. There was a suspected local SEO issue as fantastic events used the same office as their fathers business called fantastic finance and the citations / phone number issues etc all had to be cleared up (2). Fantastic Events and Events R Us remained friends and over time Fantastic Events moved to the same farm address as Events R Us so they could offer a wider range of services based on the farm (and ran by fantastic events) and to some extent run away from the address confusion with the same office and very similar name to the other fantastic finance business. Events R Us wanted some of the Fantastic Events success and built a new website and largely copied the website of Fantastic Events - at times even lifting entire pages of content but certainly mirroring the structure of the site. Fantastic Events tussled with them for a few years over this and over time they updated the content but the structure and services and address all pretty much mirrored what was offered on the Fantastic Events site. (3) Two companies - same address (it's a farm so whilst there are different barns I believe Google can only get as far as the farm gate so same address to all intents and purposes. Same services give or take. Events R Us was the older company overall by several years and was at the farm address many years longer than Fantastic Events (4). Fantastic Events starts running a blog and adding regular, useful event orientated content. The first true team building blog out there as far as we could tell and traffic tripled over a six month period. Penguin hits and Fantastic Events loses a lot of traction - this gets worse with Penguin 2.0. Both the homepage and the evening events page lose visibility and traction. The owner gives up on the blog to a large degree. Subsequent clean up happens and is rigorous - all bad links are pretty much removed and the remaining elements are disavowed. (90% of it is actually gone by now). Penguin 3.0 comes and no recovery at all. Nothing. If anything it gets worse and the once strong blog is now losing traction. Events R Us starts to do really well in search for exactly the same terms that Fantastic Events used to do well for. In particular one page ranks for exactly the same keywords and in exactly the same position (#1) as what was believed to be the primary traffic driver on the Fantastic Events site. It is almost like they exchanged positions and Events R Us went from nowhere to a strong footing with some national and local keywords and Fantastic Events fell from grace. A new website is built. All content is refreshed and bought up to date. Some light investment back in the blog. Some light link building is done around digital PR and infographics. Some initial movement in the right direction but overall this did not move the dial. Certain pages on the site that used to rank are nowhere - looks very much like a page level / keyword level penguin penalty. These same pages rank great, often first on the competitor site (an exchange of positions to some extent). Advice from myself and other esteemed consultants was to clean up, build some good links and wait for Penguin 4.0 to remove that eventuality. Also that the address issue could be causing some local SEO issue where Google believes the two businesses are one and has somehow merged the two with some local SEO filter or some such (same business with multiple websites at same address). Penguin 4.0 comes along and no improvements. Events R us sit pretty. Feeling is that the local issue must play a part here now that Penguin should be eliminated due to the extensive link clean up etc and there must now be some action to resolve this address / local issue. Issues low quality links - but cleaned up 100% now. same business name and address as fathers business initially older business copied the structure and content of newer business moved to same address as older more established business with very similar content older business now seems to have taken all the exact keywords and positions the newer business used to occupy Penguin 4.0 and no resolution. Local SEO issue seemingly remains Summary So we are left in a difficult position. The business does not want to move. But if there is some filtering or merging going on here then how can we get around this? The client is likely collateral damage to an algorithmic component designed to stop single businesses having multiple websites. I know there are reports of this happening but I have never seen such a thing for an innocent business like this but the nature of the address (two separate barns on a gated farm) and the history and similarities between the businesses makes this difficult. Things are somewhat desperate though - a move has to be made now. Even if that is a physical one. The client has considered a virtual address to take that variable out the picture but I have advised caution. I am even cautious about a change in physical address. Google has a long memory. If such a move was made at considerable expense would it help or would the other business retain Is the best option a new start? New brand, address, website, services etc - cut all ties with the historic Fantastic Events brand and by association the Events R Us brand. This is not a recommendation I can quickly or easily make so would be really interested to hear the feedback on anyone who has come across such a multi faceted and complex issue before. This is a tough one. We know what we are doing on the local front. We know what we are doing on the Penguin front. We know how to build links and authority. We are doing this work of the clock to help a long term friend / client get back to where they really deserve to be. The history is not spotty clean but the good work and effort far outway a short spell building dodgy links several years ago now. As an SEO consultant I don't want to advise for the company to rebrand and move offices at considerable expense but whilst I have a theoretical understanding of the issue how can we prove it and be sure this is the best possible advice? Thanks folks - hope this at least makes for interesting reading. This is something of an edge case. A good business likely caught up in a filter designed to stop abuse. Cheers
    Marcus

    | Marcus_Miller
    1
  • conalt


    Hello, Looking for some guidance on how to appear and get listed in Google Points of Interest in the Search Engine Results Page. Like when searching for "attractions Seattle" at the top of the SERP these listings appear. Cannot seem to find some good resources on the topic as well. Thanks Conrad

    | conalt
    1
  • SusannahK.Noel


    Hi there, One of my SEO clients, a summer camp, is having a problem with their GMB listing. They have two listings: the one they set up, with the correct address and other business info, and the one the previous camp owners set up, with an incorrect NAP. When we try to edit the duplicate listing, we're unable to verify that we own it because it's connected to the previous owner's phone number. They've passed away and their sons are now the contact, but they're not interested in helping out. Any suggestions on how to close the duplicate listing without being able to verify that it's your own business? Thanks, Susannah

    | SusannahK.Noel
    0
  • SwanseaMedicine


    Hi all, Weeks ago, I implemented the advised social profile markup (below, but with my own details, of course) but I continue to have no success with getting my social profiles onto my knowledge panel. Any ideas? Cheers, Rhys

    | SwanseaMedicine
    0
  • SmileMoreSEO


    Hello, One of our clinics is moving a couple of miles away from it's current location. Does anyone know the proper steps to take to make the change in Google My Business. I know I can go in and edit all the details, but what becomes of the former listing? If someone were to search by our name and the former street address, is Google going to be smart enough to deliver our new location as the search result? Also, I know there's a Mark Permanently Closed feature, but that's not exactly true. That location didn't "close," it relocated so I'm assuming I should stay away from that feature. Thanks in advance for any insight. Erik

    | SmileMoreSEO
    0
  • Jazee


    From a Local SEO standpoint, wouldn't hiding a business address on Google Places for Business create an SEO disadvantage in that I would expect in the local portion of the search results, there would be a bias to showing businesses that have not hidden their address as then you can place a pin on the map at the location?  Or from a Local SEO standpoint does it not matter if you hide your address or not?

    | Jazee
    1
  • donsilvernail


    I am working with a real estate attorney in NJ. there are 17 real estate attorneys within 5 miles of my clients location. I need some strategic advice to rank my client higher quickly 2-3 month range. I have had him as a client since the begging of his practice (just opened in February 2016)  I created the website and embarked on a content marketing strategy, this has produced slight raises in traffic. What could I do better to get him in local packs and generally raise to first page for long tail keywords? ( my other clients have not been so difficult but they also are not in such a competitive atmosphere)

    | donsilvernail
    0
  • BrianJGomez


    I've been doing Local SEO for 9 years and have never had an issue that frustrated me as much as this one. I have a client who I can't get past the 15th page of Google's SERPS for their #1 KW. Here are the details: The domain is 4 months old In that 4 month span the site has gone from a DA 1 to a DA 24 Spam score is a 0. I know this doesn't mean a ton but I can tell you from closely reviewing their AHrefs report, there's no influx of spammy links or anything like that. The design is a custom wordpress design The content is 100% unique and professionally written content The backlink profile (in my opinion) is full of high DA and PA sites from authority sites with high trust flow ... in my opinion their backlinks are superior to all but maybe a handful of competitors. I was not expecting 1st page results by now but I would have expected top 50 results a the very least. But to not crack the top 15 tells me there's some major issue here. I really need some insight as to what could be holding me back here ... I don't want to share the domain publicly but but I will PM you it if you're interested in taking a crack at it. I will seriously pay someone a small fortune if they can help me figure this out.

    | BrianJGomez
    0
  • Joseph.Lusso


    I am working with a country club. We opened the Google my business account and Moz Local. i think the developer/builder of the Country Club planned on the address being in different place than it is today. Do I have control over moving that marker on this massive property. Or, is this done at the city/county level? The marker isn't quite near the building or the true entrance to the country club.

    | Joseph.Lusso
    0
  • unitednetworks


    Back in the middle of August we noticed a significant drop in organic traffic from Google for one of our clients. They had been averaging around 125 sessions per day but after that date it dropped to 50-60 per day. Their WordPress website has been kept updated but no changes to content were applied. No significant changes occurred in the marketplace, and this is not a seasonal drop. It came several weeks before the Possum and Penguin 4.0 updates, so we ruled them out. The only change we can confirm was that their Google My Business listing was claimed and setup on or around the day the traffic dropped off a cliff. Their listing is setup properly, as far as we can tell, and links to their website. I can't find any indication of why this would affect traffic in such a negative way and it hasn't recovered since. It's stable now, but still half of what they had before. It's down across the board, too. Mobile, desktop, geographically, new vs returning. Everything. Would love to hear your thoughts!

    | unitednetworks
    0
  • omeryamac


    Hello, I've a client that has many services in different locations and addresses with the same website and phone number. But the thing is they want me to involve location name to business name. Is there a way to add and verify as bulk ?

    | omeryamac
    0
  • JimJ


    Hi everyone, so my company has a knowledge panel that show up for some keywords.  I use to be #1 on the map (for my favorite keyword) when Google was showing several listings. Now that it show only one, it's not me anymore and I wonder why. So what are the SEO leverage I need to focus on to win this new google knowledge panel? Thank you very much.

    | JimJ
    0
  • BrianAlpert78


    I understand that only listing one address on a company website helps maintain NAP consistency, but is there a way to safely have a second address listed? A client of ours recently asked us if we could put their P.O. box address up on their website, so that THEIR clients would be able to conveniently look it up when mailing in documents, paperwork, checks, etc. They presently have their physical office address listed on their site, as well as in local listings. One idea we had would be to have the P.O. box address listed only on an image, so the crawler won't see the address, but there are potential accessibility issues with that solution. Would any specific kinds of markup or meta tags prevent the P.O. box from getting picked up and causing NAP confusion in local listings? Or am I simply overthinking this one? Thanks!

    | BrianAlpert78
    0
  • Tabassum


    Could anybody share how google listing will be ? the step by step process for Google business listing

    | Tabassum
    0
  • MiriamEllis


    There is nothing quite so alarming as seeing your business suddenly vanish from the Google local packs/local finder. We got first wind of this when Moz community member CalicoKitty2000 posted that their fishing charter business in Florida had abruptly stopped showing after enjoying historical high local rankings for a very long time. Their company is Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters. Their organic rankings were still a-okay, and as I was digging around trying to rule out common problems like guideline violations, malware, penalties, I was lucky enough to come across a totally separate discussion of the same startling phenomenon at Linda Buquet's Local Search Forum. To observe this phenomenon for yourself, look up 'fishing charters cape canaveral'. In the local pack, click the 'more places' link to get to the local finder. Observe what is in the local finder view, including the fact that only one business is located at 505 Glen Cheek Dr. Then, zoom in on the map, and you will see CalicoKitty2000's company, Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters, magically reappear in the results. You will ALSO notice that something like 8 other businesses, in addition to Sea Leveler, located at 505 Glen Cheek Dr., are also suddenly present in the local finder at that zoomed-in view. What appears to be happening here is that Google has made a change in which they will only show a single business at a given address within the same category. This is a major, major change that poses a very obvious problem for businesses like legal firms and medical practitioners who share the same building and category. Coworking spaces hosting a variety of same-specialty tech startups also come to mind. Joy Hawkins (one of the smartest Local SEOs I know), posits this in addition to the shared building/shared category factors influencing this change: "I believe Google is A/B testing at the moment which explains the crazy fluctuation we're still seeing daily on trackers like Algoroo" Joy says she's planning to write an article about this soon, so be on the lookout for that if this has affected your business. In the meantime, I have two thoughts: This filter is so unfriendly to so many businesses, I would not be surprised to see it go away. However, it never hurts to create buzz/raise awareness. If you've been affected, you might want to post your example in Google's forum with a plea to Google to treat you more fairly. I would argue that it is NOT creating a good user experience for people seeking a doctor, a chiropractor or a fishing charter in a specific neighborhood to be shown only partial, single results. I know I'd rather know that there are 7-8 choices of fishing charters conveniently located in a building on a marina. After all, if one charter is all booked up for the day, I'd like to know that other companies are there to serve me, wouldn't you? I'd say this apparent filter makes results less relevant than more relevant. I find it particularly weird that our example business, Sea Leveler, is being filtered out given how far ahead of most competitors they are in terms of review count. Wouldn't you want to see the most-reviewed business first? Hopefully, this filter is just a test, but for the sake of damage control in the meantime, this might be a good time to invest in some Adwords to replace your missing rankings (hey, Google, I hope this isn't your diabolical idea behind the change, a-hem!). If you've been affected, please, study your SERPs and share with our community any clues you are seeing. We can all help one another survive Google's curve balls better when we share. I would love to hear of anything you are observing about this, and am particularly interested to know if you are seeing a rotation of businesses ranking at different times of day. For example, if Businesses A, B and C are all at 123 Main Street, is only business A ranking all the time at the non-zoomed level, or at some point in a given day, are B or C being given preferential treatment? Please, share your findings!

    | MiriamEllis
    4
  • RosemaryB


    I had a client ask me a difficult question about impression reporting via Google Local Insights.  Lets say a client is a popular ice cream chain and somebody does a local brand search for "San Francisco Exotic Tasty Ice" and three locations for the same company all show up in the Google Local Pack.  Does each one of these locations receive their own impression via Google Local Insights?  Or does Google just count this as one impression for one location altogether? Logically speaking I would think that each location would get its own impression in the insights report.  However I'm wondering if there is anything to negate that. Any feedback is appreciated.

    | RosemaryB
    0
  • stuartstein


    I was reading Google's Structured Data spec, and I'm considering changing the schema of our listing pages from the Product schema to the Local Business schema. Is this a good idea? To give you a little more info, the pages that I'm classifying are listings for physical spaces that our website rents out for activities, such as meetings. Here's an example of a listing: https://www.peerspace.com/pages/listings/550ddcde2f352d0800fc186b  Our goal is to add the proper schema.org tags to the page so that our spaces show up in local searches, such as "meeting space in San Francisco." The problem is that when we add location microdata (addressLocality, addressRegion, etc.) to our current "Product" schema, Google tells us that "Products" can't have a location. However, we aren't quite a "Local Business" either, since we don't publicly share our space's street addresses—only the space's neighborhood/city/state for privacy reasons. As a result, we get an error from Google's Structured Data Tool as a "Local Business" page because "streetAddress" is required for Local Businesses. Should we switch to the Local Business schema anyway, even though we get structured data errors for streetAddress? Or is it better not to include the location information in the microdata so that we don't have errors? Does Google penalize you for incomplete tags? Any input is appreciated!

    | stuartstein
    0
  • Jason.Capshaw


    We have 150+ locations.  The current names in GMB vary based on the branch.  They may include a branch number or city location in the title or some variation of the company name. We'd like to update these to reflect our company wide branding and drop the branch #/location.  Any ideas on the impact of this change?

    | Jason.Capshaw
    0
  • IlluminousGwen


    This morning my client contacted me that another business is using their address as their own! They received a Google verification postcard with pin number on it, but luckily had the foresight to not give it to the person when they called. After some research, we also found out that they are using our address on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. The kicker is: this business is another SEO firm! You would think they would know that using our address would cause NAP issues for their own business. Has anyone dealt with another business trying to hijack their address for local rankings? Any advice on steps to take to report this abuse would be appreciated. Since this person is obviously unscrupulous, we don't want to provoke them into taking any other negative action online that could affect our business.

    | IlluminousGwen
    0
  • Catherine_Selectaglaze


    Hello Mozers I've been stumped by the changes in the interface with Google My Business.  I used to be able to set up the area for which I wanted a business to cover.  Now I can't find anyway to tell Google. The company I work for is in St Albans and our main workload is London.  It would be helpful if I could actually control what Google Local sees as Local for my company, i.e. to encompass central London which is only 19 miles away. Can someone give me an idiots guide has to how to tell Google the area I'd like our local listing to cover? Thanks

    | Catherine_Selectaglaze
    0
  • Ayres-SEO


    I would appreciate the opinions of my fellow SEOs on this one. I haven’t seen any other threads on this exact subject and others that touch on it are somewhat older so I am hoping this also proves to be a good resource for others going forward. I have an existing client that I did local SEO for about a year ago. They are a propane service provider and they had multiple locations. So we did local SEO for the company primarily by updating NAPs and creating more individual content for each of the branches such as specific landing page for each branch on their website and individual listings in citations for each branch. Now they have sold one of the branches to a competitor and they need to remove all listings for it. I am trying to develop a comprehensive list of actions to take and I would appreciate any feedback on the best way to go about accomplishing this task. Here is what I have so far: Remove all mention of sold branch on client website, including specific landing page Delete any branch-specific social media accounts Some specific areas I have questions about are: What do I do with Google My Business listings for the sold branch? Do I try to delete/unregister/close them? Or should I just leave them be with an updated link to our website homepage? Should I even bother contacting the main NAP listing sites to remove the old listing or just leave it to fall off on its own? Thank you again for all your help!

    | Ayres-SEO
    0
  • mbochic


    Hello Mozzers, I am having an issue with a particular client and wanted to throw it out to the forum for feedback. We work with many resorts and hotels. One, in particular, is a large condo-hotel property with several individual buildings. Each building has a unique name. While the property management company owns and operates most of the units within each building, there are units that are individually owned. The property management company runs the branded resort website, all local pages & listings, etc. One savvy unit owner, however, has built a website that is branded with the individual building name for one of the buildings. He has also taken ownership of the building Google Plus page, Facebook page, etc. He only owns a handful of units in the building. We have retroactively tried creating a new site but are struggling to gain traction from a ranking perspective. We did temporarily change the website address that was listed for the Google local listing, via the "edit" button, and were actually starting to increase rank (presumably somewhat related to the increase in website traffic), but it was quickly fixed to the other website. The management company has reached out to the owner but he continues to refuse to give up any rights to the Google local page, etc. We have also created a new (technically duplicate) page just to see if we can knock the other one off, though we are having issues getting the verification post card from Google. Any advice on how we can gain access to this Google local page? Or any other tips on how to get a relatively small, new site to overtake an existing site? I know URLs / examples are helpful in these situations but we'd prefer to keep the client names anon.

    | mbochic
    0
  • ColeLusby


    For brands that have a budget to pay $600 / year for valuable backlink directories, would you recommend Moz Local + Yext? I would like to hear some feedback on marketers that use Yext. Thanks,
    Cole

    | ColeLusby
    0
  • MiriamEllis


    You may already have seen this in the past week or so, but it's new to me! Check out this screenshot from the bottom of the Local Finder for a search for 'electricians houston': http://screencast.com/t/NKW3KuxIuPo I saw this first referenced by Issac Hammelburger at Phil Rozek's G+ Community and see this as yet another Googl-ish thing to do, crowdsourcing data. They are trying to make it easier to add GMB listings, undoubtedly for owners who have never heard of Google My Business, but I've not yet tried the feature out. If you click on the ADD A MISSING PLACE link, you'll be able to input core data about a business. There's also a link to claim the business present. Has anyone here in our super Local SEO community tried to add a business via this new feature? Are you seeing it in a lot of local finders? What do you think of it?

    | MiriamEllis
    3
  • LocalEnthusiast


    When I do a brand name search for a client, it pulls their G+ info into the right side bar and it adds three images above the G+ info. One is a photo, one is the Streetview, and one is the Google Maps results. On this particular client, the photo being pulled is from Google Images and not from the G+ page. Their G+ page is verified and has 17 photos in it, none of which are this particular photo. Please advise.

    | LocalEnthusiast
    0
  • cpayne


    I am in the process of getting all of my directory listings updated using MOZ local and I am getting some errors that I am unable to change via the Google My Business configuration. When I place the address information into the Google My Business for our business, it is changing it to read differently than what our official mailing address is with the USPS. The official address for our business is 8900 Highway 65 -- but when typed onto GMB it is showing up as 8900 IN-65. Because of this, it is throwing off MOZ and it is not able to find the other profiles or it is saying there are inconsistencies in the listings. Is there any way for Google to change this listing to the correct address to how it should appear? Thank you!

    | cpayne
    0
  • bpurdue


    For our law firm, we have a Google Local listing for the firm (Riddell Law LLC).  Google also created a local listing for one of the attorneys (Riddell) (we didn't create it, but are in the process of verifying it).  Both listings are at the same address.  Moz Local says these are "duplicates" - is that true?  Would Google penalize us for this?  I am not sure how to fix it - both the individual attorney and the business are in fact at the same address. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it!  Thank you!!

    | bpurdue
    0
  • jeremyfharrison


    Google's guidelines for creating a GMB profile states that the business must make "in-person contact with customers during stated hours." Does this mean that an online-only business such as a virtual urgent care clinic is allowable as a SAB? This is where customers use an app or website to have a video visit with a doctor - which is person-to-person, real contact, nut not in-person. It doesn't feel like the right kind of business to be listed locally, especially if the service area is an entire region or state. Does anyone have a source of truth on this? Thanks for the assistance!

    | jeremyfharrison
    1
  • SEO4leagalPA


    I know it is important to have consistent NAP across directory listings but I would like to gauge the ROI on the paid "premium" listings in legal directories like FindLaw, AVVO and Lawyers.com by using call tracking and recording. Could using different phone #'s in these listings affect our website negatively? Same question for YELP ads (ads only, not organic yelp listing).

    | SEO4leagalPA
    0
  • AL123al


    Hello, Can I ask for some advice? A client of mine is located in two cities. The first one was his original city and he has lots of traffic for various search terms and is very happy. He then expanded and has a branch in a second city. We created a unique landing page for it and a Google My Business page, built citations and it is ranking quite well (on first page for the two keywords that we targeted). But traffic is not great as city 1. His main navigation has a list of services and also a locations tab which has the two locations. The services pages are all unique and target specific keywords and I added location to the end of them - : e.g. **SERVICE KEYWORD CITY 1, CITY 2. ** A search for  SERVICE KEYWORD + CITY 1 is on first page and lots of traffic. For SERVICE KEYWORD + CITY 2 it is on page 2. How would we increase the traffic to the second city? Should we create sub pages of the services he provides with the location set as city2 only (and keep the original ones only as city 1)? These would kind of duplicate the services pages we already have so we would have the problem that we might be duplicating stuff. Since SERVICE KEYWORD CITY 1 are doing really well (he's either first or second) I am loathe to change it too much but not sure how to get more keywords for city 2 without duplication the services pages. Any advice?

    | AL123al
    0

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