Local search optimisation
-
One of the major keywords in our industry “fireplaces” is now viewed as a local search phrase & Google seems to be displaying website results that it views to be local businesses. We have 2 stores, and for some reason they do not appear high on the rankings despite us having a physical location near by... can anyone help?
Also, we have a verified location on Google place, but even that doesn’t appear.
-
Hi Ray,
Harvey is definitely pointing you in the right direction. Definitely read David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors. It is the premiere annual industry report. *Do bear in mind that the last report (I'm a yearly participant) was published just prior to the launch of the whole Google+ Local system, so it does not reflect that big change. Here are 2 pieces I send my own clients when they are just getting acquainted with Local:
The Zen of Local SEO
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1314The Rudiments of Local
SEO http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1344Local ranking factors are very diverse...there may be more than 200 factors in Google's local algo. Here are some of the most widely cited factors:
-
Lack of violations on your Google Places/Google+ Local profiles. Nothing kills rankings like violations. Memorize the guidelines: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528
-
Age and authority of your domain (you can't control age but you can build authority) - Local and traditional optimization of your website
-
Consistency, quantity and quality of citations
-
Quantity of Google-based reviews
-
Proximity to city centroid of the target city and proximity to Google's cluster of similar businesses
-
Traditional SEO factors such as quantity and quality of links and co-occurrence.
-
Social factors
That's just a start, but it does sum up some of the main things that go into achieving a high local rank in the city in which your business is physically located. Read David Mihm's report, the 2 articles I've linked to and the Google Places Quality Guidelines I've linked to and you will develop a very clear picture of your business' opportunities, its present failings and its room to grow.
-
-
Well, you tell Google where you are specifically located (city) via places rather than GWT.
It looks to me that your local listing is completely unoptimised.
There are no pictures or videos and the listing looks incomplete, plus it seems you have very few citations etc.
You're not ranking in local search and your listing is very weak compared to others so it makes sense.
Don't get me wrong, I've only spent 5 minutes looking at it, but IMO you need to look at local factors. The link I posted will show you lots of the things you need to do.
-
Thanks Harvey ... will look through that .Is there any way of telling Google where you are located in WebMaster tools or something like that... perhaps im missing something simple
-
Hey
Sure, but is your local listing much stronger? It looks like it's not as you seem to have very few citations from a super quick hunt.
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml
Check out the above link (it's a LONG read!), as these are the kinds of things you proabably need to be considering.
-
Thanks Harvey
Our local listing is https://plus.google.com/107506644864807163902/posts
But for some reason it doen't seem to appear and our site doesn't show for local searches but is much stronger than the ones that do appear.
-
Hey Ray
I couldn't find your places listing anywhere. However you do seem to have very few local listings which would likely have an effect on your local rankings.
Check out this search:
"01909 449 501" -creativefireplaces.co.uk
It only shows 13 results, much less than I would have expected.
Have you changed your number at any point as consistent NAP details are very important.
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
-
Why the url inspection is disabled in search console ?
In this situation, how can we make our pages be fetched by google?
On-Page Optimization | | supporthandle0 -
Improving the search function on my site...
Hi all, The search function on my site is pretty bad... it basically lists every single product for any search query. Has anyone got experience integrating a 3rd party tool such as Google Custom Search or Pardot and if so which would you recommend? Alternatively, any tips on improving/ creating rules for site search would be appreciated. https://www.boardwarehouse.co.uk/ Thanks, Alick
On-Page Optimization | | Alick3000 -
How to rank in Google during domain name search?
We have received one requirement for this website. http://www.coldcasebeer.com/ We would like to rank in Google during domain name search. If we are going to search following search terms in Google then We are not able to see this domain on first page of Google search result. cold case beer coldcasebeer We have done quick research on this issue. And, We have decided to implement following tasks to make it happen.But, We are quite excited to read certain inputs on this question from experts! 1. Upload default Robots.txt file 2. Verify website on Google webmaster tools 3. Set up USA region on Google webmaster tools 4. Submit Google crawl request on Google webmaster tools 5. Title tag and Meta description optimization for all pages (There are 5 pages only on website) 6. Audit Google local listing 7. Develop quality links with domain name
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
Should I remove 'local' landing pages? Could these be the cause of traffic drop (duplicate content)?
I have a site that has most of it's traffic from reasonably competitive keywords each with their own landing page. In order to gain more traffic I also created landing pages for counties in the UK and then towns within each county. Each county has around 12 towns landing pages within the county. This has meant I've added around 200 extra pages to my site in order to try and generate more traffic from long tail keywords. I think this may have caused an issue in that it's impossible for me to create unique content for each town/country and therefore I took a 'shortcut' buy creating unique content for each county and used the same content for the towns within it meaning I have lots of pages with the same content just slightly different page titles with a variation on town name. I've duplicated this over about 15 counties meaning I have around 200 pages with only about 15 actual unique pages within them. I think this may actually be harming my site. These pages have been indexed for about a year an I noticed about 6 months ago a drop in traffic by about 50%. Having looked at my analytics this town and county pages actually only account for about 10% of traffic. My question is should I remove these pages and by doing so should I expect an increase in traffic again?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Do special characters ñ ã ô ä ö ü í à affect search results?
Dear Community, the google AdWords Keyword Tool shows e.g.: monthly global search for: "Satéré-Mawê Tribe" = 0
On-Page Optimization | | inlinear
but for "Satere-Mawe Tribe" = 320 (at least) But doing a search with or without using special characters,seems not to make a difference? as Google shows "the right" results even when people are making mistakes in spelling. On an english website I wantto use in the Title "Hunting, fishing and living with the Satéré-Mawê Tribe" using the correct Portuguese spelling. As Google Keyword tool tells me english speaking persons don't like using special characters... should I also leave them out in general or just don't mind? Thanks for any response
Holger0 -
How to "on page" seo a small local service business - particularly headers
First off, let me apologize if this question is posted elsewhere, worded differently. I've looked around quite a bit and have been unable to find the answer. Basically, we are a small web design firm just getting our feet with with SEO. Most of our clients, especially initially, will be quite small, local, service businesses. For example: and electrician, a pet sitter, a retail printing and map store, a surgeon etc. Almost all of their sites will follow a basic "business card on the web" format... Home Page - About Us - Testimonials - Rates - FAQ - Contact Us - Etc So, from what I've read about on-page optimization, making sure my keywords are in the title, header, body, and meta description is one of the easiest and quickest things we can do for our clients. This is a straightforward concept for me when applied to the homepage. For example, take the local pet sitting business. Her keywords are: Pet sitting, Dog walking, and the city we live in, Anytown USA. So, I've used those keywords in all the appropriate places on the home page: title: Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA header: Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA first sentence of body: We are a professional Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA meta description: We are a professional Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA. At Business Name your furry friends become a part of our family. So, my question is: Do I also optimize the "about us" page? I've changed the title of all the pages to follow this format: Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Home Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - About Us Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Rates Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - FAQ Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Etc Easy enough so far. Also pretty easy for the meta description, and the body. However, how would I add keywords to the header without making it look ridiculous? We use wordpress with the genesis framework, and child themes from studiopress. The header is always prominently visible at the top of the page. Most people would expect to see the header be the same as the link they clicked on the nav bar: for example, on the "about us" page, people expect the header to be: "about us" Not: "dog walking and pet sitting in Anytown USA - About Us" Do I just not worry about the headers on the other pages? For that matter, I'd really like people to "land" on the home page, not any of the other pages, so should I not optimize them at all? Does optimizing the rest of the pages help the home page to show up higher in the SERPS? If I do end up optimizing the rest of the pages, should I use slightly different spellings of the keywords: like Dog walker instead of dog walking? Or pet sitter instead of pet sitting? I've repeatedly seen people talk about not using the same keywords on more than one page... but for most of these businesses there are really fairly few keywords. There just isn't that many different ways that someone is going to search for an electrician, or a plumber, or a pet sitter. By the second or third page that I optimize on one site, I imagine I'll start running out of different variations of the keywords. I recognize that a lot of what we'll do that will be most helpful to local clients has nothing to do with on page optimization (setting up google places, google+, yahoo + bing local, etc). I'd just like to make sure that I'm doing the on page stuff as perfectly as possible. Thanks for your time and responses! -Matt p.s. while I'm at it, let me ask another question about domain names as well. Right now the pet sitting client mentioned above is using: www.petcare_Anytown_.com After operating her business for the last year she realized she is much more interested in dog walking than pet sitting. We are in the processes of redesigning the site, and when finished, are considering moving it to: www.dogwalking_Anytown_.com My assumption is that as long as we use permanent redirects from the old site to the new one, we shouldn't lose much SEO value. Is this thinking correct? On a related note though: another article I read mentioned that using a brand name in the domain may actually be more useful than the keyword rich domains above. However, www._businessname._com happens to already be taken by a pet sitting business at the other end of the country. We could however use: www.businessnameAnytown.com Which one do you think would work better? The keyword/location domain, or the businessname/location domain? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Webformix0 -
Email in Local Search Directory Listings
Hi! I am relatively new to the world of SEO . . . let's say I'm still testing the waters. My role is at the company I work for is Local Search Specialist. I'm claiming/verifying/publishing listings for my employer's clients in attributing search directories. Yada yada yada. You guys are pros. Anyway, I have become apprehensive when listing a client's email in directories besides Google Places. I know that content matching between the client's website, Places, and attributing directories is a must; but spam is the worst. I'm trying to avoid spammers and sketchy directories contact the clients with sales pitches via email as much as possible. Should I create an additional email specifically for these directory listings and keep tabs to see if real people are using it as a means of contact? Not list the email at all? What should I do?!?!?!?!?!?!? Any insight/words of wisdom is appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | CakeWebsites0 -
Creating Content for Several Local Keywords
I have a client who is in the lead generation business for a specific aesthetic service. The company basically generates leads through SEO and sells them to hundreds of local businesses across the US and Canada. There is some serious competition for the main service keyword (this is not the real keyword) e.g. “liposuction” and over the past year we have seen rankings fall significantly (from top 3 to 13-15). But... what I have found is that most of the traffic, particularly the highly converting traffic, comes from local keyword variations e.g. “liposuction in san diego”. However, these keywords are also highly competitive because there are several local businesses in these areas. How would you suggest creating content for these pages when they are all extremely similar and we need to target 100s of cities? For example the page “liposuction in san diego” is very similar to the page “liposuction in sacramento”, ect ect. Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | Bartell0