Local and Organic Listings
-
Hi,
My client has a number of stores across the country (UK) and ideally I would like them to appear in both the local and organic listings - at the moment I appear more often than not on page one for one or the other - I have noticed however that some pages appear in both.
I understand that Google will not place a listing for the same page in both local and organic so I need to optimise a page on the site for organic and point my local listing to a different page (home page?). On some results though I am seeing my local result appearing with the home page URL listed but the actual link points to the internal store page which is the same page that is appearing in the organic listing (both on page one). Other local listings of mine appear with the store page URL showing in the result.
I haven't set anything up differently for these stores. Can anyone explain why this is happening?
Thanks,
Dan
-
You are very welcome, HippieChick. Glad this helped to clear up a big question at your office!
-
Thank you, Miriam! I've had my boss so mad at me for loosing page 1 ranking (we have Local ranking) and I couldn't explain what happened, even when I've worked so hard on the SEO of the site. (I'm no expert but there's a only a small budget at our company, and I'm the cheapest option). I've explained this to him and finally everyone's happy!
-
Thanks for your help guys,
I'll do some testing and see if I get any positive results.
I'll let you know if anything works.
Cheers,
Dan
-
Hey Dan,
Sorry, got ya.
You know, I am not sure how you go about this with any kind of reliability. Like you say, sometimes it crops up that someone has both but not very often in our experience. That said, the more abstract and hopeless the results then the more wacky and repetitive the organic results seem to get of late.
You could try and optimise some of your citations to get them up in the results on page one and possibly look at content on other sites to try and crowd out the results some with other pages that ultimately link to your clients site. We have had some good success with that for local clients.
Or, alternatively, like Miriam mentioned, try and create other, authoritative pages on the site that are also highly relevant but that may be a bit of a thankless task compared to the relative ease of standard local work.
Sounds like a greedy client wanting both.
Marcus
-
Obviously, not a direct answer, but you could always look at getting some of your citations to rank within the results for your targeted search terms. Also, this is where possible content on other sites can be used to further crowd out those results a little more.
It's good when all rivers run to the same place!
-
Hi Dan,
In general, you are correct that Google doesn't commonly show a double organic/local ranking on the first page for most companies. There are two main exceptions to this:
-
If the query,locale or both have little competition or Google lacks data about them.
-
The scenario in which a second page on the website is authoritative enough to gain an organic listing, independent of the page that is being linked to from the local result.
Around the Venice update in early 2012, double rankings became almost impossible to find. Slowly, it appears to me that they have become more common in recent times, typically in the above scenarios. There may be other exceptions, as well, but I believe these are the most typical.
-
-
Hi,
I suggest the following for Local SEO
- Add address in footer with local schemas
- NAP - Get your site with its address if possible in local directories or magazines or blog
- Add Site to Google's Map Maker
Good luck
Carla
-
Hi Marcus,
Thanks for your reply.
I think I pretty much have all bases covered that you mention, I probably didn't explain myself very well. Probably best I give an example:
A search for 'Self Storage Barking' brings up both local and organic listings obviously but I don't understand how Big Yellow have a local listing and organic listing pointing to the same page. A search for 'Self Storage Eastbourne' again brings up similar results this time for Safestore - both results point to the same page but a search for 'Self Storage Bristol' adds the long store page URL to the local listing, I guess stopping an organic listing too...
I don't understand why one local listing displays the home page URL and points to the store page and another displays the store page URL and blocks the organic listing if they are all set up the same.
Hope that explains better.
Dan
-
Hey Dan
That's kind of confusing to wrap my head around. Have you got an example you can post?
In essence, if you have a local business with multiple locations you are doing two categories of work here.
1. Organic SEO for the site as a whole
2. Local SEO for each location
Local SEO for each location requires a few things to work well in my experience.
2.1. A page on the site optimised for each distinct location (think address, schema, NAP etc)
2.2. An individual Google+ Local listing for each location linked back to the location page
Then the normal rules of local SEO apply and you need citations, local links, reviews etc for each of your individual locations.
A consistent address is important for businesses with a single location but here the scope for things to go wrong is greater so you have to be fastidious in your approach to keeping this consistent.
Audit existing citations, standardise everything, try to get reviews for each location and if they can mention location and service it seems to help more ("If you could mention the office location and service in your review we would really appreciate it").
Your locally optimised page for each store should be able to pop up in local and organic depending on obvious factors (competition etc) and you are creating a solid landing page for localised organic traffic and pure local results (7 pack etc).
The one point here is that you will usually have lots of citations kicking about that you have not created so be sure to audit the existing listings and treat each location as a separate entity. Competition and the approach may be different in Birmingham, Manchester, London etc and the approach may need to be tailored for each location depending on the strength of competition in each area in each location.
Hope that helps!
Marcus
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
-
Possible to expand organic reach in multiple countries/markets without localized content?
Hi everyone, I was recently hired as Content Lead for a SaaS company. We are based in Germany with plans to expand into the UK, Ireland, Spain, and the Netherlands. All of our website content is entirely in English and we don't have plans to localize content for any of the new markets. At least not yet.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | localyze_mason
One of my responsibilities will be to expand our organic reach through, mostly through SEO content. Though I'm comfortable with the fundamentals of SEO, I'm no expert and I certainly don't have experience with international SEO. I consulted a couple of resources like this guide to international SEO from Moz and this video from Semrush. In a nutshell, this is what I gather: if you want to expand organic reach in foreign countries/markets, you need to 1) decide what kind of domain you want to use and then implement the necessary technical configurations and 2) create localized content in the target market's language. As I mentioned, we won't be localizing any content at first. My question, then, is can we go about creating content in English and hope to gain any kind of meaningful organic exposure in non-English speaking markets? If so, what's the best approach? I apologize in advance if any of this isn't clear or if the answer is super obvious. Happy to provide further details upon request. Thanks in advance for any help that can be offered!0 -
Normal that Home Page Generating Less than 4% Of Organic Traffic?
Greetings MOZ Community: My firm operates www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, a commercial real estate brokerage in New York City. Prior to the first Penguin update in April 2012, our home page used to receive about 10% or 600 of total organic visits. After the first Penguin was launched by Google organic traffic to the home dropped to maybe 5% or 200 visits per month. Since May of this year, it appears we have been penalized by Penguin 4.0 and are attempting to recover. Now our home page only generates about 140 organic visits per month, or less than 4% of organic traffic. Our home enjoyed good conversion rate, so this drop in traffic is a real loss. Does this very low level of traffic to the home page indicate something abnormal? Dropping from 10% to less than 4% is a major decline. Should we take specific steps regarding the home page like enhancing the content? Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Link earning for local businesses who can't afford content marketing
What are some of the best ways to earn and build quality relevant links that will increase exposure to your target market in addition to assisting search rankings? I personally find that local niche directories and PR are the best ways to accomplish this without having content to "earn links"..what else works? Any interesting ideas??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Rich Snippets - Aggregated Review in Organic Search
Hi All, Let’s say you are a service provider such a Garden Landscaper, and over time your customers have placed reviews on Google Local Places. As part your sites redesign your looking to implement "Rich Snippets Aggregated Reviews". Your organic natural search results should include the reviews; aggregated star picture, aggregated review value and total reviews. Question #1 Is this possible?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
#2 What is the best way of achieving this via Wordpress as a plugin?
#3 Do you need to file for consideration via Google? Any other useful advice will be appreciated. Thanks Mark0 -
Best to Post Dynamic Content (Listings) under "Posts" in Wordpress?
My commercial real estate web site is being migrated to Wordpress from Drupal. Is it advisable to place dynamic content that will use taxonomy under "Posts" ? Listings will be changed every few months and there could be anywhere from several hundred to several thousand of them on the site. Developers have given me different advice. One has been adamant that listings and neighborhood pages (there will be about 25 neighborhood pages) should not be in the post section which is to be strictly reserved for blog entries. The last thing I want is to create a site structure which is unfriendly to SEO!!!! I would very much appreciate the perspective of anyone proficient with Wordpress and SEO. Thanks!!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan Rosinsky0 -
Google Listings
How can i make my pages appear in google results such as menu, diner, hours, contact us etc.. when some searches for my keyword or domain take a look at this screen shot Thanks UbqY4kwA UbqY4kwA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vlad_mezoz0 -
Local + National seo for a new website
Hi, Look for idea for a website owner selling training courses on painting , he wants to be ranked locally first but also national on google Serp (only one physical address available). His domain name is rather a branded one (no kw in it), and the website is recent (1 year) . An audit will be focused on competitor rankings to find niche KW. I 'd advise : - For local : optimized Google address listing + local business directories + optumized page with local emphasis (shema.org ..) For national : to make unique relevant content pages with keywords geographically targeted (according audit), for instance for a specific town, to include terms related to this particular local market etc.. 1/ What 's else could i suggest to start a national ranking ? 2/ Have you heard of a tool to make distant queries on Google ? I mean , i leave in Madrid (spain) and want to see google serp as if i was in Barcelona ? (seems difficult as google uses Ip). Tks in advance for your advices...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mlc0 -
Local SEO - Business name and web address different
Howdy Local Experts, I'm hoping you can clear up something for me.. I'm setting up some places for a company that's spread across 5 cities. I am creaitng 5 separate locations for this. The company name is not the same as the website name. All the SEO efforts are for the website name ( the brand ) not the parent company name., so... 1. When creating the places do I enter the business name in "company/organisation" and put the brand name in the web site field? Or is it better for seo to have the brand name here as the company name too? 2. Are all 5 listings more or less going to be the same except for the address and phone numbers? I suppose unique photos etc for each location is better here? 3. When creating citations i am essentially going to be building 5 separate "links", one for each place is that correct. So adding the specific location details into the matching state and city business directories etc? 3. The exact business category doesn't accurately show up in the list. Do i select the closest thing here or create custom categories to better match the business. Apologies for the lenghty question, Derek
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClickValueMedia0