Ranking well for keywords, but not in Google maps
-
If the search "criminal defense attorney" or any number of variants, is performed from a mobile device, like an iPhone, Google maps seems to be inserting many local map listings ahead of the normal search results in the Tallahassee, Florida area. These are great - as they have the Call button and the Directions button. However, for some reason, my clients aren't ranking well here and competitors who are seemingly doing nothing are higher in the list.
I have created the Google+ page for attorney and business page for the firm and completed the profile, uploading pictures etc and verified the address. I have the local address (schema-proper, I believe) on the linking home page and their address is actually closer to downtown/midtown than others. I've even gotten some positive reviews and +1s, at least enough to be competitive in this field. This was about 2 months ago. Any advice?
On a (perhaps) related note, the competition has category descriptions outside of the Google-allowed categories. I can't save settings without fitting neatly into their "Criminal Justice Attorney" category. Help here would also be appreciated.
-
Hi Drew,
I will add to Tom's thoughtful response by recommending that you study the recent Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 (http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors) and look at the different factors that have greatest influence in the mobile environment vs. the desktop environment if the goal is mobile local rankings. Hope this helps!
-
Hi there Drew
You've made the right start by acquiring a Google+ page and some reviews. Google considers these citations when deciding whether or not to rank a site in the local listings.
However, it also considers hundreds of other local citations for this local search. Getting your listing on these sites can go a long way towards improving your local listing visibility. Make sure that each listing uses a consistent address, phone number, company etc. and Google should start to take notice.
Here's a fantastic definitive list of local citations you can go out and acquire. Getting the listing is only half of the job - using consistent information, getting reviews and of course earning high quality links will make your site appear higher and higher in local search as well. Keep driving reviews to places like Google+ and Yelp, earn those links and claim your listings.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Repetitive Speaker and Keyword Stuffing Penalty
This question is a little bit on the whimsical side. Let's say you have a video on your page, and a transcript of said video. The speaker has a tendency to repeat a certain (key)word, somewhat excessively. Maybe it's an important term for a technical video, maybe it's a nervous thing, whatever -- that word is in there a lot. If you include a video transcript, could you get slapped with a keyword stuffing penalty for excessive use of said word?
Image & Video Optimization | | Oren.0 -
Shared location and phone number in Google Places...what now?
Interesting conundrum I've run into with a legal site we've recently started working on. The client didn't initially tell us that their law office shares an address and a phone number with another firm. It didn't take long for us to find this out, but interestingly, it didn't seem to be negatively impacting their rankings...at first. Then as we got into June we simply fell out of the map listings. We occasionally resurface back to a 1-3 position and then disappear again. My presumption is that Google is having trouble deciding if either of our separate listings are legitimate as there are a lot of citations for each and the on site and off site SEO/link factors are fairly similar (with our site having a bit better link profile). So my thought is get a unique phone number (if I can make the client agree) and add a unique suite number and try to reclaim/edit every existing citation we can get our hands on. Anyone else run into a similar problem and beat it?
Image & Video Optimization | | NetvantageMarketing0 -
Google Carousel - What Should We Now Be Doing Differently?
Google Carousel is rolling out for even more topics. How does it affect or change tracking in Google Analytics? For example, if I am in the Carousel and someone clicks my listing, then Google completes a search for my property… then the searcher clicks through to my site organically. Will I know that someone originally clicked the Carousel or will I have no idea and simply see a Google organic click? Should we be optimizing our Google+ Places listings differently? How does this change our own organic keyword targeting? In other words, if I am in the Carousel should I go after a different keyword organically? Does anyone know how many people are clicking into the Carousel vs. the organic listings or even pay per click below? Searchers behavior will be altered because of this change. What say you all? Articles That Relate: http://blog.autorevo.com/2013/06/new-local-search-layout/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=local-carousel&r44b=no http://searchengineland.com/google-knowledge-graph-carousel-sightings-becoming-more-frequent-within-a-wider-variety-of-searches-163562 http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/06/14/google-local-carousel-display-showing-more-frequently-in-more-categories/
Image & Video Optimization | | Hospitality-SEO0 -
Google Places and Google+ for business
When I acquire a new client I have created them an internal Gmail that I use for Google Places and now Google+. This has always worked. My question is, can I take over a Google Places listing on my email and still do a Google+ for business page and the reviews show up? Or does it have to be all under the same email? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | ClickIt0 -
Google Places: Multiple Entries
Hi there I'm doing some SEO for a restaurant/bar/night club. Now I'm wondering whether I should create multiple entries on Google Places or one for all. I had in mind: one for the bar/night club and one for the restaurant, as the target audiences for those can be rather different. We have only one address (and one website), but several phone numbers, so it would be possible to have several entries. What's your opinion: One or several entries?
Image & Video Optimization | | zeepartner0 -
Getting reviews to stick on Yelp & Google
Do you have any tricks to getting reviews to stick on yelp? Whenever we ask out customers to review us on there their reviews end up getting "detected" as fakes. I have tried it out myself, and the only way i've gotten them to stick is making several reviews of various different local businesses with average ratings and then dropping one in for the client with a better rating. Perhaps this is a little on the blackhat/greyhat side of things. But if our customers are legitimatly trying to review us and it doesn't stick, i don't feel all that bad taking this route, the only real problem is time consumed. What about google? has anyone had any luck gaining more reviews for their client on google?
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0 -
Will linking to my citation sources help google recognize them / credit my places account?
Or does google treat this behavior the same way as a reciprocal link and discount any credibility of the citation?
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0 -
Will linking to my citation sources help google recognize them / credit my places account?
Or will those sources be discounted by google then similar to how google discounts link exchanges? I have noticed some pages, like mapquest, don't really have a directory, so google might not be aware of their content unless it is linked too??? In this type of a case, would it help to link to mapquest's search results? then the citation will get picked up by google? Example: http://www.mapquest.com/?hk=6-i30tP49i
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0