Local SEO Best Practices for 2,000+ 'location' service area business
-
Hi Moz Community!
We operate a business where we have a network of 2,000+ technicians around the country who help people repair their mobile phones. These techs do the fixing at the customer's location, making them service area businesses. Even after scouring all of the go-to places on local SEO, I'm struggling to find best practices for this type of situation - the fact that our techs are operating in service areas presents a number of challenges. The biggest one, it seems, is that inevitably service areas are going to overlap. When I talked to a Google rep on this he said this "might" cause our locations to get de-listed and we'd just have to test and find out. Other challenges include the fact that we cannot bulk upload the service areas of our techs, and we cannot bulk verify - meaning there is a ton of work to do at our scale.
Any suggestions on where to go to find resources on this specific topic, or an example of someone doing this well we can model?
Thanks everyone!
-
Great idea, thanks again David.
-
Not entirely sure that's an accurate response. There are plenty of SABs who have not claimed a Google My Business Page and yet are still in the Maps index -- and ranking QUITE well. Here is just one example.
I would try submitting a few locations to each aggregator and see which one has the primary feed in these categories. My guess would be Infogroup or Acxiom in this particular case.
-
Thanks David! At your recommendation I talked to Infogroup, Acxiom and Neustar. The information I got from Infogroup (which they said came directly from Google) was that a listing with them, or any aggregator, wouldn't get us a listing on Google Maps - SABs needed to be directly on GMB to be listed.
Given our budget will only allow for one aggregator for now, is there one of the three aggregators that would make sense to do first?
Thanks again.
-
It's going to be a lot of manual work at this point unless/until Google allows for SABs to be included in bulk upload. I'm not so sure I'd even try to tackle GMB yet, but instead focus on aggregator submissions and primary vertically-relevant directories like Thumbtack, AngiesList, Yelp, YP. Those should honestly get you pretty far in terms of rankings (although obviously you won't get the benefit of being able to choose a featured photo, etc.).
-
I do have experience of this, but not on that scale. I would certainly be proceeding with caution and like the Google rep, I think that there could be an element of risk, mainly down to the fact that there will be so few working examples of this to compare it with.
Is there any way you could roll out test groups to see how well they work? If you start with a smaller evaluation group, there is less at stake if something goes awry.
-Andy
-
Thanks Andy, that makes sense. The Google rep I spoke with seemed to think we'd be ok to 'test out' what happened if two service areas overlapped, and that if they got de-listed it would not affect our other locations. However, given the fact he couldn't tell me for sure what would happen seems to mean there would be some risk to that. Any experience with this?
-
**...this "might" cause our locations to get de-listed **
As I started reading, that was my exact thought.
Overlaps are going to happen from time to time with some listings, but you would have to try and keep it as clean as humanly possible, and where you think an overlap might happen, you could consider removing it to avoid issues. Losing one listing by your own hand, is better than losing the lot to Google.
I haven't had to deal with something quite as large as this in the past, but there are similarities with other clients that spring to mind.
Someone else might pop along with additional ideas or examples for you.
-Andy
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
-
How to improve SEO in two cities at once
Hi, we have a company, and the business has a Google My Business and business citations created. the manager, wants to be on first page of Google, in the organic results, for another city thats less than 10 miles away. the business does not have two stores, just one business premises, any idea how we can improve the local/organic SEO for the second city and get on the first page of Google there as well?
Local SEO | | sarahwalsh0 -
Does popup ads affects SEO?
Hi, webmasters, As a part of Christmas, we have enabled some pop-up advertisement on our homepage. However, we are doing SEO for our services, and if there any SEO experts here, please share your view on my question. Reference of the website which im saying is https://www.cash4carremovalsydney.com.au/ However, if this affects SEO, tell me an alternate solution for this concern for promoting our Xmas offer for our cars removal services.
Local SEO | | AnuManish0 -
"We" or "I" for a small local healthcare enterprise?
Hi all, SEO newb here (or possibly rookie!). I'm a health professional and run a small, new specialised healthcare business targeting a local area (15 miles max). My product as such is the service I provide. There is a grand total of one employee, that of course being me! My SEO goal is phonecalls made and subsequent bookings as opposed to sales. Prior to joining here, I just looked at websites that provide a similar service and blindly assumed that a "We" approach to writing content was the accepted norm for presumed professional appearance. On reflection however, not only are most of these employing a team, most are in areas much more metropolitan than I operate in (I operate in a medium sized town where almost everyone knows everyone else by about 1 degree). In addition, I have run into a few difficulties with this however when writing content/incorporating keywords. Now I am about to re-write my "About Me" section I'm having a real challenge using the aforementioned context while sounding personable and like-able. Does anyone have any advice or experience re the correct context to use, in regards to the difference in CTR's and bounce rates etc in a small one-man enterprise that offers specialised services to the local area? Many thanks!
Local SEO | | UkPod1 -
Local SEO & Google Maps Question - 1 Company with Multiple Google Pages
Hey Mozzers! I'm working with a client who has 2 websites (different URLs completely), which one is for all parts and the other is for accessories only. They have multiple brick and mortar locations throughout the US and have done a nice job creating Google My Business pages for each and all verified. Their question is will it benefit them to create and verify another GMB page with same address, but place in "Suite B", a new phone number and apply the other URLs for the accessories site. The business name would also be different, but similar meaning Business 1 = ABC where as Business 2 = ABC Accessories. Their goal would be to try to have both rank or display to improve their local SEO. In theory it sounds like it will work given NAP would be satisfied within the GMB, but wanted to get the Moz community thoughts on this first before moving forward. Look forward to the replies. Patrick
Local SEO | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Feedback to what to offer to my clients on my SEO website - local to Boise ID
Hi, I'm targeting Boise, Idaho and building an SEO consulting website. Right now I only offer 3 things because that's what I have experience in: 1. On-site SEO 2. Content Audit 3. Start a company from scratch. Ecommerce, Service, or Informational I know #3 involves all SEO, so it will be challenging, but 1-3 is what I've been doing for 10 years. What feedback do you have as far as 1-3 being my 3 offers, and is $200/hour fair? I work off quotes by estimating my time at $200/hour. Thanks.
Local SEO | | BobGW1 -
How to market web design and SEO company locally
Hello, I'm looking for easy (yah right, correct?) ways to market locally my web solutions company. I do web design, E-commerce web design, and I start informational and E-commerce companies for people starting at $1000/month - only new companies, later I'll do a little more E-commerce stuff. Looking for inexpensive, fairly easy ways to market locally. Thanks!
Local SEO | | BobGW0 -
Is my link structure hurting my SEO?
Moz says I have too many links on the homepage - could this be hurting my SEO? I have a lot of links on my homepage - especially from the services menu. I also have a few in the intro paragraph that are unnecessary but are linked to other pages using keywords - such as "veterinarians" which go to Meet our Veterinarians, etc. I'm afraid to make changes as I don't want to go overboard and actually hurt our rankings further. Any thoughts on this? Brant
Local SEO | | BCB11210 -
Moz Rank Tracker - Local Rankings?
My question is about local SEO rankings. How does the Moz Rank Tracker track local results, meaning I do not see a place to tell the tool what local market to show results for.If I have a dentist in Denver and I enter the keyword “dentist” into the tracker, is it looking for how my site ranks locally in Denver or how it ranks for “dentist” on a national level.Thanks in advance for the help!
Local SEO | | ifuseurbiz1