Google maps listings
-
Hi all, I just wondered what determines the company listings that are displayed in maps. From what I can see any businesses highlighted in these lists have optimised Google Places pages and it doesn't seem to be based on general ranking as these lists seem different to the general SERPS.
Any thoughts at all appreciated. Pls see attached image.
Also, is there anything other than optimise your Places listing that might help ensure you are seen in these results?
-
Many thanks, all extremely helpful information! It's really appreciated.
This all gives me some food for thought and it also looks like I've got some work to do!
Thanks again.
-
Hi David,
So glad you asked, as we've just released the 2015 Local Search Ranking Factors survey, which should help give you the most comprehensive possible picture of the factors that are believed to most influence both local and local/organic rankings:
https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
These factors are also applicable to Maps, so a thorough study of the survey should be helpful.
-
Hey David,
A few things here, if I recall the ones that are showing up highlighted are sometimes ones you have seen or done a search for.
As for your map listing there is lots you can do. The most important things to do is the following:
Do local listings on yelp and other sites.
Insure you have the same address and business name on everything including your website. Little things like Street and St can be seen as different.
Put a google map on your website with the same address.
Ask your customers to do reviews. Be careful don't to do them yourself as Google does check lots of reviews from the same IP address.
These things can help get your map moving up.
-
Hi.
Make sure your Business G+ is optimized, all info is consistent through different local listings and the website. Also, it won't hurt to link G+ and website contact page. Do use structured data to help Google understand who and what you are.
I do believe that organic search rankings have a positive effect too. If you're ranking in first three spots and you have G+ optimized, you'll most definitely be in local results as well.
Cheers.
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
-
Google my business : Multiple businesses operating from the same location.
After multiple phone calls with Google My Business help, I'm still completely stumped! I need to set up Google my business pages for 5 business', however, each of these companies work in the same office - so the location used on Google my business would be the same. I want to know if this is possible? Surely there's ways to do it, especially since the increase of hot-desking and shared offices! Thanks
Local Listings | | sophiecrosby970 -
Local SEO: How to get local business showing up in Google Local
Hello, We moved to a small town in Council, ID. It's interesting. None of the businesses around here are showing up in Google Local - map, phone number, hours, etc. Nothing. It's all Yelp and stuff. Is there some sort of collective local SEO that has to be done to get Council, ID on the map? It's kind of strange that no businesses show up. I want to help local businesses, but I don't know if Google will even register them. We can get a group of local businesses together if we have to. Let me know what we can do. Thanks.
Local Listings | | BobGW0 -
Community Discussion: Did Your Google Listing Suddenly Disappear?
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!
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis4 -
Will using call tracking phone numbers in paid legal directories listing negatively affect our website?
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).
Local Listings | | SEO4leagalPA0 -
Local Directories: What are the best practices for manually updating over 500 listings?
We are currently using an aggregator for a client, but we will be manually updating 5 different local directories that are not included in the distribution for over 500 locations. I am wondering if there are any local experts that have a set of best practices/processes for this type of scenario?
Local Listings | | PureVisibility0 -
Why I'm I ranking so low on Google Maps
About 3 months I started a website (www.guyetteroofing.com) for my roofing business in Montgomery, Alabama. The site is still a work in progress, however, because the competition doesn't really market via internet it was fairly easy to rank on Google Maps. Within 1 month the business was letter "A" in Google Maps. About 3 three weeks ago my ranking was dropped considerably, not showing up at all in letters A through G. The business is still indexed in Google Maps, but only represented by a small red dot. My website is still ranking pretty high for "roofers in Montgomery", but my position on Google Maps has all but disappeared. I have no idea what I've done to be rank so low on Google Maps but still have a solid position on regular Google Search. I've checked my citations and my NAPs, there are a few inconsistencies but nothing major. How can I rank so far below my competition if I have twice as many citations, an actual website, and a Google Plus page?
Local Listings | | billyguyette0 -
Google Places Multiple Phone Numbers
Hi Guys, Looking for a advice on having multiple phone numbers. We have dealers who have both a sales phone number and service phone number for the same address. Is it possible to specify this in Google Places so both numbers are displayed in the SERP GP listing as shown below link? Link - http://tinyurl.com/mto86ts Or is it possible to even add multiple numbers on the actual GP local page ? http://tinyurl.com/n7r9w3d Any advice on this? Seems to be from my initial research, the only way to two numbers is via the description. Thanks,
Local Listings | | MBASydney
Matt0 -
Google Authorship issues with a 200+ person company
So, I wanted to say thank you ahead of time for any help the amazing Moz community may be able to provide me with. I am going to start with giving a little background to the company I work for and then I will ask the question. We are a 200 person CFO Services firm (www.b2bcfo.com). We have partners almost all over the country and our research with potential partners and clients has shown that they like having a national presence, but they also need a regional/local presence too. To that end, we set up Google Places accounts for each of our partners as they are technically separate businesses under our umbrella. We also have the main national site (www.b2bcfo.com) and we have regional websites (e.g. www.houstonb2bcfo.com). We want to set up Google Authorship on each of our partners sections of the regional website, in the process of setting this up, we realized that the Google Plus pages we were using were Local + pages and it didn't seem to give us the option to add the "Contributor on" links to get Google Authorship working. It seems to me as if the only way we can get Google Authorship working is to set up additional Google Plus accounts (users) and then manage 2 accounts for each professional. I was wondering if anyone in the community knows a way of getting the Google plus local pages to work with authorship? Or do you have any other suggestions on how this may work? Please let me know if you need more information, Thank you.
Local Listings | | B2B.CFO0