Sponsored Listings Hurting Local SEO?
-
We use a service which sponsors listings on various popular directories. In turn, it changes our phone number so that I can qualify if the call is a lead or not and then charge us. Unfortunately, while this service helps exposure on those directories, the phone number as well as the website are different.
How much of a problem is this for our local SEO?
Other directories include Suerpages and Citysearch.
-Brant
-
No problem if the listing is free or paid but when it comes to local SEO your NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number) should be consistent across the website and if any service is changing the phone number that means you will face the issues with regards to local SEO.
My idea is to use the service that submit your business to these yellow pages and data aggregator website once, and then manually shift the listing to featured (I you like) usually not all local citation websites produce leads but websites like Yelp, YP.com, super pages are good names when it comes to conversions through citation websites.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi BCB1121,
Google probably doesn't care if a listing is sponsored or not (paid for or not) but the issue you have pointed out regarding call tracking numbers does matter very much. Unfortunately, what this service is doing is creating 'NAP inconsistency'. You want your business name, address and phone number to be identical across the web, and call tracking numbers are taboo because of the fact that they harm consistency.
I recommend that you read these articles to become fully acquainted with this longstanding issue, and to see what you should and should not do with call tracking:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/05/14/a-guide-to-call-tracking-and-local/
After reading these, I believe you'll want to reconsider this area of marketing. 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
-
What do I need to do for SEO when moving a business out of state?
Hello! So I have a business that I run out of a single location for the last 3 years. I am unfortunately having to move here in the next few weeks My question is what do I need to do in order to have the best chance at SEO for the new location? When should I make the changes? Does it take a long time for me to stop showing up in the previous location? and is there something I need to do to remove those? Also, is there an app or a website where I can find and update all listings at once or at least a bulk of them? I know that there are some weird sites that have my business info in them that I did not put there. Obviously these would have the wrong address. Some do not have a contact info or a way for me to log into them. What would I do with these sites? Thank you!
Local Listings | | Rmarkjr810 -
Local Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries Disappearing from Google Maps when Plurals used.
This is the second time I have posted this question and never got a satisfactory result. I have an SEO client in Tacoma Wa and when you type (Dispensaries Near Tacoma they are in the Top 3 snack pack and the Google maps shows 20 other similar businesses. However, when you search (Dispensary Near Tacoma) only 3 or 5 recreational marijuana shops show up and my client disappears. Someone earlier suggested it could be because of the categories selection, but that can't affect ALL the other shops and like I said it happens in other cities. for example Dispensary Near Olympia vs Dispensaries Near Olympia. I have the full write up and pictures and diagrams on my blog. Please HELP! This could affect your future clients also. https://isenselogic.com/local-business-disappearing-on-google-maps-when-plurals-used/
Local Listings | | isenselogic0 -
What are the best link strategies to increase rankings in Local Pack / GMB and where to find them?
As someone who manages GMB for 50 plus local US clients, I absolutely loved this article https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors#local-pack-finder-ranking-factors and found it somewhat useful. Most of the gurus are saying link building is the key, but I wish at least one of them would mention where do we find these links. Is there a reliable source for this ( based on personal experience only please ) ? A one stop shop for any local business to do quality links ? I feel like to be truly useful to a local business this piece of the puzzle is missing and I would truly appreciate anyone's help.
Local Listings | | OlegLevitas2 -
Structured data for business listings
If I have a page of 20 local business listings, do I need to provide structured data for each business listing? is that necessary and would it help with SEO? So if I have a page of Vancouver Brain Injury Lawyers, and list off 20 local law firms that focus on that type of injury, should I have structured data for each law firm that I list?
Local Listings | | EBKMarketing0 -
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 -
Higher Value: Google Local Listing or .edu link?
A client of mine is putting together a partnership with a local university to offer a certain type of medical test through several of its clinics. They are writing up the contract now and asked me if there is anything they should ask for that would benefit us in our listings. Since we do not have an actual local footprint, my first inclination was to ask for them to help us get verified as owners of "practitioner" local listings at their business addresses (as discussed here). We would provide local numbers that would ring our call center. My thinking is that these listings and backlinks would benefit on searches similar to "medical testing in San Antonio". I have a number of concerns with this track but would love to hear from the community on why or why not this might be the way to go. Another potential option is to ask for a link from the university's website outlining the partnership. Something along the lines of "Our labs have partnered with BIZNAME to provide medical testing in San Antonio to our valued patients." I'd obviously love the EDU links, but I'm hesitant after Overstock's penalty a few years ago to try to set something like that up. I'm not sure which (if either) to ask for in the contract. I'm leaning toward the latter since it seems more in line with a long term strategy, and Google seems to change their treatment of the local listings pretty frequently. However, getting that high visibility real estate in the local listings is really appealing to me. What does everyone think?
Local Listings | | Andrew_Mac0 -
How valuable are citaitons/consistency (Moz Local) for a NON-local business?
Hi All! I'm doing some research for non-local SEO clients and finding that many of them have messy and extremely inconsistent listing profiles (via Moz Local checker). It seems to me that this would be a good thing to take care of, even for a non local site. Anyone have insights on whether or not this is something we should take care of? If so, any details on how or why it would or would not be a good idea? Thanks! Ricky
Local Listings | | SUCCESSagency0 -
Moz local...worth $84 a year?
I am currently showing up in local results for my business but when i run a Moz local test, it shows that i only have a current score of 29% and by using Moz Local it says i could get to a score of 86%. Will enrolling in Moz local help my pages to rank higher in the search engines for different queries, or does it just help my site show up in the local results at the top of the serps? I only have one business in one city so it might not be worth it for me. My business is a service though and i travel to many different cities. Any input on this would be greatly appreciated. thanks mozzers! Ron
Local Listings | | Ron100