Weird: Local Landing Page Not Showing In "City + Brand" Search Query

[AinsleyAgency]

Hi Mozzers,

I've noticed something strange that I can't quite wrap my head around. I'm hoping it's an easy fix and I'm just overlooking something.

Backstory: I'm managing all things digital for a local flooring retailer that has 6 showrooms in the region. I've done basic local SEO - local landing pages with proper markup, GMB set up and verification, Moz Local scores are in the 80% range for each location and improving steadily, etc. However, one of my locations is way behind all of the others in both organic searches and the map.

Recently, I did a search for "city + brand" for this particular location in an incognito window and the page came up on the 4th page. When I perform the same search for any of the other locations, the respective landing page come up 1st or 2nd along with the homepage. I even searched using the title tag as well as a few more specific searches and still nothing on the first page.

This is weird, right? Has anyone experienced this before? Search Console came back perfect, so no penalties and it's definitely being indexed.

For reference, the page I am referring to is http://www.nextdayfloors.net/locations/columbia/ and the location query I am using is "Columbia, MD"

Any help is much appreciated!

Thanks!

Tim

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Thomas,

By a happy coincidence, I just happened to write a blog post on this here recently:

https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages

Hope it gives you some new ideas!

[AinsleyAgency]

Thanks for all of your insight! The company rebranded from Bill's in 2014, so we're in the process of cleaning up the citations. It does take a lot of time for 6 locations!

One question regarding the content on the landing pages... what else would you recommend adding? I already have 300+ word body copy, hours, directions, map, photos, store manager, etc.

Thanks again!

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Thomas!

1. Perfectly fine that they kept the number as long as you are working on getting every possible old citation cleaned up to reflect the new address/new number. Moz Local will help with this, but you may need to do some manual work as well. Good to know that no locations are sharing phone numbers. That can be a disaster!

2. Regarding duplicate content, you might want to check out this post, https://moz.com/blog/how-to-defeat-duplicate-content-next-level but if you've only got 6 locations, I would honestly recommend also doing a manual read-through of each of the 6 landing pages to be sure they are actually unique and helpful (i.e. not just swapping out city names or making a minimum effort in some way).

3. Good idea to make the Locations its own link in the menu. That could help!

4. Getting duplicates like these resolved is going to be very important: https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMk5leHQlMjUyMERheSUyNTIwRmxvb3JzJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyMjEwNDUlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjJOZXh0JTI1MjBEYXklMjUyMEZsb29ycyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjY1MDUlMjUyMERvYmJpbiUyNTIwUm9hZCUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjIxMDQ1JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyNDEwNzQ0ODk1MCUyNTIyJTI1NUQ=

The shared phone number between your business and a business called Bill's Carpet Fair is concerning. I don't know if this stems from re-branding or something else, but this would be worth doing a full citation audit for to be sure Google is convinced that your business ... and not Bill's ... is located at that phone number.

5. On these pages, I recommend that you put the business name with the rest of the NAP. Right now, it looks like the name of this business is Columbia, MD Flooring Showroom and you have the address separate below with no name.

6. You might also want to consider putting the 6 locations in the footer.

7. Finally, the content on the landing pages is a decent start, but there's room for improvement, and if you want to convince Google that a landing page is more worthy of top billing than a homepage, assessing and improving the content could be an important step!

[AinsleyAgency]

Thanks for checking in, Miriam,

1. So, what is interesting here is this store moved locations in 2014, but kept the same phone number. I've been using Moz Local to help clean this up. Other than that, absolutely not sharing numbers.

2. Yes, it's all unique as far as I'm concerned. Is there a good way to check this?

3. This is something I've heard a few times. We will be adding a Locations link to the top of the page (third nav where Specials live now). It's currently accessible via Ways To Show > In Store

Thanks!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Thomas!

I see what you mean regarding the homepage rather than the landing page coming up, though the knowledge panel to the right is correct for this location. 3 Quick Questions:

1. Are you sharing phone numbers between any of the locations

2. Is the text on all of your landing pages unique, or is any of it duplicate text?

3. I am not finding an obvious option in your menu to see all of your locations on the website. Something like 'Cities We Serve' in the top menu. What's going on with that?

[BrianJGomez]

There's a lot that could be going on here. How are the citations for each of the locations? Also have you configured the local schema on each local landing page? I wrote an article here on Moz a while back that I think might be helpful:

https://moz.com/ugc/get-your-multilocation-business-ranking-in-multiple-cities-with-one-domain-21815

[Lindsay]

Hi Tim,

I'm seeing much stronger results for my searches on this end. With a query of "columbia next day floors" I have the correct  in the 4th organic position. With a query of "columbia md flooring showroom" I'm seeing that same page in position 8.

I will say that this location appears to have tougher competition than the others. Reviews on your Google Local page will help close the gap. Also, it is possible to get the site-wide footer location text linked?

Happy Optimizing!
Lindsay

[JordanLowry]

However, when I put 'next day floors' in Moz's local search I see you may have some duplicates. Google could be choosing what they perceive is the best instance of the query in some searches and you may be seeing that listing being pushed further down in the SERPs.

[JordanLowry]

When I ran a similar query the Columbia, MD location shows up on the first page. It is the Dobbin rd location.