How Can I move a site higher in Google Places?
-
As we all know Google Local Business/Places now has significant real estate for many searches. What I find hard to understand is what makes the difference between the different positions. Is it solely based on the content in Google Places itself or is it regular ranking factors.
I am (like everybody) on a hell for leather search to try and rank above my competition but having studied their Places information I do not think there is much I more I can do.
Suggestions hat have actually worked for you?
-
Just to update people on this topiuc and what has changed / not changed
My URL is http://www.grangewebdesign.com and target keywords are website design Cork, web design Cork and Cork before each of these as well as that is the city I live in
- I made some subtle change to the address (removed the area I was on as Google Maps did not recognise the actual area and now it matches the people above me.
- I made sure my content was solid on the page and guess what
- For the search terms website design Cork where I was 5th on the Google Places list I am now on page 2
- For the search terms web design Cork where I was bottom of Page 1 for SERPs I am now on Page 3
Time for a stiff drink. But really I have really worked hard on this and now it seems I am doing more damage than good..
-
If the order reversal includes shuffling the place name away from "city, ST" you can see dramatic differences.
-
Just to keep you up to date. I got 5 more reviews and now I have 6 and the increased reviews have not moved my placement. I suspect that irrespective of the activity that you do on Google Places that your site's actual authority, links etc etc still have a strong factor in the placement.
I am actually creating an excel table looking forensically at the people above to see what really stands out from their Google Places listing from mine to see if even the smallest tweak makes a difference.
What is interesting is that for a different order of the exact same keywords there is only one Google Places listing presented which I find very interesting as well - any ideas on that one ?
-
Google pulls reviews from across the web, not just Google accounts.
-
It sounds like if you're dealing with subtle tweaks and small details you'll need to get some insight into your specific situation, i.e. add your url and search terms to the discussion, or hire someone to hep with an audit.
To answer your question about subtle difference, yes, I've seen something as simple as being more centrally located within a specific area code give a better ranking in map results. This was a while ago though, and I think it's changed some, but it is an example of subtle difference. Of course this might not help your situation whatsoever.
-
Thanks for that working on getting them as well. 3 so far in last week. It's a pain in the behind when the reviewer has to have a gmail address though as my hundreds of satisfied customers (:-)) don't all have GMail addresses.
-
Reviews, reviews,reviews!
-
Thanks Ryan and appreciatethe speed of your answer. I have actually read this article before and have implemented nearly all the items that make sense. I do notice that the Google Categories have changed slightly recently with Services - XXX as new ones for a range ot items.
However after implementing these it has not made a huge difference. I think this URL is a good Intermediate primer for people but I think that it is very small details in this area that will make the difference for me. Has anyone seen subtle tweaks hat have made differences? My keywrods by the way are far from competitive and are in the 1-2K range.
-
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml This is an excellent break down of the factors that go in to local search. David Mihm is also on the SEOmoz website so if you need an expert in the field you can contact him.
As you can see from the article there are at least 58 positive indicators and 11 negative indicators that all influence your localized ranks, being a combination of localized content and regular ranking factors. Hopefully by scanning through this article you'll be given several ideas of where you can improve your results.
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
-
Moving site from www to non www and also hosting to vps what will be the effect?
Hi SEO gurus,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoBlogs61
I am trying to move my site from shared hosting to VPS hosting and also moving from www to non www version.
What is the best possible way to avoid any issue and without losing the backlinks.
Is it good or bad to do? URL: https://buylikesservices.com/0 -
Can you create town focused landing pages for a website without breaking Google guidelines?
I recently watched a webmaster video that said that town focused landing pages are seen as doorway pages if they only exist to capture search traffic. And then I read that just because you can sell your product/service in a certain area, doesn't mean you can have a page for it on your website. Is it possible to create town focused landing pages for a website without breaking Google guidelines?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Silkstream1 -
301 old site to new site?
I have client with an old site - www.bestfamilylawattorney.com - which had a lot of spammy links (and bad rankings). Instead of fixing those issues, we started a new URL - www.berenjifamilylaw.com - with new content and redesign. Should I do a 301 redirect from old to new domain? If the old site was being penalized, would a 301 transfer that penalty? I just want to make sure I don't end up hurting the new site after doing all the work to start fresh. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Linking from a corporate site to a brand site.
Is there an SEO impact to a large corporation linking from a corporate and/or a divisional site to a specific brand site with it's own top level domain? We would like to keep the traffic coming, but not if it will be seen as a black hat tactic. My guess is that Google will be smart enough to see that the corporation owns the brand and at least not penalize us, but I am wondering if anyone else has this experience? Google Analytics is calling it self-referral.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrbobland0 -
How to make Google index your site? (Blocked with robots.txt for a long time)
The problem is the for the long time we had a website m.imones.lt but it was blocked with robots.txt.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FCRMediaLietuva
But after a long time we want Google to index it. We unblocked it 1 week or 8 days ago. But Google still does not recognize it. I type site:m.imones.lt and it says it is still blocked with robots.txt What should be the process to make Google crawl this mobile version faster? Thanks!0 -
Will Google penalize a site that had many links pointing to it with utm codes?
I want to track conversions using utm parameters from guest blog posts on sites other than my own site. Will Google penalize my site for having a bunch of external articles pointing to one page with unique anchor text but utm code? e.g. mysite.com/seo-text?utm_campaign=guest-blogs
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wepayinc0 -
What on-page/site optimization techniques can I utilize to improve this site (http://www.paradisus.com/)?
I use a Search Engine Spider Simulator to analyze the homepage and I think my client is using black hat tactics such as cloaking. Am I right? Any recommendations on to improve the top navigation under Resorts pull down. Each of the 6 resorts listed are all part of the Paradisus brand, but each resort has their own sub domain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0 -
Google places: 7 weeks and still not verified. Reasons?
I've created Google Places entries for the business' 25 locations in 8 countries. It's been 7 weeks and Google hasn't validated my bulk upload yet. Which of the following would you say might do the trick? URL: I have pointed to http://site.com/country/city for every location. Should I point to http://site? I've created categories in English, but being this about local I guess I should do it in the local language of each country... Should I cancel the bulk upload and do one country per country? My list of countries include Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia so I don't know if manual verification is done by google centrally and that might be a problem. Otherwise the entries are (IMHO) well written, detailed and all. But I'm kind of desperate now because it's 7 weeks already... thanks for you help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TIBA0