Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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What is the importance of exact match keywords for local SEO in service industry businesses?
I am working with a local service contractor. Several of his competitors have domain names with exact match keywords. Audits of competitor sites and use of other research tools reveals that their sites are behind in content and technical SEO. The competitor sites consistently rank higher in organic search results. I am new to SEO and I understand that some of my lack of clarity here is a result of not understanding the value of key word use in local SEO vs. wider efforts.
Technical SEO | | Andrew Woffenden0 -
Changing Business Address on Google Profile & Citations
Hello, I'm looking to change a business address to a new one on a Google business profile (still in the same area but on a different street). So, I'll need to update all citations and website with the new address - Is it recommended to update the citations & website first, and then change the address on the Google business profile, or vice-versa? Looking to do this as safely as possible without negatively impacting the rankings much. I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information on this. Thanks in advance.
Local SEO | | UpLinkSEO0 -
Do You Think the Distance Algorithm Has Less Weight for Local Service Related Businesses?
Hey guys, I wish Rand could answer this question, because I know he figured all of this out, or has at least thought about it at least once. Basically, I want to understand exactly how the local algorithms work. Do you think the Distance algorithm works differently for service related businesses that don't offer services directly to your car, or other moveable assets? (motorcycles, lawnmowers, small engines) For example, construction companies. We all know how boring their offices are. No one wants to go to one unless there has been a problem or to pay a bill, say at Trugreen or something. They don't sell products, and who wants to go to some construction company that will likely just be a receptionist and maybe a field manager on his lunch break with some field reps rotating in and out during the day getting new leads and entering sales? That's uncomfortable. Why not just call them? So, do you think Google's local algorithms know that and put less weight on businesses that fall into that category? Car shops, small engine repair, and say shoe repair shops are different because you have to bring them something to fix. Stores that sell products are different because you have to go shopping and pay them to take the products home. But remodeling companies, marketing agencies, etc. probably don't get a lot of foot traffic. (And it's because we know we can handle it on a phone call.)
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
What Service Page Strategy Should We Use to Target City-Specific Local Intent Service Keywords?
Hey guys! We are targeting a number of cities in the Nassau and Suffolk County areas for foundation repair, insulation, and mold remediation keywords, and we were debating on creating city-specific pages for each location and service, or creating one service page for each type of service that contains all of the services and solutions within that service category for each city. Example: City-Specific Pages for Each Service: One page for say foundation repair, one page for foundation crack repair, one page for foundation problems, etc. (for each target city) Service Category Pages for Each City: One page for foundation contractors that lists all services on one page in sections. Which one do you think is better for local SEO and rankings? Both seem to have their advantages and disadvantages to me. Just to throw a couple out there, the category pages may not rank as high as the city pages for each individual service if our competitors have a whole page designed for that service and we only have a part of a page covering the topic. At the same time, they would save labor hours, technical issues would be less, and they would be condensed, and we would have WAY less mess on the backend. I appreciate your expert opinion on this one. The site is www. zavzaseal.com in case you want to check us out.
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
What Should We Do to Fix Crawled but Not Indexed Pages for Multi-location Service Pages?
Hey guys! I work as a content creator for Zavza Seal, a contractor out of New York, and we're targeting 36+ cities in the Brooklyn and Queens areas with several services for home improvement. We got about 340 pages into our multi-location strategy targeting our target cities with each service we offer, when we noticed that 200+ of our pages were "Crawled but not indexed" in Google Search Console. Here's what I think we may have done wrong. Let me know what you think... We used the same page template for all pages. (we changed the content and sections, formatting, targeted keywords, and entire page strategy for areas with unique problems trying to keep the user experience as unique as possible to avoid duplicate content or looking like we didn't care about our visitors.) We used the same featured image for all pages. (I know this is bad and wouldn't have done it myself, but hey, I'm not the publisher.) We didn't use rel canonicals to tell search engines that these pages were special made for the areas. We didn't use alt tags until about halfway through. A lot of the urls don't use the target keyword exactly. The NAP info and Google Maps embed is in the footer, so we didn't use it on the pages. We didn't use any content about the history or the city or anything like that. (some pages we did use content about historic buildings, low water table, flood prone areas, etc if they were known for that) We were thinking of redoing the pages, starting from scratch and building unique experiences around each city, with testimonials, case studies, and content about problems that are common for property owners in the area, but I think they may be able to be fixed with a rel canonical, the city specific content added, and unique featured images on each page. What do you think is causing the problem? What would be the easiest way to fix it? I knew the pages had to be unique for each page, so I switched up the page strategy every 5-10 pages out of fear that duplicate content would start happening, because you can only say so much about for example, "basement crack repair". Please let me know your thoughts. Here is one of the pages that are indexed as an example: https://zavzaseal.com/cp-v1/premier-spray-foam-insulation-contractors-in-jamaica-ny/ Here is one like it that is crawled but not indexed: https://zavzaseal.com/cp-v1/premier-spray-foam-insulation-contractors-in-jamaica-ny/ I appreciate your time and concern. Have a great weekend!
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
404
We find 404 pages on our company website using Screaming Frog SEO tool. it's important to fix these 404 errors, a web designer can normally help.
Web Design | | sarahwalsh0 -
Unsolved Multiple business locations
Hi we run a Cardiff fencing company, but we also want to appear on Google for another city called Newport, do we need two business addresses, or is it just a matter of creating two separate pages on our WordPress website for the two cities? we want to be on the first page of Google.
Moz Local | | sarahwalsh0 -
Unsolved How many business citations (NAP) do you build for each of your customers?
As we all know, an important part of local SEO, is building business citations. However, we are interested at our white hat SEO Agency, how many business citations do you build for each of your clients?
Moz Local | | sarahwalsh0 -
Unsolved How long do you tell your SEO customers to wait before they start to see actual results from their SEO?
So, this is probably one of the most challenging questions for SEO agencies likes ours to answer. That is how long does it take for a business to see an increase in sales, because of the business investing in organic or local SEO. It ultimately comes down to how competitive the business sector is, we do know that. We are just wondering what various SEO companies tell their clients. Is it for example, they have to wait a minimum of six months of paying for SEO, before they can get the business on page one of Google? Or, instead, do you carry out an SEO audit at the start, and then make an estimate for how long it will take to get the business on page one of Google?
Moz Local | | sarahwalsh0 -
Unsolved Drop in organic rankings but we cant work out why
Hi, we are an SEO agency with over 10 years experience. We have always used white hat methods, we have only ever built quality links, and written quality content marketing. We have consistently had good organic ranking's in Google. The website recently moved back in the serps, not just a bit but absolutely massively. We cant work out why, we cant justify why neither. We are wondering if any SEO experts know why such moves exist, even if you follow white hat methods?
Moz Local | | sarahwalsh0 -
Unsolved Our SEO agency has substantially moved back within Google’s SERP’s, but we can't figure out why.
We have followed the guidance of [Google EEAT] and Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. However, our [Cardiff SEO company] has moved back substantially in the SERPs; the links and content marketing are good, yet we substantially back on Google’s SERPS by over 30 places and we have no clue why. We don’t know why; we are an SEO agency with over ten years of SEO experience, we never have had this happen to us, and can't figure out why our business has moved back to Google. If there are any SEO experts here, we would appreciate your help. We called Walsh and Partners, we are a white hat seo company based in Cardiff, South Wales, any help we would be so grateful.
Moz Local | | sarahwalsh0 -
New business / content marketing
Hi all SEO experts, if a website is brand new, so published in the last 3 months- new domain name and website design. We have rebranded recently, using a new domain as entered new business partnership, there doesn’t seem to be much guidance on this at all, from various SEO websites, so our question is would you delay publishing new blog posts / content marketing as frequently because the company website is brand new? So would SEO’s decrease the frequency of publication of blog posts, because the website is new? Or perhaps it does not matter, and would still post every week as you would if the website has been live for a long time? So, in nutshell, what we are wondering is, is the “Google Sandbox” still in use?
Local SEO | | Ryan070 -
Are These Urls for Targeted Cities OK?
I am working for a waterproofing company out of long beach that wants to rank for other neighborhoods around the area. But I just noticed that their URLs are targeting two locations. They have the cities built on the URLs after the long beach part. Will that affect rankings? Not be as potent as a truly SEO friendly url like example.com/services/mold-remediation/mold-remediation-brooklyn-ny? Here is an example: https://zavzaseal.com/mold-remediation-service-provider-long-island-ny/mold-removal-pro-in-copiague-ny-11726/ Another thing is the URLs say "mold removal pro" if I am targeting "mold removal copiague, NY" will that matter to rankings that the URL has pro in it?
Local SEO | | ThisTimeWereOn0 -
How Do You Think My Local SEO Multi-location Geotargeting Strategy Will Work?
I have a question. I just got a full-time job at Zavza Seal, an upstanding insulation contractor targeting neighborhoods of Suffolk and Nassau counties in New York. I was hired as an SEO content specialist. (Thanks Rand! You're one of my mentors~!) So, they handed me a spreadsheet of pages for city-specific terms, and they had a system in place for local rankings. But I was taught to do service-specific city pages a certain way. If the search term is for people looking for a service in that town, that's what you give them. However, I was told to proofread them, and as an SEO specialist, I couldn't keep my hands off of them. The pages were skimpy. (Example: h2, paragraph, bullets, short paragraph summary, short paragraph about the city.) What threw me off is that the content, while it was service specific, it was blog topics localized. Those are great (when long enough and optimized to compete in SERPs) but I've never seen them done on service pages. (Example: Why is Mold Remediation Necessary in Baldwin?. Now, this went in two directions in my mind. (and I wanted to do the best for the company, because I'm a wicked brat for teams, AND I get commissions on leads, so that was motivation, too.) 🐷 Anyway, 1. This could be a new approach and worthy of an SEO study on my startup site, where I take on part time clients after work, because I've never seen it done before and it could, if optimized for the target service and city rank high in SERPs AND build thought leadership and authority as a local expert. (Whereas city service pages in standard format would just promote your service. ..) What do you guys think? I just put the topic up for discussion for my team, asked them about it in detail and asked if they wanted to A'/B test a few to see what get's better traction organically. Mr. Fishkin was one of my mentors. I really wish I just had his number for this one LOL.
Local SEO | | ThisTimeWereOn0 -
How to optimize landing pages for local search?
I'm trying to understand how to optimize landing pages to appear in local search. For example, if someone in Chicago searches for "plumber", Yelp has a page "Top 10 Plumbers in Chicago." They are generating these pages for numerous business types and cities. I can't see anything on the page or metadata that indicates a geographic location or business type. What optimizations are they doing to get Google to know that it's a page for a specific city and type of business?
Local SEO | | Tourizee0 -
Unsolved SEO Tracking Tools Local Search Results (Affordable!)
Are there any tools that would help our agency track hundreds of websites against specific local search terms affordably.
Moz Local | | woshea0 -
Brand reputation - how to improve?
Our brand has relatively bad reputation locally and I was wondering how moz can help to improve this.
Local SEO | | LendonMarketing0 -
Rankings preferring English URL above local URL
We've recently had a redesign for our website and it has influenced our rankings a little bit. However, what I mainly noticed is that for some keywords in MOZ the English URL is looked at in terms of ranking, instead of the local URL. It used to be just the local URL ranking, even for keywords that are more English oriented, and I'm wondering if that might be hurting our rankings. And more importantly, why it's happening. An example of a page where it's happening is: https://www.bluebillywig.com/online-video-platform/
Local SEO | | Billywig0 -
National services provider and localized SEO (no physical stores)
Doing work for a telecom provider who operates in over 25 states. They are not trying to drive traffic to their brick-and-mortar stores. They want their marketing website to show products/services/pricing dynamically when a user enters their zip code. Previously, we could not show this until the shopper was already in the purchase flow that began with their serviceable address. They want to move these location-based details more forward in the shopping experience. They would likely have a "default" zip and set of services/pricing displaying until a user changes their location. My question is how does Google treat local SEO on a site where all location-targeted content is dynamic? Will the website suffer in localized search, when a shopper, say, in Colorado, wants to search for Internet providers? Is it better to have distinct landing pages for each territory with services/pricing?
Local SEO | | sprydigital0 -
In 2 days, a loss of 20 reviews
Hi Mozers, I have a cosmetic dentist client, in Belgium, who had 95 reviews. And in 2 days, he lost 20 good reviews (10 reviews per day), from real customers. The problem is that his rating went down drastically because they were only 5 star reviews. Yesterday he got a 5 star review from a real customer and this morning he disappeared. Have you ever experienced such a scenario? What could be the cause? Thank you in advance for your help. Kind regards,
Reviews and Ratings | | JonathanLeplang
Jonathan0 -
Unsolved Duplicate LocalBusiness Schema Markup
Hello! I've been having a hard time finding an answer to this specific question so I figured I'd drop it here. I always add custom LocalBusiness markup to clients' homepages, but sometimes the client's website provider will include their own automated LocalBusiness markup. The codes I create often include more information. Assuming the website provider is unwilling to remove their markup, is it a bad idea to include my code as well? It seems like it could potentially be read as spammy by Google. Do the pros of having more detailed markup outweigh that potential negative impact?
Local Website Optimization | | GoogleAlgoServant0 -
Do You Risk A Penalty From Local Paid Directories in 2022?
Hi there, I have a client who wants to advertise in a local directory along the lines of "find your nearest plumber". The directory only has paid listings and they are follow links and they also mention your site or generated landing page may get a nice bump on google. Is there a risk that they may get a penalty for using this directory? The client wants to use it regardless of if it gives them an SEO boost but obviously wants to avoid any penalties at all costs. Thoughts on this? Thanks in advance
Link Building | | Scottlinklater0 -
Unsolved GMB along with Company Name & URL Change
Our company has been purchased. As part of the rollup, our company name will change to theirs and our website will be removed with all web presence being a basic landing page. I am looking for ideas on how to minizine the huge SEO losses we will have soon. I plan to focus on local SEO starting with GMB. Any other tips or direction?
Moz Local | | jgoethert1 -
Unsolved Why is Moz Local not pushing Address Line 2?
I noticed on all the directories Moz Local connects to our Ste # isn't being pushed, why isn't Moz Local pushing Address Line 2? Without our Suite # now all of the directories are incorrect.
Moz Local | | authority-networks0 -
Unsolved strange backlinks being from neustar/localeze
I have a client that I used Moz Local services for, and I'm seeing lots of urls such as https://www.omegalab.neustarlocaleze.biz/directory/us/?after=2020-09-05T01:52:28.343352Z&count=50 being shown as follow backlinks in other software. Anyone else seeing this and think it might be an issue?
Local Listings | | JustinMurray1 -
Google's Search Algorithm update to 'Local Snack Pack'
Hi there - I was wondering if anyone else has noticed a big shift in the Google Local 'snack pack' in the past 48 hours? We have noticed a big change in clients results - specifically today. Has anyone else noticed any changes or perhaps data on possible changes? I am aware of this update: https://www.seroundtable.com/big-google-search-algorithm-ranking-update-29953.html but perhaps there maybe another update since. Any input would be much appreciated! Phil.
Algorithm Updates | | Globalgraphics0