Why has my places ranking dropped off google?

[it-ok]

I've recently worked for a company who up untill 3 weeks ago have shown up in the google places ranked at number 1 for the following key phrases.

First Aid Training in Cornwall
First Aid Courses in Cornwall
Health and Safety Training in Cornwall

as well as several more...

However over the past 3 weeks they have gradually dropped out of the places listing all together, and I'm struggling to understand why this might be.

Yesterday I released a new website for them which has had a lot more SEO input in to the site, is this likely to have an affect on the places ranking?

the website is www.insafehandstraining.com

Any answers would be very appreciated.

[MiriamEllis]

Greetings Ian,

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I want to be certain that I understand your client's situation. You mention the queries

First Aid Training in Cornwall
First Aid Courses in Cornwall
Health and Safety Training in Cornwall

These are not, per se, local queries. Google Places (and most of local search) is a city based application. If the client is in Victoria, Cornwall, then 'Victoria' is actually his true local term. I am in the U.S., so things may be slightly different here, but at any rate, I would expect the client to rank well in Places for Victoria-related queries and that efforts to go after the county of Cornwall would need to be chiefly organic in nature.

Is this correct or am I misunderstanding what you are describing?

In general, in North America, the website is an extremely important part of any local campaign. One applies all traditional SEO techniques + the strong usage of geographic data. So, good onpage SEO, lots of local-focused content and linkbuilding are all going to be party of your work with local-focused clients to achieve high Places rankings for their city of location.

At the same time, they need to have a clean, complete Places record (no violations!) and work to accrue citations and reviews within Google. Simultaneously, they need good records in the major 3rd party local business indexes in your country. All of this comes together to create a winning Internet presence.

In closing, there was a shakeup here in N. America some weeks ago. My friend and colleague, Linda Buquet, has dubbed this change the 'proximity algo lockout'. I don't know if this happened overseas as well, but I recommend you read about Google's apparent new narrower circle from city center in their results:

http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-algorithm-ranking-drop.html

Did this happen in the U.K. as well, and could it have affected your client's rankings? Just a thought.

[ShaMenz]

Hi Ian,

The first place I would look to identify a reason for significant change in places position would be the number of reviews the site has and whether the other sites have gained more reviews.

In the USA, # 1 Listing in Google Places has an average of 33 reviews.

Other Page 1 Listings in Google places have an average of 26 reviews.

If other sites have increased the number of reviews they have and your site has remained static, or not also increased its reviews, this would account for the drop in position.

Hope that helps,

Sha