Google locations question for organic search...

[trollo]

If you set your Google location to "Dallas, TX" and you do a search for "web design dallas", my client shows up #4. If you change your google location to anywhere else in the US, he is #1. How can I be #1 in Dallas and the US?

(My client is not really in Dallas but I didn't want to give away the city, their site, etc)

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Trey,

Sorry I wasn't able to offer you a better response on this one. And that is definitely tough when clients are overly preoccupied with rankings.

One other little question for your consideration: In terms of the 4 top businesses' distance to the Dallas city centroid, how close is your client? Again, my standard thinking would be that this would only affect true local results, but who knows? Is the business ranking #1, perhaps, closer to the center of the city than your client?

At any rate, I'm glad you have a few ideas to follow and wish you good luck. Happy New Year!

Miriam

[trollo]

Thanks, Miriam.

My original thinking was that I didn't have enough local citations, links, etc.  So I concentrated more on that. Then I tried to get only high pr backlinks. Then worked on social marketing knowing that plays a bigger role nowadays. According to the links analysis tool provided here, I am in significantly better seo shape than the competition. There is one site, however, that has significantly more backlinks than I do. Maybe that is the reason...but then again, why am #1 everywhere else? Who knows?

I believe you are correct in that there is no simple answer to this. Just one of those things, I guess.

I will take your advice and see if Bill has anything about this.

My client (who is a web designer - just not in dallas) is one of those "gotta be #1"  type guys. We had the biggest argument over this because me, rank tracker and everything thing else said he is #1 but his location is set to "dallas" and he is #4 there.

Thanks, again.

Trey

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Trey,

I'm sorry you've been on the trail of this puzzle for months to no avail. I want to assure you that I do understand what you are talking about in regards to the setting of location within Google, etc. I have a feeling the reason asking this question in fora isn't yielding a simple answer is that there isn't a simple, standard, across-the-board reason for the ranking variations that you've observed.

I believe that, as the SEO on the project, your best shot will be to use whatever competitive analysis tools you prefer (we have awesome ones here at SEOmoz) to see if you can spot a meaningful difference that would explain why Google feels one site is more relevant to the query than the other, if the person is searching from within the city in question. It may turn out to be something as simple as a title tag structure that favors the local term to something as complex as the authority or locale of the links pointing to one site or the other. It will take some digging and is not something that can be answered at a glance.

That being said, I'd like to throw a couple of notes in here for your observation.

Using your hypothetical query (I understand this isn't really your client's industry or city), I see slight variations in rankings when I search for 'web design dallas' from my own city in California, 'web design dallas tx' from my own city in California and 'web design dallas' when setting my location to Dallas, TX. The top 4 businesses are all moving around slightly within the top 4 positions for these very slightly different searches.

What makes me curious about this situation is that 'web design' is one of the few local queries for which Google refuses to show local results. Their policy is not to treat web design firms as local, but looking at the little ranking variations, I have to wonder if some of the local search ranking factors are being applied under the surface. Now, what I don't know is if your client is actually a web design firm or in one of the other few industries that are barred from inclusion in local search. If they are, I wonder if Bill Slawski at SEObytheSea has written about any patents that might speak to these observable variations. It might be worth contacting him directly about this. He's very good.

There are also the effects of personalization to consider, and whether this is causing any of the ranking variations.

The upshot is, I can't provide a simple answer because I believe in-depth analysis will be required to discern the differences, however large or small, that might be causing Google to handle the results this way. It's probably going to be slightly different in every case. I think you've got a big challenge to surmount...and I hope you don't have one of those difficult clients who pins all expectations on rankings instead of conversions.

Sincerely wishing you good luck in your work and I would be very happy to hear from you if you managed to discover what you feel the solution is!

Miriam

[trollo]

Yes, I know. Thank you for your reply.

I understand all that. I have watched that video and a hundred more just like it. Maybe I'm not explaining myself well enough.

I'm talking about how you can set your location on google. After you do any search, if you look to the left, halfway down, you will see a place where you can set your default google location. If you set that to Dallas, TX and then do a search for "web design dallas" you will get different search results than if you set it to San Diego, CA (example) and do the same search for "web design dallas".

I got the #1 spot but not if your default Google location is set to Dallas, TX. So if you set your google location to anywhere else in the world and do a search for "web design dallas", I am #1. If your google location is set to Dallas and do the same search, I am #4. Can't figure it out.

I have asked this question for months and nobody knows what I am talking about or can't give me a straight answer. Thought for sure someone here might have a clue.

Thanks, again.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Trey,

I'm the Local SEO Associate here in Q&A and just wanted to pop in to mention that Google does not show Places results for web design companies. They haven't since January of 2010, if I recall correctly.  Definitely check out the tutorial JP has mentioned, but bear in mind, your efforts to rank organically for any term are pretty much going to come down to the old standby's of how the site is optimized, linked within, linked to, marketed and used by humans.

Miriam

[trollo]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm talking about organic search - NOT Google Places. I understand the differences but my keywords don't show a Places listing when searched.

And yes, my keyword shows up #1 in the rank tracker tool.

[NaHoku]

Are you talking about coming up in Google Places as the #1 position or in the regular organic search?  Rand just put up an awesome tutorial on local search - go to Learn SEO, then Pro Webinars and look for the one about local content.  I just finished watching the video, and it was awesome! Tons of ideas.

Did you use the seomoz.org/rank-tracker tool?  Does it show you rank #1 for this term?  My guess is that it doesn't....I'm interested to know.