Ranking top 3 with Geographical Keyword but not on 1st page without it.
-
Recently I have been working to solve an issue where we rank number 2 for "Web Design Memphis" yet we do not appear on the first few pages for the keyword "web design." Several of our local competitors appear on the first page without the geo keyword.
What can be done to solve this issue? I am not searching incognito and Google is recognizing my locality. Why is the competition able to rank on the first page without the geo keyword and we are not?
Thanks for your feedback!
-
Hi SpeakCreative,
As of January 2010, Google stopped showing truly local results for queries like yours: web design memphis. Designers, SEOs and other marketers were hit with this filter and it has never been rescinded. Because of this, when you're dealing with a query like yours, you are likely actually dealing with an organic SEO issue, rather than a Local SEO one. Because or this, the answer to your question lies in competitive analysis of the competitors who are outranking you, to discover where they are surpassing you. Then, the task will be to make a greater effort than they have.
In other words, there isn't going to be a simple answer to a question like yours. The answer will be discovered via a close analysis of who is ranking and why.
-
Yes a well optimized Google Places page can have a huge impact on getting local query traffic.
Hope you get it worked out. Good luck!
-
@essdee Thanks, I will let you know how it turns out.
-
@essdee Thank you for your feedback. We do have a places page, the keywords are in the title tag and the geo info is all in the footer. I suspect the issue lies within the Google Places Page, something we are working on now.
Thanks again!
-
Do you have a Google Places account? Is it their website or their Google Places listing that is ranking for the keyword? Do you have "Web Design Memphis" or a similar phrase on your homepage title tag? Do you use that phrase on your site?
I've found including all of the geo information in the footer generally works well. Creating a link between your Google Places account and your web page could help as well.
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
-
On-page Local SEO
I'm wondering how to pull it off on-page local SEO for a financial institution website with 70 locations. However, they are broken in down in regions, which would make it easier to get our hands around. Would a viable solution be setting up regional pages? I don't know about our CMS capability, but it seems like it would be beneficial to have on each regional page aggregate local-centric press releases (example: a volunteer event or recognition) and local announcements such as paper shred days. Thoughts? Anyone else posed with a similar challenge?
Image & Video Optimization | | SSFCU0 -
Internal pages targeted for local keywords
Hello, Simple question: how do you target local SEO with internal pages, where the home page may or may not be local?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Am I at risk of keyword stuffing in a portfolio?
I'm updating our company portfolio. All said and done I will have ~300 photos in the gallery on page load that are filtered depending on user clicks. Because of the nature of our work my main keywords are going to get repeated a lot throughout the file names and alts. The titles/captions will have wording more appropriate to the user, but I can't avoid a lot of these keyword combos. Do you think I'll take a hit for something like this? Or will it work in my favor? Reeves portfolio-gallery
Image & Video Optimization | | wreevesc0 -
My worst performing pages all have this /products/ URL structure...?
I rank first for my brand "example" on example.com But my product pages simply don't rank. Frankly, I don't know where they rank, but it's not top 40. They are indexed, as searching "site:example.com" returns all my site's pages. My product pages are outranked even by some of my shorter blog posts about the product. My product pages are the only ones on the site that use a folder/directory in the url. example.com**/products/**product-one is nowhere but this is the main product page. example.com/short-blog-article-about-product-one. Is the fact that the product pages are with the slashes a red herring and I should be looking for anther cause? Or is google saying, well these product pages are the only ones in these sort of path and therefore we'll treat them as secondary sources? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Brocberry0 -
Should You Geotag Pages For Local SEO?
If so can where do I insert the geo tag? I want to do this for a landing page in a different city, and i've simply put the Geo tag in this landing page. Is this right? Help, NEWBIE!!!
Image & Video Optimization | | Buzzwords0 -
Local Ranking Factors Question
Local SERPS continue to confuse me. I feel like I can tell what's going on but I'm never right. How do these two listings rank for "best bar" in the local Chicago SERPS? It's the same if you search for "best bar in chicago". http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&biw=2109&bih=1218&noj=1&gs_upl=3495l4209l0l4335l8l5l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=best+bar&fb=1&gl=us&hq=best+bar&hnear=0x880e2c3cd0f4cbed:0xafe0a6ad09c0c000,Chicago,+IL&cid=17128325649974296516 or http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&biw=2109&bih=1218&noj=1&gs_upl=3495l4209l0l4335l8l5l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=best+bar&fb=1&gl=us&hq=best+bar&hnear=0x880e2c3cd0f4cbed:0xafe0a6ad09c0c000,Chicago,+IL&cid=455944883716881589&ei=aQPqTo7mN4mIgwe4oc3fCA&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=5&ved=0CFgQ4gkwBA This has had me stumped for months. I've analyzed everything and there aren't any good indicators as to how this was done. The former doesn't even have a website. The latter example has some category keyword stuffing, which I don't get why they're account hasn't been suspended because of it. It also has a very small and not very powerful link profile. Any insights would be much appreciated!
Image & Video Optimization | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Question Regarding Multiple Google Places Pages
Hello, One of my clients has about 20 different google places pages at locations that are not real. The previous SEO company thought that would help with local search. My problem is that several great reviews have been written on each page by real customers. I want to close the places pages for locations that don't exist, but I don't want to lose the reviews. Is anyone aware of a solution for this? I have searched Google's forums and have not found anything.
Image & Video Optimization | | Bjolley0
