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
-
How can I remove my old sites URL from showing up in Google?
Hi everyone. We have had a new site up for over a year now. When I search site:sqlsentry.net the old url still shows up and while those pages are redirected to .com I'd like to get the .net URL's out of google forever. What is the best way I can go about that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sika220 -
Is my site penalized by Google?
Let's say my website is aaaaa.com and company name is aaaaa Systems. When I search Google aaaaa my site do not come up at all. When I search for "aaaaa Systems" it comes up. But in WMT I see quite a few clicks from aaaaa as keyword. Most of the traffic is brand keywords only. I never received any manual penalty in WMT ever. Is the site penalized or regular algorithm issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ajiabs0 -
My site dropped 10 spot on Google last week... why ?
Hello I have launched my site in April last year. http://www.hobartphotographertasmania.com.au/ It took a while but I finally got to rank 2 on Google for "Hobart photographer" and rank 1 for "photographer Hobart Tasmania". Suddenly last week my site dropped to page 2 and I don't understand why. Was there a Google update ? If not, what can be the reason for such a sudden drop ? Thanks Loic
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | loiclg0 -
A few questions regarding listings in Google Places
For an SAB (Service Area Business) with a hidden address - Can you have more then one listing? Can you use a free Google Voice number? Can you forward the number to a main number? Can the listing be in an office building? Such as a rented space... For a non SAB listing with the address visible - Can you use free Google voice numbers for each listing and forward them to one main number?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
Can Google read my backlink in Javascript??
Hi SeoMoz community! I have a software product, which our clients implement onto their websites. It is like a pop up box. I know that backlinks are very important for SEO ranking, and I really want to give our clients 2 options of product: 1. you can get the free/cheaper option if you use the code which has a keyworded backlink to our site on it 2. you can pay small fee if you don't want to use the version with a link to our site on it Now, the problem is that the product is written entirely in Javascript, and I don't think that Google crawls this, do they? Is there a way around this? Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qdigi0 -
Is there some tool or person that can review my site and tell me what to improve on?
I'm using the SEO on page tool from this site but I get no help on how to fix the problem. I'm looking for the all in 1 tool that tells me everything about my site (description, keyword density, what to improve, what to add, what to remove, etc). If someone would be kind enough to review it for me, that would be great !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 6786486312640 -
How can I block unwanted urls being indexed on google?
Hi, I have to block unwanted urls (not that page) from being indexed on google. I have to block urls like example.com/entertainment not the exact page example.com/entertainment.aspx . Is there any other ways other than robot.txt? If i add this to robot.txt will that block my other url too? Or should I make a 301 redirection from example.com/entertainment to example.com/entertainment.aspx. Because some of the unwanted urls are linked from other sites. thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VipinLouka780 -
Think I may have found a problem with site. Can you confirm my suspicions?
So I've been wracking my brain about a problem. I had posted earlier about our degrading rank that we haven't been able to arrest. I thought we were doing everything right. Many years ago we had a program that would allow other stores in our niche use our site as a storefront if they couldn't deal with setting up their own site. They would have their own homepage with their own domain but all links from that page would go to our site to avoid duplicate content issues (before I knew about canonical meta tags or before they existed, I don't remember). I just realize that we had dozens of these domains pointing to our site without nofollow meta tags. Is it possible that this pattern looked like we were trying to game Google and have been penalized as some kind of link farm since Panda? I've added nofollow meta tags to these domains. If we were being penalized for this, should this fix the problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IanTheScot0