Help! New site won't rank locally but should...

[Greg_Gifford]

any help would be greatly appreciated...

picked up a new client, a used car dealer in New Jersey. Have a VERY spammy site before, tons of keyword stuffing and lots of dupe content. also had a horrible design. (www.coopscars.com)

We updated the design and the content, made it relevant and unique, fixed title tags, etc. Now he's not ranking for anything locally other than his business name. He's got a decent number of links, we've added relevant citations, his social signals are much stronger than they were...

We do lots of SEO for car dealers, and we know that he should be ranking SOMEWHERE at this point - not saying he should be page 1, but he should at least be somewhere in the top 5...

and yes, bing/yahoo are different, but he ranks over there... one page 1 for "used cars south river" - so why completely non-existant on Google?

just as a test, he put up a free website at www.coopscars.net just last week - and it's already ranking for several local terms.

I'm completely confused here - i'm not a noob, I know the tactics we've used on him work for other dealers. Thinking there's got to be something that's blocking him, especially since there aren't but maybe 15-20 car dealers to compete against locally and he still doesn't show up...

thought i'd come over here and see if anyone has any ideas...

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Greg,

From the ongoing discussion, it looks like you've got to investigate the potential of a penalty on the organic side of things (not my area), but let me take a look from a local perspective.

1. On the client's Google+ Local page (see: https://plus.google.com/105185934363953908565/about?gl=US&hl=en-US), I see a potential problem in the business description, which reads: "Coops Cars has great deals on the best used cars in South River (and the entire East Brunswick area). Affordable financing options and extended warranties available. Coops Buys Cars also - we pay cash for used cars and trucks, even if you don't buy one of ours." I recommend you remove any geo terms from that (take out South River and East Brunswick). Google has never publicly stated that use of geo terms in the description causes a penalty, but for many years, Local SEOs have observed that it can cause one. So, I'd get rid of it. To be on the safe side, I'd take the business name out of description, too.

2. Even more serious problem. Your client appears to have a duplicate Google listing going on. I did a phone number lookup in maps.google.com for (732) 334-1770 and see this: https://plus.google.com/113899383798859891141/about?gl=us&hl=en I found it by clicking the 'see all 2 results' link in maps.google.com for the phone number lookup. So, the business is listing itself as 'Coops Used Cars' and 'Coops Buys Cars'. This could be totally killing their ranking chances, locally speaking.

3. I am not seeing any other duplicates, but you need to discover if there are any. Look up different iterations of the business name, and also any old or alternate phone numbers. As you mentioned that the client was being spammy, you need to be on the lookout for anything else weird they may have done on a local level. For example, purchasing virtual addresses or using P.O. boxes in neighboring towns.

4. Okay, here's another one. The client has a phone number issue going on. The number published on his duplicate Google listing is (201) 334-0570, but the number in the footer of the website is 732-334-1770. Definitely a problem, as the conflicting numbers will erode Google's confidence in the business' NAP

5. Hmm, here's an odd one. I'm not familiar with NJ geography, but why does a phone number lookup for( 201) 334-0570 in the main Google search engine bring up a ton of listings for the business in Hackensack, rather than South River? That needs to be investigated and all citations brought into a consistent NAP format (name, address, phone number).

6. A phone number lookup in maps.google.com of (201) 334-0570 is bringing up a closed business listing with the title We Buy Any Auto. So, clearly, some spamming of the local index has been going on, and a thorough investigation is warranted.

That's about all I have the time for within the scope of Q&A, but I think with this quick glance, I've identified some key issues that are almost certainly affecting your client's ability to rank well locally. A history of spamming can be hard to overcome, but every effort needs to be made to clean up past bad actions. You may even want to hire a professional citation editor to help you. Nyagoslav Zhekov's name springs to mind (ngsmarketing.com) and his rates are quite reasonable. Definitely, this client is going to need a lot of work.

[dogflog]

I think you're being hit for massive amounts of redundancy.

Numerous pages appear to be targeting "Middlesex County Used Cars" and "South River Used Cars".

I had the same experiences, on numerous sites and just recently.

Ask yourself each one of these questions...just as Google would.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

Particularly this one:

• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?

Even though that article is from 2011...it's Google's manifesto on quality and they're systematically attacking each one of those questions one by one.

Even though each of your pages is well written and targeting different topics, your title tags and local trigger words are all very similar.

[Greg_Gifford]

yep - already cleaned up a lot of those, working on getting rid of as many as we can... but not sure if those were enough to penalize him...

[Greg_Gifford]

yep - already cleaned up a lot of those, working on getting rid of as many as we can... but not sure if those were enough to penalize him...

[Richard555]

Hi

I have just looked at Open Site Explorer - I suspect it is a penalty.

You have loads of links from different places all for either 'Used Cars New Brunswick' or 'New Brunswick Used Car Dealership'.

You may want to clean those up before asking for a reconsideration.

[Greg_Gifford]

yep - everything is perfectly OK in GWT, nothing silly w/ robots either.

Filed a reconsideration yesterday, hoping that helps...

at this point, thinking it HAS to be some sort of penalty...

[Richard555]

Hi Greg Is everything okay in Google Webmaster Tool? Nothing silly like wrong geographical location or robots.txt? Have you tried a reconsideration? Would be interesting to see what others suggest Richard