Local site rankings have dropped off first page but Universal went up.
-
My site was performing first page locally on 6 of 20 keywords, and universally on 3 of 20 keywords. We started a link building campaign and optimization about 3 weeks ago. When I looked at the rankings today I was happy to see that 16 of 20 keywords were in the top 20 rankings universally, but not happy to see that only 1 of the 25 words were ranking locally now. I lost my local ranking on 5 very important keywords. I realize that you can not rank first page for both local and organic but its as if I traded my first page local ranking for a universal ranking that appears lower on the page. Maybe someone could point me in the right direction.
-
In this article they suggest that local/blogs about your area carry more weight in local results: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2065673/Link-Building-for-Local-Search
So, what kind of link building did you do? Citations? Blog posts?
This goes along with what Miriam said, but did you include a name, address and phone in the link building? If so, did you use the same address for all of them?
Are you using schema location data on the site you are optimizing? Do you have the meta tag for the geo location in the header?
-
I was trying to find some information or data that shows a correlation between global linking and a drop in local search results. Could you forward me any information you have on it? Thanks.
-
Hi Whmgatx,
I'm no expert at linkbuilding, but I would suggest you make double sure that nothing that was done could have caused a penalty of the Google Places/Google+ Local pages. For instance, make sure that as part of your optimization work, no one on the team over-optimized a listing, created a duplicate listing or created new listings that share items like phone numbers. Just a thought.
-
I'm guessing here since I don't have any data about your campaign, but your link building could have affected the SERPs in that way.
Linking your site from global oriented sites or sites scattered on hosts or ccTLDs around the globe, could have that effect, versus boosting your local rankings if you focus your link building campaign on relevant local sources.
Off course. there may be other factors, but from what you mention it could be the case.
Did you have a noticeable higher percentage of local link partners before starting your campaign? -
It looks like the keywords changed drastically on the 13th. My site was last indexed on the 11th so I am assuming that it can't be onsite issues ?
I guess my next step would be to find out what links have been indexed from the 13th on? Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your help!
-
Getting served local results can be hit or miss on some phrases. It is possible that local results just weren't generated when the rankings were generated, so it had no data to go on. So, what I'd suggest doing is check your webmaster tools to get an idea of where the keyword has been ranking over the past week, and compare that to prior to your link building. When you click on the keyword in your webmaster tools it should have a list saying where it has ranked, and not just the average ranking position.
Also, I have a bunch of phrases that generate both universal and local results on the first page. I primarily work in the automotive vertical, and I see it with internal pages optimized for used cars, and having a Google Places optimized for used cars as well. The internal page only exists because the home page wasn't converting those customers very well, but it's a nice bonus to take up 2 of the top 5 spots.
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
-
Multiple Pages get rank for one query
Hi to all experts, In google search console , I've found that multiple pages get rank for my main query. How can I solve that? aoi59
Reporting & Analytics | | tarahshiiid0 -
Launching a new site
What is the best method for Google Analytics implementation? Should I use the same UA id for the new site, or create an new one for the new site?
Reporting & Analytics | | brianvest0 -
Site account in Google Analytics
Hello I have a question about my site account. On 2014, during a week, my ID tracking of Google Analytics was removed of the site, in this period the volume of users and sessions is lower than the other weeks. But I don't understand why are the sessions and users still reporting during this period without ID Tracking
Reporting & Analytics | | Arkix0 -
Any issues with Google impressions dropping in Webmaster Tools?
I'm seeing a drop in impressions across all my websites that are hosted at a certain location. Just wanted to make sure that it is not some reporting issue that others are seeing.
Reporting & Analytics | | tdawson090 -
Setting up Goals in Analytics when no common 'order confirmation' type page
Hi I'm working on a project/client and have asked them for the common url that shows whenever user finishes the purchase process so i cant set it up as a Goal in GA so we can track conversions etc Since site is dynamically generated it does not have such a page. Dev are suggesting setting up a new goal, generate a URL and script and they will append to a similar call. Does this make sense/sound like it would work ? And is it quite easy to do that in Analytics ? Normally i just add a URL as a goal and jobs done, don't know about scripts etc ! Cheers Dan set up a new Goal and generate a URL and script and send that to us and we'll append this to a similar call we already did for this at your request originally
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Google analytics - landing pages
Hello, I have a website and it contains landing pages. after tracking and analyzing the data in Google Analytics , I found out that the traffic for the whole site is affected by the visits to the landing page. I mean, the bounce rate is less than one minute. this is because users fill their details in the landing pages and leave my website. to improve my website, I need clear data about the traffic, bounce rate etc. in my website. I also need can you help me solve this problem I thought about create another account in Google Analytics and set it to my websites pages (not including the landing pages). and keep the current code for the landing pages. my question is regarding this: Is it legal to use 2 different GA code (each one of them belong to different account) in the same domain ? can you provide me with more information about Multi Account in Google Analytics, and how can I use it to divide the traffic in my website between the traffic and the data for the landing pages and for the website itself ?
Reporting & Analytics | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Large Drop in Direct Traffic
We recently experienced a large drop in direct traffic. Search and referral traffic remained steady but direct traffic dropped by over half. I'm having trouble pinpointing what would have caused this drop. Any ideas or suggestions for investigating the cause in a drop of direct traffic?
Reporting & Analytics | | AxlsCloset0 -
Getting traffic for another site
Hi Everyone, Our website url/brand is very close to another website url/brand. We are non-competing entities. It appears as though this other company has begun a marketing program which has resulted in our traffic skyrocketing. However, it seems to have also resulted in our Pages/Visit and Visit Duration to decrease and our Bounce Rate to increase. Can anyone suggest how to deal with this type of scenario? Thanks,
Reporting & Analytics | | AC_Pro
Robert0