Getting listed in the Google local result - help!
-
Good day,
I'm really struggling to get a client to appear in the Google Local map snapshot (on the right of the SERPs), even when their company name is Googled. I've tried everything including getting the main Google Local account verified, had some reviews put up, all the required and relevant info has been completed, yet their location and the map never appear.
Any help out there as to how I can remedy this?
Thanks
-
Be forewarned, you stop paying Yext, and all of those changes and accuracies made sure of, are kaput.
Do this math: Do what yext does, manually yourself or outsourced, ONCE, AND CORRECTLY. and you are pretty much set for life. else, you pay $300 a year to Yext and in return, they give you a whole lot of free listings and a few unique and paid ones, the value of which is really not that much more than the free listings you can manually create on a good 95% of yext partners. Also, there are a lot more legit local directory sites to use on top of what yext has to offer which will be missed if one pressed the button, pays, and forgets. just my 2 cents on Yext.
-
Also, does your client happen to have a real actual physical location they operate out of, or are they out of some virtual office / ups store type address. Because Google has gotten somewhat smart with this stuff lately and also your competition can flag you and report you for violation of terms of Google service.
We have seen perfectly performing business on the graph, suddenly disappear due to very likely this very reason.
if you see "We currently do not support the location" in your dashboard, this is the case.
http://moz.com/community/q/google-places-we-currently-do-not-support-the-location-2
-
Hi Martin,
Unfortunately, this is one of those questions which cannot be answered without knowing the full history and details of your specific client. Contributing factors could range from something as simple as the age of the account, to something as complicated as a penalty. Without being able to actually investigate the client's unique details, it's impossible to suggest causes or solutions.
If you can provide further details, I'd be happy to take a look at them. If you can't do that, for understandable reasons of client confidentiality, you would be best off hiring a high level Local SEO to audit the situation.
In the meantime, you want to be sure that the client's listing is fully compliant with the Google Places Quality Guidelines and that all appropriate efforts are being made to excel at the top Local Search Ranking Factors.
-
I believe Yext Powerlistings helped us tremendously by synching our contact info and website with dozens of Yelp type sites. It's like $300 a year though.
-
Martin,
You haven't done everything until you go through all of these best practices:
http://www.whitespark.ca/blog/post/16-local-citation-building-best-practices
-
Do you mean the Knowledge Graph? http://moz.com/blog/the-day-the-knowledge-graph-exploded
This is a tricky one and don't have an exact answer for you.
In my opinion, G+ plays a part in triggering the knowledge graph to display when searching for the brand name, but more importantly it needs to be an established and known brand first.
I wont go into details on how to "build a brand" but the jest is to make sure your back links are primarily (or a good percentage of them are) branded terms (this as well as many other factors)
Once Google recognizes your site as a brand, the knowledge graph should appear with all the info Google knows about it (Google + info etc)
http://moz.com/webinars/online-reputation-management-branding-for-serp-dominationhttp://www.localseoguide.com/google-plus-takes-over-google-knowledge-graph-for-brands/
http://moz.com/ugc/brands-google-plus-and-the-knowledge-graph-a-love-triangle
Greg
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
-
Does Google push down for not ranking top for branded keywords?
Hi all, Usually websites rank for their branded keywords. Some times third party websites takeover the websites for branded keywords. If there are more number of such queries where website is not ranking (top) for branded keywords, Google push down website in overall rankings? Any correlation? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Puzzling Penalty Question - Need Expert Help
I'm turning to the Moz Community because we're completely stumped. I actually work at a digital agency, our specialism being SEO. We've dealt with Google penalties before and have always found it fairly easy to identify the source the problem when someone comes to us with a sudden keyword/traffic drop. I'll briefly outline what we've experienced: We took on a client looking for SEO a few months ago. They had an OK site, with a small but high quality and natural link profile, but very little organic visibility. The client is an IT consultancy based in London, so there's a lot of competition for their keywords. All technical issues on the site were addressed, pages were carefully keyword targeted (obviously not in a spammy way) and on-site content, such as services pages, which were quite thin, were enriched with more user focused content. Interesting, shareable content was starting to be created and some basic outreach work had started. Things were starting to pick up. The site started showing and growing for some very relevant keywords in Google, a good range and at different levels (mostly sitting around page 3-4) depending on competition. Local keywords, particularly, were doing well, with a good number sitting on page 1-2. The keywords were starting to deliver a gentle stream of relevant traffic and user behaviour on-site looked good. Then, as of the 28th September 2015, it all went wrong. Our client's site virtually dropped from existence as far as Google was concerned. They literally lost all of their keywords. Our client even dropped hundreds of places for their own brand name. They also lost all rankings for super low competition, non-business terms they were ranking for. So, there's the problem. The keywords have not shown any sign of recovery at all yet and we're, understandably, panicking. The worst thing is that we can't identify what has caused this catastrophic drop. It looks like a Google penalty, but there's nothing we can find that would cause it. There are no messages or warnings in GWT. The link profile is small but high quality. When we started the content was a bit on the thin side, but this doesn't really look like a Panda penalty, and seems far too severe. The site is technically sound. There is no duplicate content issues or plaigarised content. The site is being indexed fine. Moz gives the site a spam score of 1 (our of 11 (i think that's right)). The site is on an ok server, which hasn't been blacklisted or anything. We've tried everything we can to identify a problem. And that's where you guys come in. Any ideas? Anyone seen anything similar around the same time? Unfortunately, we can't share our clients' site's name/URL, but feel free to ask any questions you want and we'll do our best to provide info.
Algorithm Updates | | MRSWebSolutions0 -
Removing an old Google places listing for a newer version?
Hey there, I was wondering whether you could help me out on the following; One of our clients has a Google places listing that we created for their business but it appears to be being blocked - or at least conflicting - with an old listing. As such, Google appears to be showing the old listing with an outdated URL and company name - rather than the new one. Does anyone know how I can go about removing this listing or showing that the newer one is now more relevant? Unfortunately, I don't have the logins for the old places listing. Old listing; https://plus.google.com/105224923085379238289 New listing; https://plus.google.com/b/114641937407677713536/114641937407677713536
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Why are Google Webmaster Tools' Google rankings different to actual Google rankings?
Dear Moz, We have noticed that according to Google Webmaster Tools one of our client sites is ranking very prominently for some of the major key phrases that we are trying to rank them for. However, when we perform a Google search for these queries, our client's content is nowhere to be seen, not even on the 5th page (we logged out of the Google account before performing the test). A long-term manual spam action on our client's site was recently lifted by Google - is it possible that Google Webmaster Tools is providing data about our client's estimated Google rankings, without taking into consideration the penalty of the manual spam action which was taken? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BoomDialogue690 -
Is it me or Google?
Hi All, I'm new here so take it easy on me.. OK, basically i have had a SEO company for about 3 years, they did a wonderful job, for the last 12 months or so i have been in top 1-3 positions for pretty much every keyword i wanted... On Jan 17th, that all changed, suddenly google doesnt like something about my site... for the sake of this questions lets focus purely on the keyword "CCTV", i use to be 1st or 2nd, it varied... Since Jan 17th i am all over the place, today alone, i was 9th this morning, then 13th, then 22nd... I am working on a lot of things my SEO company told me to do, with regards my site, obviously this is going to take time... but my big concern is that google doesnt seem to know where to rank me lol, i mean, at least if they settled on a place i.e 22nd, then i have a stable base to work from... Has anyone seen this kind of thing before, and can i expect at somepoint google decides to simply remove me? Any advice welcome. regards James
Algorithm Updates | | isntworkdull0 -
Google Search CTR % By Position
Hello I am looking for an updated report regarding the CTR % by position for Google search results. I have the compete.com report which Gives the 1st organic position a 53% CTR but I have not be able to duplicate that number with any other report or research. I am just trying to validate this report before I suggest any recommendations to my company regarding our search efforts. Thank you Ben
Algorithm Updates | | bhalverson30 -
Local Pages Help
Hi All, I have a client who is looking heavily at Google+ Local. He has a main business, with a number of locational franchises. He has created a local listing for each of these franchise pages. The question he has asked is 'How do I improve my rankings for these local listings?' Now some of them seem to rank well without any work performed to improve them, but some are not. My question is, What can we do to improve the rankings of Google+ Local listings? This has changed greatly since I last looked into it, so anyone who can say 'right, this is what you need to do to improve Google+Local listings' would be greatly appreciated!!!! Many thanks Guys!!
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
No longer ranking for non local local terms
Anyone seen this lately; I have a client who is in the food catering business and for the seo we target a lot of local keywords (event catering Hampshire, for example). In the past couple of weeks search engine traffic to the website seems to have dropped by about 60%. However, rankings do not seem to have dropped. What I have noticed is that up until a couple of months back, the client would be ranking first page in the Google local and also have a listing in the 'normal' serps. It appears that the non local pages have vanished. Checking a couple of their competitors and it seems the same there. This has led me to start to believe that Google are now only giving a local position or a normal position on the first page and not both, as previously. The non local pages are sitll listed but seem to have dropped way back to the 4th or 5th page when previously they would have been first page. It would of course help if the client were to give me access to the webmaster tools!!! Hate it when client's only give you half the information you need and then expect you to tell them what's up!! Anyone seem this? Thanks, Carl
Algorithm Updates | | ccgale0