Will this affect the local SEO listings in Google?
-
So, I'm trying to list the same exact address across all local listings for a client. How "exact" do they all need to match in order for them to be optimized for the 7-pack listings?
Here is an example of what I'm dealing with...
999 Cherry Ln #1 Dallas, TX 75238 - Address on Google Plus page
999 Cherry Ln Ste 1, Dallas, TX 75238 - Address on every other business listing
Is this close enough or is this inconsistency really hurting this client?
-
You're welcome, Clint. If the listing is new, that could certainly be a contributing factor. In the meantime, the client should be doing all he can to strengthen his website and citations and begin getting reviews. All of these will contribute to his hoped-for climb up the ranks. Good luck!
-
It is actually a fairly new page -- that could be it.
Thanks
-
Hi Clint,
If the client is failing to rank for core terms, you may need to do a full audit. Unfortunately, without seeing the listings myself, I can't offer further insight. As you know, local search rankings are based on hundreds of factors, so the client's issues may stem from so many different things, from age of the listings, to citation issues, to violations, penalties, merges, duplicates, etc.
I would first make sure that the client isn't violating any of the Google Places Quality Guidelines: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
And then, if Local is relatively new to you, study the most recent Local Search Ranking Factors survey: http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
Achieving ranking dominance in Local depends on all of the ducks being in a row. I do doubt that what you are describing could result in ranking failures because, as I've said, Google should understand that those two elements are the same, but there could be other elements that are off, and only an in-depth dive can surface these.
-
Thanks for the response Miriam. My real concern is that my client actually isn't in the 7-pack listings for hardly anything.
I thought it probably had to do with the address differences. When I take the two address examples and search them in Google (address in quotes and business name listed beside it), here are the number of results that Google shows...
Address on Google Plus page...
"999 Cherry Ln #1 Dallas, TX 75238" Business Name
2 results
Address on all other listings...
"999 Cherry Ln Ste 1, Dallas, TX 75238" Business Name
3,280,000 results
I figured that Google wasn't listing us in the 7-pack listings because it only has those 2 results/pages for that particular address.
-
Good question, Clint. I would not be concerned about the particular variance you've mentioned. Google should understand that # and Ste are the same thing.
What would be a problem is if you left the suite number off some of the listings. That could cause problems. But what you've described should be fine.
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
-
Menu impact on SEO
we have a single page web application for an ecommerce website. I think it is built in angular. One UX features we are exploring is the use of a "Products" Item on the menu with the categories showing on a menu rather than directly present on the header. The aim being to keep the header nice and clean. The result of this is that the categories which would typically sit in the header will now not be immediately visible until the menu is opened. Let's say I want to rank well for "building materials". Traditionally the view would be that this word would need to be in the header and marked up with the appropriate h tag. Will moving "building materials" into a product menu be detrimental for SEO? My initial thought is that as long as it is coded correctly there shouldn't be any impact on SEO. Can anyone give me their expert SEO view?
Technical SEO | | built_bot0 -
How can I provide titles and descriptive text for our list of USPs on the same page optimized both for usability and SEO
I am rebuilding our website together with an agency and I am stuck with the following problem: We have a page which will provide the visitor with a quick and convincing impression why he should chose our enterprise. On this page we want to show our USPs (Unique Selling Points) each with a title and a short description. Now my preferred way of presenting those USPs would be of a list of the titles (which permits to see all USPs without having to read a lot of text) where each title can be clicked to expand the description (in case you want to know more about this specific USP) and if you click on another title the previously clicked title description will collapse and the new description expand and so on (similar to this page: http://www.berlin-city-immobilien.de/38.html - I'm talking about the list in the middle of the page starting with the headline "Dabei profitieren Sie von folgenden Vorteilen"). Since I also want to use these descriptions as on page SEO-texts I checked whether Google might not index or at least value "click to expand content" less than plain text in the body of the page and I stumbled over this article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-hidden-tab-content-seo-19489.html. According to this article Google will definitely discount the descriptions on my page. Does anyone have an idea how to solve this problem? Either by suggesting a different way to show titles and descriptions on the page or maybe by suggesting a workaround so Google will not treat the descriptions as "click to expand text". Thank you already in advance for your input.
Technical SEO | | Benni
Ben0 -
Getting Recrawled by Google
I have been updating my site a lot and some of the updates are showing up in Google and some are not. Is there a best practice in getting your site fully recrawled by Google?
Technical SEO | | ShootTokyo0 -
Google Reconsideration Request (Penguin) - Will Google give links to remove?
When Penguin v1 hit, our site took a hit for a single phrase (i.e. "widgets") due to the techniques our SEO company was using (network). We've since had those links cleaned up, and our rankings have not recovered. Our SEO company said they submitted a reconsideration request on our behalf, and that Google denied it and didn't provide which links we needed removed. Does Google list links that need removing if they are still not happy with your link profile?
Technical SEO | | crucialx0 -
Changing to a new Google Analytics Profile - Will I lose my history?
Hello, I have a new client and due to issues with the way the original Google Analytics account was set up, the owner won't make me an admin. So, I'm forced to create a new GA profile. I'm about to update my Campaign, but wonder if the data SEOMoz has accumulated over the last few weeks will disappear, or if it will just look forward with the new GA account? Any advice is most appreciated. ~Robin
Technical SEO | | RobinBertelsen0 -
Subdomains & SEO
Exact match domains are great for ranking but what about domains which contain just half of the full phrase being targeted? eg. If you owned the domain rentals.co.uk but wanted to target the search term "car rentals" Regarding backlinks, would it be best to link back to your rentals.co.uk homepage (using anchor text "car rentals") or to one of the following: a) www.rentals.co.uk/car-rentals b) car.rentals.co.uk AND 301 redirect to www.rentals.co.uk c) car.rentals.co.uk AND 301 redirect to www.rentals.co.uk/car-rentals
Technical SEO | | martyc1 -
Will using http ping, lastmod increase our indexation with Google?
If Google knows about our sitemaps and they’re being crawled on a daily basis, why should we use the http ping and /or list the index files in our robots.txt? Is there a benefit (i.e. improving indexability) to using both ping and listing index files in robots? Is there any benefit to listing the index sitemaps in robots if we’re pinging? If we provide a decent <lastmod>date is there going to be any difference in indexing rates between ping and the normal crawl that they do today?</lastmod> Do we need to all to cover our bases? thanks Marika
Technical SEO | | marika-1786190
