Google Local Search
-
I have a customer who is frustrated that Google local search seems to favor businesses that are closer to the center of the city. He wants to be on the local results area on the SERP with his (keyword + city, state).
His website is optimized, Google+ is using the keywords, more reviews than his competition and his MOZ local rating is 88.. It seems the only problem is his business is on the edge of town(same zip code). Google fills the local search area with businesses that are "downtown".
Is there a way to overcome this?
-
Citations are much better than most and maybe equal to a couple of others.
-
Yes...relation to the centroid of the search area is very important still (see the 2013 Local Search Ranking Factor Survey here at moz from David Mihm) as we well know...
And yes, we've had clients with the same issue too. One way that we handled that issue was to open up a "sub-office" for the client via a hot-desk at an Incubator site located across the street from city hall - ie AT the centroid! Took awhile for the updates to resolve...but the move up the Local search results happened...and they (and us too of course) were happy with the results.
Oh - they actually 'do' use the hot-desk - it's staffed by a marketing dept person every day and they 'award' the seat to a diff person each week as a sort of 'bonus'....ie the telecommuting opportunity as a reward. Works, it does!
-
How are his citations, relative to the competition?
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
-
How to rank local keywords?
Hi guys, I have been enjoying here to be a part of the community. A simple question: I have some local low volume keywords and want to rank on 1 with all. I have set up pages according to the keywords such as "california plumbers" and page is /california-plumbers.html To rank these types of keywords I am doing local listing and adding these particular page instead of "home page". Am I doing right? Would classifieds and local listings are suffice to get these keywords on 1 spot of Google? What else can I do? Can you suggest me some queries to find "deep local directories or classified or other stuff whereby I can target my pages? Thank you in advance for ideas.
Local Listings | | ksmith882 -
Why is my local page is ranking better than yellow pages for that particular search?
My search query is "façadier bastogne" in google.be which in English would translate as "plasterer" and bastogne being the local city I am targeting. I can't seem to understand why my site peintre-plafonneur-facadier-bastogne.be/fr would rank higher than our local directory "Pages d'or" (Yellow Pages) which has a high DA and almost always ranks first for similar searches as "peintre bastogne" (painter)? Not to mention my site was created by Pages d'Or. How did they manage to rank this so high whereas if you look at it you'll see that they have not made any SEO work on it whatsoever. Could anyone help me understand this or tell me which way to look in order to get that information? I really need this as I am paying a lot to this directory for my site and was planning to launch my own WordPress website.
Local Listings | | Thomaspdt1 -
Google My Business Login
Is there a way to turn off the Google Security feature that kicks someone out after logging into the account because it isn't a trusted computer or in a different location?
Local Listings | | BlairKuhnen0 -
Search directories, are they worth it??
I pay Yahoo, sorry Aabaco.... a lot of money every year to be listed on all the little search directories. I'm told this helps my SEO efforts, but I don't see where? Is there a page on MOZ that would tell me this, I'm interested to know the truth about this? I'm kind of new to seo so please answer lightly... 🙂
Local Listings | | MissThumann0 -
Is eLocal a scam or legitimate directory for local SEO?
I just got an email from eLocal with information that is way farther off than any other email I have received from directories I know. I ran a search on them, and it definitely seems fishy. Plus, it's not showing up as a problem in my Moz Local account. However, I don't want an inconsistent listing if this is a legitimate site I should correct. Anyone have experience with them? What should I do? Thanks for the assistance, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Local seo citation tools
Hi I have been manually adding my details to local/national directories in order to help my ranking in my google places placing. It is a bit of a grind, and I am aware there are tools out there. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with any of them? I am UK based. Also I was ranking for "Liverpool Photographer" on google places for a couple of months and it brought in quite a bit of work, although I have since slipped back to about 15th, so out of the visible results. I am mainly a wedding photographer so my home page was optimised mainly for "liverpool wedding photographer" Although I hired an SEO company who changed the home page title to "liverpool photographer", I cannot remember if I was ranking on places for this keyword because of this change or I was already in the results before the changes were made. So my question is how Can I rank for "liverpool photographer" and "Liverpool wedding photographer" on a places result at the same time? I hope this makes sense. Best wishes. David.
Local Listings | | WallerD0 -
Google Business Categories: Criminal Justice Attorney
Google has updated their business listings dashboard and are cleaning up categories. Let's come to a consensus on what should be obvious: Who else agrees with me that a lawyer who practices criminal defense law should be categorized as a Criminal Justice Attorney using Google's new business categorization? BoulderCriminalDefenseAttorney.jpg
Local Listings | | Rich_Coffman0 -
G+ Local Business Page vs. Brand Page Problems
I'm struggling a bit with a Brand page vs. Local page on G+ and wondering if anyone here has had this same problem and found a solution.... This is related to a business that has a does have a physical address for a head admin office, but they provides a financial service to people across Canada over the phone. So although the business has an address and local phone number for admin purposes, it doesn't want people showing up at that address and definitely doesn't want to be considered a "Local" business. However, Google automatically creates the local listing in google maps, which the business has claimed but otherwise does not want to maintain. Instead the business has a Brand page on G+ (not local) which it has linked to the domain and actively maintains as their G+ business page. The trouble is, Google is associating showing the local listing as the rich snippet in in their organic result instead of the Brand page. Is there anything the company can do to further help Google associate the Brand G+ page with the website instead of the local listing? I already tried removing the link to the website from the local listing in hopes that would dis-associate it with the domain. That got rid of the rich snippet, but now the local listing shows up as a separate organic result just below the main company website, which is just as bad or maybe worse. To confirm, the website IS linked to the BRAND page using rel=publisher, and the brand page does have a verified link to the company domain. Thanks for the help!
Local Listings | | PlusROI1