Problems ranking in St Louis

[PM_Academy]

Hello everybody

We have noticed that when tracking several keywords across the United States, the keywords in St. Louis are almost always ranked the lowest. We rank on the first page for 46/47 locations for several keywords, but St. Louis ranks on page 4 or later. Any ideas? One thought we've had is the different spelling of the city name, St Louis, St. Louis, Saint Louis. Should this have any bearing on the problem?

Thanks in advance, I look forward to any insight you can provide!

[PM_Academy]

That's the issue. For every other location we track, we are on page 1 or 2 for every keyword. But in St Louis, we are on page 4-8.

The issue I think has to do with the landing page. When we rank that low, the landing page is our generic sales page, rather than the specific St Louis sales page. We've been working on local citations, but it hasn't moved the needle TOO much yet.

And bring it on! (preferably in a city other than St Louis though)

[PM_Academy]

I must've missed that article, thank you!

[David-Kley]

No problem! We like to think that we know St Louis fairly well, as we are one of the few companies to rank for St Louis SEO company, St Louis internet marketing, and St Louis web design companies all on page one, sometimes more than once

I hope that this information helps you with your local efforts, and gets you showing up. If you are already on page 2, chances are you are just missing a smaller piece of the puzzle. Page two is a sign that you already have a lot of the right elements in place, and something needs to be added or adjusted to bump you up a page. If we ever get a client in St Louis that offers the same local services as you do, we will be sure to see you on the battlefield! Lol

[MiriamEllis]

Really nice answers from both David and Jeff, here. Very thoughtful, fellows!

Kevin, you might want to do a run-through of this article just to make sure your bases are all covered:

http://moz.com/blog/troubleshooting-local-ranking-failures

[PM_Academy]

Thanks Dave, that's a lot of information. I will start diving into that right away!

[David-Kley]

Having worked with multiple companies in St Louis for rankings, it can be difficult.

I agree with Jeff that people search for things adjacent to their exact neighborhood, as metro St Louis is a very small portion of the "city". There are also people that search for items using the STL, Saint Louis, and St Louis (St Louis being the local lingo and the most popular)

Before you begin modifying anything, I would manually go and check that your keyword reporting tool is working correctly (AWR, MOZ, or whatever you use). Go to Google and see that your suspicions are correct. If they are, then proceed to do the following. Also double check in Bing and Yahoo to see if there are any trends. Chances are if you suck at ranking across all search providers for St Louis, you need more local authority.

1. Manually track what keywords and phrases that rank low. Look at competitor keyword phrases and SEO for signs of what Google is giving the authority status to, and then look for why.

2. Look at the backlinks of those sites. Having worked with a lot of local companies, most high ranking sites are pretty good about doing their citation site and local optimization. Being a larger focused company, you will have to think of ways to get your St Louis-specific content to become "more valued" and authoritative than the local sites that offer the same services. For example: If a local provider has a 100 backlinks from local St Louis citations, all stating that he does "KEYWORD in St Louis" you are going to have to prove that your St Louis content deserves that spot.

3. Look at avenues within the local area where you can distribute content and get people linking back. Easiest and fastest way? Most likely a few Press Releases from one of the larger companies with a wide distribution network that can hyper-focus your content to St Louis. Look for openings or opportunities from The St Louis Business Journal, St Louis Post Dispatch, Local Channel 5, STLtoday.com and any other major news outlets. All of these sites have very high page ranks, and domain authority. Link these releases back to your local St Louis content in various ways and formats, but "St Louis" will most likely be your best bet since most locals type it that way.

4. "My question may be more related to on-page optimization. We rank pretty well when adding the various keyword modifiers at the end of the regular keyword" The on page optimization will have to cover the St Louis area (unless you use those pages to rank in multiple areas under the main keyword phrase), for all of the reasons mentioned above. I know that you are trying to use the local setting within Google, but that is only so accurate as your physical IP is going to be from a different place. Might be worth it to set up a few localized pages on your site to see if it makes a difference in your placement.

5. You also may be seeing this change as a part of the algorithm updates, that do more to separate local and nationwide search. Seems like they are going away from using the IP and location information as one of the most important factors, as users search queries often include the location if they are looking for local. People's search habits change, and Google responds.

Hope any of this helps, and best of luck!

• Dave

[PM_Academy]

Jeff

Thanks for the quick response and insight into the area!

My question may be more related to on-page optimization. We rank pretty well when adding the various keyword modifiers at the end of the regular keyword (stl, st louis, etc).

The type of searches that we struggle with are when you change your browser location as if you are searching from St. Louis, then type in the keyword that we are targeting. This works well in every other city, just not St. Louis. We just can't figure out what is different between St. Louis and our other cities, it just doesn't make sense.

Thanks!

Kevin

[customerparadigm.com]

I grew up in St. Louis, so I might have a little bit of insight...  It is possible that St. Louis is spelled differently by different people, but most normal users who live in the area are not spelling out "Saint."  Google's ability to show synonyms and close words should obviate this issue, too.

While St. Louis - the city - has had a bit of a resurgence in recent years, become more urban and hip,  most of the population of the St. Louis metro area doesn't actually live in St. Louis, and probably doesn't use "St. Louis" in broad search terms.  The population of St. Louis is actually quite small.  Instead, the city is surrounded by many smaller cities that people might identify more specifically with.

For example, people might use Chesterfield, Creve Coeur, Ladue, etc, as a much more detailed way to search.

I hope this helps!

-- Jeff