How Far is Too Far to Show Up in Local Results
-
Hi everyone,
I have one client that is located about 45 minutes (25 miles) outside of a large city and I can't seem to help them rank within that large city. They're a relatively new business in the service industry (meaning they'll travel to an individual's residence) and in the surrounding cities closer to their physical location, they rank extremely well. In this large city, they have 3 keywords in the top 10, 2 snack pack rankings and then everything else is below 51!
I have a feeling that distance depends on many things, but I am wondering if anyone has ever figured out how far away is **too far **to be considered local by Google. My feeling is that sure it would be nice to rank locally for this large city as it would open them up to a really large customer pool, but that maybe 45 minutes away is just not local (I know I personally don't consider that "local").
Again, I understand that ranking locally depends on a really wide range of factors, but I'm considering only distance in this question.
Thanks so much!
-
Hi Kaitlin!
The radius from which Google draws local and localized organic results is really dependent on competition. There won't be a single answer to your question, because it's going to be different in each case. For example, if you are located in a very rural area with few options, Google will reach out beyond the borders of your town to adjacent towns to return results to make up a full set of results. In some cases like this, there won't even be a 3 pack, but solely organic results.
When you are dealing with a large city, you are much less likely to see this outreaching behavior on Google's part, because they will have plenty of results right near the user within the city. The only exception to this would be if the business is offering something very unusual and there are few or no competitors inside the city.
For a Service Area Business, the rule of thumb is to go for local pack rankings for their city of location and organic rankings for their service cities. It's rare for a service area business to rank in the local pack for any city where they lack a physical location, unless, again, they are offering something very rare.
Doing research on Maps will help you determine the general radius from which Google is drawing results for a particular query, but it's extremely important to remember the user-as-centroid phenomenon, especially when dealing with cities. Google will show different results to users at one end of the city than to those at the other end of it. Educating clients about the fact that there are no static rankings is vital these days
Hope this helps!
-
Thank you! That's where my mind is too on this- I agree on all points!
-
Ranking in a city 25 miles away for a new business is quite a challenge, even if you do ongoing local SEO. Competitors in the city are probably doing local SEO too and are more important from Google's perspective. Why would Google show a business from a different region if there are many local, trusted service providers?
Getting a local address and optimising that listing might be a cheaper and more effective solution.
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
-
Local Ranking Factors?
For Google, has anyone got a finger on how much of a factor the address type "service customers only at their location" versus "service customers at my business location AND customers location is" is as far as local search ranking especially for 3-pack results? (The former they hide the address the latter they show the street address) It seems to me the primary factors are obviously (a) proximity of user's location or location intent to the business location, then (b) natural organic ranking (age of business, domain authority, inbound links, quality content, relevance to the actual keywords searched for). But where does the address type rank amongst all the "secondary factors" like is business currently open, number of reviews and average rating, etc. etc. My guess would be reviews and average rating along with is business currently open would be third, and then address type would factor in - but for all I know the address type could be given much more importance than I am guessing?
Local Listings | | MrSem0 -
How to fix my local buisness listing
Ive checked with the Moz Local and put my company name in. theres two listings showing up Ones verified but is in a slightly wrong format - it says Street Name, Unit Number, Town, Post Code The other ones not verified but correct - its unit number, street name town, post code Will I need to edit the verified one to make it the correct format like it is on companies house and with Royal Mail? Or can I use the none verified version?
Local Listings | | paulfoz16091 -
Local Listing Conundrum
Hello Mozzers, I have a client with a unique situation that I am hoping I can get some feedback on. One of our service industry clients has a location that is claimed on all major sites (Google, Bing, etc., etc.) - so all is good there. They are experiencing an issue, however, because their check-in building is actually located at their conference center across the street, which has a different address. The issue is mainly that it is confusing and a pain point for customers as they get to the destination without realizing they need to actually be at the building across the street first for check-in. The client is considering changing their primary address to the conference center address across the street, which was previously not a separate / claimed entity. They would still maintain the main business listing and just adjust the name. Their thought process is that Google would bring people to the conference center / check-in building first rather than to the main business building. I personally have major concerns about making the switch. I feel like this would be potentially confusing to both users and search engines. And, the main business listing has already acquired a ton of reviews that we would be starting from scratch with. My immediate recommendation would be to better communicate the check-in process to guests and not go through the change of address process, but I figured I would throw it out to the community for feedback. Thoughts?
Local Listings | | mbochic0 -
Google My Business page no longer appearing with search results
Title pretty much says it all--my company's local Google+ page has always appeared under our listed website information up until very recently. I'm also noticing the same with our competitors. Has anyone else just began to experience this? Our NAP, map, photos, and review are still displayed to the right of the results, but nothing is linked to the actual Google page itself. Am I missing something? Thanks!
Local Listings | | LMcLaughlin0 -
Local Citations
So we are working on our citations. Now the issue is (not really an issue, but it is definitely very annoying) is that we have multiple locations. I get that you need to then have multiple listings. Where I get baffled is that I have read that you will then need to have more than 1 google + account for the different addresses. That seems like a lot of work to keep two google + accounts updated. Is this a must for SEO purposes?
Local Listings | | blackrino0 -
International customers for local business
Hi I have a vacation rental in France. My customers come from the UK/US, France, and Spain and as such i have three domains. www.domain.com (French) en.domain.com (English) es.domain.com (Spanish) I first set up a Google+ page which was tied to my French website and it's descriptive text and KW are in French. I subsequently set-up 2 more Google+ pages (English and Spanish, each with their respective domains and language specific KW) for the purpose of showing up in local searches in the UK and Spain, which is starting to working. I'm I going in the right direction? is this a crazy idea since they all have the same local address? Thank you for sharing insights regarding how to handle a local business with multilingual customers.
Local Listings | | pgcosson0 -
Help Understanding Localized Search Results/Ranks
I have a Moz campaign for duvalasphalt.com where I want to track a non-location specific keyword, then variations that include a location. For example, here are the rankings for a keyword and the 2 location variations. asphalt company (not in top 50) asphalt company jacksonville (ranked 6) jacksonville asphalt company (ranked 6) When I do a search for just "asphalt company," I see duvalasphalt.com ranked 11. Why does Moz not show an 11 rank? I understand Google tries to show me location specific results even if my search is not location specific. Is Moz's ranking crawler searching from a location where Google will not serve Jacksonville-related results? It would make sense, but how can I get Moz to capture the rankings that are important to my client? The rankings we want to see are the results made from in and around Jacksonville. Any help here is appreciated!
Local Listings | | ElykInnovation0 -
Is a Competitor Claiming My Clients Yahoo Local Profiles?
I am working with an Insurance agent and he has Google Alerts setup on his company name. He has received two alerts where his name only appears in the URL. If you click the links they bring you to a competitor's Yahoo Local profile page with their name and info. If you look at the URL it has his company's name and city in the URL. Could a competitor be claiming his listings and then changing the business name, phone, address and URL to their own? Does the URL on Yahoo Local listings stay the same after a business changes their name? This has happened with two of his listings in two different cities, he has two offices in one state. But not with the same competitor, it has happened with two different companies. Any idea what could be happening? I would be happy to PM the URLS, I just don't want to post them publicly here. Thanks!
Local Listings | | MainelySEO0