Client Being Outranked by Horrible Websites with No SEO--Help!

[JohnWeb12]

Hi guys,

We have a client that we are having some issues with.  We have done extensive directory work for them, website enhancements, etc. so this is unusual.  Hermantown is an extremely small city in MN so companies there normally target Duluth. Our client is hardly ranking locally in Google maps or organically yet their competitors are showing up who have horrible websites, no SEO, and located in the same city—Hermantown yet showing up locally for Duluth searches. We just can’t seem to move up the ladder no matter how hard we try.  Here is the company: www.mmtheating.com We are completely at a loss for next steps on how to help this client improve. We’re wondering if there may be a penalty against them for some reason but we always have had very ethical practices.

Thanks in advance for your insights!

[MiriamEllis]

If the address is a legitimate forward-facing public office, then it shouldn't be causing any local or organic issues. I definitely recommend doing a run-through of this https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015 to see if there could be technical issues holding you back.

[JohnWeb12]

Thank you both so much for your time and feedback!!! I totally understand that we can’t overcome the radius issue but I still feel that we should be getting better organic results. Customers do visit the business, it’s not a home address so we have it visible. Unfortunately we have the client on a review program and they refuse to use it even though we have made it very clear that this would help. We have Hermantown information on their contact us page so we didn’t create a separate city page for this. We can make the slight adjustments that you’ve mentioned but still feel that something is wrong and it still won’t make the impact we’re looking for. Is there any way to tell if we’ve somehow been penalized or if there is an issue with the address? I mean we’ve double checked it in USPS and Google as well as surrounding businesses in Google Maps and it seems to be perfectly fine.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi John,

You really need a full audit here, but here's what I see at a glance, searching for 'heating and cooling duluth mn'. I didn't see a mention of your most important keyword phrase, so that's the one I chose.

• You are ranking #7 in the Maps pack, visible when you click the 3 pack for more results. So, it's not that you're nowhere (thank goodness) - it's just that you're lower than 3 in the pack

• The 6 results ranking above you are all physically closer to the cluster Google has designated as relevant for this search term. Look at the map and mouse over each entry in the left-hand list and you will see this behavior. Though Google is drawing a pretty wide radius for results, you are outside of it. Note that this is not a circular radius. Blesener looks about as far away as your company, but, they are closer to that shoreline area where the cluster is clearly based. https://www.google.com/search?q=heating+and+cooling+duluth+mn&oq=heating+and+cooling+duluth+mn&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.6459j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#q=heating and cooling duluth mn&rflfq=1&rlha=0&tbm=lcl&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:4&rlfi=hd:;si:

• Remember that getting into a pack when you're not located within the city of search is a rarity rather than the rule. So, it's easy to explain this away by saying that you're not in Duluth, so you shouldn't expect to rank for any Duluth based-or-related searches, but because we can see that your competitors are getting this extra nice treatment from Google while not being in Duluth, it does call into question other factors. It's important to note that there may be NOTHING you can do to overcome a cluster, but you want to be sure you've done everything possible before giving up hope.

• Why is your address visible on your GMB listing? Do customers come to your place of business? If so, A-OK, but if not, then your address should really be hidden to comply with Google's guidelines for SABs.

• No competitor outranking you in this pack has more than 4 reviews, and I totally agree with you that I'm seeing some pretty iffy websites outranking you in the local pack (but, again, this may be a geo issue you can't overcome). Nevertheless, absolutely implement a review acquisition program and see if that won't move you up a couple of notches by going beyond the 4 reviews you have to 10 reviews, 20 reviews, etc.

• On your website, I wouldn't advise keeping your links to the 3 city pages in the footer. If you serve 3 cities, you should link to your landing pages for them from your main menu. And you really should have a page for Hermantown. Even if it's a small city, it's YOUR small city. Promote with pride and it will look more natural that you're saying "we're in Hermantown and we also serve Duluth, Two Harbors, etc."

• I do see that an effort has been made to differentiate the content on the 3 city landing pages. That's good to see, but I believe you could go farther with these. What about video documentaries of your projects? Testimonials from customers in those cities? More targeted advice about microclimates in the given cities? What can you do to take these from being long pages of text that are basically using the same headings to being 3-4 really glowing pages that are going to convince users that your company is simply the best choice in the area?

• How well do you feel you are doing going after more longtail terms? Heating and Cooling appears to be a major phrase for your industry, but how are you doing for your various products/services? Have you built sufficient content to cover all of these? Are you answering every possible questions someone might have relating to these?

• It looks like you've got a strong start going with citations (https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMk1NVCUyNTIwSGVhdGluZyUyNTIwJTI1MjYlMjUyMENvb2xpbmclMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjI1NTgxMSUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMk1NVCUyNTIwSGVhdGluZyUyNTIwJTI1MjYlMjUyMENvb2xpbmclMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjI1NTAxJTI1MjBNaWxsZXIlMjUyMFRydW5rJTI1MjBId3klMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjI1NTgxMSUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjIxODcyOTE1ODUlMjUyMiUyNTVE) so how are you doing beyond the basics? Any way to get this business blogged about by a local blogger or written up in the local news?

• Finally, your organic rank is a concern, for sure. Building on what loganr has written, you need to do a full technical SEO audit to be sure that there are no errors creating this lack of organic rank. I highly recommend: https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015

So, in sum, you need to:

• Face the reality of out-of-city limitations

• Get reviews

• Improve site architecture

• Improve landing pages

• Develop further citation opportunities

• Hide GMB address if applicable

• Do a full technical SEO audit

*Please remember that this is just a start - an at-a-glance impression I've had. Hopefully, you can dig deeper, either on your own, or by hiring experts.

[LoganRay]

Hi,

There are dozens of things that could be causing this. So it's difficult to pin-point where exactly your problems lie. Here are a few low-hanging-fruit items:

• There's only 1 link pointing to your site according to OSE, and it's got a spam score of 5.
• Most of your title tags are quite long, and they seem a bit keyword-stuffy to me
• Your DA is only 13, it's very likely that all of your competitors have higher DA than that. Read here for more info on domain authority and how to influence it: https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority
• Local services like this rely heavily on review sites for NAP info and reviews, which, according to the Search Quality Raters Guidelines, has a large impact on the overall quality of a website

I've dealt with many clients in this industry, and it's a beast. You need to make sure all your bases are covered in order to stay competitive.

Good luck!