Do You Know What's Triggering Your Local Packs?

[MiriamEllis]

Hey To All My Local Pals, Here

Recently, I watched a totally fascinating LocalU video in which Mike Blumenthal introduced a hypothesis that there may be a way to analyze what, specifically, is triggering a specific local pack. Now, Mike is stating that correlation is not causation in explaining this, but basically what he starts talking about at around 4:40 in the video is that what you are seeing rank well in the local packs may be demonstrably caused by what you see ranking organically beneath the pack, or may be caused by totally different signals.

Mike says,

_"If you're seeing the top 10 results are all IYP industry sites, and there's a pack showing, and the highest local site is 24 or something in organic, it's unlikely that that's what's triggering the pack. And so then you want to look at third-party triggers and see if that's what's actually triggering the pack." _

Obviously, all of us who do Local are familiar with the idea that a tremendous variety of elements contribute to pack rankings, but I am particularly intrigued by the idea of looking at the organic result beneath a pack and determining that there is little or no correlation between them, and this then driving one to look elsewhere for contributing factors.

In a recent response to another thread here on Q&A, I discussed some common local pack ranking failure causes when organic rank is high. What I'd love to see is whether, if you look at some of your clients' desired packs, can you tell if organic signals are driving them, or can you see that it's not organic signals driving the pack, as Mike suggests. What, in those cases, does appear to be driving the packs?

I'd be so interested in a discussion on this. What do you see? What do you think of Mike's suggestions?

[MiriamEllis]

Hey There!

Thanks so much for taking the time to contribute to this discussion. The geographic variations you mention sound normal to me, but the issue of the companies consistently ranking highly for no apparent reason is interesting. Are you saying the search is yielding a onebox (just one result) or a normal pack? Is the name of the business an exact or close match of the keyword phrase you're searching for? Is the business right in the middle of a cluster or similar businesses? Sounds like a good puzzle!

[MiriamEllis]

Good luck, Jason!

[JasonKhoo]

Miriam,

Thorough and as helpful as possible as always. Thank you so much. Right now my strategy is to really work on those reviews. I'm hoping to get that magic 25 reviews because I think that can help us get to the top. All of our competitors don't even come close and are under 10.

So our goal is in that aspect. My client's target base is made up mostly of those over 40 -  50 years of age so their not as prone to review. Our competitors have fitness members of a younger age, so that's where I'm thinking we have a disadvantage. But I'm hoping to work a little more on that end.

Thanks Miriam!

Jason Khoo

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Jason!

So glad those tips helped you identify an industry centroid that may be a contributing factor. Way to go! Some thoughts on this:

1. Go into this knowing that it can be VERY difficult to overcome something like this and that your best bet here is likely to be a full, professional audit by a skilled Local SEO consultant. A good place to look for one is the Contributors box on the right side of last year's Moz Local Search Ranking Factors. Here are some questions for you to ask yourself, either for your own purposes, or to share with a consultant.

2. Are you 100% certain that you are located inside of the official city limits? As I mentioned on your other thread, do the Maps lookup of your city name and be sure you are inside of the pink city border instead of outside of it. If you're outside, then the goal of ranking in the Local pack for that city/keyword combo is likely out.

3. If you are inside the city borders, how far are you from the industry centroid? Are any other players as far away as you are and still ranking in the top 10 or so results?

4. If so, do an audit of any competitor that is as far away as you are, but is managing to rank in the top 10 on the Map. Identify every piece of information you can that might be contributing to their rank (age, domain authority, reviews, vibrant content, citations, etc.). Mine this data to see if there is a pattern or a weakness you can identify that you would be able to use to your advantage, with the goal of helping you get into the pack.

5. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the industry centroid is the sole cause of what you are experiencing. If you're outside the city borders, then, yes, that's probably the main cause, but if you're inside the borders, a business which is supremely strong enough should have hope of overcoming an industry centroid bias. But, remember, there may be multiple causes contributing to low rankings.

6. Finally, don't forget that user-as-centroid is likely to overcome industry-centroid bias, in that your customers who are physically closest to you on their phones may be seeing a different set of results, which do include you.

Just some quick thoughts. Hope they help!

[JasonKhoo]

Hi Miriam,

I saw that our prior conversation was continued here. I went back and did some more researching and after reviewing everyting I think I found the issue, it was a Google industry cluster issue. I relooked at Google Maps and typed in "gym in [city]" and I noticed 7 of the 10 listings were all fairly close to the industry centroid designated by Google (which I found through Google MapMaker).

Now that I maybe have identified that issue, I'm wondering if there are any strategies we can to combat this. I don't like to think that our physical location has left us to have to accept lower listings on Google Local Pack. Let me know if you know anything?

As always, thank you!

Jason Khoo

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Kristen,

Yeah, I just don't think Google+ really caught on the way Google might have hoped. But Posts could totally be interesting, if it becomes widely available.

[Bob_van_Biezen]

Thanks for the link, didn't know about that. Could indeed be game-changing!

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Bob,

Thanks for clarifying, and this does not surprise me:

I added keywords to the business titles of Google My Business listings and I saw a big improvement on categories the business didn’t already appeared on.

Good to test this out, but also important not to leave it that way, as adding extraneous keywords is a guideline violation (one which Google may not catch for years, but which they will definitely red flag once they notice it). So, your test confirms what is very easy to see in the local packs - that business title spam is still very much a ranking factor and that Google is still not up the task of policing this.

On the advice from the Google rep, yeah, they really shouldn't have been telling you to post on Plus, given the divorce of local from Plus, unless they felt your business model fits the whole communities thing Google is now promoting with that. Plus has kind of died in terms of its usefulness to local businesses, unless they fit a very specific model. Personally, I'm feeling a lot more excited about this new Posts things. Have you seen this: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2016/03/04/googles-newest-social-sharing-environment-google-posts/

It's a limited test right now, but it could be game-changing. Thanks again for the detailed response, Bob!

[Bob_van_Biezen]

Hi Miriam,

I added keywords to the business titles of Google My Business listings and I didn’t see any big ranking improvements on categories the business already appeared at.

I added keywords to the business titles of Google My Business listings and I saw a big improvement on categories the business didn’t already appeared on. So adding “SEO” in the business title of an webdevelopment firm could result in them being shown on keywords like “SEO The Hague”.

I Removed keywords from (compeditors) business titles and didn’t see a drop in their ranking visibility.

At this point I believe keywords in the business title could help Google associate your business with a keyword or service type but isn’t (or is only a small) rankingfactor. It’s the difference between being shown, or not being shown at all. Not the difference between position 2 and 3.

Note: I only tracked this with a few Google my business pages for a short period of time.

About the advice from the Google support staff, heard it the last time on 10 dec. 2015.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bob!

Thanks so much for joining the discussion. Are you saying you added keywords to the business titles of Google My Business listings and saw a rise in rank/visibility? Or are you saying you removed keywords? Just want to be sure I'm understanding.

Was the chat with Google support desk some months ago? Google has disconnected Plus from Local, so I'm concerned you may have received outdated advice from Google's support, if it's the case that they are still telling people to post on Plus.

I'd love to hear more, on both points.

[Bob_van_Biezen]

Hi Miriam and Kristen,

I didn't do a big case study or what so ever on this topic but I reported this kind of keywords in the business title through Google Maps and I didn’t see any noticeable changes after the changes were applied. At least not with the top 3 in the local pack. I can however confirm that adding this information causes fluctuations since I did some testing with a few websites. Although It didn’t cause a big boost it did help a tremendous amount with being shown on certain keywords. Since there isn’t a category for every niche this helped some business being showed on the right keywords on the first place.

This is a subject were a bigger case study will be needed I think.

Btw, another interesting aspect I found is the local business support desk recommending Google plus activity on the account. Views, followers, posts etc. Did get this tips 2 times after I called them a few times. Not sure it works, but we’re trying this out for our own account at the moment.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Kristen!

Wow - yes! That's exactly the type of case I find interesting, too. Sadly, as you point out, the old keyword-stuffed business title can still boost a business, despite the guidelines (and, is, of course, something one could report to Google!). I like that you've noticed those authoritative links. Could be a real factor there. It would be interesting to know what would happen to these results if the naming violation were reported and acted upon. You could actually track that and see, then, if that had been the main factor, or if the authoritative links were still enough to keep the business ranking highly.

I'm very appreciative of you contributing what you've noticed, and hope we'll hear more from others