How to perform a search as though you are in a local city
-
Hi community. So I live in Dubai but have a lot of clients in the UK that want local SEO. Does anyone have any tips on performing search queries in Google that reflect a true search results page as though that search was being performed in a chosen UK city?
say if I wanted to see the SERPs for "hairdressers" in the city of Bristol in the UK, at the moment I get a pretty vague UK SERP from With lots of Dubai based adverts et.
Any tips would be great, thanks
-
I recommend this thread over at Linda Buquet's forum that was created when Google removed the location search from main search:
-
Thanks for this Don. I did actually manage to find this - Its Adwords Ad Preview, so you can choose the location and it will display as if there.
https://adwords.google.com/apt/AdPreview?__u=2955918576&__c=8883971256&authuser=0
Hope that helps anyone else looking to do the same.
-
There are proxy services available where you can, in fact, change your location and appear to be in another city. Another option is to perform a search at Google and scroll down to the bottom of the search results page. Choose "use precise location" and that should change your location to your current location.
If you are wanting to monitor rankings on a regular basis from a particular location, there are ranking checkers such as Authority Labs and SEMRush.com that will allow you to monitor rankings from a certain city or location.
-
Hello,
You should be able to see results if you use a proxy server located in the city (area) you are researching. But I imagine there is an easier way nowadays.
This post may help over on SearchEngineLand
Good luck,
Don
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
-
Is having two websites with the same NAP equal to the local search visibility issues?
My company works in two directions: printing and website design / development. I have one website for both printing and website development but it doesn’t have “printing” in domain name (velvdesign.com) I would like to rank higher for printing related keywords. Do you think I should have two separate websites, one for printing (velvprinting.com), another for website design /development (velvdesign.com)? If yes, am I going to get into NAP’s issue because my company has only one location? I can get the second phone number to improve local search visibility. Thank you very much in advance for your time!
Local Listings | | VELV0 -
Do any Local Rank Trackers Report This Way?
I'm having trouble finding a local rank tracking service with useful reporting. I've tried several and for the money, have gravitated toward's Whitespark's service as for $25/month I can track unlimited locations. But their report is indicative of what I've seen time and time again in my 18-year experience as a Software Developer and Internet Marketer. Whomever is making the design decisions isn't a Seasoned (Local) SEO, and/or probably hasn't done their homework well enough by talking to seasoned SEOs. Their Summary Report looks like this (see attachement). When I'm doing Local SEO I'm looking at a lot of reporting data but among that, probably the most important is: How many of the listings moved up into position #1-3 on Local Finder which is also usually the Local 3-Pack (sometimes a 2-pack explaining the discrepancy in the first two rows between the number in the #1-3 column.) I also want to know how many listing moved UP into the #4-10. And vice versa, what fell out of #1-3 and #4-10. The problem with the format of this report, if a listing falls from #2 to #5, it will be a decrease in #1-3 and an INCREASE for #4-10. This would give me the false impression that a listing that was below #10 came into the #4-10 when in actuality the increase in #4-10 was because of a decrease in #1-3!! One situation is positive the other is negative. What I want to know is how many listings (totals without getting out the calculator): moved up into #1-3 (White Spark does this via the Increase column in the Local 3-Pack row) moved up into #4-10 moved down out of #1-3 to #4-10 moved down out of #1-3 to below #10 moved down out of #4-10 to below #10. Does anyone know of local tracking services that give you this kind of data in this way? XQppQKs.jpg
Local Listings | | Consult19010 -
Best Approach for GMB/Local Optimization for Central Office with Multiple Locations
Hello, Our site is designed to place people in different locations or houses. We have six locations total; each one has its own name, physical address and landing page. We also have a central office for the brand with its own NAP. All addresses fall under the guidelines of Google My Business (i.e. people visit each location and our office...etc.). Unless it’s ideal, we most likely wouldn’t be running a full-scale local campaign for each location due to restrictions on resources and wouldn’t want to spread ourselves too thin. Our question is; would it be best to set up a GMB listing for each location including our central office, only use the central office or just the 6 locations? – We know multiple locations is not an issue for GMB but we weren’t sure if that’s the ideal way to approach it in this case. Essentially, would it be better to focus on our central office for GMB/local efforts and just make sure that our other location landing pages are the highest quality possible or better to use GMB for every location (including the main office) and over time start local work on all of the above. Also, if we do only use just the central office; should we be avoiding listing the other addresses on each landing page to avoid confusing Google as to where we are located? Any help or insight on how to approach this would be very much appreciated. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R1 -
Google Business listing algorithm when listing the top 3 locations in Google Search
Hi, awhile back I decided to make separate website contact pages by location and Google Business listings(some being just a service location with no address displaying) for Greenshield Pest Control Inc to help better target per city key term searches. Please refer to screenshot A http://puu.sh/qxWjH/6153c0edf2.png and B http://puu.sh/qxWfJ/bff7ad02cf.png. A) Searching "pest control belleville" brings up the Belleville Greenshield business listing in the top 3 as desired. B) Searching "pest control brockville" brings up the Kingston Greenshield listing in the top 3. While they do provide service for the Brockville location we don't have a dedicated Brockville service location and listing setup. I'm happy the Greenshield listing shows up in the search for case B but my question is does anyone know why Google decided for two out of the top 3 listings(Greenshield and Enviro Guard Plus Inc) to use a non-Brockville business listing? Kingston is 45mins away from Brockville and Harrowsmith about 1 hour away. Is there a certain distance range a Google business listing has to be for it to have a chance to be included in the search besides the actual city I'm searching for?
Local Listings | | FPK0 -
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 -
SEO strategy local service area business
Hello, I run a service area business that rents and delivers moving boxes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our service area spans 75 cities and many millions of people, and several major metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, but there are also numerous smaller cities that collectively represent a large number of monthly searches. I would like to rank well for the higher level search terms, like “moving boxes” and “moving supplies”, but also city-specific searches like “Moving Boxes San Francisco.” What’s unclear to me is the best strategy for organically ranking on the specific cities in our service area. As I see it, it seems there are several approaches. Is the best approach to either to: A.) Create clean “universal” web pages for pricing, products and landing pages and use blogs to build up content keywords for each of the cities B.) Create 10-15 city-specific web pages with the hope they'll each rank well (e.g. Moving San Jose, Moving in Cupertino) C.) Other? Thanks for your comments.
Local Listings | | bruteboxmoving0 -
Google Local: When moving locations, is a new website/content needed?
I've effectively moved companies before, but I've heard that ranking locally in a competitive market after an address move it is necessary to redesign the entire website/content/domain as Google associates the old website/content/domain with the old location. Is this true? Does anyone have any direct experience with this? NOTE- I have updated citations across the internet and have regular social signals going to the new location, and this has been the case for almost 6 months now.
Local Listings | | mgordon0 -
Search Result Data Incorrect
Hey Guys, Does anyone have any insight on how to remove incorrect results from the Google Search Results? I've tried several ways to remove this incorrect listing and the problem still exists. Website has its headquarters location data on several pages of the site (about, contact). Website has a Google+ account and the website links to the correct Google+ account. If anyone has any insight or tips on how to get this removed and/or changed to the correct result it would be much appreciated. iBk0xbo
Local Listings | | Netmasons0