Hotel SEO / Rank Conundrum
-
Hello Mozzers,
I am having an issue with a particular client and wanted to throw it out to the forum for feedback.
We work with many resorts and hotels. One, in particular, is a large condo-hotel property with several individual buildings. Each building has a unique name. While the property management company owns and operates most of the units within each building, there are units that are individually owned.
The property management company runs the branded resort website, all local pages & listings, etc.
One savvy unit owner, however, has built a website that is branded with the individual building name for one of the buildings. He has also taken ownership of the building Google Plus page, Facebook page, etc. He only owns a handful of units in the building.
We have retroactively tried creating a new site but are struggling to gain traction from a ranking perspective. We did temporarily change the website address that was listed for the Google local listing, via the "edit" button, and were actually starting to increase rank (presumably somewhat related to the increase in website traffic), but it was quickly fixed to the other website.
The management company has reached out to the owner but he continues to refuse to give up any rights to the Google local page, etc. We have also created a new (technically duplicate) page just to see if we can knock the other one off, though we are having issues getting the verification post card from Google.
Any advice on how we can gain access to this Google local page? Or any other tips on how to get a relatively small, new site to overtake an existing site?
I know URLs / examples are helpful in these situations but we'd prefer to keep the client names anon.
-
Hi Bernadette, thanks for taking the time to respond. The owner in question is most certainly representing his ownership and we had advised legal options, though the client is not quite ready to pursuit anything yet. Thank you for the lengthy feedback, we certainly appreciate any help we can get.
-
Thanks very much for the feedback. At this point, the client is steering away from legal options, though we had advised that. The entire situation took us off guard so we are definitely taking this as a lesson learned. Thanks again for your response.
-
Meisha, this can definitely be frustrating. When it comes to local listings, and individual units, keep in mind that every unit should have it's own unique unit number, so it would have it's own address.
You mentioned this: "He has also taken ownership of the building Google Plus page, Facebook page, etc. He only owns a handful of units in the building. "
If that other person has taken ownership of the entire building essentially, and the entire Google Plus page, Facebook page, etc. then is sounds as if he is misrepresenting his ownership. Therefore, pressure can be put on him to disclose his ownership of only certain units in the building, and you should be able to force him (legally) to only represent the units that he actually owns.
If this is the case, then he would need to update his Google Local listing(s) so that they only show the actual address of the unit(s) that he owns. If it doesn't currently, and it shows that he owns the entire building, then he should be forced to update it.
You should consult a lawyer, but most likely a stern letter to him asking him to update the website, Google Listings, and any Facebook (and other URLs) so that they only show the unit numbers he actually owns would probably go a long way. In the meantime, any listings that you create should also reflect the actual units that you own, as well.
When it comes go Google's local listings, it's perfectly fine to have multiple "businesses" at one location, as they have unique suite numbers. In this case, there are individual unit numbers, so there is an option to create a listing for each unit. It's not okay for this other person to misrepresent his ownership.
-
The answer here is not one that I often advocate but you're going to to need to grease the wheels a bit
Buy his website out. Make certain this includes his domain and control of the social media he's running. Have him sign a legal agreement as well. Once you own it, 301 redirect it to your main resort page.
If he balks, or tries to run the price up, my bet is he has a contract with the owners of the building and they might have some things they can do that will make his life uncomfortable (consult a lawyer first so you know what your legal options are). You might be able to use that as a stick to encourage him to take the carrot of a buyout. Try the carrot first, tho, and save the stick for any serious negotiations.
Next, you need to harden the contracts with your private owners. Make it clear that, for a small sum of money, they agree not to try to represent themselves as the resort. Again, consult a lawyer and get this written properly. Make any future private buyers sign this agreement as well.
At the end of the day, I would chalk this up as an expensive marketing lesson. If you can get him to sell, you don't have to jump through any hoops. Otherwise, you're competing with what Google sees as the legitimate business (which is a much more difficult path to walk).
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
-
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 -
How can I PREVENT my page from ranking for a keyword?
Hello, I'm in a unique situation where I need to prevent a web page and business listing from ranking for a keyword in Google. The keyword is a phone number that is not associated with the business and is not listed anywhere on the page or in reviews on the business listing. It's causing confusion for people who perform a reverse phone number lookup and see our business and think we called them. I already submitted feedback on the search results, have contacted GMB support, have submitted the page for indexing in Search Console, and am now going to try displaying the correct phone number in the page title and meta description.
Local Listings | | geodigitalmarketing
Aside from these steps, is there anything else I can do? Your help is appreciated! Thanks! Lindsey2 -
I have 2 locations and 6+ Google Business pages... How can I combine the duplicates without losing maps rankings?
I have 2 locations and 6+ different Google Business pages due to a company merger and automatic page creation. Some of the GMB even pages rank in maps above the ones we use for certain terms and most bring traffic to my site, but I know the dupes are hurting our maps rankings. Is there a way I can consolidate these pages by combining them? Or am I better off just biting the bullet and deleting the pages I don't want to use?
Local Listings | | formandfunctionagency0 -
How does the new local pack change rankings?
So I just saw this afternoon that google has changed how the local pack displays listings, only 3 listings now show. Also Google continues to distance itself from Google+. Now it seems getting in the top 3 of the local pack is going to be even more competitive. What should the strategy be now for competing in the local pack? Has it changed? Or just stick to tried and true local optimizations?
Local Listings | | websitemusclemarketing0 -
Ranking Go Down
Hello My website www.prismpharmamachinery.com Ranking Down last from 5 to 6 month, Before It was Up, goes down By 5 to 6 pages. Any Expert can help for this query, Then Please reply. Thanking you in advance,
Local Listings | | Sanjayth0 -
Removing phone number from GMB = lower rankings?
Hey, all! I have a client who needs for people to see her website before they call her, or else she spends 15 min explaining what's already on the site. Her Google My Business rankings are excellent for a lot of keywords (yay!), so people are seeing the number big and bold and just picking up the phone. I called GMB support to ask if removing the phone number would affect rankings, and they said "I don't think so". If this weren't a HUGE deal to the client, I wouldn't take the chance, but she feels that she's losing business by being on these calls when legitimate prospects try to call and get voice mail. So... any experience with removing phone numbers from GMB, or any other creative solutions to the quandary? Thanks so much for reading! ~ Scott UPDATE: Well, we went ahead and tried it anyway, and our GMB listins on the 7-pack nosedived! STRONGLY recommend against this, at least with the current algorithm!! The phone number is back now. 🙂
Local Listings | | measurableROI0 -
How do we setup renting space without hurting our local seo?
Currently, one of our offices has two businesses in it that our owned by the same person. The law firm and the title company. They both use the same address, but they both rank locally for this area. I'm worried that having another company rent space here that is not affiliated with the owner AND is using the same address will hurt us. What are our options here? The best thing I can think to do is have them add a suite number or something to their listing, but I'm not sure exactly how to do that. Do I need to get the post office is to verify that? Will google and the rest just overturn it, if it's not in their records? Anyone know how best to proceed with this? Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
How To Rank Individual Pages Locally?
Hello, A fellow business owner recommend that I signup for Moz to ask questions about local SEO. I just have a few questions, but please excuse my ignorance since SEO isn't something I'm very familiar with. My company has locations in 3 different cities in the state of Arkansas. I've noticed that when I type in certain keywords on Google such as "web design", I see a lot of organic listings from web design companies in my local area - but if I were to search from another city, different listings show up that are related to that city. I have 3 different pages on my company's website for each of our locations that gives a little bit of information about them - such as the general manager, storefront photos, and the employee of the month. What can I do to get each of the pages to rank higher on Google in their respective cities? I've heard a lot of different things mentioned such as having the name, address, and phone number listed. Including Google Maps on the page with our location. And some other stuff such as including stuff such as a "KML file" and a "schema markup". If anyone can give me a list of definitive suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.
Local Listings | | CyberAlien1