What Causes Large Swings in Local Rankings?
-
I know local rankings are a complicated matter and I'm not looking for a single answer to this question, but I'm curious if any local SEOs have noticed similar issues to what I'm experiencing with trying to rank a multi-location-based business. Overall, the visibility trends for the business are up, but we keep popping into the top three spots (happened 2-3 times over the past year) for some general, particularly high-volume search terms only to fall back out and settle a week later into placements below the first page. This is particularly frustrating because the terms we're seeing this volatility for are the exact dream keywords we're hoping to rank the site for.
Has anyone else experienced the same thing and had specific findings about what was at play? Is Google testing us and finding us unworthy? Any and all insights from pros with similar experiences would be helpful!
-
So glad to help, and wishing you good luck!
-
Thanks so much for the thoughtful answer as always! I'm definitely going to dig into all of these resources to try and solve the mystery!
As far as searcher proximity goes, I'm measuring these national/local rankings using Moz, as I'm not physically located in the same town as the business.
To my knowledge, Google has never penalized the business. They're never spammy, reviews are all legitimate and positive, we use https and crawl tests always come back fine. However, the business does have two current locations in neighboring towns and one closed location in the town we find it most difficult to rank in. I suspect some of the difficulties of ranking multiple-location businesses are at play too.
Again, thanks for the super-thorough answer!
-
Good Morning, and good question!
Yes, Google is always testing, and results fluctuations may have nothing to do with whether or not they find you worthy. For example, when the Possum update rolled out, Google simply filtered out thousands of businesses that happened to share categories and be physically near one another. Then the Hawk update happened and they dialed this filter back a bit. So, in a case like that, Google was testing something, and local businesses either weren't filtered or were filtered.
Beyond Google updates, a great many things can lead to local ranking fluctuations. These could include:
-
Searcher proximity. You find yourself ranking well in a pack when you search while in your office. You drive across town and do the same search, and you're not in the 3-pack any more. Local search rankings aren't static anymore.
-
Your competitors are competitive. They are doing things that are enabling them to surpass you in terms of authority. They are telling Google, by some combination of efforts, that they deserve one of the 3 coveted spots more than you do. Maybe they are using Google Posts and you aren't. Maybe the velocity of their reviews is better. Maybe their photos get more clicks.
-
You've done something wrong. You've violated a guideline and have been reported or caught for spam. You have duplicate listings, fake reviews, stuffed business titles, fake locations, malware on your site, problems with indexing, lack of HTTPs protocols, slow load times, etc.
Typically, lack of rankings are going to fall into these categories. For more on this, you might like to read:
https://moz.com/blog/troubleshooting-local-ranking-failures-2018
https://moz.com/blog/45-local-seo-pitfalls
Go through those two blog posts and see if you recognize any of the problems as being relevant to your brand.
If that doesn't turn up some clues, then the next thing to do is to do a full competitive audit between your brand and the brand you see outranking you. This post will walk you through that process and even contains a spreadsheet for you to use:
https://moz.com/blog/basic-local-competitive-audit
Hope this helps!
-
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
-
How Do You Think My Local SEO Multi-location Geotargeting Strategy Will Work?
I have a question. I just got a full-time job at Zavza Seal, an upstanding insulation contractor targeting neighborhoods of Suffolk and Nassau counties in New York. I was hired as an SEO content specialist. (Thanks Rand! You're one of my mentors~!) So, they handed me a spreadsheet of pages for city-specific terms, and they had a system in place for local rankings. But I was taught to do service-specific city pages a certain way. If the search term is for people looking for a service in that town, that's what you give them. However, I was told to proofread them, and as an SEO specialist, I couldn't keep my hands off of them. The pages were skimpy. (Example: h2, paragraph, bullets, short paragraph summary, short paragraph about the city.) What threw me off is that the content, while it was service specific, it was blog topics localized. Those are great (when long enough and optimized to compete in SERPs) but I've never seen them done on service pages. (Example: Why is Mold Remediation Necessary in Baldwin?. Now, this went in two directions in my mind. (and I wanted to do the best for the company, because I'm a wicked brat for teams, AND I get commissions on leads, so that was motivation, too.) 🐷 Anyway, 1. This could be a new approach and worthy of an SEO study on my startup site, where I take on part time clients after work, because I've never seen it done before and it could, if optimized for the target service and city rank high in SERPs AND build thought leadership and authority as a local expert. (Whereas city service pages in standard format would just promote your service. ..) What do you guys think? I just put the topic up for discussion for my team, asked them about it in detail and asked if they wanted to A'/B test a few to see what get's better traction organically. Mr. Fishkin was one of my mentors. I really wish I just had his number for this one LOL.
Local SEO | | ThisTimeWereOn0 -
How to rank in Google against a business with the same name?
My client has a coworking space in London, but shares its name with a recruitment company also in London. When searching for my client's brand name, they don't appear anywhere on the first page as this recruitment company dominates. How can I rank prominently for my brand term if there is someone else in these top spots who isn't a direct competitor (in the typical sense)? Thank you!
Local SEO | | WhitewallGlasgow0 -
National and Local rankings differences
Hi Guys,
Local SEO | | nikaus
I am in Australia and have a client I am working with that ranks quite well for their main keywords.
The business is based in Sydney but delivers Australia wide. The issue is - their main keyword ranks no.1 nationally.
If I set google to any of the main cities and type
Outdoor Mirrors Perth
Outdoor Mirrors Melbourne
Outdoor Mirrors Sydney
My client comes up no.1 But if I leave the city off the end of the keyword and I'm anywhere but Sydney I do not rank well for Outdoor Mirrors. The address of the business is in Sydney hence the no.1 there, but we said in Places that we deliver australia wide. Does anybody know why we don't rank well without the city added to the keyword and a way to remedy this? Thanks Nik0 -
Local Seo Start Up?
Hi I've recently started a Web design and Local SEO business in the UK and would love some advice on best practices and resources to do best by my clients. The last thing I want to do is get their site banned or penalised by Google. In the past I have used article marketing to get 100s of backlinks but I understand it isnt that simple anymore.I might add that I always did SEO for my own sites, never offered it as a service to others. So, I'm less reluctant to take chances. From looking at the competition in the local market I won't have to get too many backlinks to outrank most other companies. Just need to get the right good quality links. I am fairly experienced with onsite SEO. ANy advice or relevant resources would be greatly appreciated.
Local SEO | | malkeenan0 -
Content Rewriting and Page ranking
Lets say that a prior writer did a horrible job with more then a few pages on your site and you wanted to rewrite the content for each landing page. A few of these landing pages are actually ranking pretty decently would it be ok to rewrite them as long as you kept the keywords and the density some what equal?
Local SEO | | Spartan222 -
Local Pages for National (Service) Companies
Hi there, I was wanting to know the value of local pages for a service company that operates nationally. They do not have a phone number or address, but they do maintain employees in each of the locations and are thus, keen to emphasize this fact with location pages. The location pages merely explain that they have staff in each of the locations and experience working there, alongside a variety of information that is relevant to the industry/market in that location. None of the location pages are currently ranking well at all - in fact, all of the ones I've looked at so far have had a page authority of 1. Most of the major towns, cities and counties for the entire UK have been covered which means the location pages constitute a significant proportion of all of the pages for the entire site. My questions are: Is a national service company likely to benefit from having location pages? And could it even be something they could be penalised for at some point down the line? Thanks very much, in advance, for your time. Kind Regards, Tom
Local SEO | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Links for Local Search: Relevance or Proximity?
Hi Mozzers, In the best situation links for a local business should be relevant and come from a local organization, but this is not always possible. In cases where you have to choose between relevance and proximity which is more important?
Local SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Moz Rank Tracker - Local Rankings?
My question is about local SEO rankings. How does the Moz Rank Tracker track local results, meaning I do not see a place to tell the tool what local market to show results for.If I have a dentist in Denver and I enter the keyword “dentist” into the tracker, is it looking for how my site ranks locally in Denver or how it ranks for “dentist” on a national level.Thanks in advance for the help!
Local SEO | | ifuseurbiz1