Had a local SEO client completely drop off in all rankings...?
-
Hey everyone!
I wanted to ask the Moz community on what I should be on the lookout for in this situation; I have a local SEO client, an orthopedic clinic, who out of nowhere completely dropped off the map. Their Search Visibility is now at .001%.
I really have no idea what would have caused this... I have dozens of other local SEO clients and have never seen this before.
-
You might have received a manual or an algorithmic penalty? so this situation must be fixed by your SEO company.
-
Hi Taylor,
While I don't have the necessary time to do a complete audit, let's take a quick look at a few things here:
-
Your client is at least not suspended. Their listing still exists at: https://www.google.com/search?q=orthopedic associates boise idaho&oq=orthopedic+associates+boise+id&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l3.6373j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&npsic=0&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=43612266,-116292485,1&tbm=lcl&rldimm=14815419333811269136&ved=2ahUKEwiIvfWg3P7cAhUmwcQHHWPdB0sQvS4wAHoECAEQEw&rldoc=1&tbs=lrf:!2m1!1e2!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:2#rlfi=hd:;si:14815419333811269136;mv:!1m3!1d15.045442483230412!2d-116.29248519999999!3d43.612266299999995!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1!2i1!4f13.1;tbs:lrf:!2m1!1e2!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:2
-
On the Contact Page of the Website, you are listing no street extension and a suite number. On the listing, you have no suite number. While Google doesn't pay attention to suite numbers, I am wondering why there is this discrepancy, which at the very least, is confusing for patients. So, that's something to clean up. The website is listing your client at W. Emerald. The GMB listing at Emerald St. Which is it? Choose one and clean the rest up. Your phone number is not the same on your Contact Page as on your GMB listing. Why is this? It should be cleaned up.
-
On the GMB listing, you have listed no hours, have no photos, have only 1 review from a first-time reviewer, are not using Google Posts, or G Q&A. Your listing for this client is pretty empty and can definitely be improved.
-
You have what I'm guessing is a practitioner listing for a Jeffery G. Hessing. It also features some NAP discrepancies you should check out.
-
The fact that you have no Knowledge Panel appearing in the organic SERPs when I search for the brand "Orthopedic Associates Boise Idaho" leads me to believe that Google just doesn't feel it knows much about the business. So, I'd fully utilize all of the GMB features and put a review acquisition campaign in place to help this business start having more information for Google to dive into.
-
When I do non-branded search for just "orthopedist boise idaho" you are not being filtered out by Possum, which is good news. You are ranking in the 11th spot and likely need to invest in both local and organic SEO to start moving up the rankings.
-
On August 1st, there was a Google algorithm update released. Some have called it the "medic update", though Gary Illyes of Google says it didn't specifically target health-related sites. Have you read up on this? If the date your client's rankings dropped is around August 1st, it would be important to read everything you can about this update to see if your client appears to have been impacted by it. Dr. Pete wrote a good post here on Moz: https://moz.com/blog/googles-august-1st-core-update-week-1
-
Firing up Moz Check listing, it looks like there is a lot of work to be done with your citation completeness, and, of more concern, look at the duplicates tab. https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMk9ydGhvcGFlZGljJTI1MjBBc3NvY2lhdGVzJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyODM3MDQlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjJPcnRob3BhZWRpYyUyNTIwQXNzb2NpYXRlcyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjg4NTQlMjUyMEVtZXJhbGQlMjUyMFN0JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyODM3MDQlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjIyMDgzNzgyODY4JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIydXMlMjUyMiUyNTVE You have a serious issue going on with duplicate Google listings both for the practice and for Dr. Hessing. Each of these must be appropriately addressed. This article may help you: https://moz.com/blog/delete-gmb-listing The presence of claimed duplicate listings is a violation of Google's guidelines, and even if they are unclaimed, they could certainly be impacting your ability to rank as this client as you'd like to.
So, those are some issues I'm seeing at a glance. I recommend that you investigate all this, do a complete competitive audit for this client, and perhaps, hire a Local SEO to consult with your agency to help get basic local search marketing going for them. There are quite a few issues going on here that could directly or indirectly explain your client not ranking very well. Hope this helps and good luck!
-
-
The client is called Orthopaedic Associates, based out of Boise, Idaho.
You can view their site here: https://orthoa.com/
-
Hi Taylor,
Are you able to share the identity of the client? If not, my best advice is to investigate
-
Filters (like Possum)
-
Hard/soft penalties.
-
Bugs
-
-
This is an actual client who almost disappeared from Google.
I don't see how they could have gotten hit with a penalty, to be honest. We have been working with them for a while and haven't done anything different. Maybe a few tweaks to meta descriptions / title tags as we update their site.
-
Probably has some penalty? what is the situation is this a new client with no visibility, or an actual client who almost disappear from Google.
A Google penalty is a punishment against a website whose content conflicts with the marketing practices enforced by Google. This penalty can come as a result of an update to Google's ranking algorithm, or a manual review that suggests a web page used "black hat" SEO tactics.
Recently Google made an update to the algorithm so you will need to check it is affecting that website.
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
-
What do I need to do for SEO when moving a business out of state?
Hello! So I have a business that I run out of a single location for the last 3 years. I am unfortunately having to move here in the next few weeks My question is what do I need to do in order to have the best chance at SEO for the new location? When should I make the changes? Does it take a long time for me to stop showing up in the previous location? and is there something I need to do to remove those? Also, is there an app or a website where I can find and update all listings at once or at least a bulk of them? I know that there are some weird sites that have my business info in them that I did not put there. Obviously these would have the wrong address. Some do not have a contact info or a way for me to log into them. What would I do with these sites? Thank you!
Local Listings | | Rmarkjr810 -
Accurate Rank Checking for Local SEO
Hi all, I am wondering if anyone out there has cracked the enigma of figuring out how to accurately find local rankings for multi-location businesses. I do understand that "accuracy" should be used loosely given the numerous factors that come into play for local such as distance from searcher and business location being located directly in the city of the search. So I definitely get that nothing will be entirely accurate but the programs I have used and the incognito browser approach just seems so far off. Moz tells me something different than the Google Adword Preview Tool which is different than SEMRush which is different than serps.com and so on. I have done the appending to search strings with near=city as well. I unfortunately do not trust any of them at this point. I would LOVE if my company flew me out to every single city we are in so I could do local searches but that is probably not going to happen 🙂 Any thoughts or recommendations for how I can get the most accurate local rank, even if it is an incredibly manual process? Is there an easy way for me to change my location anymore since Google stripped that option away awhile back? That was the ONLY time I felt I was getting somewhat accurate results. Thanks! -Ben
Local Listings | | Davey_Tree1 -
How to fix my local buisness listing
Ive checked with the Moz Local and put my company name in. theres two listings showing up Ones verified but is in a slightly wrong format - it says Street Name, Unit Number, Town, Post Code The other ones not verified but correct - its unit number, street name town, post code Will I need to edit the verified one to make it the correct format like it is on companies house and with Royal Mail? Or can I use the none verified version?
Local Listings | | paulfoz16091 -
Best Practice When Selling One Location of Company with Multiple Branches - Local Search
I have a client with a small business with 4 different branches. Currently, we have a main landing page for the company, plus distinct landing pages for each branch with maps, territories, distinct phone numbers, etc., for each branch. The company recently sold one of the branches to a competitor as they do not want to service that area anymore. They have asked me what they should do now. Obviously, we are going to remove the location page for that branch, but we also need to transfer the phone number to the other company for use as part of the sale. What tasks should I look into for separating the branch from the rest of the company while still maintaining best practice for the rest of the site/company? Thank you for your help and suggestions.
Local Listings | | Ayres-SEO0 -
Should I disavow local citation page links?
Hello Moz Community, I am worried about my link profile. I feel like there are so many low domain authority links coming from citation pages, or business listings. www.futuresolutionsmedia.com Would you recommend that I try to get rid of them, or just leave them be? Disavow them? MgircmN
Local Listings | | FutureSolutionsMedia0 -
Not showing in local for primary keyword
I have a client in the junk removal business and I can't get him to show in local for junk removal +city. Junk removal is not a Google Plus category so we have to choose Garbage Collection Service, which everyone else does as well. I've optimized the site and the local listing pretty well, much better than the competitors, but we're still not showing. It's not that we're asking to rank better, we're just trying to get on the list for the one term that makes all the difference in this business. I feel like there's a junk removal party going on and we're not invited. I've thought about a possible over-optimization penalty, but there's no G warning or message and we use fewer keywords than our competitors and have no spammy links as some of the competition does. Some companies that are no longer in business are visible. I just can't figure out what we might be doing wrong. Any ideas or suggestions I might have missed?
Local Listings | | Dino640 -
Swiss SEO Companies
Hello Moz Community! My name is Colby. I work with Comit Developers here in the US, but I currently have a client that is in need overseas. My client is looking for SEO work in Switzerland. We've never worked in this country, but we are willing to outsource to get a little help. I am looking for some smaller SEO companies in or nearby Zurich. Does anyone have any ideas? We are looking for companies who can charge fair prices. I'm not sure how expensive the Swiss market is for SEO, but I'd love some insight. Can anyone help me?
Local Listings | | ComitSEO0 -
Nitpicky NAPS Local Question
I'm about to setup all our NAPS for our Tampa office with Moz Local, and I'm curious about one small thing: suite vs ste? I have read that what matters most is consistency, but since I haven't set it up yet, if anyone had any experience with full names being written out doing better/worse than abbreviations? Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0