Improving Local Pack results across other services
-
A company I work for ranks well in the Local Pack under its primary service offering i.e. "primary service Bristol". And also under some other services it offers.
However, under other services that are offered, it doesn't show in the local pack despite ranking No 1 in the natural SERPS for the target phrase "example service Bristol".
We have pages covering all main services in the main site navigation bar.
Is this just the way it is or can something be done to resolve this?
Does the detail in the third-party citations have a significant impact?
What about the content of the reviews? I note that we are doing better under the services mentioned within the reviews.
Should I add additional categories and emulating those used by the competition under the search terms?
Or am I missing something else?
-
@grouchykids Do only add categories that are relevant to your business. Sometimes you do have to use something that isn't an exact match, though, if Google doesn't quite have what you need.
-
@miriamellis Hi Mirriam, thanks yes that makes perfect sense.
In terms of categories, we don't see an exact match I imagine that referencing the competitors that rank is a good way forwards (as you say as long as this makes sense).
-
@grouchykids Hello there! Yes, definitely do add other relevant categories if they are available. A campaign in which you get reviews of these services for which you're not currently ranking as well could help boost Google's understanding of the company's relevance to these search terms. Yes, it's important to get the details right on your citations. Beyond this, a few good links from local or industry platforms related to your additional services could be a big help!
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 there a way to "protect" yourself from non-local traffic?
I'll start with the story, but the main question is at the bottom. Feel free to scroll down :-). I've got good news and bad news regarding a client of mine. It's a service area business that only serves one metropolitan area. We've got a great blog with really valuable content that truly helps people while firmly establishing my client's industry expertise. As a result, local traffic has spiked and the company generates more leads. So that's the good news. The bad (bad-ish?) news is that the client also gets tons of traffic from outside the service area. Not only that, people are calling them all the time who either live in a different state and don't realize that the company isn't local to them or are located out of state but are calling for free advice. On one hand, the client gets a kick out of it and thinks it's funny. On the other hand, it's annoying and they're having to train all their intake people to ask for callers' locations before they chat with them. Some things we're doing to combat this problem: 1. The title tag on our home page specifies the metro area where we're active. 2. Our blog articles frequently include lines like, "Here in [name of our city], we usually take this approach." 3. There are references to our location all over the site. 4. We've got an actual location page with our address; for that matter, the address is listed in the footer on every page. 5. The listed phone number does not begin with 800; rather, it uses the local area code. 6. All of our local business listings, including our Google My Business listing, is up to date. 7. We recently published a "Cities We Serve" area of the site with highly customized/individualized local landing pages for 12 actual municipalities in our metro region. This will take some time to cook, but hopefully that will help. "Cities We Serve" is not a primary navigation item, but the local landing pages are situated as such: "About Us > Cities We Serve > [individual city page]" **Anyway, here's my main question: **In light of all this, is there any other way to somehow shield my client from all this irrelevant traffic and protect them from time-wasting phone calls?
Local Website Optimization | | Greenery0 -
Is this local guide best to follow?
Today I found below guide, Is this best guide to follow for the website and service pages content, layout design? http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/guide-to-local-seo/
Local Website Optimization | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Local SEO - Multiple stores on same URL
Hello guys, I'm working on a plan of local SEO for a client that is managing over 50 local stores. At the moment all the stores are sharing the same URL address and wanted to ask if it s better to build unique pages for each of the stores or if it's fine to go with all of them on the same URL. What do you think? What's the best way and why? Thank you in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | Noriel0 -
A question about similar services a multiple locations
Moz Friends, I hope you can help with this question. My company has 25 locations, and growing. Our rankings are strong in the Serps and Local Maps. With each location, we create a new page (with a unique URL) for that specific location (ex: Thriveworks.com/knoxville-counseling). We then write about 15 pages of unique content for that location, each page about one of the services we provide like: Depression Counseling, Couples Therapy, Anger Management, Eating Disorder Treatment, Life Coaching, Child Therapy, and the list goes on and on.... Hence, for each location, we create a pile of URLS like: Thriveworks.com/knoxville-counseling/couples-therapy, ..../knoxville-counseling/depression-therapy, .../knoxville-counseling/anger-management... We do this to rank for medium-long-tail searches like "Knoxville Marriage Therapy." As we grow, this results in us writing lots and lots of original content for each location. Original, but somewhat redundant. We would much rather write one AMAZING article on depression counseling, than 25 'okay' ones for each office we open. So, my question (if you're still reading) is our current approach the right one? Should we continue the grind and for each location create a unique page for each service offered out of that office? Or is there a better way, where we can create One anger management page that would suffice for each of our local offices? Has anyone addressed this topic in an article? I Haven't found one... I look forward to your feedback, and thanks in advance!!
Local Website Optimization | | Thriveworks-Counseling0 -
SEO for local business directory type site
I am thinking about creating a local business directory type website that lists all local Tattoo Shops. I am familiar with both local and global SEO and how to differentiate between them, however, I am not sure how I should approach this type of website. It isn't an actual business, but I want to target local searches that are looking for tattoo shops. In other words, when someone types in "tattoo shops" or "tattoo shops near me", or "tattoo parlors", I want the website to appear. Is this something that is manageable, or will the individual Tattoo Shop websites always show before mine since they are real local businesses with google+ pages?
Local Website Optimization | | brfieger0 -
Different page for each service at each location? Where does it end!
If we have 15 different locations and 10 different services, do we need to make keyword targeted landing pages for each combination? Is that actually the best method or is there some alternative? For example, if we are a law office specializing in slip and falls and car accidents, do we need a page for EACH location for each service (ie. Miami Car Accident Lawyer, Miami Slip and Fall Lawyer, Orlando Slip and Fall Lawyer, Orlando Car Accident Lawyer) etc. to maximize our ranking potential in each location? Is there a better way or are we left with this until Google gets "smarter"?
Local Website Optimization | | RickyShockley0 -
2 Relevant local websites but closing one and redirecting it to an older site
We have 2 websites, 1 domain is about 10 years old and another is about 4 years old, the 4 yr old domain we are thinking of shutting down since its the same type of service we run but it was a 'keyword domain' that used to rank on 1st page but now its 4th page back. If we put the blog posts and other content + setup re-directs from the 4yr old domain to the 10 yr old domain, would this help the 10 yr old domain with more link juice that it might need for the extra boost? There isnt really any point having both websites up since both are about the same content and targeting the same local market.
Local Website Optimization | | surfsup0 -
Which is better for Local & National coupons --1000s of Indexed Pages per City or only a Few?
Not sure where this belongs.. I am developing a coupons site for listing local coupons and national coupons (think Valpak+RetailMeNot), eventually in all major cities, and am VERY concerned about how many internal pages to let google 'follow' for indexing, as it can exceed 10,000 per city. Is there a way to determine what the optimal approach is for internal paging/indexing BEFORE I actually launch the site (it is about ready except for this darned url question, which seems critical) Ie can I put in searchwords for google to determine which ones are most worthy to have their own indexed page? I'm a newbie sort of, so please put answer in simple terms. I'm one person and have limited funds and need to find the cheapest way to get the best organic results for each city that I cover. Is there a generic answer? One SEO firm told me the more variety the better. Another told me that simple is better, and use content on the simple pages to get variety. So confused I decided to consult the experts here! Here's the site concept: **FOR EACH CITY: ** User inputs location: Main city only(ie Houston), or 1 of 40 city regions(suburb, etc..), or zip code, or zip-street combo, OR allow gps lookup. A miles range is defaulted or chosen by the user. After search area is determined, user chooses 1 of 6 types of coupons searches: 1. Online shopping with national coupon codes, choice of 16 categories (electronics, health, clothes, etc) and 100 subcategories (computers, skin care products, mens shirts) These are national offers for chains like Kohls, which do not use the users location at all. 2. Local shopping in-store coupons, choice of same 16 categories and 100 subcategories that are used for online shopping in #1 (mom & pop shoe store or local chain offer). The results will be within the users chosen location and range. 3. Local restaurant coupons, about 60 subcategories (pizza, fast food, sandwiches). The results are again within the users chosen location and range. 4. Local services coupons, 8 categories (auto repair, activities,etc..) and around 200 subcategories (brakes, miniature golf, etc..). Results within users chosen location and range. 5. Local groceries. This is one page for the main city with coupons.com grocery coupons, and listing the main grocery stores in the city. This page does not break down by sub regions, or zip, etc.. 6. Local weekly ad circulars. This is one page for the main city that displays about 50 main national stores that are located in that main city. So, the best way to handle the urls indexed for the dynamic searches by locations, type of coupon, categories/subcats, and business pages The combinations of potential urls to index are nearly unlimited: Does the user's location matter when he searches for one thing (restaurants), but not for another (Kohls)? IF so, how do I know this? SHould I tailor indexed urls to that knowledge? Is there an advantage to having a url for NATIONAL cos that ties to each main city: shopping/Kohls vs shopping/Kohls/Houston or even shopping/Kohls/Houston-suburb? Again, I"m talking about 'follow' links for indexing. I realize I can have google index just a few main categories and subcats and not the others, or a few city regions but not all of them, etc.. while actually having internal pages for all of them.. Is it better to have 10,000 urls for say coupon-type/city-region/subcategory or just one for the main city: main-city/all coupons?, or something in between? You get the gist. I don't know how to begin to figure out the answers to these kinds of questions and yet they seem critical to the design of the site. The competition: sites like Valpak, MoneyMailer, localsaver seem to favor the 'more is better' approach, with coupons/zipcode/category or coupons/bizname/zipcode But a site like 8coupons.com appears to have no indexing for categories or subcategories at all! They have city-subregion/coupons and they have individual businesses bizname/city-subregion but as far as I see no city/category or city-subregion/category. And a very popular coupons site in my city only has maincity/coupons maincity/a few categories and maincity/bizname/coupons. Sorry this is so long, but it seems very complicated to me and I wanted to make the issue as clear as possible. Thanks, couponguy
Local Website Optimization | | couponguy1