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Thank you!

Really great video, thank you!

Also, is it okay to use both organization and localbusiness schema?  Or is that not advised?

Thank you both, I figured this was the way to do it.  I have a couple of specific questions though.

1.  Can I get google to display a star ranking when my home page appears in search results?  I thought I had read somewhere no?

2. Can I make a star rating using my Google reviews so that it automatically updates?  Or do I just hard code it and have to update it all the time?  Or do I literally have to have a review database of my own?

Is it possible for me to take my Google reviews and show them under my homepage as stars when my page is shown in search results.  I provide a service, so I don't have separate product reviews.  My homepage is what ranks most in the searches I target.  If this is possible, what is the best way to do it technically? I have a wordpress site.  Thank you in advance!

Thank you... is the disavow tool still controversial?  It used to be that SEOs didn't recommend using it because it told Google that you did indeed have spammy links and needed them gone.  Is that different now?  Here is a link to the weird image farm I was talking about.

http://seafoodnet.info/

I have dropped in rankings 3-5 points over the past 6 months and have been trying to figure out why.  One thing I found was a ton of my pictures on a image net ring.  I obviously didn't put those photos there or give permission to use them.  It looks like an offshore website.  How do we deal with these type of bad links?

Hi, I am looking through my site structure and I have a lot of pages left over from the days of article keywords.  Probably 7 or 8 years ago, someone sold my husband on article key word pages.  I have slowly gotten rid of a lot of them as they have fallen out out of the ranks.  I would like to get rid of the rest, probably 5 or 6 pages.  Will it hurt my rankings to delete pages and redirect them?  My customers really like the simplicity of our site and I want to keep it that way, plus clean up flags that Moz is telling me is a problem. I think its easier to keep less pages top notch than have to worry with a lot of them.  Especially since my customers aren't viewing them.

Thanks in advance!

How would I know if I have suspicious links?  I don't see any penalties or anything in Google Webmaster tools.

Miriam,

Yes, we talked about this at length before!  I just looked at your article and it is a really good article.  I will do the audit, but my first thoughts looking at it, is that the other fishing charters around me don't really do anything for SEO, so they will likely score low.  Also, who shows up as first depending on the search term I use seems almost completely random.  So for instance, when I us an incognito window and do a search for "fishing charter cape canaveral", this should be the one that I should show up in the top.  It is my city, and the word fishing charter is in my name.  Along with everything else I do.  But the top 3 spots are puzzling.

1. A private fishing charter (close competitor) with 18 reviews with a 5 star rating and not fully utilizing all of the available options.  The website is average.

2. A party boat with 212 reviews and a 4 star rating.  This is the only fishing business out there that seems to have a good handle on SEO, So I would expect this.

3. The REAL KICKER.... a party boat that has been CLOSED FOR over 3 YEARS!!!!  They have 29 reviews with a 2.2 star rating!!!!!!!  The last review being 4 years ago. I even reported them as closed a couple of years ago.

I use ALL of the google features and do the best I can on SEO given I am a small business and cannot afford professional SEO.  But neither can the other fishing charters, except maybe the party boats.  Also, I have 86 reviews with a 5 star rating.  I recently updated my website, but I am sure it could be better. I have also been using Google+ to post.  And I have been doing more youtube videos.

I do appreciate the tip on the posts and the q&a, and I will be doing that for sure!

I am bringing this topic up again.  Last year, I suddenly stopped ranking for Google Local search results.  I tried backing away and hoping it would correct itself, but it has not.  When I do a search for myself, I rarely show up in the results anymore, and this image shows AFTER I've zoomed WAY in just to find myself.  I think it has something to do with many fishing charters having the same address.  I read the Moz article about which signals are most important, but to be quite honest, I don't think any of these competitors really bother with SEO or even have filled out their Google My Business in its entirety.  They all have way less reviews than I do as well.  I really try to do everything right, but it doesn't seem to help.  Is there something small ad obvious that I am missing.  Any ideas on what to do?

Thank you!  I do plan to keep the internal linking the same, except the URL will change of course.  The site structure is staying the same, except the blog will be moving to the root directory instead of being in a sub directory.

Thanks for the advice on the XML sitemap!

Good to know!  Most of my searches are very specific, so I would say they are long-tail keywords.

Thank you, this is also very helpful!  I've never used Screaming Frog SEO Spider, so I will look into this!  As for scheduling, that's why I am doing this in January.  We are a tourism business, so we will peak in Feb / Mar.  I'm hoping that 4-6 weeks will be enough to bounce back if we drop any.  I do run Google PPC as well, so if it does drop, I'll have to up my PPC campaign.  How long does it usually take to settle back out?

Thank you!  That is very helpful.  I will test the 301s!  And thanks for letting me know to expect a 15% loss.  Will that come back over time?  I don't even want to lose one spot!  Haha!

I am in the process of having a wordpress site developed to replace my current HTML site. (I currently have my website in html and a blog in wordpress in a sub directory).  I am doing this in phases to try and preserve as much of my good rankings as possible.  My first phase is to replicate my site with the exact same pages, meta data, and site structure.  I'm hoping that google will see this as not much change and not change my rankings for the worse.  I also made it a goal that my site speed tests be at least equal to what they are now. We will have to 301 all of the URLs however since it will be going from /example.html to /example.  I believe my blog will also need to move into the root directory as well, so I need to 301 all of those pages.

I plan to wait a couple months for Phase 2.  Phase 2 involves replacing old content (photo galleries), and introducing new content (virtual tours, videos, new pages, etc.) One of my reasons for moving to wordpress is to keep up with current trends a little easier since I have very little time.  (I am owner, website maintainer, SEO - all on my own).

My question here is three parts.  1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? 2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? 3. Do I really need to wait to add new content?  I might get antsy and want to do it sooner!  

Thank you in advance!

I have two businesses, one is my main bread and butter and the other is an invest and try to grow type of business. This second business is a nature / education related business, so I would like to have a repository of informative nature articles with some splashes of our experience with that particular plant or animal.

I spend a lot of time on SEO and article writing on my main business, but I am running out of myself to go around. I would like to outsource article / blog writing on my second businesses, but I'm not sure where to start. If I use one of those work for hire sites in the Moz outsourced content article, can I get them to format the blog with photos as well.  I need to have a complete as possible final product.  Ideally, I'm thinking of this process:

1. Give the outsourced writer the subject matter (i.e. article about right whales)

2. I provide my own photography or photos I have purchased

3. Writer researches subject matter and writes an informative article

4. Writer logs into my blog and formats the article with interesting fonts and the photos I have provide

5. I edit the article to add my own experience with the subject matter

6. I publish the article

I'm thinking I would do this twice a month.  Is this a reasonable thing to outsource?  Could it work this way?  Any idea what an article like this might cost me?  I'm doing some marketing budget planning. Thanks in advance!

This is an interesting experiment.  I am also hesitant to do this because NAP has been the best practice for so long.  It would be impossible to change all of the citations as well.  I am really interested to see how this plays out, however.

I wanted to give an update of what I am seeing for our Google My Business page.  I am seeing that there are 2-3 fishing charters listed at each marina now, which is good.  I am only seeing my business in about 25% of them.  The good thing is that my adwords account is working and I am showing up for most of my tracked terms in adwords.

Miriam,

I think the "filter" is still there, its just that we have bubbled back up to the 3 pack on a few of our search terms.  When I look at each of my key search terms, however, there is still only 1 fishing charter from each address displaying.  I am really happy, however, to see us getting back to the top!  Thanks for checking in on me!

I also wanted to add that before this change, we ranked in the top 3 for 16/24 of my top tracked search terms.  Now we rank for 1/24 of them.  I can get us to come up on most of them after I click on "top rated" on a mobile site.

The official address of the restaurant, store, and marina is 505 Glen Cheek Dr. However, if you plug 500 Glen Cheek Dr into a GPS or Google Maps, it takes you to about the same place. The dropped pin actually looks like it is in the water a little.  I don't think anyone else is officially using this address. Although, some of the other charters do what we do.  Eventually, they could end up changing just because they notice that we did.

I have the same feeling you do... I feel like I should wait.  Plus, if I made an address change, it would be a ton of work.  And I would never be able to truly change all of the citations.

Thank you Miriam, I am pins and needle to see how this shakes out. I would like to expand on why this does NOT improve the user experience. In our case, there is a cruise terminal right next to our Marina. Anyone searching for a fishing charter would think they have 1 choice. And like you said, if they are booked, then who? Then they would have to take a taxi to the next fishing charter instead of seeing there are 8 to chose from within walking distance.

I also want to point out that we come back in the results of you choose "top rated". So why not show us to begin with?

My husband wonders if there is any connection to Adwords (I told him I don't think so, that would be unethical). We had stopped using Adwords because our position was good. We just turned Adwords back on because of this change. It feels like organic search results are almost irrelevant on mobile now. You have to go past 3-4 ads, the 3 pack and then you get to organic results. So, now to be found, it seems like you either have to have ads or be in the 3 pack.

Ugh!!!  It really is that.  I did a lot of searches and each time a different fishing charter comes up for 505 Glen Cheek Dr.  This is so aggravating.  Our marina has the most hard core competitors... actually the best fishing charters there are in the area. Plus, there is a party boat at that address and since they are so large, they can afford a good SEO. The other marinas don't have as much competitiveness, so Google really isn't showing "the best" results to their searchers.  How do we get this feedback to Google?  This is clearly a BAD idea!  There are so many businesses that share a building or strip... this really is unfair to any business that shares an address. This is our family business and how we feed our family and our captain's families. These changes really stress me out.  

Miriam,

It really looks like Google is only picking ONE person from each address to display.  This makes me wonder if I should take the painstaking task of changing my address slightly.  For instance, people can still find me if they type in 500 Glen Cheek Drive versus 505 Glen Cheek Drive.  Since we don't receive mail at the marine (our office is at home), then I only need it for driving directions.  Of course, I can only change the ones I created. There are no doubt a ton of citations that I didn't create with my address on them.  So then that might be worse because then Google will see 2 addresses. What do you think?

Thank you,

Amber

1.  Yes, my address is Cape Canaveral, but we are located at Port Canaveral.  So, that does get confusing.  And even more, there are multiple private charter boat companies, including a larger head boat, a restaurant, marina, and marina store all at the same address.

2. YES, I read the entire article!! Thank you!  I saw examples of EXACTLY what is happening to me!  Thank you for that link.

3. I did look in the console and my web master tools to see if any actions had been taken against me.  I didn't see anything.  And when I called GMB, he said my account was not suspended.  He just kept giving me the "you need to optimize your site" speech.  He kept iterating for me to refrain from editing and to only add photos and review responses.  I think Moz local edited my listing in July and I edited it after I saw the drop.

4. I don't know how to see my edit history.  But, he told me it was edited in July and again in Sept and kept telling me that was way too frequent.  Conversely, in the video he sent me, Google says to "keep your information up to date".

5. I will post in that forum and see what happens.  Good idea, thank you!

Okay... I did what you said and zoomed in and back out.  I did find myself, so that is good news. Now, I just need to figure out how to reach the top again.  I also noticed on my phone that if I click the filter at the top for "top rated" then I pop back up to the top.  I haven't seen these options before, so maybe they are new. It does seem like there is A LOT of flux going on here.

Thank you for all of your help and keeping up with me!

When I search for my business name, it shows the Google my Business knowledge panel on the right hand side.  It has my name in big letters.  Under that, it has my reviews.  Then under that it says in gray letters "Fishing Charter in Port Canaveral, Florida"

Hi Miriam,

Thank you for taking a look.  My issue is not resolved.    I used to appear in the top 3 for nearly every search term.  So for instance, on my knowledge panel, it says "Fishing Charter in Port Canaveral, Florida".  But, if I type that in a search bar, my business is not listed in any of the map results.  (But I still rank #3 on the organic search results).  I have more reviews than most everyone else.  And a 4.9 rating.  And there are business that are closed down showing.  And businesses that seem to have never claimed their listing showing.  I'm just not understanding why I am not.

I called Google My Business and they were not really any help at all.  He kept telling me that I made a recent edit and that makes popularity go down.  I told him that I dropped out of the results and had edited after the drop.  There was another unverified business listing there.  It was listed as an AdWords account.  So, we got rid of that.

Another thing... if I look at the Google Maps analytics, I am still getting views.  I'm just not sure how I am still getting views when I can't even find myself on maps using a variety of search terms.  Is there any way to see what search terms are used for maps?

My website is www.sealeveler.com and the name is Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters. I have been getting these recorded calls saying my business is not verified from "Google" for a long time now. I always just hung up. I know it wasn't Google because they say they don't do automated calls. But, I guess somehow there was a duplicate listing for some time now. I have no idea how it got there.

I noticed that my Google Local page does not show in any search results anymore.  Looking at Moz Local, it appears that I had 250 views on August 30th and 0 after that.  It just dropped overnight.  I looked at Google My Business and I noticed that I had a duplicate listing (no idea where it came from).  It wasn't verified though.  I deleted that.  I also noticed that my address has been changed to Drive instead Dr.  I was very careful in making it the same everywhere, but it changed without me changing it.  Perhaps someone so kindly "suggested an edit" and I didn't see that happen.

Anyone have any ideas.  My organic search ranking is still strong.  #3 for most search terms.  And we have a very strong Google Local reviews.  I mean, it even shows business that have been permanently closed over me!!!  And we have photos, great reviews, and regularly post to Google+.

I seriously need some help.  I am a small business owner that does all of my own SEO because I can't afford a good SEO.

Also, I've tried to call Trip Advisor... no luck... they don't have a phone number.  I've tried emailing them, no luck there either.  Its a black hole.

Incentives are technically against Trip Advisors policies.    I don't think you are even supposed to offer anything in return, 5 star or not.  I usually try to play by the rules because getting burned can be worse sometimes.  Was thinking about having a contest... but that seems to be against the rules too.

Incentivizing is against Trip Advisors rules.    They don't want to you to even offer something in exchange for review.  And you certainly can't ask to offer anything in return for a 5 star review.

Yeah, honestly... I'm not sure how you can change a business based on tourism to not be reliant on Trip Advisor.  I don't really like them to be honest with you.  It is a headache managing the reviews and the process. I rank well on all organic searches .. 1 to 3 on most of the terms I track.  But, its the market dynamics right now.  Most people go to Trip Advisor to find things to do while on vacation... or at least check out your reviews.  And if there is someone that out ranks you, then they will go to their webpage regardless of finding you first.

Do you have any suggestions, because I am all ears...lol!  

This might be too off-topic for Moz, but I think many of us might face the same issue, so I thought I would ask.

Love them or hate them, we get 90% of our business from being #1 on Trip Advisor.  My biggest competition is trying very hard to take over that #1 spot, so we are working to keep it.

Has anyone found a seamless way to ask customers for TripAdvisor reviews?  We email, text, ask over the phone.  But here the problem, Trip Advisor is not the easiest site to leave a review on.  If you are on your phone, they want you download the app.  Some people don't like to download apps. Or, if they have the app already and click "yes" to open the site in the app, it goes to the app store instead.  There doesn't seem to be as much of an issue on the PC, but most people do everything from their phones now.  And if something is a little bit hard, people are less likely to go out of their way to leave a review.

So, here's my question.  Has anyone found a better way?  Maybe a form on my website?  Or a process that seems to work better?

This does have some SEO implications in that my Trip Advisor page does show up in search results quite a bit as well as much home page.  Sometimes they are #2 and #3 together.

This is an example of one of our blog posts... one of my favorites.  Maybe I should highlight these better somehow...

http://www.sealeveler.com/flfishingblog/summer-time-highs-lows-go-pros/

Thank you again so much!  It is amazing to find people willing to help out us small businesses. You have no idea really how much I appreciate it!

The blog is listed on the front page about 3/4 the way down (http://www.sealeveler.com/flfishingblog/florida-fishing-blog).  I have been thinking I should put it in the menu, but my husband doesn't want me to change the menu. I would have to get rid of something that's there, or make a pull down menu.  He is against pull down menus because he thinks a large portion of our customers get confused by pull down menus (a large portion of our customers aren't very computer literate and always compliment us on the simplicity of our site). But, our customer base is slowly changing to those that are used to technology. But, he likes how simple our menu is... so I keep it.... for now.    If I make my move to Wordpress... this will provide an opportunity for menu redesign.  lol!

Our blog is a combination of fishing reports and fishing stories told by my husband.   Many of them are about customers and are pretty good stories.  One of them has a video our customer sent to us and allowed us to use.  A teenager put the video together and did a great job!  We have been lacking on the stories lately because I have been starting a new business and put most of my focus there.  We will need to get back on the stories though.  We have also started fishing forecast reports, which are getting a lot of attention through facebook.  And, I plan to start to share fishing charter videos via the blog as well.

I agree on the boats page and I need to do that.  It is validating to hear you say that as well.  We are in the process of upgrading many of our boats and plan to take better photos as well.  So, thank you for mentioning that.  It puts more of a fire under my backside to hear you say that.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my site!!!  So kind of you!

I will make the updates on NAP on the Contact and Location page, good suggestion!

I have tried to balance my on-page SEO for searches for 4 of the local cities and do rank 1-4 on most of them.  So, maybe that is why the optimization isn't as clear as it should be.  I used to have keyword pages for each of the locations (when that was sort of the thing to do and I didn't know very much about SEO). Over the last 2 years, I have been redirecting them and re-organizing my site. Sometimes I feel like it might be easier to start over rather than keep tweaking my current site.  I am considering a move to WP.  I am just afraid of hurting my current rankings.

When you say "your content is on the modest side", what would you suggest I do to build it up to more impressive heights?  Are you talking technical on-page SEO?  Or, better/more photos?  Better on-page organization?  We are trying to start doing a better job at our blog (which is on WP), so my site is sort of an html / WP hybrid.  And I do know that I need to optimize image sizes, it is on my list of things to do.

Sorry if my questions seem rudimentary, I am not SEO trained and do it all myself.  I just try to do what Google says in their guide and what Moz says in their articles.

Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters

Thanks Robert!  I appreciate you taking the time to help me again!

Yelp calls me all the time.  I just can't get a warm fuzzy about their offering.  But, I get what you are saying.  I will look at them again and see if it makes sense now. I will check out Amazon services... that hasn't even crossed my mind!  And, I will keep an eye out for this Google services you are referring to.  I am surprised at some of Google latest changes, including getting rid of the Adwords side bar.  We don't use Adwords much anymore though.

I have to be honest, we have more business than we can handle right now.  But, I am always trying to stay on top of things, and hopefully not keep all of my eggs in one basket.  As you know, Google can flip a switch at any time and leave us upside down and then my phone stops ringing. It just makes me bang my head against the wall to see competitors that only take a couple of charters a month and not even have their Google local page filled in outranking me. Crazy!

Thanks again!  

Another example is "deep sea fishing cape canaveral".  You can see similar results.  Cocoa Beach isn't technically our city.  Cape Canaveral is.

Robert,

That sounds exactly like my situation. March through November last year, I was consistently ranking 1/2/3 on most of my KW searches.  I got super busy starting a new business and didn't do my own rank search (was just keeping an eye on moz reports) and when I looked again in March, I found I was ranking 3-11.  My organic search results have increased dramatically since November, however.  Over all my KW searches, I net gained 22 spots.

A good example search is "deep sea fishing cocoa beach".  I don't come up in the top 3 locally.  I am 3 on organic rank.  I am 7 on local.  As you can see, I have more reviews than anyone else.  Some of my competitors don't even have information filled in.  If you click on us, we have most everything filled in.

Do you remember me?  We talked a year or so ago when I was freaking out about my organic ranking.  

Thank you, I am going to read this!

Nice to see you on here again Robert!  Thanks for the answer.  What information would I need to show you?

My organic search results have increased, but I noticed that my Google local search results have dropped drastically.  I haven't changed anything on the local side.  I consistently get reviews.  In my industry, I have more reviews (all 5 star) than anyone else.  It actually shows weird results, like competitors that have no reviews and don't even have all of their information filled out.  It is even showing competitors that are out of business.  I have a lot of citations with the same NAP.  I use Moz local for this purpose as well.

So, I am wondering if the algorithm has changed and if I need to update my profile to match it.

Thank you in advance!

My website is currently HTML because in the past, I liked a more hands-on approach and liked to have a high level of control over my code. My organic search rankings are very good. I do have a blog on wordpress now.

Despite all of this, I am considering moving to Word Press.  The reason is that the fancier website techniques are very easy to achieve with a wordpress theme or plug-in.  And some changes, such as menu, can be done at the high level versus the entire site.  Auto-responsive is built within the themes, so anytime a new device comes out, they update it so I don't have to. And, I would like to be more tightly integrated with my blog. I am also getting to the points that I have no time to code and would like something a little simpler to maintain.

BUT, I am scared to make the move and then completely lose my organic rankings.  I know that I will have to 301 all of the pages. And I know that I will have to maintain all my current on-page SEO by paying close attention to the headers and whatnot.

Do you all think that it is worth making the switch?  Is there a good chance my organic rankings will drop?

I know I have read that Google doesn't give much value to paid link backs.  My company has worked with a charitable organization (marine research and conservation) in the past and we were considering a corporate donation to them.  My question is, would there be value in this from an SEO standpoint?  There are many many other company links listed on this page.  The area we would be listed would be towards the top of the page. Also, they have a really good DA, 71.  I don't believe I have many if any .org / charitable organizations in my link profile.  Thanks!

I didn't even think about images.  That makes sense.  I did read the Google help document.... but it wasn't matching up with what I was seeing.  Thank you

I'm looking at Google Analytics -> Acquisition -> Search Engine Optimization -> Queries reports. I'm looking at keywords and the average position.  What Google reports and what I see in a Google incognito search is different (usually my search is much lower).  For example, for one search term, Google reports 5.8 average position and every time I search it is 8. My local result is 4. Anyone know why this is?  I'm wondering if Google is averaging the Local results into number?

This is very helpful! Thank you!

Also, I didn't know about the Moz tool bar, so I need to get that too!  I've been using the siteexplorer tool.

Thank you, all!  Your answers are what I thought was okay to begin with.  When I started reading Penguin articles, it was seeming that many things I thought were okay were not and it was really confusing. I did read that Point Blank article several months back and made a strategy to employ many of the concepts in there.

I have around 14% anchor text that isn't just my company name and is some kind of keyword phrase.  Is that okay? The rest is some form of my website or company name.