I just want to chime in on the "most people don't bother to consult sitemaps  - if they need to consult it to find their way on your site you probably have a UX problem" statement.

I agree, but a lot of sites DO have a UX problem, and for that reason I use HTML sitemaps. If you're in a hurry, and let's face it, everyone is, you can go directly to the HTML sitemap and search for whatever it is you're looking for. And yes, a lot of sites still DON'T have search either b/c they think their UX is fine and therefore don't need search. Can't tell you how many times I've had that conversation with site developers....

Hi RC,

No. The business / company does not need to and should not change. The business name should be listed as "Company Name" only. No location.

What you need to do to differentiate your different business locations is to ensure they each have a unique local number and dedicated page on your website.

Here are Google guidelines if you have not seen them already - https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en.

Rand,

It's very hard to repeatedly explain a 30-40% fluctuation in an exponential metric with savvy clients. I'm finding the metric can't be used, especially with smaller websites or competing sites with large differentials in link or page counts. Will the long term efforts Moz has underway address this concern? Is there a ceiling in terms of website size that you don't recommend using the metric under?

I know you keep getting the same questions over and over. That's perhaps part of the reason.

Phil Rozek of Local Visibility Systems has an excellent blog post from April of last year that explains exactly where you can go to list your business without having to disclose an address. Highly recommended.

Hi Taysir,

Hard to tell without more information or domains and keywords that we could try and observe ourselves. You might want to supply those to us. Are you observing organic or local search rankings? Assuming you're observing local search results:

1. What's the relative proximity to city center, you vs the competition?
2. Who has more or better citations?
3. Have you claimed and completely populated your local listings, most importantly, your Google local listing?
4. Is it properly categorized and is that categorization reflected in the terms you use throughout your site in keywords, headings, body text, geo and schema tags?
5. Have you created and submitted a geo sitemap?
6. Are you using a consistent name, address and phone number on every page of the site?
7. Do you have a Google map embedded onto your contact page?
8. Who has more reviews?

Don't feel a need to respond if any of my questions triggers the answer you're looking for. But if it doesn't, probably supplying us with your keywords and domain would be your next best bet.

Good luck!

"Are there more advantages in using Moz Local besides the convenience? For those that use it, what else have you found to be beneficial?"

Hi Eric,

In my mind, there are a couple of advantages to using Moz or one of the other high-quality citation building services over doing it manually.

(1) Consistency - you have a way of ensuring your company name, address, and phone number (NAP) data is consistently distributed to a large proportion of local business directories, GPS devices, and local applications in the United State. Consistency is one of the ways you ensure your business is being credited with all the citations you build.

(2) Accuracy - Moz points out errors, inconsistencies, and duplicates which you then have the opportunity to fix. When you build citations manually, it can be difficult to identify and fix these. (3) Completeness - Moz gives you a single point of contact for distribution of your citation data to the four local data aggregators and Foursquare (which feeds Pinterest and other local search apps).

(3) Completeness - Moz gives you a single point of contact for distribution of your citation data to the four local data aggregators and Foursquare (which feeds Pinterest and other local search apps).

(4) Convenience (as you mentioned) - The single point of contact is especially helpful if you plan on updating supplementary data like photos and menus, have a large number of reviews you want to track and respond to, or if you know the business plans on moving or changing its phone number in the near future.

(5) Support - I personally find the tool and process very confusing but Moz has great support and they get back to you quickly. Local search is very confusing in its own right. This is not necessarily a bad reflection on Moz, as there's always room for improvement.

(6) Cost - The fee is fair and reasonable. Not the cheapest. Also not the most expensive.

I'm with you Rose. The alt tag describes the image. If you want it to include your your keywords, assuming they're some combination of "Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration" (your page title tag content), you could alter it to say "noncustodial parent with his young son". You could do the same with the file name, include "noncustodial-parent-son".

Here are google's guidelines, as conveyed by Matt Cutts, head of Google's Web spam team and defacto SEO spokesperson.

There are some pretty good resources right here on Moz Christopher:

• http://moz.com/blog/topic-modeling-semantic-connectivity-whiteboard-friday (whiteboard Friday)
• http://moz.com/blog/semantic-seo-questions (blog)
• http://moz.com/webinars/semantic-seo-for-the-people (webinar)
• http://www.slideshare.net/MatthewBrownPDX/strings-to-things-the-move-to-semantic-seo-mozcon-2013 (Mozcon slide presentation)