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Hi Jeremy,

Interesting question. My company has been working with urgent care clinics going all the way back to 1999, and over the last 5 years or so we have developed a fair amount of experience with telemedicine. In many cases, we have an individual clinic that already has business listings, and we are just adding on a new service. But I've also worked with a national telemed company that had ties to some local practices who had listings, but they themselves did not as they didn't have a base of operations in each state/city.

In addition , I've worked with some smaller practices  that are in between these extremes. These are primarily virtual clinics, but not 100%. They may see some patients in person (more of a concierge model mixed in with the urgent care), or they may just have a home base from which they network, and get a big chunk of their clients from one community where they live. In these cases, there is enough of a local tie to justify a local listing. Also, these are generally newer startups.

So in general, if you are dealing with a business that has a system with docs who are licensed in multiple states, and don't have some real presence in the localities, then listings are not appropriate. But if the doctor has a legitimate tie to and base in a particular community, then a local listing makes sense.

If you have more details about your specific situation, I may be able to give you some additional ideas.

Ira

Hi Bob,

I have developed a few niches, and maybe the ways I found those will give you some ideas.

Back in the late 90s, I worked on a few medical practice websites. Based on that experience, I began to develop a niche building websites and doing online marketing (including but not limited to SEO) for medical practices. We have worked with many medical specialties, but along the way we began working with many urgent care practices, and thus developed an even stronger program for this specialty. We can do a great job for just about any type of practice; for urgent care, we can do even more. We are now looking into replicating this deeper focus with other medical specialties.

So, the lesson here is to examine your own current client base, and look for industries where you can replicate what you are already doing. Or if you don't yet have a client base, focus on your past work experience. Based on the options you come up with, I'd consider things like the level of competition for others focusing on that niche, and how much you like working with that type of business.

Of course, one thing about medical practices is that they are local businesses. We generally don't take on 2 clients in the same market, because then we'd just be competing against ourselves. That said, still have an a huge number of prospects when you consider all of the medical practices out there.

And this leads me to the 2nd niche that we have. By working with medical practices, we learned how to do local. I would occasionally get clients in other industries, and began to realize that local marketing techniques are pretty similar for many industries. So, our 2nd niche is local marketing. On that side of the business, we have a strong focus on our home city of Portland, OR. In addition, since we are already doing local marketing in dozens of other cities around the country, we are learning to target other businesses in the cities where we already have clients.

In general, I think there is a big need for more people to specialize in local SEO.

Hope this helps you find your direction!

Ira

Agreed, this will often work.   We'll usually check with the post office or delivery person directly to make sure there will be no issues.

You seem to have 2 meta robots lines, the first is set to index (line 60), but the second is set to noindex (line 85). (from view-source:http://www.sierratradingpost.com/blog/climbing/choose-right-rock-climbing-shoes/)

One of my clients has a competitor who has a fairly poor reputation based on reviews on Google and Yelp. But, this competitor allows people to review them on their own website, and their "4.8" rating based on 250+ "reviews" show up in search engine results. I assume they are using schema markup to encourage that. My question is whether there is anything we can do to report this to Google, or otherwise make sure the general public is not fooled by these reviews?

In general, the closer a word is the the start of the title tag, the more weight it will have for SEO.

Beyond that, I think the "Blue Linen Chesterfield Sofa, Duck Egg" format reads better, so I'd go with that approach.

Hope this helps,

Ira

Hi Drew,

This article has the best info on the facebook.com/referral question that I've seen - https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Articles/facebook-com-referral-on-Google-Analytics/ba-p/539366.

As for the discrepancy you are seeing between FB and GA, I've seen similar issues at times - hoping someone else will have some insight into that one!

Ira

Normally the theme name would be listed in the main CSS file on the site, which in this case appears to be http://www.zoompondy.com/wp-content/themes/zpondy/style.css,  but it seems to be missing (not sure how they got away with that one). Based on the amount of custom code in the style.css, I'd guess this is a custom theme rather than a child theme.

In case this helps, they used what appears to be almost the same theme on this related site http://www.zoomsydney.com/, but that one doesn't give us any more details about a possible parent theme.

I was doing some research today and came across a business that has 5 reviews, all 5 stars. For some reason, their average is showing as 4.8, instead of a perfect 5.

Looking at some other businesses, I see one with 4 5-stars, 1 4-star, and 1 1-star. 25/6 = 4.1666666.  That would round to 4.2, but Google lists them as 4.3.

Is Google just bad at math, or are they using some other factor in calculating these averages?

I would absolutely create individual landing pages for each location.   This should be part of your foundation, and will best allow you to promote the brick and mortar locations, both on the site and via directories.

As for the 2nd part of your question, I think you are asking if you should then use the homepage title tag to go after general keywords that could lead to ecommerce sales?   If so, my gut says that you should leave the homepage as is, and create new subpages for non-local long tail words.   That said, all pages of the site should include info about all 3 cities, so you are not looking at an either/or situation.

All of those factors are important. You should be determining the focus keyword for each page on the site, and then make sure that your url, page title, headlines, along with your meta description, alt tags, image names, and overall page content are working together to optimize the page for the chosen focus.

In general, you should consider whether a link is valuable for the people visiting the other site. If so, then it is worth adding. If not, and it is simply a link exchange for the sole purpose of attempting to improve SEO, then you should not bother.

I agree, they should.   But you  might be surprised at the number of medical practices that simply do not have a knowledgeable security advisor.

I don't think the best hosting has to be the most expensive, so going by what you can afford isn't the best guideline.

If your site is performing well, you have no security concerns, and the hosting company is responsive to support requests, then I'm not sure why you'd need to look for anything else. If you feel you are having trouble ranking well, attracting visits to the site, or converting those visits to customers/members/subscribers (or whatever conversion is appropriate for your business model) then you might want to consider the benefits of a hosting upgrade.

Is there a specific issue you are trying to solve?

First, I'd say it is quite normal for your homepage to outrank interior pages, even when the interior page is much more specifically optimized for the term.   Here are some thoughts:

1. Make sure there is a link straight to the Cooking section above the fold on the homepage
2. Do you have sitelinks yet in your Google results?  If so, you can demote any that are less relevant...  and make sure to leave the cooking/baking sitelinks in place.  https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/47334?hl=en
3. I would focus on adding content in the cooking section.   Beyond posts about specific classes, can you come up with a new page or 2 of general cooking content to add each month?
4. Overall, it appears the site is very new.   A steady flow of new content to the categories, along with the effects of time, should get you the results you are looking for.

Hi Andrew,

As someone who works with many medical practices, we've found that even though Google allows for the practitioner listings, they can be more trouble than they are worth. We use them in some cases, but not by default. In your case, I'm a bit confused as to who the actual provider would be, and how that would relate to your service. Are there specific providers who only use your medical testing system? Or can you give an example of who these providers would be?

As for the linking strategy, this seems smart. Overstock's issue was that they were compensating people as part of large program for providing links. In your case, you are talking about placing a limited number of links that are accurate and relevant. As a legitimate partner, it seems perfectly reasonable that you'd have a mention and link attesting to your relationship.

Hope that helps. If you can provide more detail on your ideas for the provider pages, there may be a creative way to use those in addition to a link.

Ira

(Edited to clean up my typos.

Overall, I think a combination of all 4 of your ideas will help tremendously.

How about using a tagline to get the message across?    If the client is opposed to changing the official brand tagline, even an unofficial "Title tag tagline" would allow you to build on your title tag suggestion.   Such as:

page-name | World-wide Cheese | HCM

Another thought - is it possible to list multiple addresses around the world, or at least several around the U.S.?  Listing Sales offices or distribution centers would help send the right signals.

On the schema side of things, some possible helpers:

• http://schema.org/isicV4 if you have an SIC code that distinguishes you as more than a local business.
• http://schema.org/brand - identifying the geo term inside the brand tag seems like a good idea.
• Also, I'd avoid using any of the schema that are specific to http://schema.org/LocalBusiness, such as opening hours or payment

Hi Peter,

You'll want to make sure that your branch/location pages have a combination of the following:

• Links to the pages of the services they provide - if all branches deliver all products/services, then your main navigation should be fine, but if there are differences or specialties, you should highlight those on the location page (or a sub-page of the location page).
• Unique content - at the very least, an embedded map and a picture of the branch.
• Any additional relevant content that is unique to that location.

Then, on your Category pages, you'll want to make sure you have clear info about your locations. If you only have a handful of locations, you can probably include the full citation (name/address/phone) info for all of them in a footer or sidebar. If you have many locations, you'll want to make sure the location finder is a key part of all the category pages.

There are also off-site things you can do. If your reviews, social media mentions, and backlinks mention specific services while linking to a specific location, that will help that branch rank for those categories.

Hope this helps,

Ira

OK, so based on that situation, I don't think Provider listings are the way to go.

But, you might consider just getting a regular listing, if the situation at the clinics allow for you to get a unique mailing address. If there is a suite number, or other way to get a unique address not used for any other listing, and this suite is inside the office/clinic where patients  would go, then you could create a listing for the brand using that address.

As long as you pair that with a unique and local phone number, and as long as the patients are being sent to the correct spot, this approach should allow you to get the local listings. Of course, this would be dependent on the university or other organization being able to provide you (and allowing you to use) that unique mailing address.

Make sense?

I've been thinking about ways to deal with referral spam in Google Analytics. From what I can tell, most if not all of this is coming from outside the U.S. I'd love any insight into the following questions related to this issue:

For U.S. based local businesses, I'm wondering if we should just block all traffic from outside of the U.S. -would there be negative SEO factors if we use this approach?

Would it be better to just create GA segments to filter out this traffic, rather than actually blocking it?

Has anyone found success in using filters or segments in this way?

Is anyone seeing referral spam from within the U.S.?

Edit: I just came across this suggestion, that setting 2 filters (for invalid hostname and screen resolution) can solve most of the issue. Any insight on this alternative vs. my ideas above??  https://www.distilled.net/resources/quick-fix-for-referral-spam-in-google-analytics/

It seems like this is an issue with BLC, I don't think it will actually cause you any issues. This post suggests adding LinkedIn to the BLC exclusion list to address the issue. The only problem there is you can't actually depend on BLC to check those links. Based on a review of various reports of similar issues, this problem is not limited to BLC, but any attempt to check too much/too fast on LinkedIn.

In researching the issue of referral spam, there is no shortage if info, both on MOZ and beyond. But, neither the Google Analytics Blog or Help Forums seem to mention the issue at all. I'd think it is something that they would want to get rid of, yet it seems like they don't even acknowledge that it exists.

Anyone have insights into this? Am I missing something, or is Google strangely silent on an issue that is becoming more and more annoying for anyone trying to use GA data?

In theory, the listings changes you are suggesting should all work. But, Google My Business does not always work they way they say they are supposed to, especially when significant changes like this are made.

In some cases, we've made a change of a name or address for a business, and after the correct info was in place for a few days or weeks, it reverted back to the old info. One way to help avoid this is to make sure that you update all the business listings, not just Google. If Google sees the change you made being made across all directories, they are much less likely to revert anything.

As long as the listing is verified before you make any changes, you should not run into issues there. And assuming you'll be listing this business on your website, and updating all listings to point to your website, your site will benefit.

It has been my experience that the distance between a business location and the search location depends on the amount of competition for that product/service. If there were 10 competitors in the zip code where someone is searching, you are not likely to see results in the top 3 from outside of that area. But if there aren't many options in or near that zip code, you'll see results from further away.

Another factor that seems to influence where results are displayed is the location of people who review the listing. If a listing has many reviews from a given town, it seems that Google is more likely to display that listing to others in that town. And, since you have reviews on both of your listings, but your competitors do not seem to have any, your ranking is being bumped up as a result. Good job on the reviews!

Hope this helps,

Ira

Just to clarify, they actually do have a physical address. So it wasn't that I was trying to add them as a SAB without a physical address, just that the categories are very limited. Other than the 10 or 20 listed in the dropdown, it appears you can't choose any other categories for now.

Ah, wasn't even thinking about the fact that you need to provide an address either way, but it definitely seems they are only looking for physical places that people are likely to visit. There is a prominent link to claim the business, but of course that only matter is you are the actual business owner or representative. So as an agency, we have our normal options (which in our case luckily includes Google's  GYBO program).

In the case of my flooring contractor, he is still just a prospect, so I thought this might be a great first step. It is pretty rare that I find any established business that is in no way listed in Google Business, but here is the whole list of categories in that can take advantage of this new option:

1. Home
2. Restaurant
3. Bar
4. Clothing store
5. Homegoods store
6. Electronics store
7. Supermarket
8. Shopping Mall
9. Movie Theater
10. Gas Station
11. School
12. Grocery Store
13. Cafe
14. Hospital
15. Doctor
16. Pharmacy
17. Museum
18. Night Club
19. Bank
20. ATM
21. Gym
22. Private Home
23. House
24. Residence
25. Private Residence

So, 20 that are actually business categories, focused on food, healthcare, and retail, along with 5 different ways of identifying a living residence rather than business. It will be interesting to learn how effective this method of adding info to Google becomes, and whether they expand it to new categories.

Interesting...  just tried to add a flooring contractor, but there is no relevant category available. The list of categories seems to be very limited, at least at this point. Specifically, service area businesses don't seem to be included yet.