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Hi Erin,
Chris' advice is exactly what I would have given. Go ahead and add the 800 number to the masthead of the website or elsewhere in image text. Just be sure that the indexable text on the website features the local number, and be sure that this local number is the one being used on all of the client's citations. Consistency is king in Local SEO.
Hi Bob, I'm not aware of a reliable free tool for managing citation accuracy. Yext's paid tool would probably do what you want, but it is costly. Really, the best way to do this is search for your business names/phone numbers, make a spreadsheet of everything you find indexed and then go through the process of claiming and editing any citations you can. It's a hard slog, but worth it to achieve better consistency of data across the web.
Hi Rahul,
Good question!
Of course, there is nothing actually 'illegal' about duplicate or thin content...it is simply unwise. I can completely understand the frustration with this when you see competitors employing a dumb tactic like the one you've described (creating tons of thin, duplicate pages and simply changing out the city name on each one) and managing to rank well in Google for it. I've seen lots of examples like that over the years, too. Often, these pages are old and have unfairly accrued 'trust' in Google because of that. They totally don't deserve to rank, but even despite Google's duplicate content penalties, they are. So, you are faced with a temptation to follow their example. You've seen those old cartoons where the character has a little angel and a little devil on either shoulder. What your competitors are doing represents that little devil. I'll take the role of angel here in hopes of helping you to see why you shouldn't go with the devil 
Your competitors are showing every human being who visits their website that they are happy with making the least possible effort. If they make the least possible effort for their own business, just think of what a poor effort they must make for their clients' websites. I certainly wouldn't want to hire such a lazy, uncreative web design team. Would you?
Your competitors are sitting ducks for a duplicate content penalty from Google. Even if they are getting away with this today, tomorrow could be the day Google hammers down on them or an algo change makes all of that stuff on their website invisible for good. I certainly wouldn't want that kind of constant threat of disaster hanging over my head. Would you?
Your competitors are providing a very poor user experience for their website's human visitors. Instead of trying to be helpful and share what they know about designing websites in Boston or Atlanta or San Francisco, they are simply trying to manipulate people. Every page on a website represents an opportunity to educate, to inspire, to engage. Not only are your competitors being manipulative, they are missing a massive opportunity to build relationships with potential customers. This is a huge loss!
Your competitors are teaching all of their colleagues that they have no standards of excellence. In the Internet Marketing industry, lots of pros refer clients to colleagues whom they trust. For example, my firm doesn't do citation cleanup. I have a colleague who does and am happy to refer incoming clients to him because he has proven to me that he has very high standards. His website, blog and track record on the web prove his authority and dedication to excellence. There is absolutely no way I would refer a client to a web design firm whose website was littered with duplicate doorway pages. So, there is more lost opportunity.
I hope these few examples are starting to build a clear picture in your mind of how failure to take the high road can harm your business in a variety of ways. I recommend that you shake your head at what your competitors are doing and resolve that you will leave them in the dust by building awesome, unique, useful, inspiring pages and utilize your very best SEO skills to help those pages to rank well. Building your business on the web calls for maximum effort and maximum creativity - not minimum effort. Get fired up and do this right! It will serve you well in the long haul.
Hi Aran,
If your business is going to operate 10 or more locations, I believe this is the page you're looking for:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=178024
This page describes the process of creating a bulk upload spreadsheet.
Alternatively, you can do each listing manually. Just be sure you follow all of the guidelines that Malcolm has linked to in the Google Places Quality Guideline page.
Does this answer your question? Please, just let me know if you intended something else.
Hi Rachel,
Unfortunately, this is one of those questions in which terminology confusion can get in the way of a clear answer. Even Google is confused about what they are calling their various products. I'm not totally clear about your business model and your Google products from your description.My advice will be general here:
If your business is truly local (has a name, a physical address, a local phone number and face-to-face transactions with customers) then you are entitled to a single Google Places/Google+ Local page for the business. You should probably not attempt to merge because of the huge problems still surrounding Google's merging situation.
If your business is truly local and has multiple locations, you can create a Google Place page for each location, but should not attempt to merge, as this is unsupported for multi-location businesses.
If your business is not local (doesn't meet the parenthetical criteria I mentioned above) then you can create a simple Google+ page for the brand, rather than attempting to utilize the more local features of the Google.
Does this help?
Hi Ray,
Harvey is definitely pointing you in the right direction. Definitely read David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors. It is the premiere annual industry report. *Do bear in mind that the last report (I'm a yearly participant) was published just prior to the launch of the whole Google+ Local system, so it does not reflect that big change. Here are 2 pieces I send my own clients when they are just getting acquainted with Local:
The Zen of Local SEO
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1314
The Rudiments of Local
SEO http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1344
Local ranking factors are very diverse...there may be more than 200 factors in Google's local algo. Here are some of the most widely cited factors:
Lack of violations on your Google Places/Google+ Local profiles. Nothing kills rankings like violations. Memorize the guidelines: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528
Age and authority of your domain (you can't control age but you can build authority) - Local and traditional optimization of your website
Consistency, quantity and quality of citations
Quantity of Google-based reviews
Proximity to city centroid of the target city and proximity to Google's cluster of similar businesses
Traditional SEO factors such as quantity and quality of links and co-occurrence.
Social factors
That's just a start, but it does sum up some of the main things that go into achieving a high local rank in the city in which your business is physically located. Read David Mihm's report, the 2 articles I've linked to and the Google Places Quality Guidelines I've linked to and you will develop a very clear picture of your business' opportunities, its present failings and its room to grow.
Hi Donnie,
If you're vacating the old address and will be located solely in the new office, you need to change all existent listings and citations to reflect your new address. The reason this is so important is that Google can become very confused if they find two sets of NAP (name, address, phone number) for your business and may not trust your new information because the old info is hanging around out there.
As Guy has pointed out, this is a time consuming process. Do a little every day and you can get it done. It really is necessary. Good luck!
Good discussion going on here, and thought I would add, if the business is Local in nature, rather than virtual, I strongly recommend against a multi-site approach. I wanted to clarify this in case members take a look at this thread and own a local business.
In addition to Malcolm's suggestions, just be sure you follow the guidelines to the letter to avoid penalties. That's very important.
Hi Rahul,
Google has done a very poor job of being clear in their terminology. The pack listing you see in Google stem from either the Google Places for Business Dashboard or the Google+ Local Dashboard. Some business listings also link to a business' Google+ page which is a social page instead of a local page.
This article from Google might help you:
https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2659170?hl=en
Don't feel alone - so many people are totally confused by this!
Hi Abi,
We're glad to have you here! I want to be sure I'm understanding your question. Yes, that rule is still true about Google only counting the first link to a given document. I believe you are concerned that if your menu doesn't say Auto Locksmith Boston, you will somehow be losing out. While it's good to have optimized items in your menu, you don't want to look spammy. This would look spammy to me in a menu, and I bet it might to Google to:
Auto Locksmith Boston
Auto Locksmith Portsmouth
Auto Locksmith Truro
Auto Locksmith Plymouth
It's just too repetitive. So, what can you do? You can create a main page for your locksmith services in your city of location. The goal of this page will typically be to attain high LOCAL rankings. You can then create city landing pages for your service radius cities, but don't stamp them out cookie-cutter fashion. Find something unique to write about your involvement in those other cities, and don't just list them in the menu like I've shown above. Write something interesting, helpful and cool. The goal of these pages will typically be ORGANIC rankings, because you're unlikely to locally outrank competitors in neighboring cities who have their physical shops there.
So, you are a single entity offering this single service...Auto Locksmithing. That deserves one page. But you can write up your service cities, too, so long as what you're doing is unique and useful.
In sum, I recommend that you menu contains a link for Auto Locksmith Services, and then you have a separate area of the menu showcasing your work in different cities. I do not recommend making a menu like the one above.
Hope this helps!
Hi Bob,
Where you live, are you still seeing a Google Place Page with a 'report a problem' link at the bottom of the page? If so, you'd go through the problem wizard. If not, you might try the troubleshooter:
http://support.google.com/places/?hl=en-US&rd=1
Again, 2 days ago I would have recommended both with confidence, but with the changes, I'm not sure how support has changed. Start with those recommendations and see where you get.
Hi Carla,
Here's a shortie-but-goodie from Barry Schwartz on this topic:
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-one-site-locations-15454.html
Note the quote from Goolger, John Mu, on that one.
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-one-site-locations-15454.html
And here is Google and Your Business forum Top Contributor Linda Buquet's educated opinion on this:
What the client needs to understand is that:
Their local business can have only 1 Google+ Local listing, linking to a single domain. If Google finds the business name attached to multiple websites, Google will be confused and lack 'trust' in the data cluster they create for the business. Similarly, if any other element of the business' core NAP (name-address-phone) is found on more than one website, this will cloud Google's understanding of the business. This can lead to accidental duplicate listing creation and ranking problems.
Your client will be splitting up their authority across multiple domains instead of building great authority on a single domain, where every action taken goes toward strengthening the brand.
Let's not forget Google's big recent targeting of EMDs. Though we didn't see drastic effects from this in Local, we all have received fair warning from the EMD penalty that Google is down on thin content, exact match domain sites. What I see in Local is a single business owner publishing thin and duplicate content on a set of domains like sanfranciscoplumber.com, sanjoseplumber.com, sanrafaelplumber.com, etc., and I believe Google has made it pretty clear that this type of activity is under scrutiny. I think there are definite risks associated with a multi-site approach.
And let's consider how this looks to the most important audience - potential customers. All local businesses must work to develop an authoritative, memorable brand that comes to mind instantly when a service is needed. If my hot water heater stops working, what is that brand, that domain name? Is it sanjoseplumber.com, sanrafaelplumber.com??? I can't remember. But if it's StanislovPlumbing.com - an honest representation of the business name that matches branding - and I've used their services before, my chances of remembering/recognizing them is much higher. To me, this is a very strong argument against splitting up brand/authority across multiple sites.
These are just a few reasons. I could likely come up with more, but honestly, I can't think of a single instance in which I would recommend that a small local business owner try to operate multiple websites. It is completely possible to rank well for a variety of service/geo terms with a single website with the right approach. Good luck in educating your client about this, Carla. Feel free to share this post with him, as well as the links I've provided.
Hi NewUser123, Unfortunately, this a known issue with the photo delays. Read this post and watch the video: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/15/google-for-business-forum-update-photos-uploaded-in-dashboard-may-take-1-month-to-appear/ You will see that you are in good company hassling with this. Hope Google will fix this issue soon. Hang in there! Miriam
Hi Scott,
While both forms of marketing are important, I agree with members' suggestions that citations should receive first focus. You might try to imagine a Local Search Marketing plan in this order:
On-page optimization===>Local Listings===>Ongoing content publication===>Reviews===>Social===>Linkbuilding===>Video
The last 3 items on that list may be optional, depending on how competitive the client's niche is. Everything on the list is important, but what you must do for each client will vary based on their unique level of competition.
Hi Storwell,
So nice to see you here! Well, this took some research on my part as I was quite surprised by what you had discovered. I had a Canadian colleague and a US colleague test this on their iPhones and they concur with your findings - you cannot leave a Google+ Local review on these devices. Pretty strange! The issue likely surrounds the fact that you cannot log in via the device, and as you have to be logged in these days in order to leave a review, this is probably what is getting in the way.
My Canadian colleague did get prompted with some sort of message along the lines of 'Add This To Your Homescreen' but he didn't follow through on it and couldn't get the message back again, so we're not sure what that was. It may have had nothing to do with this.
Right now, the full Google+Local display isn't even really available on the iPhone. It's more like Maps+Zagat ratings. I expect that Google is fully aware of the issue you've reported here, and will eventually address it. Thanks for bringing such an interesting question to Q&A!
Miriam
P.S. My American colleague just told me something else I thought I'd come back here and add. He is able to log in on his iPhone, but it doesn't appear to make any difference.
Hi Anton,
This is a good question. On visiting your Red Deer example page, a few concerns come up:
The text content is quite thin on this page. If it's this thin on the other pages, yes, that could be a problem.
If the text on the other pages is a duplicate or near-duplicate of the Red Deer page, then that is definitely a problem.
The optimization of the Red Deer page seems a bit awkward to me. 'Red Deer' just feels like it has been dropped into the text in a manner that doesn't read very naturally.
The text on the Red Deer page needs some TLC. Your major call to action contains an error in word choice:
Call 1-780-760-3333 for a free consolation.
These 4 elements do give some cause for concern that these pages may have been published without a lot of planning or effort going into them. Poorly planned and executed pages with thin or duplicate content can definitely water down the strength of your website. My view is that you need to find a reason for these landing pages to exist; a user-centric reason. What can you tell Red Deer customers about your work for Red Deer businesses that is unique? How does this differ from your Edmonton work?
I think a natural fit for website design firms taking the approach you would like to is to showcase their local clients in each chosen locale. Do awesome project writeups, case studies, infographics about the community, stat sharing, etc., to make each page unique and worth visiting. Never take a cookie cutter approach, or I think it will be readily apparent to Google and humans that you aren't making the most awesome effort you could to be the best possible answer for related queries. Hope this helps!
Hi JP,
I believe what you are describing is Google+ Business Pages and Google+ Local Pages (the pages that replaced Place Pages a couple of months ago). If I've misunderstood, please correct me.
Right now, multi-location businesses are having all kinds of trouble because Google has not yet truly clarified their policy on this. According to Google employee, Vanessa Schneider:
"“Be sure to choose the Local category so that we can bring your multiple pages together to create one listing later on.”
See: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/05/31/google-local-qs-and-some-as/
As I read this, Google intends, in future, to offer easy management for multiple locations businesses from a single account, but how they will do this is still really up in the air. If you will look at the Google and Your Business Forum, you will see tons of business owners asking about this. Example:
Now, the one aspect of your question about which I'm not totally clear is your concern about Google presenting local results to user groups based on their country of origin. Google should do this. Maybe you could describe what is currently happening with your Canadian vs. US-based searches. If there is a problem you are noticing, could you please describe it as fully as possible? Thanks!
Miriam
Hi Pompero99,
I believe you're asking if it's okay for non-local businesses to have Google+ Local pages. The answer is no. In order to be eligible for a Google+ Local page a business must:
Make in-person contact with its customers
Have a physical street address
Have a local phone number
If a business can't say 'yes' to all 3 points, then it does not qualify.
If I've misunderstood your question, please let me know.
Hi Allenrocks,
You write:
I suppose the solution is to become more creative about rewriting the same services.
Yep, that's pretty much the solution. I know, for some industries, this is really challenging. For others, it's easier. Try to get the client involved as much as possible to discover ideas. Good luck!
Hi Taysir,
My recommendation is to put the new content on the company's site. Here's why:
You will be developing a much richer, helpful site for the business
The value of repeatedly linking from site B to site A from the new content is going to get old and repetitious. You would be better off winning links from sites not owned by the business rather than counting on interlinking between two company sites in hopes of influencing rank.
Remember, every time someone finds one of the new articles you'll be writing in the SERPs, they will be entering the company site and being exposed to its brand and calls to action. The more doorways you have leading directly to the company site, the more chances you are creating for that phone to ring and new customers to be one.
Hope this helps!
Miriam
Hi Kristy,
I want to preface this by stating that I have no personal experience with eLocal 'reach the web'. The only page I could find describing this service is here:
http://www.elocal.com/reach-the-web
I don't see a mention on this page of citation cleanup - just citation creation - but perhaps you found other documentation or were contacted by a salesperson indicating that this is part of the service?
There is nothing blackhat about using a citation building service like eLocal, Yext, etc. Rather, there are other considerations that need to be taken into account in determining whether this is the right move for you. A few of these include:
Whether the product has the ability to find ALL citations and correct them, including duplicate listings.
Whether terminating the contract at some point in the future will result in loss of citations or other problems.
Whether the citations are being held 'hostage' by the provider instead of being under the control of the business owner.
You need to research each of these components thoroughly and be certain you are not being given misleading information by sales representatives.
My personal preference is to have citation cleanup handled manually by a pro. A manual approach for citation building is often best, too, but if it won't scale for an agency, I'd recommend they go with a paid service like Whitespark's Citation Building service, which is highly regarded in the industry: https://www.whitespark.ca/citation-building-submission-service
Different companies will find different methods work best for them. The main thing is not to be sold on any product that may fail to catch problems or generate future problems.
Hi Networkelites,
If I am understanding the scenario correctly, your client is no longer receiving mail at the major city address, but would have a different locale name on his envelopes in the post. Is this correct? Please let me know if I've not understood you correctly.
If I'm on the right track, then the work ahead of you looks like this:
Update the footer, contact page, tags and copy of the main pages (home, about, etc.) to reflect his new location...meaning the city name at which he now receives postal mail.
Update your Google+ Business/Local accounts to reflect the change of address.
Begin searching the web for every reference you can find to the old address and update these citations to reflect the new address.
If the client is no longer receiving mail at the major city address, Google will no longer view him as a legitimate result for such searches and you must educate the client so that he understands this. Additionally, I strongly recommend that you do not use any geographic terms in the business description field of the client's Google+ Local page as Google has historically treated this practice as spam. The address field is where location info belongs. The business description should be a sales pitch...much like a meta description. It's a great place to include information like:
Voted Reader's Choice by the Washington Post! First visit free with affordable care for your whole family. Get ready to smile!
That's just a really rough example, but you want to think like this in writing your Google+ business description.
Hope my list of points gets you started on the right foot. Good luck to you and your client. Moves are a big deal in local.
Miriam
Hi E2E,
Definitely "bad". What the client is suggesting is called a "review kiosk" or "review station" and it's likely to result in their Google reviews being filtered out. I've not seen this documented, per se, with Facebook, but I wouldn't advise it as a strategy for any platform. In fact, sometimes reviews can even get filtered out if a customer writes them while using a company's in-house wi-fi. So, definitely advise the client against the kiosk. It's vital that reviewers use their own devices.
Of interest, there was a point about 6 years ago at which Google stated that it was okay to have review kiosks. They then did a 180 and stated that it wasn't okay. Kind of confusing, eh? But, if the client is waffling on this, just show them Google's review content policy (https://support.google.com/business/answer/2622994?visit_id=1-636355701683667727-3832853603&hl=en&rd=2) which states:
If you're a business owner, don't set up review stations or kiosks at your place of business just to ask for reviews written at your place of business.
Hopefully, that will steer them clear of this unadvisable concept
Hi Bob,
My take on this is that the part that needs to disappear from the various service pages is the 'richardson-tx-cosmetic-dentistry', but, I will beg to gently differ regarding total removal of the city names. I would recommend URLs like this:
http://koooskidental.com/teeth-whitening-richardson-tx
http:/kooskidental.com/invisalign-richardson-tx
http://kooskidental.com/dental-implants-richardson-tx
etc.
Those URLs aren't too long they are highly localized, which I feel is totally the way to go for a local business website.
Hi SCW,
There are two options I can think of.
There is a citation source that Google is pulling the title from (a directory listing, maybe even an old one, that has the business listed this way).
It's a mistake on Google's part. Google does make mistakes.
If you cannot find any citations of the business with the .com used as the business title, and you would like to try to have this rectified, I would recommend reporting the problem through Google's troubleshooter, wait 7 days to see if you get a response, and if not, report it through the Google Business Help Forum.
It's definitely an oddity.
Hi Kristy,
So glad to help. I'm a fan of Whitespark's FAQ page. Helps you to see how their service stacks up to others:
http://www.whitespark.ca/citation-building-faqs
Worth a read.
Hello Daniel,
As Gareth has correctly stated, Google's public statement (via comments from Googler, Jade, in the Google and Your Business Forum) regarding moving to a new address is that you should close the listing and start a new one. Now, that being said, I have talked to other Local SEOs who disagree with this advice. In fact, just last Friday I was speaking with someone who said that what they did was to create a new listing for the new address, edit the citations in as many places as possible to reflect the new address (on other directories, etc.) and then deleted the old listing. Reviews were apparently lost (that's to be expected) but he said that the transition went okay. I've heard others speak of other approaches as well.
Nothing is fool proof. Google seems to have a lot of trouble handling changes of address well. Because of this, I'm going to give you some resources for reading up further on this topic.
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/moved/business/t-y8Vil0xKo/w6Ywu8Nh1DgJ
I don't have a simple answer to give you for how long this should take, unfortunately. You will see in the above threads why that is. Google really needs to improve their ability to handle this activity that happens every day - businesses do move! Hope this helps, Daniel.
Greetings, Nolan!
Thanks for coming to Q&A to ask your question. Definitely read the article Itsvan linked to. It's a super resource.
In my opinion, the hyphens are not optimal. As the aforementioned article states, hyphenated domain names can look somewhat spammy.
Here's something for you to consider: when I do a Google search for just 'north brunswick', Google immediately shows me a map of New Jersey. I am not finding any other North Brunswicks mentioned in the top 10 results of the SERPs. I wouldn't consider the mention of NJ in your URL necessary at all, given this point. Because of this, I would consider northbrunswicklaundromat.com to be a better choice than any you have listed.
24 characters puts this on the long side, but it's certainly optimized and at least it isn't hyphenated.
I was tempted to suggest nbrunswicklaundromat.com to cut out some of the letters, but a search for that is bringing up references to NEW Brunswick.
At any rate, I think the mention of New Jersey is unnecessary. The strength of the optimization of your website is going to count most in terms of displaying strong geographic data for the bots and human users. Google should have no problem understanding where you are.
Hope this helps, and do read that article!
Miriam
Matt,
Cody has given you some excellent replies. Just want to be sure this point hits home. Do not write your title tags like this:
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Home
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - About Us
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Rates
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - FAQ
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Etc
These are nearly duplicates. Title tags appear as the first line in many search engine listings and should read in a manner that engages the user, as well as incorporating your keywords. Be sure you are writing a unique title, header and meta description for every page on the website.
Further, if you are planning to work with mainly local businesses, it will be critical that you understand not just traditional SEO best practices for on-page optimization, but also Local SEO best practices for on-page optimization. There are special opportunities and best practices both on-site and off for Local business that your website design firm will need to master in order to be helping clients achieve the visibility they will be hoping for.
Hi Robert,
Nice to see you on this sunny Monday! I have been hearing good things, on an agency level, about Places Scout for local tracking/reporting. I have not personally used it, but some of the Local SEOs I respect most have spoken highly of it.
You have to sign up for it via this page on the Warrior Forum:
I'm not sure how it compares, point for point, with Bright, but I thought you might like to check it out.
Miriam
Hi Michael!
Because of Google's bias toward physical location, simply mentioning the names of neighboring cities in which you have no physical location is unlikely to earn you a place in the local pack of results for 'used cars' in these cities, and will not typically be enough to gain you a spot in the organic SERPs, either. The exception to this would be if you are in such a niche with such low competition that it's easy to rank for anything - which isn't typically going to be the case with a used car dealer in a big city.
Meanwhile, the mention of these other cities in the titles of pages that you are trying hard to get to rank in the local pack for that main, physical city may actually somewhat dilute your ability to achieve that goal. Rather than saying, "Hey Google, THIS is our city of physical location!", you are splitting up the title to say, "Well, we're relevant to a whole bunch of places," when, in fact, you're really only strongly relevant to the main one.
Chances are that you'll need to consider whether the development of landing pages for these other cities is a good marketing decision and a user-friendly strategy. This typically involves brainstorming to see if a business has a legitimate presence in other cities, beyond the fact that it's near to them and that customers travel from there to the business.
With SABs (service area businesses), this decision is quite easy, because the plumber may be based in Metropolis, but is traveling to Gotham City, Star City and Red City to fix sinks. With something like a car dealership, the link is less obvious.
Does the dealership do something in these cities that would warrant the development of content specific to these locales, that would then provide a sensible set of pages to be optimizing for each individual city? For example, does the dealership offer unique specials based on the customer's city of origin (Red Star customers get 5% off their purchase of a used car this summer). Or, perhaps, does the owner send a mechanic to vocational schools in another city to give presentations. Does the company participate in seminars or events in these other cities? Maybe vintage car shows or charity events? If you can find a legit connection between the business and neighboring cities, then you have something interesting to write about and a user-centric reason to be building and optimizing pages for these cities. If no such connection exists, you may need to consider PPC ads, instead, targeting these cities.
You might like to read about this whole concept of city landing pages further at:
Hi Stephen, That's a smart question to ask. Short and sweet: do not include anything in the business title except the company name. This is especially critical in Google's local entity, and because they rule the roost, I recommend following their rule on this everywhere you list your business, so that your citations are all consistent. Google is so crazy about this rule, they recently wrongly penalized a museum that legitimately has a city name in its business title. Read about this here: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local/1779-google-local-unfair-censorship-childrens-discovery-museum.html Quite nutty! In sum, remember, when you're dealing with a franchise, be it large or small, the business name is the same across all locations. There is only one McDonald's, only one Taco Bell, etc. Leave it up to the engines to show the address on the listing to distinguish one location from another.
I think you've made a smart choice, Nolan! Thanks for letting me give you my feedback and good luck with the Local SEO. It should be fun doing this for your brother. If I can be of any further assistance, please just let me know.
Miriam
Hi vzPro,
Absolutely. Schema for local is a very good thing to use whenever a physical address exists. Also, thought you might like to read a fairly recent article of mine on the topic of city landing pages. A lot of folks have told me it helped them to understand their opportunities.
The Nitty Gritty of City Landing Pages
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1403
Hope this helps!
Hi Michael,
In saying that there are no blended results on the page, do you mean that the local listings being displayed for the client's search term aren't blended, themselves? Non-blended results have become a real rarity, in my experience. Does the first line in his search engine results link to his website? Do other parts of the listing link elsewhere, such as to a Google+ Local Page?
In most cases, what is happening is that the client's local listing is, in fact, a blended listing, combining his organic ranking and his local ranking. Is this not the case with your client, too? I can't rule anything out these days, as there are so many oddities in Google's local sphere, but I did want to clarify this.
If his listing is, indeed, blended local, then you can reassure him that he is getting the best of both worlds. A high, blended listing is gaining him critical visibility and he should be a happy camper.
As to local and universal results appearing on the same page...I used to see this frequently, but in my view, this has become very uncommon. Unless the client is in an area of extremely low competition in which his website is one of the only things Google has to pull data from, it is less likely to have both a local and organic result on the same page these days.
Miriam
Hi Bob,
Gaston has linked to a good resource regarding migrating to HTTPS, which has been made into a "moment of truth" for businesses who don't follow Google's lead on this in 2017. For more on this, I recommend: http://streetfightmag.com/2017/10/02/the-impending-httpstrophe/
Regarding your other questions, if your business is digital/virtual, you don't necessarily need an address, but it's a trust signal to have one, and you should at least have a phone number if you want customers to feel you're a real company.
If your business is local, a physical address (even if it's your home address) and dedicated phone number are prerequisites. Without them, you don't really have a local business, and won't be able to fully market your company as one.
Hope this helps!
Hi Tony,
Unfortunately, I'm unable to replicate the odd thing you're seeing with the zooming out and re-searching allowing the main listing to appear. All Google will show me is the Parts & Service department listing on the map.
When I actually used your geo-modifier 'westchester toyota yonkers ny' in traditional search, I see both listings coming up, with the main listing being A and the service department being B, but if I remove the geo modifier, I only see the service department. Agree, this is odd, particularly since your main listing has so many more reviews than the other one does.
I'm seeing identical results when I remove the geo term and set my location to Yonkers.
I honestly can't think of another instance in which I've seen the zoom behavior you've described in Maps, but it's clear from the organic searches that, for some reason, Google is viewing your Parts&Service department as the more authoritative listing. My recommendation would be to communicate with Google via this form:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs
And see if it takes you to their new data issues phone number, in which case, you might be able to get an insider to look at the situation. Sorry not to be able to resolve this, but there is some reason why Google is favoring one page over the other, and I can't determine what that is.
Hope this suggestion helps!
Hi Don,
Thanks for coming to Q&A to ask your question. Please, check out this post by Mike Blumenthal on exactly this process:
You are quite right. This happens all the time!
Good luck!
Hi OOMDO,
While there isn't a certain number of times that things should be repeated, yes, it is important to remember the geographic terms a page is hoping to rank for. Include your city name in the title tag, meta description tag, H1 tag, and possibly, alt tags if you have images on the page. Then, write thoroughly about the topic at hand and you will likely find that you mention the city name a few times as you write. What you don't want is copy that looks like this:
Our San Diego carpet cleaners serves customers in San Diego. We clean more carpets in San Diego than any other carpet cleaning company in San Diego. No other San Diego carpet cleaning company beats our San Diego carpet cleaning company prices.
Don't write like that! You want beautiful, engaging writing that reads really well to humans. Cover your topic thoroughly and I think you'll find that mentioning the location a few times as you write will come naturally.
Hello Guido,
Google's choice of display for certain queries is often mysterious. And, while you are being organically outranked by the competitor with no apparent local presence, your blended listing is likely drawing more eyes to it because it is special and larger. I would not look at this in terms of you being harmed by your participation in Local, but rather, that you have sent strong local signals to Google that are rewarding you with that very visible blended listing. What makes this a little different is that, for the moment, Google is choosing the display in which a few organic listings are preceding the local/blended ones. But, I do believe your client is better off than his competitor, in this case.
Miriam
Hi Ali!
H1s aren't really viewed as a strong ranking factor anymore. They just don't correlate very clearly with improved rankings (see: https://moz.com/blog/which-page-markup-tags-still-matter-for-seo-whiteboard-friday) though they provide VERY important signals to human visitors. I'm not sure why the site you are optimizing would have this tag at the bottom of the page. That's not really standard, so I'd advise rethinking this usage, for the comfort of users.
Regarding SEO, in general, if you've identified a top phrase your client needs to be ranking for, yes, you definitely want it in the tags and text of most important pages. But, beyond this, modern marketing is moving towards the understanding of building topical authority to help you rank for a variety of interrelated terms.
So, for example, let's say that the most important phrase to your client is "organic flower seeds". Of course, you'll have this phrase in your tags and text, but you must figure out how to move beyond simple on-page optimization if you want the company's brand to become authoritative in Google's eyes as relevant to this subject. So, in addition to simply having a page called "organic flower seeds", you'll be striving to:
Cover everything that can possibly relate to this topic that customers need to know. Why choose organic seeds? What does "organic" mean? How do you plant organic flower seeds? How do you know how many seeds you needs? How much do you need to water them so they germinate? How do you package your seeds to keep them fresh for successive plantings? Etc, etc.
Build recognition of your brand as synonymous with your most important search terms. In other words, I say "Mexican-style fast food" and you say "Taco Bell". I say "organic flower seeds, and you say "Seeds of Change". Linkbuilding, word of mouth marketing, old-school PR, content dev, paid advertising and a ton of other elements factor into becoming an authority. Google seems to be particularly swayed by this, as you will see very large brands getting away with very poor practices and still ranking, while small, unknown companies struggle. So, you've got to aim to become as "known" as you can, so that you become one of Google's go-to resources for queries relating to that phrase you've identified.
Hope this helps!
Hi Shay,
Good question! I'll do my best to provide a thorough answer here, because the topic is somewhat complex. I'll number my points for easier reading.
If your business has a single physical location but serves clients in multiple locations (like a plumber, a mobile notary public or a carpet cleaning business) your business would be classified as an SAB (a service area business). Special rules and opportunities apply to SABs.
It is of primary importance to understand how Google views local search. In Google's eyes, any business is a most relevant result for its city of location. So, a barber shop in Chicago is a most relevant result for people search for 'barber shop chicago' or searching for 'barber shop' from a Chicago-based device. This also applies to SABs. So, even if a plumber located in San Francisco also serves clients Oakland, Mill Valley and Berkeley, Google still sees him as a most relevant to San-Francisco related or based searches because that is where he has his physical location.
What this means is that SABs can typically only pursue Local rankings for their city of location and and must pursue Organic rankings for all of their other service cities.
This means that you will only be creating one local business listing at each local business index (like Google Places for Business, Yahoo Local, Bing Places for Business, Yelp, etc.). This listing will revolve around your core business NAP (name, address, phone number) You will NOT be creating local listings for your service cities. Please especially familiarize yourself with the Google Places Quality Guidelines so that you do not risk penalties for accidental guideline violations: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528
You will be working toward high Local rankings for your city of location via a variety of methods, including having a very strong, locally-optimized website, getting listed in various indexes, getting cited by other types of publications such as local blogs and websites and earning a diverse, slow but steady variety of reviews , among other things.
For your other service cities, you will be employing traditional SEO methods in hopes of gaining visibility for these other places you serve. This will typically included the development of city landing pages on your website (see: <cite>www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1403</cite>) and earning links from influential places.
I'll close with a common SAB question. SAB owners often ask if there is any chance at all of them being included in the local results for their service cities. The answer to this is, it can happen, but it's uncommon. If a business happens to be in an area of very low competition (like the only carpet cleaning company in a large rural area) then it does sometimes happen that they will show up in the local results for more than just their city of location, but this tends to be the exception rather than the rule.
With the right approach and lots of hard work, SABs can see tons of benefits from promoting themselves on the web. There are extra hurdles to jump, but it can be done. Hope this helps!
Hi Gary,
Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. The little icons you are describing are technically termed 'Place Labels'. See:
Chris Silver Smith wrote a great piece on this back in 2009 regarding achieving landmark status:
http://searchengineland.com/can-your-business-achieve-landmark-status-in-google-maps-31045
But I think this is the post that will be most helpful to you, from 2011:
http://www.iexposure.com/2011/06/16/how-to-get-a-google-places-label
And don't miss the 2nd part of this post:
http://www.iexposure.com/2011/07/26/how-to-get-a-google-places-label-part-2-update
Essentially, there isn't a simple way to do this, but if you read Scott Dodge's two posts on this topic, you'll have the best information out there about how this may be achieved.
Hope this helps and good luck!
Miriam
Hi Indicoll,
I'm glad you've brought this up. An example like 'golf clubs leeds' is a good one. You are correct that this is unnatural language. You don't want to be writing, "We have the best golf clubs leeds", because it sounds unnatural to your human visitors, and also, because Google takes poor writing into account.
As Adam has pointed out, you can signal geography in many ways on your website and you should not have to rely on stating 'golf clubs leeds' over an over again in order to rank. Of course, there are some instances in which you feel you simply must find a way to work an exact match phrase in, in which case, creativity can sometimes come to the rescue. This would be a legitimate:
"The Golf Clubs Leeds Pros Reach For, Course After Course"
Something like that would be okay and would include those keywords in exact order, if it's essential to do so, but for the most part, Google will understand the meaning of a properly-optimized page without too much effort on the website owner's part. Optimize your tags and sprinkle keywords in a natural manner in thorough copy and you should be good to go. By contrast, awkward language can drive customers away and flag a site as spammy. It's good you are thinking about this. It's quite important!
Hi There!
I want to be sure I'm correctly understanding your scenario. Is your company a digital-only or a local business? In order to appear in Google's local results you must have:
A physical location in the city of search.
Make face-to-face contact with your customers.
If either of these factors is absent, the business is not meant to appear in the local results. Please, feel free to provide further details so the community can envision your specific scenario.
Hi WebTalent,
The client's concerns are legitimate here. If the company is transitioning to a new business name, then from a Local perspective, this will be viewed as a new business. Google will not view Bob's Auto Parts and Superior Auto Parts as the same business, even if the location and phone number remain the same. It is likely the client will lose Google-based reviews and may lose rankings. Googler Jade W. has stated:
"We will not always transfer these reviews if the business goes through a significant rebrand."
Basically, you will need to research and discover all local listings for the business and update them to feature the new business name. This may require re-verification on some platforms.
Here are some good resources for you and your client to read:
http://searchengineland.com/the-smb-guide-to-changing-business-names-seo-128939
It's really important to understand what a big undertaking re-branding a local business is, because of the issues I've mentioned, and the work of local listing/citation cleanup will be considerable. I'm with Andrew Shotland who states in his Search Engine Land piece that you shouldn't change the brand unless you really have to, but if you do really have to, cleaning up the NAP record web-wide will be vital work in hopes of eventually re-gaining the trust and visibility the business previously enjoyed under its old brand.
Hi HawkTV1,
Thanks for coming to Q&A to ask your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. Situations like yours can be very confusing for the business owner, so I do empathize. In thinking your question over, I believe that this part of Google Places Quality Guidelines may apply to your resort:
Some businesses may be located within a mall or a container store, which is a store that contains another business. If your business is within a container store or mall, and you'd like to include this information in your listing, specify the container store in parentheses in the business name field. For example, Starbucks (inside Safeway).
If you want the three businesses to be treated as 3 separate entries, and to be eligible for 3 distinct Place Pages when the are all inside the same building, you will need to get:
1. a suite number
2. a unique, non-redirecting local area code phone number
for the other 2 businesses. Then, if desired, you could have the business titles read along the lines of:
Spa Cuts (inside ABC Resort)
This should be a correct way of doing things. However, if you have the restaurant and spa listed in 50 other directories with an address and phone number that doesn't match the new address and phone number you would be assigning to the two businesses, you are likely to run into a serious problem. Google may become 'confused' about the validity of the information you've provided.
This being the case, your task would also include going to each of those listings and adding the new suite # to the addresses and editing the phone number. Big job! But it can be done.
Good luck!