Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks for the further details. So, basically, the architecture of your website and its navigation send signals to humans and search engines about which pages you deem to be most important.

Take a look at the homepage of Moz and the main menu at the top. For example, we're linking to our blog, signalling that this is a core component of this website, but, we're not linking to every single blog post on the blog, meaning we don't consider each post to be as important as the main blog link.

Similarly, we have a link title "Learn SEO" which takes us to a page that is basically serving as a sub-menu of the educational tutorials we've developed. We don't link to each tutorial from the top level menu, but the path has been created to get there.

For a local business, the top level menu typically includes:

• Contact Us page

• Reviews/Testimonials page

• Blog (if they have one)

• Link to or dropdown for the pages that describe each of their services

• Link to or dropdown for the pages that describe each of their physical locations or service cities

At the minimum, that's what you'll typically see, but the size/complexity of the website will play a role in influencing what you put in the top level menu, with the goal being that you are highlighting the pages you feel are most important for users (and search engines) as the very top pages of your website.

To ask if it hurts you to put some pages in the top level navigation while leaving others out somewhat oversimplifies the issue. All website owners have to make these choices to prioritize what goes in the menu. It's not really a matter of being hurt - it's a matter of being sure that your core pages have received maximum prominence in the menu.

Now, if you built a page that was like an island with no path to it from anywhere in the site, then, yes, neither humans nor bots might ever find it. But, at the end of the day, a website with 20, 50 or 5,000 pages can't put all of them in the top level menu, so best advice here is to carefully, thoughtfully plan the navigational architecture of the site so that core pages are immediately accessible via the main nav, but that there are very clear and abundant paths to less prominent pages as well.

I hope digging into this a bit more this way is helpful

Hi Joseph,

Like Corey, I'm reading your question as being about getting a high local ranking. If this isn't your intent, please correct me.

Corey has linked to the Local Search Industry's premiere annual report, which surveys some of the top Local SEOs in the world. It's an extremely helpful document, and it outlines what participants feel are the top local rankings factors. Now, the 2012 report (I'm a yearly participant) was undertaken before the rollout of Google's big new local product - Google+ Local - which basically replaces the Google Place Pages of former times. So, be aware that there have been some major changes since publication, though the basic advice remains solid.

Local SEO is the practice of obtaining high rankings both in the blended/local packs of results (the ones with the lettered pins on them) as well as high organic rankings for local terms that don't bring up the actual pinned local results. The lettered local results' rankings are derived from a combination of both organic signals (like the strength of the website, link profile, etc.) and local ones (like having a violation-free, complete Google+ page, number of citations from other local business directories, proximity to the centroid of business in a given city) etc.

To qualify for inclusion in Google's local products, a business must meet all 3 of the following criteria:

1. Have a unique, dedicated physical street address (not a P.O. box, shared address or virtual address)

2. Have a unique, local phone number in the city of location (not a toll free number or shared number)

3. Have in-person transactions with clientele either at the place of business (like a restaurant) or at the client's place of business (like a plumber)

If any of those 3 things doesn't match the business model, then you cannot seek inclusion in Google+ Local.

Most Local SEOs consider Mike Blumenthal to be the leading expert in the field, so if you're just getting into this, you should start reading his blog on a regular basis: http://www.blumenthals.com/blog

You might also find a couple of recent articles from my blog to be useful in getting you into the right mindset about this unique field of SEO:

The Zen of Local SEO

http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1314

The Rudiments of Local SEO

http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1344

The main thing to understand about Local SEO is that it is constantly changing...arguably even more so than traditional SEO, so constant study is a must in this field. It's a really dynamic area to work in. Hope these resources help!

Hey There!

For searches within the U.S., go to Google and make your search. Then from the horizontal menu under the search bar, click 'Search Tools'. This will bring up the option to change your city and will reorder the SERPs based on what you input. However, if you are in the US, this only works for cities in the US - not for international cities.

Sounds like the name change might be a good suggestion, Robert, given this scenario. Good luck with this!

Hi Bix,

Can you clarify for me whether you actually have a physical office dedicated to just your business in London - or are you sharing a building or something along those lines? That would be a start. Thanks, and by the way, love your screen name. I'm a big Bix fan.

Miriam

Hi There!

Good question. Basically, what you are embarking on here is the optimization of a local business website. The term for this is Local SEO (local search engine optimization).

At the outset of your work, there is one very important concept for you to understand about how Google views local businesses like your physical therapy office:

Google views local businesses as being relevant to local users. So, if you are physically located in Fort Myers, the bulk of your efforts will go towards ranking in Google's local search engine results (local packs) for users who are either physically located in Fort Myers, or for users who include the term "Fort Myers" in their search phrase. You are highly unlikely to rank in the local results for Cape Coral or any other city, regardless of what keywords you use on your website.

Because of Google's historic bias towards physical location, some businesses are frustrated because they cannot rank in the local packs for any city other than their city of location. This is especially so for service area businesses, like plumbers or house painters, who travel from a single city to a variety of other cities to serve customers. But, your business is not a service area business, if your patients all come to your office in Fort Myers for treatment. Typically, your only relationship to Cape Coral or any other nearby city is that some patients may live there and come to you, but this is unlikely to be a good enough reason to mention these additional cities on your website. If you were a house painter, you could authentically create a page on your website about the houses you've painted in Cape Coral, and you could attempt to gain some organic (not local pack) rankings based on the optimization of this type of landing page. But in your case, you likely don't have anything to say about Cape Coral that would make it sensible or authentic to create such a page.

Are there any exceptions to this? Can brick-and-mortar businesses ever optimize for cities beyond their city of location and can it do any good? The answer is: sometimes. If it's essential for you to build brand awareness in cities beyond your city of location, you have to determine if you can build a real relationship between your business and these satellite cities. For example, a doctor could mention his hospital privileges in Cities B,C and D. He could host a sports medicine seminar in city B, attend a conference in City C, and volunteer at a yoga weekend in City D. He could then write about his involvement in these communities and promote himself socially. He could also sponsor teams, organizations, and events in neighboring cities and earn links and mentions from these activities. So, yes, there are some cases in which a brick-and-mortar business in City A can build content and awareness around additional cities, but it should never just come down to putting a list of cities in a chunk on his homepage. This isn't good SEO, and is actually frowned on by Google.

Summing up: as a local business, you'll be focusing the bulk of your efforts on your city of location in hopes of gaining local rankings for it. If you need to build brand awareness in additional cities, strategies exist where real-world relationships exist, and the goal of this work would be organic, rather than local, rankings. The alternative is to invest in PPC campaigns that target neighboring communities.

Hope this helps!

Hi Searchpl,

So glad you asked this question before going forward. Having businesses share the same address in Google+ Local is a big taboo. Don't do it! The dangers are merged and duplicate listings and an inability to rank.

Instead, if you are running 3 totally distinct entities from the same building (let's say a chiropractor's office, a yoga studio and an e-commerce site selling neck support pillows), you could take this approach:

1. Get a unique suite number for the yoga studio and another for the chiropractor's office, to which mail can be delivered at the building.

2. Get a unique local phone number for the yoga studio and another for the chiro office. Do not use either of these numbers for the online store.

3. Do not publish the physical address or phone numbers of either the chiropractor's office or the yoga studio on the e-commerce website. You must have a third phone number (could be a toll free one) for the e-commerce store, but must have local numbers for the other two businesses.

4. Set up a unique Places listing/Google+ Local page for the yoga studio, and another for the chiro office, but do not do this for the e-commerce store as it is not a true local business (no in-person transactions with customers).

The above method is the only way I would recommend moving into the local space. Any other approach puts the business at risk for a mess of trouble in the SERPs. Hope this helps!

P.S. All of the above advice presupposes that each of the 3 businesses has a unique name. In other words, Dr. Jones Chiropractor, New Life Yoga Studio, and Neck Pillows Central.

You're so welcome, Kathy. We're glad to have you here and please keep your good questions coming as you move along in the learning process.

Hi Edward,

Great question! It's important to understand that, in the Local business arena, business descriptions will automatically be duplicated across numerous platforms because certain data providers feed listing info to many others. If you take a look at David Mihm's Local Search Ecosystem graphic, you will see how some of these relationships work:

https://getlisted.org/static/resources/local-search-data-providers.html

So, because this type of duplication is baked into the system, there is nothing you can do about some amount of duplicate content when you are creating listings for your local business.

That being said, I think it's a good idea to write 2-3 different descriptions when building citations because different platforms allow you to publish descriptions of different lengths. Take advantage of those platform that allow you to offer a fuller write-up of the business, by all means! And that goes for wedding-specific directories as well. If you are allowed to write a unique and detailed description on a prestigious wedding site, I think it will be worth your time to create something new. But you will never avoid duplication in a citation campaign, simply because of the data feeds going from one platform to another. This is not something I would worry about.

Hi Bix,

Thanks for the further info. You are very lucky to be showing up for that London search, given that you are not in London (i.e. you don't have a dedicated physical address there). The reason Google is associating that map with your business is because that is you company's real, registered physical address. Your screenshot is not of a set of local results, nor would you qualify for a real local result because of the lack of a dedicated address in that city. So, I'm afraid you are stuck with the map link to Brighton. I agree...that might confuse some users, but frankly, I would think that your awesome ranking outside of your city of location totally outweighs the downside of having that mapped link.

Sorry I can't tell you how to change this. Google displays what they feel is relevant, and for that search, they feel it's relevant to display your address.

I want you to know that I put a little feeler out amongst a couple of colleagues in Local to see if they have a different opinion on this. I didn't use your name or anything; just described the situation in general terms. If I get any differing opinions, I will certainly return to this thread, but I'm pretty positive any Local SEO will agree with my take on this.

Your site must have good traditional SEO and Local SEO factors to be doing so well for that term. You might like to read Linda Buquet's recent article on the Venice update...wonder if this could be the reason for your prominences in organic outside your true, physical location:

http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-venice-update-local-seo.html

Cheers!

Miriam

Hello Alexander!

What a cool business you have! And barn doors have definitely become the "in" thing. I'm looking at your website right now. I'm going to recommend that you hire a very good SEO company to do a one-time audit for you, Alexander. If two years of effort have not resulted in you seeing the rankings you believe you deserve and know you need, then you are almost certainly falling behind in your profit goals. While I can't match here in the forum what a real audit could do for you, I want to give you a couple of first impressions in case they are of help. Your products are really beautiful, but I see some things I'm not liking on your website, including:

1. The moving masthead, that when clicked on, makes your branding disappear and shows wood. This is likely slowing down your site speed, and doing anything that makes branding disappear alarms me. Never choose fancy features over usability. Never.

2. The feature that shows numbers loading between page clicks. I'm not sure if the idea there was to make things look fast, but, in fact, it's just drawing my attention to the fact that I'm having to wait for something to load ... even if I don't have to wait long, I feel like I'm waiting.

3. Lack of text on your homepage. It's a common mistake of visually-oriented businesses to think they shouldn't have text on their homepage. I know that minimalism can be appealing, but it's also giving you almost nothing to tell search engines or people, and nothing to optimize.

4. The product descriptions on your website show that you're taking time to be thorough, but I recommend some polishing here. I think it's awesome that the site is selling "German quality", but if the text is in English, the English needs to be error-free to ensure it's meeting Google's quality guidelines.

5. The navigation may not be ideally usable. I don't know how I did it, but I got onto a page somehow that I couldn't get back to the main site from. It was a dead-end. I'm also finding the font color of the horizontal menu a bit hard to read. I didn't notice it at first.

So, this is a start. A real audit will look at everything, but at a glance, I'm seeing some areas in which you could improve. Wishing you so much luck with your business. I really like your inventory!

Hi Samuel,

Great question! This has recently been noted in the Local SEO community. The double links are likely a result of your merge request. DO NOT delete your places account as it is still the main dashboard for all things Local. No one is 100% sure why the double links are appearing now...some have suggested it's an engineering issue of some kind, but it definitely seems to be happening to fully merged accounts and is not something you should worry about.

I recommend you read this great little thread on the subject at The Local Search Forum:

http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local/1590-seeing-double-2-g-local-links-serps.html

You'll see a number of examples like yours...and even one with 3 links instead of two!

Hope this helps. My advice: don't touch anything. What you're seeing is quite normal, but could change at any time.

Hi Mike,

Thanks so much for clarifying the business model! So, the client is an SAB, and, yes, developing geo landing pages would be the right way to go. Typically, such landing pages are built around city terms. I believe what I'd do in this case is build one landing page per town/city and then encourage the client to continue on with narrowing down this subject by blogging about their projects in neighborhoods like Riverwest and Oak Creek.

The main thing, of course, is to be sure you've got something unique and important to say on each landing page you build or blog post you write. Covering completed projects in the various cities is a good way to go with this. But as for a tool that's going to reveal what you want to know regarding whether people are using neighborhood names to search for services, I'm afraid I just don't know of anything reliable. Between 'keyword not provided' and the loss of the old Google Adwords Keyword Tool, it does seem to me that one has to rely mainly on common sense these days. No tools were ever very good at providing geo data, because the data centers were seldom local, but with the recent changes in what's available, I think the situation has gotten even tougher.

I think you are right about trying different things and seeing what works, once you've built the core landing pages for the major service cities.

Hi Ruben,

How people use your site (like traffic to your blog posts) can contribute to your 'authority', and thereby, your rankings, yes, but you would want to be blogging with your keywords in mind. If you are a wedding photographer with a local business website and you're starting this blog as a vehicle for publishing additional, on-going content, then consider viewing the blog as a showcase of the client projects you take on locally.

So, let's say you're operating out of your physical location in Taos, New Mexico, but you frequently get jobs in neighboring cities like Santa Fe, Mora and Albuquerque. Lacking a physical location in these 3 towns, you are very unlikely to earn Google local pack rankings for them, because that's just the way Google works. But, by steadily blogging about the weddings you've photographed in these other cities (writing about the projects, the venues, showing your photos) you will begin to develop a body of content that relates to your service keywords + these cities. The hope here is to gain visibility in the ORGANIC SERPS, rather than the local ones. If your work is impressive and your writing engaging, this additional organic visibility can help you to start getting phone calls from these additional cities.

That's basically how it works. If you are blogging regularly about your work in these other cities, and your competitors aren't as motivated in their marketing as you are, you have a chance to get into the organic SERPs with the kinds of blog posts that excite new potential customers and encourage them to pick you for their event.

Hope this helps!

Hi Steve,

I agree with you - the company should only have one Place Page, given that they are only one business. I expect Google would agree if they did a manual review.  However, there is a vague point here for me. One of the domains is a country level domain with the .uk extension while the other is the global .com extension. I am not sure if the company's decision to go with two different domains/websites might have some SEO basis about which I'm not qualified to speak. I'm a Local SEO....I'd like to ask one of our expert traditional SEOs to stop by this thread to give us his or her knowledge about the different domain extensions.

But, bottom line, yes, it's the same business at the same address and should have only one Place Page. If this is hurting your own business in some way, you could always visit the Google Place Pages, scroll to the bottom and use the report a problem link to describe your unhappiness with this business receiving 2 spots in the rankings when they are only one business. You would essentially be outing your competitor in so doing. Now, whether Google will act on your remarks is another matter, but the report a problem link is the avenue open to you to report activity you feel is inappropriate.

Hang in here while I ask one of our traditional SEOs to stop by.

Hi Cherie!

Excellent discussion going on here. You're in the fortunate position of having only 10 pages to write and optimize, and I want to encourage you to simply give yourself a little more creative license in how you craft your H1 tags. Yes, it's a general best practice to include core keywords in your H1 title, but I'd encourage you not to be so very strict about exact word order. Let't take a couple of minutes to look at this together.

You have a Reviews page. Strictly speaking, you could write an H1 tag that reads:

Tasmania Holiday Rental Reviews

But that's pretty bland and doesn't convey much excitement to the human reader, who is your ultimate judge. So, what if instead of that, you wrote:

Tasmania Travelers Write Fun & Awesome Reviews of our Holiday Rental

Does this seem a bit more engaging and human to you?

You have an Amenities page. Instead of being strict in your wording, you could give it an H1 tag reading:

Which Amenities Will Matter to You Most Staying at Our Holiday Home in Tasmania?

And then go on to create the page in that vein, explaining why certain amenities are loved by particular types of guests (those who want to breakfast late, those who hate hot weather, those who love a hot tub after a hike in nature, etc.). Put yourself in the reader's shoes and try to engage their needs and desires.

Google is pretty good these days at understanding topics, so my overall advice is to honor your sense of creativity and write for the reader rather than focusing solely on keyword order, which, as you've so eloquently explained, ends up sounding robotic.

Hi Bryan, If you have a Google+ BUSINESS page, yes, Google is saying to delete it now, and yes, manage multi locations via the old Places dash. For more on this deletion thing, read this: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/business/technical-issue/MI5yJcP1pJ8 It won't affect every business, but it will affect service radius businesses who built a Google+ Business page. Take care!

Hi SCW,

Good questions! My response will be in 2 parts.

Part I:

Are you avoiding the use of a call tracking number in the radio campaign because such numbers are taboo on the Internet for local businesses due the NAP consistency issues they create? If so, I want to clarify that it's okay to use call tracking in offline campaigns - just not online ones. Thought I would mention this because it's such a frequent concern.

Part II:

I do not recommend creating a second website for any local business. Why? Because if Google finds the complete or partial business NAP on a second website that does not match what you've entered as the URL in your Google+ Local page, it can create a loss of trust in their own data about your business. You don't want this to happen. Because of this, I return to the suggestion of a call tracking number for offline campaigns. But, if this is not possible for some reason that has nothing to do with NAP, then could you possibly set up a page on the authoritative website tied into the radio spot to help you track conversions?

Hi Lucywrites,

That's a great question. The best advice I can give is to:

1. Qualify the type of traffic you want. Traffic, in and of itself, is fine. But, traffic that leads to a goal is much better. If you get 1,000 visitors to your blog, what do you want them to do besides reading your content? Sign up for a newsletter? Make a purchase? Join a community? Fund you? Ask yourself: Is my content bringing qualified traffic to me, enabling me to meet my specific goals?

2. Discover the needs and desires of the audience for whom you are writing. What are they interested in? What bothers them? What amuses them? What would make their lives richer, more interesting, more successful, happier?

3. Then, look at your competitors to discover what types of content they have developed to fulfill this audience. Do you see ways you can go one better than your competitors? Is there opportunity they've left on the table? Are you a more interesting writer, more educated, more thorough, more insightful, better at graphics? What can you do that your competitors aren't?

4. Begin to build relationships in your industry/geography. When my favorite bloggers create something really good, I'm almost sure to mention it socially, and I might even include their content in the newsletters I write. When I write something really good, my favorite industry influencers often do the same for me. Figure out who you admire in your industry and be generous in sharing their very best content with your own circle of influence. Over time, perhaps you can get to know your favorite writers, and they, in turn, can get to know you and come to depend on you for quality publication of a certain kind.

Hope these suggestions help!

Hi Todd, I'm endorsing Kevin's response as a best answer on this, but also want to add that it will be easier on the client if he makes a plan now to begin to improve the content of key pages rather than scramble to do so after rankings suddenly fall off. Local rankings are in a constant state of flux...drops can happen so swiftly. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I would identify the 10 most important cities and write unique content for them, then move on to the 10 next-most important and so on. Do it in a way the client can afford, at a velocity you can manage.

Hi Luminatrix,

Yes, I recommend including your keywords, but not being quite so strict about order. You might enjoy this Whiteboard Friday from earlier this year: https://moz.com/blog/write-for-seo-2018

Hi Nathan,

Dorothea is correct about P.O. boxes being forbidden in Google's local products. However, phone verification is not a solution, as Google will not offer this for every business - only some of them. If this is the case for your business, and you are not being offered a phone verification option, then postcard is the only way you can verify your business.

What is the exact situation with this business? Why can't mail be delivered to the brick and mortar location? I know there are some parts of the U.S. where the post office does not deliver mail to homes and businesses, but only to P.O. boxes. Is that the case with your location? If so, my best suggestion would be that you go through this troubleshooter and see if it leads you to Google's new verification issues phone number:

http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1399021&page=ts.cs

This still wouldn't be my first choice, but if the new website does not reference the business in any way, then hopefully it will not create issues of consistency or trust with Google. I still think it's a better idea, however, to put the promo on the website itself.

Hi Cyrus,

You might like to check out a couple of our Whiteboard Fridays that relate to your question:

https://moz.com/blog/optimizing-for-rankbrain-whiteboard-friday

https://moz.com/blog/blog-post-length-frequency

And also look at the discussion in the comments on this blog post post; it's a good one: https://moz.com/blog/10-things-do-not-affect-rankings

Hope this helps!

Hi Cindy,

I would definitely suspect either a penalty or a bug of some sort in regards to the drop from #1 to not in top 50.

What happens when you do a direct business name or phone number search within maps.google.com for the business? Are you able to find their Place Page, or, possibly, getting a 'Do Not Support' message.

Check out this thread at the Google Places Help Forum to see if you recognize your problem in it:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/business/technical-issue/9JszqkewMVU

Regardless of this, you have clearly identified problems with the business that need to be fixed ASAP. There is no question in my mind that the data confusion could be precisely what has caused the ranking drop. Data consistency is the number one requirement of a good Places record, but, a business can get by for months or years with high rankings and bad data. Then, one day, it all goes away. This is something I see being reported constantly in the Google Places Help Forum, and the major lesson is that if you find problems, make every effort to clean them up as swiftly as possible. Then, once you've cleaned up the record to the best of your ability, you need to wait for the effects of what you've done to settle in. So, it becomes about patience.

Hopefully, the client will give you the go-ahead to get cracking on this. Good luck!

Hi There,

Would you be able to clarify: are you asking about H1s, or could you mean title tags? If you can provide some more details, and maybe an actual example, the community should be able to offer you more customized advice.

Hi Billy,

I agree with the comments members have left to the tune of the many variables in display. Your search, for example, may show you 2 organic listings followed by 7 local listings followed by several more organic listings, but your client's same search could be showing him a different display. If your business meets guidelines for local inclusion, then I would always recommend participation to the fullest.

Regarding a double local/organic listing, this is a topic that comes and goes. In the past, it was common for dominant businesses to have multiple page one rankings, but around the time of the Venice Update, this became very rare. This was followed by some Local SEOs experimenting with techniques that did sometimes enable them to obtain double page 1 rankings:

http://www.nightlitemedia.com/2012/05/organic-and-google-places-ranking-on-page-1/

http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/local-seo-ranking/719-lqqk-incredible-shrinking-local-serps-traffic-drops.html

These days, I most commonly see double rankings for searches that relate to geographic areas and/or industries where there is low competition. For example, a bakery in a rural area with few or no other local choices may get multiple rankings on page 1, including both local and organic spots. Check out the 2 posts I've linked to for theories on being able to do this is more competitive verticals, though.

End of the day, though, yes, you are correct that one of Google's common displays at this time puts 1-2 organic listings above the local pack of listings, but I would not see this as a reason not to participate in Local if your business model is eligible.

Hi Aholyman,

I think it's very good that you're giving this such careful thought. So, if the keywords are identical, then yes, this might be seen as an unethical arrangement, though not a forbidden one (without a contract stating so). I'd take it case by case. Good job giving this such a thorough examination.

Hello There!

Earlier this year, we had a good discussion about Cornerstone Content (a term that is widely used by Yoast though not by everyone else) here on the forum. You might like to take a look: https://moz.com/community/q/are-core-pages-considered-cornerstones.

Yoast is a very respected company, and they've created some classic products. That being said, I personally question advice like this being given on their blog:

"You’ll need to write an article of at least 900 words."

_900 words _sounds to me more like a public school writing assignment than criteria for a professional writer or publisher. Let's talk about this.

Wordstream has been kind enough to cite Moz's Beginner's Guide to SEO as a good example of cornerstone content. I've contributed to that guide along with other staff here, and can attest that a specific number of words was nowhere in the plan for contributing. Instead, the plan is to cover the topic at hand thoroughly, and this is what all good writing, both on and off the web, does. Because of this, while I can appreciate that there is a desire to know if there's a word count that impresses Google, I don't think it's a good way to think about writing or publishing. If it takes 500 words to explain something, write them. If it takes 10,000 words, write them. The point is to explain a topic to a reader in a way that engages them and results in them feeling fully informed.

My best guess is that a company like Yoast is striving to offer some general guidelines for strong, lucrative publishing strategies, but when people start throwing set numbers around, it doesn't match my concept of building authority as a publication. I would rather that publishers focus on quality than word counts. The only time I can see the necessity of counting words is in offline publications that have limited paper space for an article. On the web, they sky's the limit, and the quality of what you publish is what wins readers.

Hi Dan,
As Anthony has mentioned, 301 redirecting is likely the best way to go, and of course, because you are changing locations, you will need to ensure that you've changed all of your local business citations to reflect your new locale. This will be very important to do as thoroughly as possible.

Great discussion here, guys!

Just thought I'd pop in to add my 2 cents.

Having a phone number in the title tag will not 'hurt' the business in any way, and is a not uncommon practice in Local SEO. The only possible negative to doing this would be that you would have less characters to devote to words as they are being devoted to the digits of the phone number. So, that's about the only downside of doing this. Just remember, the client should be putting a unique title tag on every page, so some of his pages might have a phone number in the title tag, but don't use it on every page. Be creative, varied and informative in each tag and you should not expect any negative outcomes.

Hi Jason,

You write:

"In the search results the Google Places listing for the 1st location has merged with the website listing."

Is there a way you can link to an example of what you're talking about...if not of your client's site, then of some other business that has the same type of display. Your use of the word 'merged' is making me unsure of whether you are talking about a merged Google+ Business and Google+ Local page, or if you are simply describing that the non-merged Google+ Local page is showing up as part of your client's listing.

Here is an example of the latter for a branded search (containing the business name):

https://www.google.com/search?q=king+hwa+san+francisco&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=0xv&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&sclient=psy-ab&q=king+wah+san+francisco&oq=king+wah+san+francisco&gs_l=serp.3..0.17412.17789.1.18067.3.3.0.0.0.0.93.257.3.3.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.5.serp.BSffYWg0XOA&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43148975,d.cGE&fp=1cc4a42c76cdcbc&biw=1366&bih=625

Is this what you're talking about or are you talking about an actual merge of the Google+ Business and Google+ Local page for a brick and mortar business model?

Also, I'd like to ask what types of searches you are performing. Are they business name searches or are they like: "chinese restaurant san francisco" that are bringing up the original location and the display you're seeing, and what kinds of searches are you doing for the new location that are failing to bring up any listing of the business.

Also, how long ago did you create the new Google Places/Google+ Local listings and how long ago did you begin building citations for this new location? Both take time to go into effect.

*I definitely do not recommend using anything but the actual business name in listing your business. For example, should you choose to add a city name to the business title fields on your Google Places/Google+ Local pages for these businesses, that would be considered spam and could lead to penalties.

The more information you can provide, the better.

Hi Jim,

You've done a good job phrasing the details of your question, but this is one of those situations in which it may actually not be possible to advise you well without assessing your unique website/industry/geography/scenario. Businesses that operate in a non-competitive niche or geography often do rank for other cities beyond their city of location, simply because Google doesn't have much data to go on. For example, if you're the only tow truck company servicing a 50 mile radius in rural Kansas, you might very well show up for a variety of mobile and desktop searches for users who aren't located in your city or who are adding these other city names to your query. If, however, you are an attorney in Los Angeles, you are in a completely different situation and the fight for any kind of ranking is a tough one.

Are you familiar with the concept of developing high quality local landing pages for the various cities in which you serve? This is a common, effective strategy for service area businesses of all kinds. You can delve into this topic here:

http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide

The development of unique local landing pages for each service city is going to be a more common strategical move than simply altering the title tag of your home page to reflect a bunch of other cities. Not sure if your rankings can be explained by having added 'near me' to a single title tag, but again, it would be easy to give inaccurate advice to you without actually auditing the website and its competition. This might be one of those situations in which you'd be best off hiring a pro and using a non-disclosure agreement if you're concerned about privacy. Alternatively, you can share your website address and further details here to get more on-target feedback from the community.

Hello There,

Don Quixote's points regarding YMYL sites and use of Google Posts are both good ones. Medical content needs to come from an authoritative source to do its best these days. Using Google Posts to intro your blog posts on your Google Business Profile is also a smart idea.

I think, however, you are asking a very specific question here. I believe you are asking (and correct me if I'm wrong) if, let's say, an orthopaedic surgery practice based in San Diego had a blog that featured articles about back injuries, surgeries and therapies, would those blog posts particularly come up for people searching for these topics in San Diego. Is this the scenario you are describing?

If so, then what would be key here is that the articles not only be optimized for "lower back surgery options", but also, "San Diego". A blog post like this might be titled something like, What are Your Lower Back Surgery Options in San Diego? And it could feature a review of orthopedic surgical offices in that city. This local optimization would make it clear to Google that the content is written for a particular geographic audience. Otherwise, without the geomodification, you would basically be competing against the rest of the English-speaking world for this keyword phrase and your article wouldn't likely be any more liable to come up for San Diego searchers than for searchers anywhere else in the world.

So, your approach to this sort of things deserves careful planning, based on your business location and business model, if you are trying to attract a local audience.

Hi Bristolweb,

Mark Aspey has given a very helpful response. Essentially, this boils down to the business owner being willing to use his home address as his base of operations from which he heads out to meet clients for their kayak trip. Without an address and local phone number, the business cannot participate in local. With one, he can, and he should definitely take the steps of hiding the address as presumably no transactions take place at his home office.

Do not worry about building the site in WordPress. It's a fine tool for building excellent sites. If the client plans to use the dashboard to build new pages and posts, be sure you've included something like the All-In-One SEO Pack or Yoast's plugin so that he has the ability to write unique title and meta as he adds to the content of the site.

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question Madd Dogg!

I wonder if this article on the recent Venice update in Local describes what you are seeing:

http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-venice-update-local-seo.html

If not, could you return to this thread and provide a little more detail about your situation, please? Thanks!

Miriam

Hi Jason,

Thanks for providing this additional detail. Yes, that is quite possible for the multiple locations to show up, as in your examples #1 and #3. On your example #2, all I'm actually seeing is sitelinks under the organic listing rather than actual local listings, so that is a bit different, but on your other two examples, yes, for a branded search, that's a common display.

You will note that in those two examples of the brew pub and doughnut shop, the results are all within the same city. Are both of your client's locations near one another? The reason I ask this is, say I do a search for a huge franchise like Jack in the Box. There are 2 of these in my town, and Google shows me both locations in their local results for a branded search...but, they do not show me the thousands of locations this franchise likely has in my state. So, the results for the branded search are being localized automatically to me. So, I do want to confirm that your client's 2 restaurants are near one another so that they can receive that Jack-in-the-Box-type treatment in the SERPs (the same display as in your examples #1 and #3).

My guess is that you will come to see this same display for your client when:

1. The listing is more established (1.5 months isn't very long in Local)

2. Your citations for the second locale have had time to go into full effect (some can take many weeks to become active).

*This is of course under the proviso that the new listing is violation free (adheres to all these guidelines: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528) and that you've done a good job with the Local SEO on the website and on the landing page for the new location, with good markup, and good, non-duplicate content. If you feel confident about this and the 2 locations are near one another and you give it some more time, I would expect Google to start showing your client's two locations eventually. Remember, too, that refreshes don't happen every day in terms of changes in what is being displayed in the Local results, so that will take some time, too. A few good links to the new landing page on the website wouldn't hurt, and be sure the internal linking structure of the site is clear and strong and I think you have every chance of the client achieving this display eventually. What I would not do is make the client any promises as to when this will happen. You can let him know you're doing everything you can to make the data available, but that it's up to Google to pick it up and use it.

Hope this helps, and yes, I do hourly consulting for many different businesses. I'd be pleased to hear from you, Jason, and you can contact me via solaswebdesign.net.

Good luck!

Hi Jim,

Well, from a Local SEO perspective, I wouldn't advise putting content on a local business website that reflects anything other than your own city or location and service area, due to confusion this could cause on the part of your customers and Google, but lead gen is not an area of expertise for me. I'm going to ask our staff for additional input on your question. It's a good one, for sure!

Greetings Justin,

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question, which is a good one. Chas is correct in that Google is fairly sophisticated about handling slight differences, but when it comes to the accuracy of your address across the web, I beg to differ. I would put in the time to make sure that ALL mentions of your client's address are consistent across the Internet. Little stuff like 'road' vs. 'rd.' doesn't matter, but I consider suite numbers to be an integral part of the geography of the business and would recommend you correct any listings that don't state it properly.

Hope this advice helps!

Miriam

Hi Konoozi,

If you offer these services in these cities, no, this is not spam. The question that does beg to be answered, however, is whether optimizing for these is actually going to get you results. Unless the client has a physical location and in-person transactions with his clients in each of these cities, he is not going to be able to seek local inclusion in Google+. So, in most cases, that would mean you'd be having to gun for organic rankings only, with the understanding that qualified, physical local businesses would outrank your client pretty much all of the time. Still, some traffic is better than none, right?

Now, there is a very interesting nuance here, in your specific case. If you client were, let's say, a general contractor, this scenario of lack of local inclusion would be really tough for you. But, your client is a website designer and app developer.  In my experience, Google is going to be unlikely to show local packs for your core search terms, anyway. For example, Google stopped showing local results for website design companies a couple of years ago. So, this is actually in your favor. Unlike the general contractor, you will not be competing against physical businesses for a lettered blended/local rankings. It's all going to be organic. So, again, what you want to do isn't spam, if you actually offer services to these communities.

My last bit of advice on this would be to be absolutely certain that your SEO efforts don't lead to a bunch of duplicate pages. Can you create truly unique content for the San Francisco Drupal Web Design page vs. the San Jose Drupal Web Design page? What you don't want to do is put up the same page 10 times with different title tags. So, the project is going to be a large one, requiring significant time/funding for unique copywriting and it will be important to educate the client about this so that they can take an effective, well-planned approach rather than a slap-dash one.

Thanks for asking such a good question here in Q&A!

Hi Antony,

Marcus has given an excellent response. Yes, the organic and local algos are separate. Looking at the results for 'driving lessons brighton' from California, I am seeing a mix of pure organic results and blended results. It is technically possible to get more than 1 spot in the SERPs. You can have an organic result as well as a local result, but as you've guessed, the factors for doing so mean engaging in a strong traditional SEO campaign as well as what you are doing with Local SEO, or, having very little competition. It looks to me like you've got lots of local competitors, but if you can out-do them, there is some chance of seeing an organic result for your business in addition to the local one. I do note, though, that Google is not giving this special treatment to any of your competitors (at least not in the results I'm seeing). Each one either has an organic results or a blended places result, and this may be due to there being so many businesses competing for this term. Google has a lot to choose from.

Still, if you can utterly out-do some of them, there is a chance.

Good luck!

Miriam

Hi Adam,

Good thinking. Hope it works out well. Situations like these can be layers deep and murky - tough to sort out. Wishing you the best!

Hi Perfect Pitch Concepts,

I'm so sorry your question hasn't received a reply. Looks like no one may have noticed this about Google+ Local vs Brand pages. You're supposed to be able to link out from the description with rich text, but my understanding is that it can take longer to get verified if you do.

Now, with the launch of the new Google My Buisiness, who knows! Google is definitely narrowing the gap between Local and Social page types, so I expect all kinds of changes to be going on with things just like this.

Hi Emerald,

Michael is correct. The phenomenon which have experienced is one that has become common since the Venice update in 2012. The best way I can describe this is that your previous organic rank (typically for your homepage) has been subsumed into your new local rank. It is very uncommon these days for any business to have both an organic and local ranking on page one of Google's results, pointing to their homepage. However, also as Michael says, it is sometimes possible to get an interior page to rank organically for a second spot in the SERPs, but this really depends upon how competitive the keyword phrase you are going after is.

Hi Kristi,

1. If you choose to create local listings for each of your installers, then, yes, you would have to use their home address and local area code phone number (I do not recommend putting your 800 number on your listing even as the second phone number). You would then need to choose the hide address feature in creating each of the listings, because employees are going to customers rather than customers coming to the employees' home. Do not overlook this step, or the listings are likely to be yanked. Honestly, if you can avoid the bulk upload feature, I would. I'd do this individually.

2. Google will eventually merge the + and Place pages. Recommend you study this article regarding the category selected when you created the + page to see if you are eligible for a manual merge request or if you need to wait (http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/08/google-for-business-places-forums-wrapup/). Also recommend you read: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/08/03/google-business-and-local-merge-process-is-now-live/. Because you are dealing with what is essentially a multi-location business (like a franchise) Google has not yet announced a solution/intentions regarding how it will handle this type of business.

3. Where does your Place Page say you serve all 50 states? The description? Can you please provide a little more detail.

Don't feel badly about being stumped. The changes have made everybody's head spin! Mine, too!

Miriam

Hi Saijo,

There a quite a few different ways in which Google displays local results and your screenshot shows one of them. As to why Google tries so many different layouts, I believe they are always testing things to see which layouts serve users (and Google) best.

Regarding your question:

"Didn't they at some point of time club orgainc + map together so only one shows up in SERPs ?"

I believe what you are referring to is the blended results. A blended results is a result in which there is both information coming from Google's local product (like reviews) as well as information coming from the business' website (like the title tag and URL). The majority of local listings are blended now and will appear on a page of both blended results and organic results, as in your screenshot. So, what you are seeing is normal.

Hope this helps!

Miriam

Hi Michael,

You've gotten some excellent replies. I share Chris' sentiment about firing this client if they are telling you - their SEO - how to do SEO. As members have explained here, it has been many years since Google devalued the meta keywords tag, specifically because people were using it in the spammy way your client wants to. In fact, I would let your client know that not only will this tactic not help him, it could very likely hurt him.

Last year, Google updated their Webmaster Quality Guidlelines (share this link with your client: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66358) to speak against keyword stuffing of this kind anywhere on a page. The language reads:

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

Examples of keyword stuffing include:

• Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
• Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for
• Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:
  We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

*emphasis in bold mine

When Google makes a point of saying, "don't do this," and website owners ignore the warning, they are courting a penalty.

Share this information with the client and at the same time, lay out a proper Local SEO plan if they are, in fact, a Local business. Hopefully, this session of education will bring them up-to-date on best practices, but if they persist in insisting on spammy practices, tell them you can't serve them. You don't want spammy clients, believe me.

Hope this helps!

Hi Wayne,

I vote for a good mix of:

• Locally relevant sites, like local newspapers, local business organizations and possibly local blogs

• Industry relevant sites, like industry publications, industry organizations and industry blogs

I wouldn't focus on one over the other. I'd go for both!

Hi Jonathan,

Ugh...yes, my firm gets daily emails offering SEO services, too. Such a pain, and I totally respect your position that you want to learn to do this yourself rather than rely on someone else. My take on this is that if this were your own business you were marketing, then experimentation of the kind you are doing would be a great way to learn.

Clients are different, however. I don't believe in taking risks for clients or enter into contracts for services that I don't yet have the expertise to provide with success.

For example, my firm does website design, copywriting, Local SEO and consultation. These are the services we offer and charge for. We do not do PPC, Social Media, linkbuilding and many other forms of marketing. I have no expertise in these areas and can't take on clients who need these things - so I refer these business owners to trustworthy colleagues who are specialists in these areas. I can't do it all in-house! My firm is small, and my main goal is that any business owner who contacts me is matched up with the best possible person who will know how to utilize funding wisely, do great work and avoid any type of penalties. That person may not be me every time.

What I am seeing is that you are in a learning phase with Local SEO right now. That is a great place to be, but it may not be a great platform from which to be offering client services because even small mistakes in Local can be so far-reaching for the client. Local is very unforgiving when it comes to mistakes, given the way a single error can be replicated via data feeds across the web.

I'm glad you'll follow through on the links I've shared with you. They are great learning resources, and don't overlook the Google Places Quality Guidelines. Every Local SEO needs to know these like the backs of their hands because they are the foundation of every Local campaign. I sincerely hope that you don't feel like you're being clobbered on this thread. From the title of your post, "Why are my local results so terrible," I think you've made an important start to diagnosing the answer to your question. You simply have some more learning to do before you can provide Local SEO services with confidence and success, I believe, and recognizing this may be a truly empowering step in the growth of your business. I am wishing you a ton of fun and good luck ahead in the learning process!

Hi Catherine!

You guessed it - by publishing a incomplete address, you will definitely confuse the search engines. I sympathize with the wish not to reveal a home address. I value privacy, but desire for this is at loggerheads with wanting visibility, unfortunately. So, you have 3 options:

1. Don't participate in local.

2. Only list your business in those directories which allow you to hide your address. A number of the top ones do allow hiding the address, just like Google does.

3. Decide that you've got to give up privacy for the sake of inclusion in all the local directories.

What you've been doing with listing a partial address just isn't a good idea. Here is a really excellent post from Local Visibility System:

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/08/13/can-you-rank-well-in-local-google-without-revealing-your-street-address-anywhere/

I think you will find that post to be totally awesome for your situation. Good luck!

Miriam