Welcome to the Q&A Forum

You are so welcome, Waqas!

Hello There!

Is your business model local (with physical locations in these provinces and face-to-face contact with customers) or virtual (like an e-commerce company)?

Hey There!

Good topic! First, let me point you to this cool little tool Local SEO Guide just published: http://www.localseoguide.com/the-local-keyword-generator-tool/ It should really help with your keyword organization needs that you've mentioned.

From your post, what I understand is that your business is at a very critical moment in planning its strategy. You are so right: it is really easy to go at this wrong and end up with a redundant, duplicative site that simply doesn't do a good job of serving users. Most local businesses will need to create a strategy something like this for their website:

1. Build great basic pages (home, about, contact, testimonials, etc.)

2. Build a great page for each service the company offers.

3. Build a high quality, unique page for each city in which the business has a physical location. So, if you've got 5 physical locations, that's 5 pages.

4. Then, consider how you wish to cover all of the other cities that you serve. If you serve hundreds of cities, chances are slim that you're going to be able to create amazing content for all of them in the short term. As you've mentioned, you know you're not gunning for local pack rankings for cities in which you lack a physical location, but providing some content about them can definitely help with your organic visibility. So, typically, in this scenario, you'd be considering something along the lines of identifying maybe 10-20 most important cities where you serve but lack a physical location for, and then consider how you can create content that really shines for your work in those cities. For example, an architect physically located in San Antonio, Texas may have designed 3 building in Dallas, Texas. Even though he is not located in Dallas, he could create a wonderful page about the buildings he helped create there. In other words, you can showcase your projects in a given city, including text, photos, testimonials, links to 3rd party reviews, topical tips for that city, etc.

If a business can take this approach to its more important service cities, and then earn a few good links to those pages, they are well on their way to competing for organic visibility. They can then move out from there, perhaps mentioning some of their secondary target cities in blog posts, social media, etc.

Here are some resources I think you'll find very helpful at this critical stage of your planning:

https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages

https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-checklist

https://moz.com/blog/build-content-keyword-map-for-seo-whiteboard-friday

https://moz.com/blog/long-tail-seo-target-low-volume-keywords-whiteboard-friday

https://moz.com/blog/google-may-analyze-evaluate-quality-content-whiteboard-friday

Hope you'll enjoy these!

Hi Cozy Web,

Before you take any paid steps, I think you should phone Yahoo. I believe these are the numbers:
1-866-562-7219 or 1-866-562-7228

Unlike Google, Yahoo offers phone support. Present your case to the tech and ask what you should do, as the business is listed without problem in all other directories. This is what I would do.

Miriam

Hi David,

While I don't have explicit CTR data to share with you, I do believe you will like this eyetracking article:

http://connect.icrossing.co.uk/eye-tracking-experiment-google_7109

In one of the screenshots, you can see the greater heat in the local area of the page, vs. the upper organic results.

Does this help with your query?

Hi MagicianUK,

Very good question. Linda Buquet did an awesome piece on this topic just a couple of months ago. Suggest you read:

http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/local-seo-ranking/849-local-keyword-research-tools-tricks.html

Of course, there is not going to be an answer which speaks to every case, but Linda's research is very illuminating. Hope you'll find it helpful!

Hey There,

The answer from Serge on this older thread pretty much tells it like it is, when it comes to sitelinks:

https://moz.com/community/q/how-to-get-sitelinks-in-organic-serps

I hope you'll receive further feedback from the community, Bob! It's exciting that you're planning your business.

Hi Peter,

I want to be sure I'm understanding something you wrote here:

The last thing I need is to be penalized when I appear several times on page one of google for a local search. ie  1 as yell, 2 as an organic listing, 2 my facebook, 3 places listing

I want to clarify - did Yell offer to build you another website? That would be the only thing that would cause you problems. There is no reason you would be penalized for having multiple directory listings. A branded search for your business should, in fact, bring up lots of citations for your business, including your Google+ Local page, Facebook page, directory listings, etc. There is nothing taboo about this, so I want to be sure I understand what it is, precisely, that Yell offered you and what you think might be putting you at risk for a penalty.

Hi Leo,

I second Alan's very well-stated concerns on this. Google has this habit of letting things get by them for months or even years, but it's my opinion that they are quick to spot odd looking activity when they actually take the time to look. I believe what you are considering could look odd.

It's perfectly fine for a business owner to use his Places account to leave reviews of businesses with which he has enjoyed transactions, but I, personally, would steer clear of making some sort of organized, reciprocal effort out of this. In Google's dream world (and Yelp's, etc.) reviews are a spontaneous and voluntary action on the part of the customer. They are not the outcome of an organized deal. That being said, I do understand how critical reviews have become, including their number and quality, to the visible reputation and bottom line of so many businesses and it's truly tempting to team up with other business owners who are grappling with this powerful and still-relatively-new monster to give business a boost in a tough economy. In the long run, though, I think the worry probably wouldn't be worth the potential benefits. At least, it wouldn't for me.

Thanks for asking such a good question.

Good tip, Sean! I wouldn't say that content on the homepage will completely resolve David's question, but it will certainly help! David's scenario is one that every multi-practitioner or multi-location local business has to grapple with: how to ensure that a set of pages that basically share a topic are uniquely useful, as well as optimized. It takes some doing!

Hey Donald,

I have 4 questions:

Are these local businesses (i.e. do they serve clients in person vs. virtually?)

Are they branded separately? If so, how separately? Is it Jones Payroll and Davis Time & Attendance, or is it Jones Payroll and Jones Time & Attendance?

Do they occupy the same physical address?

Do they each have a unique phone number?

Hi Peter,
Thank you for the additional info. So, do not be worried about earning a penalty of any kind from having directory listings. Citation building is one of the core disciplines of Local SEO and is perfectly fine. Whether you want to pay money for directory listings or stick with free ones is completely up to you. I would thoroughly research any paid directory before investing in being listed on it.

Regarding having people review your products - if the sites are a good match for your subject, that can be a good thing. If it's just on blogs that review everything under the sun, it may not be worth the time/effort.

Hey Egol,

If for Google, yes. For others (read Yelp) this is a weird no-no. Nice to see you here today!

Hi There!

Check out these case studies: https://searchengineland.com/mobile-speed-case-studies-push-for-faster-page-loads-295331

I think they may be of help to you!

Hey Bob,

Suggestions: research the biggest employers in Boise and the industries they occupy. Is it medical, agricultural, tech, etc? Then, spend time looking at what the major players in that city are doing in terms of their SEO. Find errors in their marketing strategies and begin writing about how to correct them. Provide 90% free advice, with gentle hooks into your consulting offers to get the remaining 10% of advice by hiring you. Promote your content socially, follow major local players, interact with them. Hope this helps!

Greetings Shmeetz,

I'm the Local SEO Associate here in Q&A. While I don't have the highest opinion of the BBB (see: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2010/10/07/google-better-business-bureau-ratings/) I would be very surprised if your ranking drop had anything to do with your signing up in the one city. I've not heard of anything like this...the BBB really wouldn't have the power to alter Google's algorithm in the manner you are describing. Your questions is definitely interesting, but I'd say what you've observed is a coincidence, and that you'll need to investigate other possibilities for your ranking drop.

Have you made edits to your Google Place Pages recently?

Are you being affected by the new 3-pack rollout/test that is just now being observed?

Have competitors hired Local SEOs who are moving them forward while you are falling backward?

Could you be suffering from a penalty due to a violation or bug?

That's just a start. I'll look forward to contributions from other members to this discussion. Good luck!

I find that Google's review policies are sort of normal, in that they are similar to the policies of others, but Yelp's are sometimes off in a corner by themselves. For example, here's a line from Yelp's TOS:

Violate our Content Guidelines, for example, by writing a fake or defamatory review, trading reviews with other businesses, or compensating someone or being compensated to write or remove a review;

(emphasis mine)

So, Yelp would explicitly frown on the hypothetical strategy Leo has put forward, whereas, Google is less clear on this. Interesting stuff.

Hi Chook1!

From reading this thread, I'm understanding a couple of things. Please confirm that this is the scenario you are describing:

1. You offer cycling tours in parts of Australia that no one seems to be looking for.

2. You wish that when people search for something that they are looking for, like "cycling tours Italy", your pages about your tours in Australia would come up in the results.

If my understanding is correct then, in response to the above two points:

1. You have a demand problem rather than an SEO problem. Selling a product/service people aren't yet asking for (cycling tours in Carnarvon Gorge) means your initial focus has to be on creating awareness and a demand for this. It's like you've built a new invention that no one has ever heard of before. In order to turn your invention into a household word, you're likely going to have to advertise it via social media and other channels until the demand becomes real and people are actually searching for what you offer.

2. Google has no incentive to show Australian bike tours when people are looking for Italian bike tours. Anything outside of Italy would be irrelevant to the searcher, so this is not really a goal you should waste time on trying to achieve. Google Maps, mentioned in the ongoing discussion on this thread, will be of no help to you in Italy if your business and your tours are located in Australia. Google Maps is for local search marketing - not International marketing. So, rather, your best strategy is likely to be what I've described in #1 around building awareness/demand for what you offer. If you are trying to get Australians to take bike tours in little-known spots in the country, you will need to advertise in Australia. If you are trying to get travelers from other countries to come to Australia, you will have to advertise wherever those audiences congregate. As far as SEO goes, you'll likely want to try to develop relationships with whatever websites publish the most trusted info on bike tours for your target audience and see what you can do to start getting some press and links from them.

Does this help? If I've in any way misunderstood your scenario, please feel free to provide further details.

Good thoughts from Roman, for sure, and a good question, Dylan.

Roman is right that formal link analysis will provide the only data-based answer to your query about which link will "do more" for you. But, in general, for local businesses, it is best to build up local relevance with local links. However, if a dental practice had a chance to be featured on the website of the ADA or something like that, then of course, you'd jump at that chance.

What you don't want to do is focus on getting backlinks from something that really doesn't relate to the geo-industry. So, for example, a dentist in Chicago doesn't really have a sensible relationship to a directory of dental providers in San Diego ... even if you could somehow get a link there, it wouldn't be very relevant.

But, in general, build up highly relevant local links, and if the chance comes up to be featured on an authoritative industry site, go for that, too.

Hi Taysir,

If the company has made the effort to create unique city landing pages for each franchise, then, yes, it's a best practice to link from local business profiles to the respective city landing pages in any directory that allows you to do so. And, if corporate headquarters has its own local phone number and address, it can have its own directory listings as well that would link to the homepage. I recommend that you do link up the Yahoo profiles to the landing pages.

BTW, here is the link to the PRO webinar referenced by JP:

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/all-about-google-places

Definitely worth watching!

Hi Kevin,

If you can, I'd recommend using the same email address, just to simplify things for yourself.  You can send Google your email through this form to be notified as to when the merge takes place:

http://support.google.com/places/bin/request.py?contact_type=verification_address_collection&&rd=1

Regarding the other issues you are having, don't give up on the Google 'Places' Help Forum. If you haven't used it in awhile, Google has recently really upped volunteer staffing in the forum and many more questions get attention thanks to the Top Contributors. It's a much more helpful environment now.

Good luck!

Miriam

Hi Davit,

Thanks for the links! I agree with you that it seems a bit weird seeing this business, with no GMB listing, doing so well organically. I looked at a few things I normally look at, and couldn't see a "easy" explanation.

So, I asked one of our organic SEO experts, Britney Muller, if she could take a glance at this, and she suggested a couple of things:

• Your competitor has been around since 2006, so pretty established

• Your competitor has invested in links, which appear to be paying off

• "LAX car service" is one of the phrases they are doing best on, though they are not doing so well on other terms

• They are investing heavily in PPC, which could be producing what she described as some sort of "halo" effect

Taking all of that into consideration, I do consider this competitor of yours as having earned rankings for this term that don't make immediate sense. Give this, I believe if you could hire a good company to do a full competitive audit for you, you should be able to map out a strategy to surpass them, but it may take some doing.

Hope you'll receive other feedback.

Hi Ed,

I would highly recommend watching this Whiteboard Friday if you've not yet seen it:

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

Please, spend a few minutes watching that and see if it provides further clarity.

Hi Robert,

Unfortunately, call tracking is taboo in Local SEO. Here are some articles on this I think you will find helpful:

http://searchengineland.com/be-wary-of-call-tracking-numbers-in-local-search-26895

http://searchengineland.com/for-local-seo-lack-of-call-tracking-solution-spawns-cloaking-70198

The thing is, the phone number is one of your key trust metrics with Google...equal to or greater than street address. Getting this mixed up can have pretty severe consequences, making it not really worth it to even go down the call tracking road.

I understand the frustration with this, especially given how useful call tracking can be in paid search campaigns, and etc., but the best you can do with call tracking is to train the business owner and his/her phone staff to do this the old fashioned way. Train them to ask, "How did you hear about us?" Not very high tech, but it does provide some data to you to see how your work is benefiting the business.

I hope the articles help, Robert. Your questions is a very important and valid one.

Hi Ocelot,

If the review you mention, above, is new, it could show up eventually. If not, it may have been filtered out. I believe Google is stepping up review filtering, in which case it will not show up because it has been filtered. I'm going to excerpt some data here for you from Mike Blumenthal's Q&A roundup about review changes relating to Google+ Local. Here is the full post:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/05/31/google-local-qs-and-some-as/

If a user just has a gmail account will they be able to write a review or must they also sign up for Google+?

They will need to sign up for Google +

So our customers are not able to leave reviews unless they are on Google+?

Yep, you need a Google+ account to write a review. See the help page.

Can reviewers leave anonymous reviews?

No. At this point it is real names only.

Is there any way to choose a nickname like we had in Places reviews?

No

Why am I not seeing the “Leave a Review” button?

These had been removed from the Places page in anticipation of this move and put on the new Google+Local page. If you are still not seeing the review button it is because you have landed on the old Place page which is still accesible.

**Why would Google make my re-publish old reviews while I’m trying to publish a NEW review for a different business? **

Why it happens at that point in the process was an intentional design decision. It is a one time process needed since Google is moving from anonymous and nicknamed reviews to full, real identity reviews . This necessitated some sort of user approval process to explicitly allow your user name to be seen or to choose to make the review private.

Oh Google, you are driving me CRAZY! Can you please tell me how a dentist can have a Zagat review rating on their places page?

In this case it will be a single number indicating quality on the 0-30 scale.

Best practices are roughly the same, but an increase in social engagement is definitely the direction things are going. I highly recommend that you read Mike Blumenthal's post on adjusting to the changes:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/0/08/google-for-business-places-forums-wrapup/

Hi Davit,

Hmm...what you are describing sounds so much like this other recent thread. Please, read through this and let me know whether what it's describing is the same as what you're experiencing, or, if it's different, how so: https://moz.com/community/q/local-seo-penalty

It's my pleasure! It sounds like you are asking some really good questions of yourself, and being observant! That's definitely a great start. I'd say a podiatrist has some pretty excellent leeway in presentation, particularly if you are serving a great many athletes who want to meet health goals. I'd suggest coming up with some personae for your main customer "types" to get a sense of where that might take your content. And good for you for blogging!

If it turns out that most of your colleagues are being somewhat stuffy in their presentation of foot health management, you, with your pleasant personality, might have a chance to set your brand apart by presenting your practice as one where you are personally ready to help patients meet their physical fitness goals, with happy feet instead of tired dogs.

Hi Greenhornet77,

Like Moosa, I might need a bit of clarification on the scenario you are describing. If the client has 3 legitimate physical locations (not P.O Boxes or virtual addresses, but real offices), has 3 distinct local phone numbers (one for each location) and has in-person transactions with his customers either at his locations or at theirs, then you would want to optimize for all 3 locations, both on the website and in citation building. You are allowed to have a listing for each location, providing it meets the above criteria.

Does this answer your question, or do you need to provide further details about the nuances of the situation? Please, just let me know.

Hi Cyril,

Owner verification checkmarks have not been transferred to the new Google+ Local pages. I recommend reading this Google And Your Business Forum thread on this topic:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/business/FcPdPDzbMbk

I think that will really clear this mystery up for you!

Miriam

Hi Davit,

Thank you for reading that other thread. It immediately came to mind in reading your question, and when I see more than one report of mysterious ranking behavior, that's when I begin to wonder if Google has created some kind of new filter or is even experiencing a bug. The behavior that both you and the other poster are describing that is similar is that you rank well when searching from other parts of the country, but not from the business' own location. That's definitely mysterious, but the details of your business will tell us whether the scenarios are related or totally dissimilar..

Likely, you need to have a full audit done, Davit, and a forum can't replace investing in that, but let me take a quick gander here and tell you what I see:

1. Searching from my location in NorCal for "car service to lax", I see you ranking 7th organically.

2. You are not in the local pack for this search, and clicking through on the pack to the local finder, I am not finding you in the 3 tiers of results at the automatic zoom level. So, this counts as a pretty strong organic ranking but a strangely absent local ranking.

3. I zoom in one level on the map. Google shows me two tiers of results and you are not there. I zoom in two levels, and you're still not there. I zoom in a third time and you are still not there, and Google is showing me irrelevant results like a UPS store and an auto parts store. On my 4th zoom, Google is showing me just two results, and they are irrelevant to my search - an automobile club and an auto parts store. So, what I've learned from this step is that your business does not appear to be suffering from the known earmarks of the Possum filter, which can result in filtered rankings at the automatic zoom level if two businesses are located near one another and share the same category. Rather, your business never appeared in the local finder no matter how many times I zoomed in.

4. Next, I'm looking at your address in comparison to the address ranking #1 in the local pack. Google tells me that you are 23.6 miles away from your top competitor which is listed as LAX Town Car Service at 1 World Way, Los Angeles, CA 90045. You are 26.9 miles away from the #2 business, LAX Car Service -MGCLS located at 7828 Kittyhawk Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90045. And, you are 23.9 miles away from business #3, LA Confidential, at 101 World Way, Los Angeles, CA 90045. We've just learned that your business, located at 5322 Russell Ave #27, Los Angeles, CA 90027 is well over 20 miles away from the competitors Google is ranking in the local pack for me, as a distant searcher. You are not even in the same zip code as these three brands.

5. Now, let's look up "los angeles" in Google and look at the map. You are 6.8 miles from Google’s centroid of the city which is located near City Hall at 200 N Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Your top competitor is even further away from City Hall, at a distance of 18.6 miles. So we are definitely seeing more an industry cluster than a city centroid cluster for your core search term. These are kind of old concepts, but sometimes I still find them to be applicable. You are within Google’s mapped boundaries of “los angeles” and are not in that cutout area they are making around Hollywood. So, city centroids and mapped borders are not excluding your from rankings, but significant distance from Google's industry cluster of businesses for your search term could be a factor.

6. Exploring that last concept further, at the automatic zoom level for your search the furthest away Google is going for a listing for your search term is Flat Rate Car Service in West Hollywood at 8000 Sunset Blvd #45, Los Angeles, CA 90046. It is 12.1 miles from your top competitor on World Way. So, we see that, at least for my search from my location, Google is not setting a search radius that would include you in it, at 23.6 miles away from the top ranking business. From this, it’s reasonable to state that you may simply be too far away from Google’s 12 mile cluster of businesses for my search term. Good information.

7) However, all of the above being stated, the fact that you don’t come up at all no matter how many times I zoom in on the map is still sticking with me. If I am not able to see you in the local finder for my search at a great distance from your business and you are not able to see yourself in the local finder from your searches within LA, but you are ranking #7 organically, it’s at this point that I begin to become concerned that a local penalty of some kind could be at work. So, now, I want you to do something for me. I want you to search for this same term, “car service to lax” while standing inside of your place of business on Russel Ave. and verify for me that you are unable to find yourself AT ALL in the local pack. Then click through to the local finder and observe the results carefully, zooming in one level at a time, as I did in the above exercise. Tell me if you are not seeing yourself at all, even if you zoom in as many levels as Google allows you. Come back to me, please, and tell me what you see.

Sounds like a good plan, Ed!

Hi Again,

While it's fine to use the home address as one of the legit locations, the UPS store is taboo. It should be removed, web-wide, to avoid possible penalties of the entire account. You will need to let the client know that this violation of the guidelines could get him into serious hot water, and that he's going to need to invest in some man hours to find and remove any citations that exist of the business at the non-permitted address.

This will then leave you with 2 physical addresses (the home address and the other one), both of which can be optimized for without detracting from the rankings of either. Think about McDonalds and how many locations they might have within a given city.

What will be vital is that you make certain that BOTH addresses are using the 'hide address' function in Google Places as this is a service-type business.

Ideally, if one is starting a new business or moving offices, there can be some benefits to getting an address as close as possible to the centroid of the city, but again, theses would need to be legit addresses. It sounds to me like you've got 2 good addresses to work with and one that needs to be removed.

Hi Marc,

Is your business virtual, or do you have in-person contact with clients either at your location or theirs? From your description of your comparison engine, this sounds rather like a virtual business, in which case, it wouldn't qualify for participation in Local SEO, even if it gives information about other local businesses. It's important to first establish whether you qualify for local inclusion. Do you have further information to provide on this?

Miriam

Good eye noticing this, Don_Quixote. I planned to mention that very thing in following up with Davit after learning his response to my question. I see what you do, that the street address appears to be residential, with no business signage. It's totally fine to run a business from home, though, as long as you are just using one location to do so and not using multiple residences to make the business appear like a true multi-location entity. Good eyes on that, though!

Hi Mª Verónica,

Just want to be sure I'm fully understanding the query. Your client is a job center in Dublin, and is being outranked by competitors with a higher DA. Is that right?

If I've understood correctly, and you're convinced that it's the DA-related metrics that are causing these competitors to outrank your client, then the answer would be to improve your client's DA-related metrics, too. Is there something specific you were thinking about and wanted particular advice on about improving your client's DA?

Hi Kristopher,

Your question is a good one. If you do not have a physical address in a city, then, no, you should not be using these local platforms. Google and other local directories want actual physical locations in their indexes - not virtual offices, P.O. boxes, etc. Here is the language from Google's Places Quality Guidelines (http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528) that speaks to this:

Business Location: Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location. Do not create a listing or place your pin marker at a location where the business does not physically exist. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.

So, anything other than this is a violation of the guidelines, and it's just good sense to represent your business in an accurate and truthful manner on the Internet. That being said, making use of Local SEO if you're an SEO company is somewhat of a moot point as Google stopped showing local results for web design and SEO companies in January of 2010. It is my understanding that this was partly based on their decision that these types of businesses are mainly virtual in nature (whether that's true or not), and also, heavy spamming of the vertical. So, you can't achieve true local rankings for this business model.

We've had similar questions here in recent times from Members in the SEO/design fields who want to be able to target numerous cities within a state. From what you've written, I believe this is your goal. Such efforts will have to be solely organic, and the task at hand is to find a reason to create content about your work in various geographic places. For example, you might have a page dedicated to your SEO or design projects for businesses in Buffalo, NY, and another page about your projects for clients in Long Island. You've got to find something really different to say about your work in each locale in order to have a reason to create such pages so that you end up with robust rather than thin or duplicate content.

Hope this helps!

Hi Zack,

Google's current guidelines (http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528)  on this read:

If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option.

If you followed these steps correctly, it should not have caused your listing to disappear. However, there have been reports over the past several months from business owners who have had a similar experience. For example, Local SEO Andrew Shotland received a phone call from Google asking if he served customers at his location. This was in February, prior to the guideline update. When he answered no, his listing disappeared. See: http://www.localseoguide.com/hey-seos-if-google-maps-calls-dont-answer/

However, in cases like Andrew's, the vanishing of the listings happened because they did not choose to hide their address (generally, because Google hadn't yet clearly announced that they were supposed to do so).

Long before this, many people noticed that choosing the hide address function had the effect of instantly burying one's listing. Then, in November 2010, Mike Blumenthal reported that it appeared that this had changed and that hiding the address should not bury your blended listing, though it might still effect the Maps and 7-Packs of that time period. See: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2010/11/03/google-places-search-hiding-address-no-longer-buries-listing/

But, since the big guideline update in March 2012, (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-you-may-need-to-hide-your-google-places-address-asap) this issue was supposed to have been completely fixed and hiding the address was not ever supposed to bury your listing, though I have heard a couple of remarks to the effect that it may push your listing down a couple of places.

So, if you chose the 'serves customers at their locations' and 'do not show' options in your dashboard, according to my information, this should not be the culprit in what you're experiencing. Nor should removing a geographic modifier from your business description (using geo terms in descriptions has never really been considered a good idea and at one time, was forbidden by the guidelines). And, finally, gaining citations from directories should have the effect of improving your rankings - not destroying them.

So, at this point, there are several things to consider, as I see it:

1. Your client is experiencing the effects of a bug.

2. There is an external factor at play, such as a discrepancy of information between your current NAP (name, address, phone number) and 3rd party citations such as the ones you are building for the client via directories.

3. The client has been penalized for activity Google has red flagged (it doesn't happen often, but it does happen).

I would suggest that you report the whole incident via the Google and Your Business Forum: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business

If you do not receive a response from the Google Top Contributors or employees in the 'Technical Advice?' forum, your next step would be to try to use the troubleshooter at http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs to report that the client's listing has disappeared.

I hope my response hasn't been overwhelming but the history of this issue is fairly deep. I sincerely wish you good luck in finding resolution!

Miriam

Sounds good, Davit. And if you're unable to find a company you're satisfied with, DM me. I can likely make a referral for you to somebody good.

Thank you for the further details  Mª Verónica.

It is always so hard when Google moves in on a territory where we were formerly doing well. Think of how, ten years ago, individual hotels had a chance of ranking their websites fairly well with a little work. Now, Google's hotel product + all of the other hotel rental mega sites out there are about all that ranks for queries like "hotel San Francisco".

It sounds to me like what you are witnessing with the client in Dublin is the encroachment of Google into this space, and you are right to realize you can't really beat this. Based on this, and without being able to investigate your actual client, I have a couple of things to suggest:

1. There's an old saying: If you can't beat them, join them.

The client needs to become a master at posting to Google Jobs. They need to dive deep into learning how to ensure that their jobs are the ones coming up in the Google Jobs interface. I am not familiar enough with this topic to give expert advice, but here is a start: https://jobs.google.com/about/. And, if this data is being pulled from third parties like Monster or ZipRecruiter (see https://support.google.com/hire/answer/7326138?hl=en) the client needs to master inclusion on those sites.

The thing to remember is that hotels are still getting leads. It's just that less of them are likely coming from the website. They are coming through Google now. Your client may simply need to realize that their website is no longer going to be their top source of leads. Leads may have to come from other sources, now. It's a strategic shift the client likely needs to confront.

2. This does not mean the client should give up on their website. I would suggest that you conduct an audit for the client in which you take their job category searches (both their top ones and their longer tail ones) and identify all the sites outranking them for those searches. Then analyze those sites to see:

• Which ones the client can be listed on

• Which ones aren't job listing sites but might link to your client via a list, a guest article, a sponsorship or other unstructured citation opportunity.

I would consider the old concept of Barnacle SEO (https://moz.com/blog/barnacle-seo-whiteboard-friday) to see where it can get the client.

3. Finally, after taking care of everything you can do online for the client, I would advise them to evaluate their offline opportunities. If your client has a physical office in Dublin, what are the offline connections they need to make with job seekers in Dublin? What events can they sponsor, attend, speak at? Where do they need to advertise (billboards, newspapers, local radio, local TV?). What can they do on their physical premises to bring employers and job seekers into the building? Host events? Offer additional trainings and services? What would bring people in the door for a face-to-face interaction?

Google cannot replicate face-to-face communication. If your client can master the personal touch, offline, then they will be doing something Google can't rob them of, as you've said.

I hope these suggestions are of some help with creating a strategy for the client. Good luck!

Hi HDDEPT,

Just wanted to pop in and add that in Local SEO, directory listings are not only still valid, but are the core of citation building which is one of the main practices of Local Search Marketing. In this specific area, Google rewards rather than punishes inclusion in local business directories.

Hi Enam,

You've received some great and thoughtful responses on this. I'll add just a bit more.

1. Call tracking numbers are taboo in the local sphere. Do not use them. See:

http://searchengineland.com/be-wary-of-call-tracking-numbers-in-local-search-26895

www.davidmihm.com/blog/smbiz/more-call-tracking-local-search/

Whether this is causing your problem or not, it may very well be causing other problems or will cause them in future. I recommend you not use call tracking.

2. The auto industry is being especially scrutinized by Google right now due to the overwhelming amount of spam. In fact, according to Mike Blumenthal, Google authorized him to state that most car dealership reviews are spam:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/07/30/google-local-and-review-issues/

Now, whether the presence of spam reviews in the auto industry is also leading to penalties of listings, I have not heard, but I have certainly heard, in the past, of listings being docked for having spammy reviews.

3. Missing pages and weak rankings are often the result of duplicate listings. In the past, it was very easy to figure this out, because a phone number lookup in Google Maps would show you duplicates. However, a couple of weeks ago, it was noticed that this type of search was no long revealing duplicates, so you cannot, at the moment, discover hidden duplicates that could be affecting the whole profile. This is really a pain and I hope Google will fix it. They have been made aware of the problem.

4. You've asked a great question here about your scenario, and people have given good thought to this, but if you want a response from the horse's mouth, I would recommend that you post this same question in the Google and your Business Forum. Why? Because there is always a chance that what you are experiencing is a bug, in which case, only Google can remedy it.

Hi Sean,

While a local business without a physical premise can do organic local SEO, if your client isn't having face-to-face interactions with its customers, they should not be creating a Google My Business listing. Google states this in their guidelines, which state:

"Eligible businesses

In order to qualify for a Google My Business listing, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours."

So, while Will is correct in stating that there are still some things a remote/virtual business can do to compete in the organic rankings for local search phrases, building a GMB listing isn't one of them.

Its my pleasure! I think you are evaluating this scenario correctly.

And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, too! Thank you so much for being part of the Moz community.

Hi Ilya,

No, there is not a backdoor way that I could advise. Google+ Local is all about local businesses and that does not fit your business model.

Regarding citations:

A citation is typically defined as any mention of your company name with full or partial contact information (address, phone number). It does not need to contain a link to your business. If it does contain a link, this would obviously help your business, overall, in the organic SERPs. If it is a non-linked citation, I suppose that might increase the prominence of your overall business, in that it would appear that lots of sites are talking about your company, but as you don't have physical offices, you would presumably be promoting places that don't really exist. In my view, that doesn't make sense.

Regarding creating profiles at Yahoo & Bing:

Yahoo's Local Listings Guidelines are here:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/ll/guidelines/local-01.html

These guidelines state:

Provide accurate contact information. You must provide an accurate business address (including a valid street address) and phone number.

I cannot turn up Bing's guidelines for some reason, though their FAQ is here: http://www.bing.com/businessportal

While I cannot find them, I am pretty confident that their policy is similar to Google's and Yahoo's, in that they want physical businesses, not virtual ones, in their Business Portal.

Regarding How Google Can Tell You're Virtual:

I imagine they have a variety of strategies. One I've heard discussed is that they can tell via streetview, if something looks fishy to them. Another would be what you are saying about your company on your website, and what others are saying about you. If your business model is clearly virtual, chances of fooling Google are slim to none.

So, I'm afraid this isn't the answer you're hoping to hear, Ilya, but my advice would be to work on your organic SEO rather than trying to fit your virtual business into the Local box, because it's just not the right platform for what your company offers.

Hi Lucas,

Yes, there have been reports of category display issues. See:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/categories$20not$20being$20displayed/business/FehIOOYxWLk/RBgKkezj8_kJ

Now, first of all, let's make sure your categories aren't actually being displayed. Go to your Google+ Local Page and actually click on the place where the category is. Do you get a dropdown showing the other categories? For an example of this, go to this page for a jeweler in Buffalo:

https://plus.google.com/103156080483607740278/about?hl=en

As you can see, this business is showing only 2 categories on the top level interface, but if you click on the categories, a dropdown displays additional categories.

I'm wondering if you've overlooked this function.

My second question would be whether your categories are violation free. No city names? Nothing spammy? Be sure of this.

If neither of these points applies to you, I would recommend that you report the issue via the Google and Your Business forum for direct technical assistance:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business

Hope this helps!

Hi William,

Agree with your summary, but do want to stress that there generally isn't a good enough reason to be running two sites and that Google finding your complete or partial NAP on more than one site is definitely BAD!

Good morning! And very good question. Definitely do add a list of your relevant services (not just a list of keywords) to the services section of your Google Business Profile. However, doing so is unlikely to impact your rank much, or that of your competitor. To find out why your competitor is smoking you, I would recommend you do a full competitive audit. Let me give you a link here with instructions of how you can do so:
https://moz.com/local-seo-guide/assessing-demand-analyzing-markets

Go to the section of this page near the bottom, entitled: Finally, assess the strengths of the top competitors in each market

Follow the instructions in that section, using the free spreadsheet it contains, for comparing your business to a competitor. This should help you identify factors which are likely to be giving them higher visibility. Hope this helps!

Hi Nathan,

This is a good question. Google will consider the client's business as being most relevant to its city of location. So, if the business is physically located in Woodstock, its best chances of appearing in the local pack of results will relate to searches that either include the term 'woodstock' or stem from Woodstock-based devices.

Beyond this, the client can work towards organic visibility by the process of building high quality city landing pages for his other service cities. Let me give you a link here to a very large post I wrote about this very topic:

The Nitty Gritty of City Landing Pages

Why don't you give that a read, and then if you have any additional questions, please come back with them. I'm happy to answer! Welcome to the community - it's great to have you here!

Hi Megan, You are not alone in being puzzled by this. Here is what has happened. You have not lost your organic rankings - they have been subsumed in your blended/local ranking. If you look closely at your listing, you will most likely see how it is a blended listing. Some elements connect directly to your website - whereas others are going to 3rd party data, such as a Google+ Local page.

So, your previous organic strengths have helped you in attaining this highly desirable blended/local result. Way to go! In times past, it was common for dominant businesses to be able to achieve both a local pack listing and an organic one (or even a couple of organic ones) on the same page of the SERPs. This is no longer typical, and most businesses will have either a blended/local listing or an organic one - but not both.

Even if you were the only bathroom remodeler in Ann Arbor, chances are that you would get a blended/local listing for your business and that other spots on the page might be made up of a few of your citation sources (such as your Yelp profile) and that Google might pull in other stuff from further away (sometimes in really wonky ways such as showing an auto dealership for a search for a plant nursery!). It would be uncommon these days for you also to have internal local pages linked to from your site, beyond that blended/local listing. Not saying it never happens - it's just really uncommon.

You should feel really good about your achievements, and to make you feel a little better, check out Dr. Pete's super post on heatmap studies for local listings:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/eyetracking-google-serps

In that post, you will see how eyes are often drawn to the local listings, rather than the organic ones. So, things are going well for you! Congratulations!