Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hey There!

Samuel has provided good advice and resources. Very nice! In answer to your recent question, yes, it would definitely help if the client were physically located in his desired city, and sometimes, clients will ask if they can swing this with a virtual office, a Regus office or P.O. box. This question comes up all the time, because the temptation is so great, and in such cases, it's up to the Local SEO to tell it like it is. Some people get away with this for a time, but chances are, they will eventually get caught. Linda Buquet just started a great thread at her forum on this:

http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/26844-busted-warning-attorneys-regus-non-compliant-offices.html

Might be useful to have that link on your browser when you talk about this with the client

Hi There!

I would really urge you to explain to the business owner that sharing a phone number is liable to create problems for them in marketing the business. Their Google+ Local listings could merge, mixing up their data and adversely affecting each business' ability to rank. Moreover, if the two businesses are sharing a phone number, I'm guessing that they have some sort of call center that's trying to divvy up calls for one business or the other and Google expects each individual business to be directly contactable at its local number.

This might be a good thread on Linda Buquet's forum to show the business owner http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-seo-ranking/10508-business-2-offices-but-one-phone-number.html with an explanation of why no one would want to risk this kind of headache when a separate phone number should be an affordable and quick acquisition for any business.

If the business owner will not listen to this advice, then I would only suggest undertaking working with them if they remove all references to the phone number from the Internet for one of the business and solely promote contact information for the second business. This suggestions is not likely to be well received, because doubtless the owner wants to market both businesses, but it would be really frustrating to me personally to undertake marketing in this scenario knowing it could just create a mess instead of the good results I'd hope to be creating for the business.

On the Moz Local side, what you're seeing in the results is a pretty good illustration of the confusion a shared number can cause. While I believe you can list two businesses with the same phone number, I'm not 100% certain about this, and would recommend you contact the Help Team for further information on this. So sorry you're in a tough situation with this client - sounds like it needs some careful thought and a good chat with the business owner.

Hi Raymond,

If I were building this from scratch, and you only served one city, I would likely recommend:

domain.com/air-conditioning-repair-brooklyn

domain.com/air-conditioning-service-brooklyn

domain.com/hvac-installation-brooklyn

domain.com/hvac-repair-brooklyn

etc.

But, if you are working with more than one city, I would have a set of pages like this:

domain.com/city1

domain.com/city2

domain.com/city3

etc.

And another set of pages like this:

domain.com/service1

domain.com/service2

domain.com/service3

etc.

So, 1 set of pages for the cities and another set for the services. How to structure this sensibly really depends on the business model (single city vs. multi-city). Most service area businesses I've worked with serve multiple cities, so I've found the above works well and keeps things simple.

Hi Wick!

Definitely consider checking out your site on our free Check Listing tool, which generates data about your business on 15 sites that Moz considers among the most important: https://moz.com/local/search

Nice answers, everybody!

Hi Stephen!

Good topic. You are quite correct that Google requires companies without a staffed physical office to hide their addresses. And, in a level playing field in which all of your competitors are also hiding their addresses, there would be no negative impact. However, if some of your competitors do have staffed physical offices, it is believe by some Local SEOs that you may be at some disadvantage in not having one yourself. It's important to stress that this is a theory, not a statement issued by Google. There is likely some truth in it, though.

Now, that being said, Moz Local accepts listings with hidden addresses, but if we are marking a hidden address as inconsistent, this might be worth taking up with the Help Team to discover if it's normal for the dashboard to treat a hidden address this way. It could be a question that the Help Team will need to take up with Engineering. You can contact the Help Team here: https://moz.com/help/contact

I hope this is helpful!

Hey Raymond!

Jim has linked you to my great big post on the art of local landing pages. Hopefully, you can read it and identify a sensible strategy there.

Now, I'm not a New Yorker, and so this business of boroughs has always been a bit of mystery to me, but one thing that I will add to what you'll read in my post is how clearly hyper-local sensitivity is ramping up in search. My honest preference for structuring local websites is:

• one page per city

• one page per service

I totally understand that every local business owner worth his salt wants to rank for every possible combination of service/geo-term. Of course! But the only time I feel this landing page strategy should be undertaken to represent every possible combo is if the business owner has considerable creative or financial resources to devote to make a potentially enormous number of pages of a very high quality. Clearly - your competitors aren't hearing this advice if they're just spinning thin/duplicative content to cover the waterfront.

Now, all this being said, with Google become more and more intelligent about neighborhoods, and the mobile (and desktop) user becoming the new 'centroid', my take on this is that neighborhood (borough?) names are only going to become more important in signifying that a business is physically close to a given user. So, if I were consulting with a small HVAC company without endless funds, I'd probably suggest something like this strategy:

• one page per city

• one page per service

• frequent but gentle mention of boroughs/neighborhoods throughout the website, as appropiate

• hyperlocal blogging on an ongoing basis that emphasizes these boroughs, if the company or copywriter can swing something authentic and good to write about

I think frequent content of this sort could make phones ring. Hope these are helpful ideas!

Hi Mirabile,

I actually have a specific recommendation for this tough scenario. You might try getting in touch with Andrew Shotland over at LocalSEOGuide.com. I know he has dealt with a similar issue in which a wrong location was showing up in sitelinks, so he might be able to give you some pointers for dealing with your scenario. Could be a case of weak or bad data causing this, and deserves further investigation in an environment in which you'd be comfortable disclosing the search in question. Things like this can be really hard to pinpoint without knowing the actual search. Hope this helps!

Thanks, Patrick! Best wishes for an excellent 2015 to you, too!

Hi Sassy,

When I look up the main term you've stated 'nail salon in Sevierville tn' I see your website coming up #1 organically. While it is sometimes possible to appear in both the organic results and the local results at the same time, it's not terribly common.

If you have an outdated Google+ Local page representing an old location (Pigeon Forge) , here are Google's official instructions for getting rid of it:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/4569146?hl=en

Hope this helps!

Hi Kevin!

So sorry to hear you're having this headache. I'm a bit confused about some elements of what you're describing. Didn't the client already have a Google+ Local page if they were appearing with a map in the right-hand Local Knowledge Panel? Could you accidentally have created a duplicate listing?

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the additional info on this and for clarifying that the business models are local and well-acquainted with the role citations play in Local Search Marketing. What follows is just my opinion, based on what I've seen over the years.

I've honestly never been a fan of any paid local directory, though some people swear by them. You shouldn't be having to pay for a BOTW listing. Unless I've totally missed something, I'm pretty sure those are still free (https://secure.botw.org/secure/Signup.aspx?type=jumpstart&directory=local). I'm not familiar with the benefits of Business.com and have never submitted a client to them, so I'm afraid I can't speak to that.

If my clients were in the hospitality industry, I'd make sure I'd covered their citations in as many of the free generic local directories as possible and then be sure they were enrolled in any industry specific directories that do drive traffic/bookings to hotels, even if these were paid ones. Beyond this, I'd devote resources to content development and social outreach rather than paid generic directories. I'd predict a better return from that kind of effort.

Hi PTDodge!

You'll want to go with your city of location in the following places:

• Your contact page and footer on your website

• Website copy that speaks to your physical location

• All of your citation building

You must be absolutely clear and correct on all of the above. I know it's a shame when you don't operate out of your major target city, but it's really important to tell it like it is - which is that you are physically located in a small town but serve in other towns, including a major city. Places you can mention your major city include:

• A local landing page on the website, devoted to that city (see: http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide)

• Descriptions you write on some of your citations, "Voted Burlington's #1 Contractor' or what have you

• Testimonials and project summaries from/for clients you've served in Burlington

• A mention on the homepage that your service area includes Burlington

• PPC campaigns

• Blog posts

Unfortunately, none of this is likely to enable you to edge out competitors physically located in Burlington, but unless your company can get a physical location in this city, this is the reality of your situation. Telling it like it is will hamper you in some ways but is the right thing to do for your customers, representing the business honestly as it is.

Hope this helps!

Hi Adam,

It's very important to keep your listings and physical locations separate, as were they to merge accidentally, it could result in your contact details being mixed up, so typically, merging is something business owners want to avoid. Each Google+ Local page needs to be viewed as a separate entity, earning its own reviews.

You're very welcome, Jamie!

Hey There,

This post should help you become conversant with the ins and outs of local landing pages:

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

You can definitely optimize each city landing page you build for the city in question. The main pitfall to avoid with this practice is developing thin or duplicative pages. Be sure if you're embarking on this content development project that you have the resources to devote to making unique pages of the highest possible quality.

Hope this helps!

Hi Jamie!

If you're talking about the Google Local Knowledge Panel, then this post by Mike Blumenthal is the best I know of for working to achieve one http://localu.org/blog/local-knowledge-panel-doesnt-show-google-can/ but if your business isn't local then this type of display wouldn't apply to you.

Hi Marty!

Good topic! Honestly, the only reason you should create county pages is if keyword research indicates that people search this way. They may in some cases, but for an HVAC company, this might not be the case. What your research teaches you will dictate whether this type of page will actually be useful to users.

Hi Michael!

Glad you asked! You definitely do not want your customers using your company's Google account or using a review kiosk in your store as both will likely result in your listing falling under suspicion and your reviews being removed. Yikes - don't want that!

The customer must always use his or her own account to leave you a review and you must never post reviews on behalf of a customer, or you will be violating Google's own guidelines about this.

The best place to start in formulating your company's review acquisition strategy will be with a quick study of Google's review policies:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/2622994?hl=en&topic=1656880&ctx=topic&rd=1

I then highly recommend Phil Rozek's exhaustive post on review acquisition:

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/04/the-complete-guide-to-google-pluslocal-reviews-and-especially-how-to-get-them/

And then go through all of the resources linked to at the end of his post.

Once you've gotten through all of that, you are going to know a TON about this area of marketing and should be creating your store's strategy from an extremely educated basis. Hope this helps!

Hi Kristin,

While I don't have any a/b testing to share on this, I personally prefer the subfolder approach and would write the URL:

domain.com/miami

I simply find subfolders easier to work with, but that's a matter of opinion.

Hi Lincoln!

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles you're having! I want to preface what I'm going to write with my opinion that your scenario is likely to require a full audit by an SEO who knows both traditional and local SEO. The Moz Q&A Forum is a great place to get at-a-glance opinions on things, but should not be seen a replacement for a formal, dedicated audit of your company. So, what follows is just my at-a-glance take on this. I am not going to look at penalties - I am just going to look at this from a local perspective.

1. Your website is not locally optimized. There is no contact information. No local phone number, address, etc.

2. So, next step for me was to guess at a Philadelphia zip code and look up your business in our Check Listing tool. The only option I see as a result for your business is located in Morgantown - not Philadelphia. Is this your business:

https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMkJhcnRsZXR0JTI1MjBQYWlyJTI1MjBQaG90b2dyYXBoeSUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjE5MDE5JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyQmFydGxldHQlMjUyMFBhaXIlMjUyMFBob3RvZ3JhcGh5JTI1MjIlMjUyQ251bGwlMjUyQyUyNTIyJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyNjEwNTA3MDczOCUyNTIyJTI1NUQ=

3. If the above is your business and you are not located in Philadelphia, aiming for Philadelphia-related rankings is going to be a major uphill battle. Doubtless there is major competition from companies physically located in this city who are going to have a significant inherent edge over your business unless you can get an office in Philadelphia.

4. The Check Listing results indicate that almost no citation building has been done for the business. Of the 15 platforms this tool surveys, you have listings on just 3, so it doesn't look like much off-site local search marketing has been done.

5. Your Google+ Local page has earned 0 reviews: https://plus.google.com/107698063096203549335/about?hl=en-US

6. You should research local algo changes that may have occurred around the time that you noticed any drops.

So, in just a minute or two, I'm seeing some important things that, in and of themselves, could explain a lack of visibility for the locally-focused searches you're hoping to rank for. The site is not optimized locally and isn't being marketed locally and the physical location is a big question mark. This is just a start, of course, but I hope it's helpful to get started thinking about these basics that you'll need to begin addressing in your marketing efforts.

Here are some links I think you'll find really helpful:

http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors

http://moz.com/learn/local

It's really smart of you to be investigating all of this, Lincoln, and I'm wishing you good luck!

Hi Vasily,

You've received some great feedback here from the community and nice of fellow Canadian Jim Rudnick for letting us know he hasn't seen 7-packs in months. I digress here, but in the US, I am still not only seeing 7-packs for dental searches but am also seeing major directories outrank them organically. Ah - the fun of Local SEO!

Basically, I agree with what Brady has written. With their 3 or 7-pack display ranking up top, they are showing you what they think is best for customers and best for Google. Getting this to change is unlikely, though a major algo change on Google's part in 2015 could, of course, throw all of this out the window For now, your best bet is to be able to achieve consistently good visibility in the packs-n-stacks in your area.

Hi DVOH!

I know this is a headache. Not a great answer here for you, but no, there probably isn't much you can do to stem the tide of solicitations. When you build citations manually, you will note that some of the platforms have an auto-checked box for "I want to receive updates and offers about important, etc, etc." that you can uncheck, but, in general, you are going to be stuck with companies trying to market themselves to their customers.

Now, regarding Moz Local, if you sign up with us and list all of your clients under your agency's account, we will only contact you, the account holder, with all Moz Local updates. We should not contact any of your clients directly. But, this does not mean your clients may not be contacted at some point by the platforms on which their citations exist, because, as you've said, they are then on the radar of these local business data platforms. I suppose you could have your clients set blocking in their email programs, but that seems like a bit of a stretch. After all, they might miss something important if they did this. And, as for phone calls, there is really no way to reduce this apart from do not call lists.

Kind of a pain, I know, but likely a necessary evil If anyone in the community has a second opinion on this, I hope they will share!

Hi Gannon!

Let's take a look together at a well optimized multi-location business like REI.com. Just one site for the brand, but great little pages for each location. See this: http://www.rei.com/stores/corte-madera.html

Look at the super effort that is being made to include unique content on this city landing page versus the many other cities in which this company has stores.

To me, this is the best possible business model for any multi-location local business. All possible benefits accrue to the overall brand rather than being split up between a bunch of different websites, while individual city landing pages benefit from the strength of the overall brand. I am not a fan of a multi-site approach for local businesses. I am much more in favor of every effort you make strengthening the overall website and brand at a single source.

A way I find helpful to think about this is:

1. Core pages like Home, About, Products, Services - optimized for the brand.

2. Locational pages like city landing pages, Contact and blog posts - optimized for brand+ location

And, yes, you'll want to build a completely new set of citations for the 2nd location, and, if you decide to create a landing page on the site for the 1st location, as you have for the 2nd, you should edit the original citations to reflect the new landing page instead of the homepage.

Will you lose rankings? It's possible that you could temporarily, but if the business is on the verge of expanding, you have to think to the future and have a strategy for properly marketing each of the locations as they are developed. Definitely look at the way REI has done this. I find them to be a great role model!

Hi Michael,

Definitely check out the link Jim Rudnick has shared to the Local Search Ranking Factors 2014 survey. As you'll see from that, local search rankings are made up of a tremendous number of factors, with some having more weight than others. So, first, you want to be sure your client has all of his ducks in a row with the basics. Then, you should analyze his competitor to see if you can spot any weaknesses.

We just published an interesting tutorial here on Moz for using our Check Listing tool for some cool competitive analysis. Check this out:

http://moz.com/help/guides/local/check-listing

The above how-to also gives some other research suggestions.

Essentially, what your client needs to do is:

• Do all of the basics right

• Make a superior effort in some areas, such as content development, review acquisition and, possibly, social engagement

• Remember that rankings are not static. Over the past few years, it has been clear that one of the most important local search ranking factors relates to the physical location of a customer at the time he is making his search. You may hear this referred to as the customer/using being the 'centroid'. Particularly on mobile devices, where a customer is in town will influence whether your client or his competitor comes up first, based on the distance between the searcher and the business. It's really, really important educate all local business clients about this!

Hope this helps!

Hi Jacob!

Okay, great. So, you can have 1 Google+ Local page per physical location. You cannot have them for towns you serve where you are not physically located - that would be a guideline violation.

It's perfectly fine to link from a Google+ Local page to a respective landing page on the website instead of to a homepage. In fact, this is generally considered a good practice when you have multiple locations as it may reduce the risk of Google accidentally merging your listings.

Hope this helps!

Hi Jacob,

I wanted to ask for some clarification on part of your question. You write:

"All local FB pages, Google listings, etc. will like to these location pages,"

Does the business have face-to-face engagement with its customers, either at their locations or at the physical location of the business? Very important question!

Hi David,
I don't want to give a simplistic answer to what is actually a pretty complex question. Local and organic rankings are derived from a huge number of factors. Some of the most powerful would include:

• The authority/quality of your website

• The local optimization of your website

• The consistency and spread of your citations

• The number of reviews you've earned

• The distance of the searcher to your location

• The popularity of your website

• etc., etc.

I'm a little concerned if the SEO you hired may have indicated that all you would have to do was change a title tag! I'm really hoping that isn't all they said. Local SEO has so many components and a good place to start reading about these so that you can become a wise judge of anyone you hire or of the actions you're taking on your own would be the free Moz Local Learning Center:

http://moz.com/learn/local

Definitely also dig deep into the Local Search Ranking Factors 2014 survey:

http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors

Finally, if you've experienced a recent local search ranking loss, this can help you start troubleshooting possible causes:

http://moz.com/blog/troubleshooting-local-ranking-failures

There is a ton to learn, and what it basically all boils down to is that you are making a superior effort than any local competitor in a variety of marketing disciplines that all hang together to earn you the visibility you want, combined with the serendipity of where a customer is located when they are searching for what you offer.

Hi Pegasus,

I think you'll find this tutorial from Local U to be right on the money:

http://localu.org/blog/how-to-segment-local-search-analytics/

I hope it's helpful for you!

Hi Pegasus!

Here are Google's instructions for handling this scenario:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/160464?hl=en

Hope it helps!

Hi Kevin,

If you have face-to-face transactions with your customers, you are allowed to have 1 Google+ Local page per each physical location out of which you operate. These are Google's rules (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en).

It is also considered a best practice to have a unique landing page on your website for each physical location you operate. These should be high quality pages that help customers (not thin or duplicative pages) and linking your Google+ Local listings to these pages (rather than to the domain) may also reduce the risk of Google accidentally merging your listings in their system, because you are doing your utmost to differentiate the various locations. You can read more about the practice of creating local landing pages here:

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

Hope this helps!

Hey Frank!

As Wayne has pointed out, the use of directory listings is still alive and well in the Local SEO world. You didn't mention whether your clients have a local or national focus, but if it's the former, then this type of work (called citation building) is a core part of a local search marketing campaign.

Thanks, Ray!

Hi Steven,

I think the answer to this would be found in your keyword research. While I agree with much of what Ray has written, honestly, I would not count on Google to match 'Indy' with Indianapolis or Indiana. After all, 'Indy' is also slang for independent and the Indy 500 and what have you. So, unless KW research indicates that more people are searching for Indy that the city name or state initials or what have you, I would not choose that as your URL. Go ahead and use this term in various places in your text, if it's in common usage in your geography, but I recommend being more formal in the URL.

Good discussion going on here. I did want to highlight this Google Forum discussion in case it would help with this topic: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/language/business/m9ye2hHR5Nw/nlzE_WQgKf4J

Hi Greenstone!

Great questions from everyone in the community here! I will add, from a purely local perspective, you might want to be sure you've got all these ducks in a row:

http://moz.com/blog/troubleshooting-local-ranking-failures

Hope you'll come back with further details, based on the the questions the community has put forth!

Hey Wayne!

The WB Friday you're referencing isn't ringing an immediate bell with me, but as to your question, what RangeMarketing has mentioned would be standard Local SEO advice. Provided your location landing pages are of high quality (not thin or duplicative) and feature all of the info the customer needs to understand your services and contact you, then yes, it is considered a best practice to use these URLs in your citation building. Additionally, these types of landing page URLs for your various physical locations may help reduce the risk of Google merging your listings on their end, because the URL is one of the signals differentiating the various locations. Hope this helps!

Hi Kevin,

A couple of years ago, I was talking with Mike Blumenthal about this very topic, and he kindly turned it into this blog post, which I believe you'll find very educational:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/07/02/should-you-do-linkbuilding-to-your-g-page-for-local/

Hope it helps!

Hey There!

Paramaya has given such a great answer (including that very important link to Phil Rozek's work on directories that support hidden addresses) that I have only a couple of things to add here:

• This is not an uncommon situation, with home-based businesses. Owners' privacy concerns are legitimate. While it is believed that the lack of a street address will have some negative impact on Local Pack rankings, the degree of negativity is speculative and is industry-dependent in some ways. I would like to see a side-by-side study done on this, but am unaware of one. There is likely some negative impact, but the amount is not set in stone.

• Be sure that the client understands that he can have a Google+ Local page with a hidden address. There is nothing to prevent him from gaining inclusion in Google's local product.

• In your client's industry, if everyone is abiding by Google's guidelines for SABs (see: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en), the only competitors who will have an edge on him in Google's product will be those who have a staffed, physical office. This is the only type of scenario in which Google states the address of an SAB should be displayed. It's important to be aware of this, because if every other plumber in your client's city is working from home, then their addresses shouldn't be displayed either, leveling the playing field.

• Where the playing field becomes less level is actually outside of Google's local product. There is some thought that any competitor who displays his address on his website and on his other citations may have an edge on a business that doesn't do this. So, this is where your client may fall behind competitors who do not mind having their home address published on the website and their non-Google citations. This then trickles back toward Google, as Google will find less instances of the address contained in your client's dashboard (and hidden to the public) to match up with references around the web. This decrease in NAP prominence could speculatively lead to a decrease in 'confidence' on Google's part that could, to some degree, decrease rankings.

Once you've educated the client about all of the above, he can make an informed choice. He may change his mind and decide to display his address on his website and non-Google citations, in which case, he has every chance of leading the pack with the right marketing efforts. Or, if he remains resolved to keep his address hidden, he should get a Google+ Local page, hide the address, build citations on only those directories that support hidden addresses and then will have to get as far as he can ranking-wise with making the most superior effort he is capable of in terms of building his website authority, content, social presence, earning links, reviews, etc.

Hi There, RBMac!

Yes, I am with you on ensuring that both businesses have a Yelp profile, and this could potentially resolve the issue you are experiencing, but in reading through your scenario, I think there is a larger issue at hand that both business owners should discuss. The presence of two businesses in the same industry occupying the same address is pretty much the recipe for running into this type of citation confusion, which can then sometimes lead to even larger problems in Google (lack of trust, accidental merging, etc.). Given that these are two legally separate entities, have the business owners considered getting a legal suite number for one of the two businesses, to permanently differentiate them? While this would not completely remove the risk of merging or other mix-ups like the one you're seeing with Yelp, it could substantially decrease that risk. You would then, of course, want to be sure that all citations correctly reflected the separate addresses. Something to consider.

Hi Leonie!

I found these to be helpful:

http://www.slideshare.net/seosmarty/relpublisher-versus-relauthor

https://support.google.com/business/answer/4569085?hl=en

Hi Rachel,

So glad I was able to identify this for you. It's a few weeks old now, so you should be able to find a ton of articles about it. Mike Blumenthal tends to offer some of the best insight on this topic, so check out his blog. You might looks this up on Linda Buquet's Local Search Forum as well. Hope this helps!

Hi Rachel,

From the search queries you are making, I am taking a guess that you are referring to the new Hamburger-pak, or whatever folks want to call this Please, feel free to share a screenshot, but my best guess is that this is what you are talking about:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/11/16/some-thoughts-on-the-new-pak-results-from-google/

Yea or nay?

Hi Anton!

It's good that you're working on the website (needs some help design-wise with alignment issues, crowding, etc.) and that you're working on citation development and consistency (always vital to any Local SEO campaign). Some thoughts I'll just reel off here:

• Good you've got the complete NAP in the footer, but what you need to have there is the local number as the primary number; not the toll free one. I see you've got a local number on the Contact page, which is good, but you should really put your local number foremost. While it's true that Google has recently become more tolerant of 800 numbers as primary numbers, other aggregators/directories are not equally tolerant and citation consistency can suffer unless you're making the local number dominant.

• The big list of cities served in the footer could be viewed as a violation of Google's webmaster guidelines that frown upon chunks of geographic terms like this. Putting this in the footer makes it especially risky, in my opinion, as that's always been such a contentious area for spammy stuff, right? Now let's click on these footer links.

• The number one thing that is really jumping out about this site to me is the unloved state of the copy. I don't want to hurt the feelings of anyone who may have worked on this, but to be honest, the content would best be described as generic. It looks to me like someone looked up these cities in Wikipedia, wrote down notes about feet above sea level and population and said, "There, I'm done, thank goodness!". This is not the approach any business owner should take to the content that is representing to their customers just how much they care. If the copy is careless, the business can come off as such, and when you're in an industry charged with safely delivering the priceless valuables of human customers from one location to another, you want content that says:

• We care - we care a ton!

• We are detail-oriented

• We do the best job - we don't just get by.

• We can be trusted

• We built this website to help customers

• We make the maximum effort at all times - not the minimum effort

Go to the about page of the site and really read though the content. Does it convey any of the above to you, in a way that seems genuine, or does it feel a bit like someone slapped it together, hoping to get by with it?

The thing about content like this that really gets me is that I can almost guarantee that the business owner does care. You don't run a successful business like this without tremendous dedication. What is lacking here is the kind of talent that can pick up on what the story is with this business and parlay that into a business story, told on the website, that resonates with customers.

What this business needs most, in my opinion, is a talented listener who knows how to turn what they hear into a high quality story, across the website, the blog, and via social outreach. Hope this is helpful input.

Hey There!

Once Localeze has told you they are releasing your listing there, please monitor the little blue circles in your Moz Local dashboard on the Published Listings page. Once you see the yellow Localeze circle turn white, this means the listing is available for Moz Local to assume management of. Once it turns white, please email our Help Team, provide your Moz Local account email and the complete name, address, phone number and website of the listing in question and request that we assume management of the Localeze listing. You can email our Help Team here https://moz.com/help/contact

Hope this helps!

Hi Mari-Rose,

Okay, that's good you've verified and important to know that you only did so this month. So, you are working with a brand new listing that will have to climb the rankings. How high you climb will be based on a combination of factors, including:

• The quality and authority of your website

• The consistency and number of your citations

• The number of your Google-based reviews

• The strength/weakness of your competitors

• The distance between your business and the physical location of the searcher who is performing the search

• Social metrics

• and more !

If Local SEO is pretty new to you, I have some suggestions for jump starting your education:

• Get a basic understanding of the components of Local SEO from The Moz Local learning center http://moz.com/learn/local (already mentioned on this thread by RangeMarketing).

• Get an advanced understanding of how specific factors are believe to influence local search rankings from the Local Search Ranking Factors 2014 survey results: http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors

• Troubleshoot potential ranking problems with http://moz.com/blog/troubleshooting-local-ranking-failures

I cannot overstate the importance of your website in all this. Investing in running the fastest, most user-friendly site with the best content in your industry/geography should be seen as your #1 priority, and then this must be backed up with your off-site efforts such as citation building, review acquisition and social participation.

There is a lot to learn, but there is a ton of free educational information out there. Or, in some cases, local business owners hire Local SEOs to either consult with them to create a strategy or to implement said strategy. You have lots of options, and that's good news:)

Good luck!

Hey There,

I agree with Hutch and Linda regarding the single site approach typically being more powerful than a multi-site approach. What shows up in the local search results is completely dependent on your Google+ Local page, and as your practice is only allowed 1 Google+ Local page (you can't have multiple listings covering multiple specialties) whatever is on that page is what will appear in the local results.

Now, that being said, something for you to consider is the multi-practitioner listing scenario. If there is more than one lawyer at the firm, you are allowed to have a Google+ Local page for each practitioner as well as the one for the practice. Google's most recent guideline update specifies that you must split up the categories between practitioners/practice. This has long been considered a best practice, but now it is a guideline. Without knowing the details of your specific scenario, I can only estimate how you would re-fashion the business to fit this marketing approach, but it would probably look something like this:

1. You consolidate your sites into a single site, with your brand being the unifying factor rather than your specialties being a cause for division.

2. You create a unique page on the website for each partner in the practice, including a unique phone number for each of the lawyers at which he/she is directly contactable.

3. You research Google's categories (the Moz Local category tool is great for this: https://moz.com/local/categories) and discover if there is an authentic way to divvy up categories like Family Law Attorney, Criminal Justice Attorney, etc between the partners and the practice. Remember - they cannot share categories.

4. You link the practice listing to the homepage and link the partners to their own landing pages on the site

In this way, you might be able to represent your practice, your partners and some of the specialties each of the lawyers has with Google+ Local pages and increase your chances of this business appearing in the local results for more than one category of terms.

*Now, all this being said, before you take such a step, you should spend some time researching two things:

1. Historic problems that have occurred over the years surrounding multi-practitioner listings. Linda Buquet's Local Search Forum would be a good place to look this up, as she has covered this topic many times and with great insight. Search other sites as well to get a sense of the potential issues with the multi-practitioner listing scenario.

2. Study Google's most recent guideline iteration in minute detail (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en). I recommend checking out Mike Blumenthal's 2-part post comparing the older iteration to the latest one: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/12/05/google-my-business-guidelines-a-detailed-comparison-new-old/

This will be a big decision to make, involving a change in direction for how you think about marketing your business, and should only be undertaken if it truly feels like the right fit for your practice. It may or may not be. But I hope these ideas are helpful to consider in weighing your options!