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Hi Wayne,

I want to be sure I'm fully understanding your question. Are you saying that:

1. Your client is ranking well in the Local pack of results for their primary keyword (i.e. landscaper san francisco) or are you talking about the organic results?

2. The client wants to get Local pack results for other keywords (i.e. fence builder san francisco) or are you talking about organic results?

3. These other keywords exist in Google's pre-set categories in the new dashboard or are you talking about the old Places dashboard custom categories?

4. These keywords exist in Google's pre-set categories but you're finding that they don't exist on other sites like YP.com, Best of the Web, HotFrog, etc., where you are building citations?

Please offer as much detail as you can so that the community can provide the best possible answer. Thanks!

Good for you, Silhouette! You've advised the client well. It will be important as you move forward to make sure that the original site no longer references the second location, and then there will be citation cleanup, etc. And be sure you are not duplicating text on the two sites. These need to be two totally distinct websites. Glad to hear the client was willing to see the light of day on this. Way to go!

Hi Jonathon,

Yes, it is typical for multi-location businesses to have unique landing pages on their websites and for them to use the URLs of these landing pages as the URLs entered into the respective Google+ Local pages, rather than linking all of the Google+ Local pages to the homepage. This serves to further differentiate the pages/locations from one another.

Hi Guys!

If you ask Local SEO questions here in the Moz Q&A Forum, you and I have probably had the chance to chat at some point or other. This time, I'd like to ask you question! I'd like to request feedback from the community regarding a practice I've been running into for as long as I can remember. Here's what I'm talking about:

Let's say the company is a national florist company, a cell phone service company, a website design company. They have national headquarters but either very few or zero physical locations beyond this. In other words, they are virtual rather than local, apart from their national headquarters. Their approach to online marketing revolves around creating a landing page for every conceivable city or zip code in the U.S. I would guess that the thought behind this strategy is that their product is available in each of these cities, and this is their method of getting the word out.

Because I work almost exclusively with local rather than virtual companies, the scenario I've described falls somewhat outside of my work experience. It does, however, relate to what I do for a living because I frequently encounter these types of pages (some with near duplicate or very thin content) ranking in the organic results for local searches, alongside the local pack results.

My questions are:

1. What do you think of this practice?

2. Does the quality of these types of landing pages factor into your assessment? In other words, if the pages aren't thin or duplicate, do they have value?

3. Is this a practice you would recommend to a national, virtual company? If not, what would you recommend?

I really appreciate you taking the time to read my question and consider replying!

Hi BeytzNet,

Typically, a national company is not going to be able to compete in the truly Local SERPs (the pack of pinned, local results). Those are generally populated with local businesses with a physical location in the city of search. For example, a search for 'send flowers nyc' returns a pack of local results like this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sent+flowers+nyc&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=send+flowers+nyc&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&spell=1

The companies in those results will typically have a physical address in NYC, though the floral industry has a well-documented historical problem with spam, meaning some listings in the local results will be fake, unfortunately.

Typically, a national company without a physical location in a desired city is going to need to go after organic results rather than local ones. I've done a small amount of research of this industry in the past and what I recall seeing was either

a) A single page filled with every conceivable city name or zip code. Google states in their webmaster guidelines that they don't like this practice. Despite this, I have seen pages like this ranking, much to my surprise.

b) A set of pages for each conceivable city. Here again, I've been disappointed in the thin and duplicate content I've seen ranking with this tactic. Seems like Google's filters would catch this stuff, but I know I've seen it ranking and have been frustrated by the fact that the page I was clicking through to really had no real local component.

Is this the type of thing you're seeing, too? I'll be interested in the whole community's response on this one. You've asked a very good question.

Hi Joseph,

I definitely feel you on this! I hope you'll hear back from someone who can show you measurable results of a small real estate agency managing to run with the big boys, but my take on this is that many of Google's local-oriented SERPs right now are very narrow in terms of brand diversity. Something I've been noticing for the past year or so is how dominant Yelp has become for practically any local search term relating to restaurants, hotels and a ton of other searches. Pretty much any search in these areas returns Yelp results, but few other directory-type results. There used to be more diversity, in my opinion, and it's almost as if Google had tightened their belts. I'm going to actively watch this thread to see if you get a response from someone who is specializing in real estate SEO in case they can provide some screenshots of their small business clients managing to outrank the giant/aggregate sites. Crossing my fingers for you!

Hi Jonathon,

You are so welcome. I am concerned that you are still not quite understand what a citation is. You write:

"Hopefully this will be very helpful in NAP and lowering some citations!"

Citations are not a negative thing you want to reduce or lower. They are positive references to your business NAP. They only thing that would be negative about them is if they have bad NAP on them (i.e. a wrong address, phone number etc.).

Yes, I would have a unique landing page for the Austin and another for Denver. These could be the contact pages, provided you include lots of great unique content on them as well as the complete NAP. These would be the pages you would be linking your Google+ Local pages to for the respective locations.

Beyond that, in future, your client may want to develop additional city landings pages for other cities where she serves but does not have a physical location. For example, let's say she does a series of ten weddings in Dallas, TX. She might create a Dallas Wedding Photography page, with unique text content and a showcase of her photography of weddings she's done in Dallas. But, this type of work should be set on the back burner until the core work has been done surrounding the two physical locations, in my opinion.

Hi Jonathon,

Very nice reply. Let me bang through these quickly.

1. Citations are references around the web to a business' name, address and phone number. So, a listing of a business on Yelp, CitySearch, Bing Places for Business, Best of the Web, etc. = a citation. Citations can also occur elsewhere, such a blog posts or news articles that mention a business' name, address and phone number. Citations also often include a link to the business' website, but they don't absolutely have to. Stated very, very simply, citations with correct information in them build authority and help rankings. Citations with incorrect information cloud authority and negatively impact a business' ability to rank well. It's more complicated than this, but this is my simplest definition.

2. NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone Number. All of local hangs on publishing correct NAP in a variety of places.

3. Yes, cleaning up your client's citations will be critical to sending a clear data signal to Google and human users and your efforts to earn high rankings. This will take time to do and time to see benefits from.

4. It is completely fine that the client is home-based. I am going to link here to one of my own articles:

The Nitty Gritty of City Landing Pages

The core of your Local SEO work is going to revolve around the client's 2 physical locations, but there are organic SEO strategies to pursue for her work outside her cities of location. These are covered in the above article. My advice is: get everything totally in order with her Austin and Denver locations first, then move on to consider how you can promote the business in other places, following the guidelines given in the above article.

5. Competitors are often bad role-models. They may lack the education to do things right. If you see a field full of bad practices, you have an awesome chance to outstrip them by implementing good practices.

6. I honestly wouldn't even worry about this right now. Get the basics in order first and then start turning your attention to other stuff like geotagging.

Hi Robert,

I think you've raised such an important point here:

"I think you are falling into a very bad trap in SEO. You are looking for the "thing" that is going to do it and that does not exist IMO.".

That is quite correct. We know that the Local algo consists of several hundred different factors. Success depends on getting many, many little things right - not just one big thing. I found this comment to be extremely insightful.

Hi Jonathon,

Unfortunately, I am still seeing issues on your Google+ Local page, as we saw when you previously posted the client's business. I recommend you go back and review the answers you received on those previous threads to be sure you've made every effort to remedy possible problems.

I want to clarify one thing here - if a client is a home-based SAB, they do not have to put their address on their website. They only need to enter in the dashboard of those platforms that allow the address to be hidden. It needs to be a legitimate address that is being entered, but you don't have to put it on the website.

Is this ideal? No. Why? Because Google will have the address in their dashboard and will come to the website looking to verify its accuracy. If there is no address listed there, then Google has less data to go on, so that is less than ideal, but is a reality for many home-based businesses. If your client has competitors with public studios who are able to show their addresses on their website, we might guess that they have a bit of advantage over your client, because their NAP is more easily cross-referenced by Google. But, I did want to chime in here to say it's not absolutely essential to publish an address on the website.

As Marcus has mentioned, citation cleanup is going to be essential here, due to the past existence of a type of address that was a violation of the Google Places Quality Guidelines. It's good you've gotten started on this. It can take some time for Google to re-index your corrected citations, so you may need to wait a bit to see the benefits of having made that effort. I will stress - you must be totally thorough in this work. Even one bad citation can breed multiple bad listings across the web because of the way data is shared in the local search ecosystem.

Like Robert, I am positive your heart is in the right place trying to help this client. You've received an enormous amount of feedback here at Moz from the whole community about this client - that's what we're here for! - and I hope you've been able to implement some of my previous advice about learning as much as you can about Local SEO in order to be better able to advise local business owners like this one. I provided a variety of learning resources on a previous thread of yours, and I hope you are checking those out on a regular basis. Local is definitely an on-going learning process for everyone involved in it.

Hi Silhouette,

If this was my client and they wouldn't bring their branding into cohesion, nor build a second website, I honestly wouldn't know how to advise them. Their desire to promote two differently branded businesses on the same local website is a recipe for all kinds of trouble, as we've discussed, so there wouldn't be some 'right' way to do what you're asking about. I would tell the client that they will likely end up with a mess on their hands in their citations and ranking failures and that I couldn't work with them if they weren't going to take my advice about this. Remember, this client has hired you because of your ability to advise them. If they won't take the advice, your hands are tied. I'd have a last conversation with them and then, if they couldn't respect the fact that they've hired me for my expertise in this matter, I would drop them. Clients who can't take advice are not good clients.

If there is some kind of problem with funding that is preventing them from immediately building a new website, you could offer to give them 3 months or whatever to accrue this funding, during which time you will do nothing. Don't build any citations for either business or do anything social. Then, when they've got the necessary funding, you could build out the second website, do a thorough citation cleanup campaign and then begin building new citations as needed.

I understand, it can be so frustrating to encounter businesses like this who, because of their thinking, are on the road to potential disaster. But you can't force them to let you help them. If they won't listen, they are kind of setting themselves up to learn from experience. If you drop them now, explaining the reasons why you are doing so, you may very well hear back from them in six months when they realize their results are all messed up.

Hope this helps!

Hi Perfect Pitch Concepts,

Google's rules have not changed regarding P.O. boxes (see: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en). Google states:

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.Your business location should be staffed during its stated hours.

What you are seeing in the screenshot you've attached does not reflect a change in Google's rules, but a failure on Google's part to uphold their own rules. The P.O. box listing you've referenced is in violation of the guidelines and will likely eventually be taken down by Google, but this could happen tomorrow, next month or two years from now. It is not uncommon to find spam like this is the local SERPs, unfortunately, but it is definitely not a good idea for any Local SEO to advise any client to violate Google's guidelines. We have to teach clients how to succeed while adhering to the guidelines. Feel free to use the 'report a problem' link on the competitor's listing to report the P.O. Box as spam.

As you know, in most cases, Google deems a business as most relevant to its city of location. Because of this, if your client is not located in Athens, he is unlikely to appear in the local pack of results for searches stemming from Athens-based devices or containing the term 'Athens'. There are some exceptions to this, but they typically involve geographic regions or niche industries about which Google has less information and in which there is a low level of competition. A roofer outside a major city is unlikely to appear in the pack for those major city terms, regardless of what type of service radius he sets on his local listing. It looks like you are achieving high organic results for the client for a term that is important to him, and this is typically the best you can do for any SAB who lacks a physical location in a service city.

I totally understand how frustrating it can be to see spam in the local results. In some ways, Google has made major improvements in this area, but, as you can see, there is still a lot of junk getting through their filters. A Local SEO can set himself the task of using all available allowed method for his clients with the confidence that they will ultimately stand the test of time, whereas spammers' listings have a definite shelf life and may expire at any time. Hope this helps!

Hi Noah,

This is a known issue. If you have to re-verify, you are likely to see the 'do not support' message for several weeks until the listing has been approved. How long has it been since you did this?

Here are some Google And Your Business Forum threads on this same topic:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/business/oUlJU0QNqGE

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/reverified$20do$20not$20support

Good to know, Jess! I'll mark your question as 'answered'. Thanks to everyone on this thread for contributing such helpful answers.

My please, Mohit. Yes, unfortunately, GetListed isn't currently operational in Canada right now. The results were returning too many errors (see: https://getlisted.org/static/international.html). Hopefully, it will be available in the near future. Whitespark should work great for you, though. They are Canadian-based.

Hi Again, Jess,

Do you feel you've received a helpful answer here, or do you have other questions about this? I want to be sure you've been helped!

Hi Mohit,

GetListed is, in my opinion, the best place to get started on building your initial citations. For more advanced work, a paid tool like Whitespark's (which Vadim has linked to) is a very popular choice. Your question seems to indicate that you may also be looking for directories which are more local to you (or your clients, perhaps). Whitespark's tool will likely turn some of these up, but if you need to do this manually, the best way is to search Google for resources that turn up for your core phrases, including geographic phrases.

So, that might be 'plumbers portland' or 'dentists denver' or what have you. The thing is, the SERPs are so dominated these days by major directories (like Yelp, YP.com., etc.) that you may have to dig through many pages before you turn up smaller, more niche directories. Other things to search for would be local blogs and local news sites where, if you have an interesting story to tell, you may be able to get something published, including your NAP (name, address phone number) making these citations, too. Citation building beyond the big directories and obvious sources requires extra work and creativity, but it can definitely be done. Hope this helps!

Hi Noah,

This message can mean a number of things. One of the simplest is that you're dealing with a new listing that you've just verified. It can take a few days to be indexed. Is this your situation?

If not, the first thing you should do is go to Google And Your Business Help Forum and search for 'do not support'. Filter your results by date to see if there are any recent cases being reported that match yours. If not, you can start a thread of your own.

Without more details about what you, specifically, are experiencing, this is the best advice I can give. Hope it helps, and if you'd like to provide further details, I'd be happy to take a look!

Hi Jess,

Good question! You should only need to actually submit a local business listing to a directory or index once. You do not need to resubmit it. That being said, some platforms offer the ability to update your listing on a regular basis with little posts (like a fully merged G+ Local page), giving the listings a social aspect somewhat like a blog or Twitter account. Additionally, some Local SEOs are fans of 'poking' the Google+ Local listing, which basically means logging in, not changing any of the information in the dashboard and hitting submit. There has been some evidence that this can help clear up certain buggy issues.

While I have no idea what the meaning is of the Network Solutions offer you received. I'd be tempted to call them to see what it is that they are actually offering. If it's automated resubmission of all your listings, this doesn't sound very valuable to me. It's not something I would recommend.

Hi Wayne,

So glad to help! Thanks for suggesting a post on this topic - I'll think this over!

What I have experienced with customer resistance has typically revolved around budget. I've worked with a lot of very small local businesses over the years and they are concerned about being able to afford content development (particularly when they don't have the skills/resources to create it themselves). Sometimes, I have been able to offer an austerity plan to a local business owner - something like just one new page per month once the basic website has been built. Typically they can afford this. In a year, they've added 12 new pages.

This is nothing like some of the Local SEO projects going on out there where people are building hundreds of pages, of course, but it is at least some progress. The hope is that if the company starts getting more business from even a small web presence, they will eventually be able to afford to invest more in things like content development. But I do think there is a threshold for every business. If the owner can't make even a modest investment, he's not going to be able to utilize the web to promote his company. I've had to turn business owners away who just don't get this.

How about you, Wayne? Do you have clients with budget issues or does resistance to growth stem from something else?

My pleasure, Omid! And I'd love to see a post like that come through our YouMoz queue. I get to take the first look at all our submissions and would be happy to take a look at what you come up with if you do end up doing a study.

Hi Omid,

I'd love to see some in-depth testing of this topic done, but to my knowledge, I've never seen anyone delve into this deeply. Nevertheless, I've seen lots of people ask about this. Here's the basic premise:

We know Google doesn't like duplicate content, yet, when we publish a business description on a local business listing, there is a high likelihood of that description getting replicated across the web due to the way data is shared within the Local Search Ecosystem. Does Google care about this type of duplication? Can it harm rankings? Can having varied descriptions help?

My personal opinion is that duplication is baked into the local search ecosystem and is largely unavoidable. After all, your business NAP (name, address, phone) is duplicate content when it is published across multiple platforms and logic dictates that Google has no problem with this.

However, as I've said, I don't know of any real studies of this but your question prompted me to have a brief chat with Darren Shaw and Andrew Shotland  and we were in pretty solid agreement about this.

Darren says: I have heard many people suggest that there are benefits to mixing up your description on your citations, but, it's unrealstic to imagine doing this on EVERY citation ... Maybe making 15 different versions and spreading those around.
I have not seen any evidence to support that there are benefits in doing this though ... just speculation

Andrew says: If anything, it's the IYPs that need to worry about it, not the businesses ... basically the same as a bunch of ecommerce sites having the same SKU description

I think Andrew raises an especially valid point! If there were to be ANY penalty associated with duplicate descriptions (which I highly doubt) it would be something for the IYP/directory who is publishing the content to worry about...not the local business owner.

So, my take on this is that it would be very interesting to experiment with whether varying the business descriptions as much as you can had any observable positive effect on rankings, but that I highly doubt duplicate descriptions have any negative effect - certainly not on the business owner.

That being said - you Local SEO researchers out there - if you're looking for a study to do, this would be a fun one! Hope this helps, Omid!

Hi Wayne,

That's what I thought. Here's my take on this. There are two distinct types of keywords you can optimize a local business website for. I think of these as 'is' and 'does'.

Examples of 'Is' Keywords:

Plumber

Arborist

Dog Walker

Examples of 'Does' Keywords

Plumbing

Tree Trimming

Dog Walking

In other words, one set says what a business 'is', the other set says what a business 'does'. Google has always wanted categories, whether custom created or chosen from their pre-set taxonomy, to reflect what a business is - never what it does. In optimizing a local business' website, it is certainly important to include these kinds of 'is' keywords in your work, but you shouldn't limit yourself to this. You'll want to include relevant 'does' keywords, too, because people certainly search both ways.

Keyword research will, of course, be vital to determining which kinds of 'is' keywords are being searched for most for a given business. I consider that Google's pre-set category taxonomy (the only one that will be available to any business once all listings have transitioned to the new Places for Business dashboard) gives us certain clues about how Google understands and organizes types of business. Since we care so much about Google rankings, we need to pay attention to what Google is signalling to us and incorporate these very big hints into our optimization. But we need to build additional content that reflects all the other findings of our kw research, there will typically be lots of 'does' terms in there.

This line of reasoning is why I have to be very frank with low-budget clients who come to me saying that they only want a one-page website, or a five-page website. There are so many keywords we should ideally be optimizing for, and there's no way to cram them all into a tiny site. Pretty much every local business, even if they have to start small, should have a plan for content development that will grow the size of their website to eventually include lots of different keywords. When you start small, though, Google's pre-set categories definitely need to be given consideration, in addition to the most searched terms discovered in your keyword research.

Long answer! But, you've asked a very good question, Wayne, and I wanted to give you a big-picture view of this, based on what I've experienced. Hope this helps!

Linda, I thought your answer did a good job of explaining certain facets of the two dashes, even if it wasn't quite what Wayne was asking about

Hi Patrick,

I am unaware of an exact equivalent to UBL or Localeze that is specific to Canada. Check out David Mihm's awesome Local Search Ecosystem infographic for Canada. It is densely packed with information:

http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/local-seo/local-search-ecosystem-canada/

Hi Wayne,

You've received some thoughtful replies here, but I'm not sure your question has been answered you. You write:

"Which is the better strategy: to build service pages following custom services available in Places, or build out service pages following the (allowed) preset categories in Local."

I believe you may be talking about building out service pages on a website, not about altering a Google+ Local page. Is this correct? Are you asking whether your website-based service landing pages should be optimized to reflect the old custom category system or the new Google+ Local pre-set category taxonomy? Could you please clarify. I want to be certain you receive a helpful answer.

I would recommend exploring the concept of geotagging images, as well, if this is for a local business.

Hi Shay,

Content creation is always a major creative challenge. Writers and marketers all have different ways of brainstorming good ideas. If you are doing the writing, your task will be to research your industry and geography and see if there is something you can create that doesn't already exist or hasn't already been done well. Your industry might be thought of as a 'boring' industry because it doesn't automatically lend itself to exciting content. This means you have to work a little harder to discover what you can created that will generate notice. We had an excellent article here last year about this. I recommend you read this:

http://moz.com/blog/the-guide-to-developing-a-content-strategy-for-boring-industries

If you do not feel you can accomplish the job of content development and writing on your own, I recommend you hire help. Here on Moz, you'll find our recommended companies list that can help you connect with a pro. See: http://moz.com/community/recommended

Regarding your Google+ Local listing, I'm not sure if you're asking me if there is something you should add to it. Your listing should be fully filled out in all fields and should adhere to the Google Places Quality Guidelines.

Citations are mentions anyplace on the web of your business name, address and phone number (NAP). These can include listings on directories like Yelp, Yahoo! Local and SuperPages, and they can also include things like third party blog posts or social media mentions. It sounds like you've already built a listing on Yelp. There are lots more places you can build citations, too. If this is a new concept for you, I recommend you go to GetListed.org and use their free tool to help you start building important citations. Once you have built the basic citations via GetListed.org, you can decide to continue building other citations with the help of a paid tool like Whitespark's Citation Finder Tool (see: https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/).

Regarding your point #5, it is not a recommended best practice to acquire links by posting in forums. In fact, this would typically be seen as a spammy practice and should be avoided. I recommend you read chapter 7 of our Beginners' Guide to SEO. Chapter 7 will teach you about good methods for earning links: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

Hope this helps!

Hi Imedia,

So glad to help. A multi-location business model's most unique power is that it can have multiple, legitimate local listings in Google (unlike a service area business with only one location but many service cities). The multi-location business can have one listing per public-facing physical office and these listings can be tied to landing pages on the website. For instance, the Chicago office listing can link to acmeplumbing.com/chicago-plumbing-company (just an example).

As for subdomains, Google reps have stated that Google has no preference for these over subfolders. In other words:

acmeplumbing.com/chicago-plumbing-company

is not a better or worse alternative to:

chicago.acmeplumbing.com

So long as Google can crawl the architecture of the website, they don't care. I find subfolders to be easier to manage than subdomains, personally, so I tend to go that way with my own clients. And, I would consider either subfolders or subdomains to be preferable to microsites, even for a multi-location business.

Exceptions to this? Possibly for large franchises with multiple franchise owners, it could be good for each branch to have its own, fully-fleshed-out website. For example, Ace Hardware is a large hardware franchise where I live. If each Ace location in California wanted to have its own website, in addition to the Ace Corporate website, this might be doable, but I wouldn't think of these as microsites. They'd need to be full-fledged websites. And, I would only suggest such a thing under the rare circumstance that the parent company had very clear guidelines about content policy, management of Google+ Local pages and citations and a whole host of other things. It could be a big huge mess, but in some circumstances, with tech savvy franchise owners, it might work.

Hope this helps!

Hi Ricky,

I may not be understanding your question correctly. If a business is local and wants local traffic/business, then optimizing the website will include use of the relevant geographic terms. Regarding keyword research, while the new Google Keyword Planner tool does a better job than the old keyword research tool at indicating volume of searches based on geography, it may still not be totally accurate. You can bet that people are searching for common services in any city, whether they are simply searching from a device based in that city or are actually including the city name in their search term. Thus, inclusion of the city name is key to optimizing the site to help Google understand it is a relevant answer to these queries. Does this make sense, or did I not correctly understand your question? Please, let me know!

Hi Imedia,

You've asked a smart question, and I'm hoping you get a variety of responses from the community. I'm going to weigh in here on why I am not a fan of microsites, specifically for local businesses. I'll break this into numbered points for easiest reading:

1. It's a core goal of every local business to be sure it is sending an absolutely clear NAP+W signal to Google. That's name, address, phone number + website. If Google connects the dots in any way between your microsites, you are posing the question to them, "What is the 'W' in 'NAP=W' here?" You don't want Google to have to ask this. You want them utterly convinced that acmeplumbing.com is your authoritative website. Not sacramentoacmeplumbing.com or sanjoseacmeplumbing.com or what have you.

2. The scenario you describe in which your competitors phone number/s are all ringing back to the same office is really concerning. If they are using the same phone number on multiple sites, this could seriously compound the issue described in point #1. Now Google is asking, "Does this phone number belong to Acme Plumbing or Sacramento Acme Plumbing?" The results of Google's confusing about this could lead to duplicate listings being created with erroneous details on them and ranking failures. Never cloud NAP if you can help it.

3. If the competitors are making the further mistake of putting any part of their physical address on the microsites, then they are really playing with fire. Google finding the same business name, phone number or address on more than one company website can be a recipe for disaster. Mis-matched NAP takes up three spots in the most negative ranking factors identified in the recent Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 survey (see: http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors).

4. For a Service Area Business (SAB) model like a plumber, Google does understand that you have a single physical location and multiple service cities where you are not physically located, but restricts you to having a single listing reflective of physical locale. It makes sense to build out content for your service cities, but there is no reason this can't be on your authoritative website. Google is still a bit weak in carrying out EMD penalties in the Local sphere vs. the organic sphere, but the writing is on the wall that they are not a fan of the EMD strategy. It's still working for many businesses in Local, but who knows when that could end? Maybe tomorrow, right? I think it's simply safer to build out the content of your authoritative domain than to attempt to 'appear larger' with a host of geographically optimized EMDs.

5. For the local business owner, microsites can become a major headache. I've spoken with many business owners over the years who had these built by a previous firm, either because they thought it was a good idea or the marketer they'd hired thought it was a good idea. Then the relationship ended and the client may be confused about management of the sites or unable to access them, etc. Point being, why create a complex set of websites when a single one will do the job and everything you do on that authoritative site will enhance the company's true brand and visibility?

I hope my thoughts on this are helpful to you in your decision making process on this. You've asked an extremely good question!

If this is a local business (rather than a virtual one) and the goal is Local rankings, then Google is going to see the business as most relevant to its city of location, regardless of how you optimize the website. Presumably you will be listing the physical address in the suburbs on the Google+ Local page and on various directory listings and Google will most strongly associate the business name with this location - not with a nearby desired major city. So, unless the business completely forgoes Local SEO of any kind, doesn't publish an address anywhere and only pursues organic results instead of local ones, Google will see the business as most relevant to its city of location and commonly rank it in local results for searches containing the City B term or stemming from City B-based devices. Organic rankings for City A will have to be seen as a secondary goal. Hope this helps!

Nice answers on this thread, guys. This is certainly an interesting scenario - one in which the legal name of a business includes a geographic term. I'm sure this occurs all the time, but this is actually the first time I've ever seen it brought up, believe it or not. Suggests that multi-location businesses should, perhaps, not name themselves after a city. If your small business is planning to expand into a franchise, maybe you should pick a less geo-centric name. Food for thought.

Hey Guys,

Just wanted to specify here, though Monster Web has clarified that this is not his intent, that it is not allowed to re-post Google+ reviews anyplace - not on the website, or on another review site, etc. I know this isn't what you are asking Monster Web, but it's how I first read your question, so I thought others might, too, and I wanted to post this little tip.

Pete, you crack me up:)

Hi Keith,

Google does sometimes make phone calls. See:

http://www.localseoguide.com/hey-seos-if-google-maps-calls-dont-answer/

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2010/08/03/google-now-calling-to-confirm-google-places-community-edits-verification-issues/

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/rXf6l1sXxgo

However, I am convinced that everyone on this thread is right and you were called by a marketing company. I've received calls like that, myself, in which the caller has gone out of the way to erroneously suggest that they are somehow connected to Google. When pinned down with the direct question, "You work for Google?", they have hung up the phone on me!

You were smart to ask about this, Keith.

My pleasure, Brittany!

Hi Catherine,

If you are located in the UK, you might want to check out Bright Local. They are, I believe, located in the UK as well and have a large suite of tools. I have not used them, personally, but have heard good things about them.

I will CC our help staff on your technical question. I am sure you will receive a reply.

At risk of stating the obvious here, guys, I will just add a word of caution. The mention of 'phone numbers' is what is standing out as most concerning to me. I could be wrong about this, but if a company is tracking how many calls are coming to a business, my bet would be that they would be using a call tracking number - which is an absolute no-no in Local. This, alone, would turn me off of any service and would be the first thing I would want to know about in any type of pay-per-call service.

Thanks, Eric, for digging up this thread and adding to it. And Robert, thanks for making me think of a drunken donkey in a china shop. Quite a vivid picture! Your caution is well-placed.

My pleasure, Vadim. Nyagoslav has written several interesting articles about Yext over the past couple of years. No one should feel like they have to go through Yext. It's just an option, and most of the Local SEOs I know still consider manual claiming to be the superior route because it gives you the most control.

Hi Kurt,

Yext is an option - not an essential. And Yext, while good for some things, is not without problems of its own (see:http://www.ngsmarketing.com/what-happens-when-canceling-yext/).

I am not quite following your statement that you can't register businesses manually anymore. For example, here is the signup page for HotFrog.com: http://www.hotfrog.com/AddYourBusinessSingle.aspx. Most of the important local business directories are still completely accessible with no Yext account necessary. Perhaps you can provide an example of where/how you are experiencing problems with manual claiming, Kurt.

I recommend you take a look at David Mihm's recent post: http://moz.com/blog/2013-local-search-ecosystems

This will show you how data is shared and should help you feel reassured that Yext is just one of a ton of different players.

I also recommend that you check out GetListed.org to assist you with your manual claiming, for free!

Hi Brittany,

Organic results are the old, traditional results in Google. Local results are those in Google's local pack of results, specifically containing local businesses. Because Google considers a local business to be most relevant to its city of location, such a business is most likely to achieve visibility in the Local pack of results for the city it is physically located in. If the business wants to publicize its activities/services in cities outside its city of location (like a plumber who travels to 6 cities to render services) then the plumber can build unique landing pages on his website for each service city. However, because of Google's bias toward putting city of location businesses in the local pack, these landing pages will typically show up in the organic results - not the local pack of results - because they are about where the plumber serves and not where he is physically located.

Does this help answer your question? Please, let me know.

Hi Shay,

Locksmiths like yourself are up against a harder field then many other types of businesses. This is because the locksmith category has historically been one of the hardest hit by spam. This means that it is especially difficult for honest businesses to move up in the local search engine results because there is just so much spam there.

That being said, the strategy for you is similar to that of any other local business, namely:

1. Publishing the highest quality possible website with excellent text content

2. Having a verified Google+ Local page for the business that is free of violations

3. Building citations for the business on as many relevant local business directories as possible

4. Earning reviews on a variety of profiles

5. Traditional SEO metrics, such as the acquisition of high quality links

6. Participation in Social Media, if possible

Google's Local algorithm is made up of hundreds of different factors. The recent Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 does the best possible job of identifying which factors are deemed to be of most importance. I recommend that you study this survey and begin to identify areas in which you can improve. Discovering where you have already done things right and where you have room to grow is what will help you create a marketing strategy.

All this being said, you will have to be extra patient because of the situation I've described above (spam in the locksmith vertical). Sometimes, the spam is so deep that even the best efforts can result in only very small gains for the business and this is certainly frustrating. It may be that legitimate locksmiths will have to brainstorm ideas beyond the typical Local Search Marketing strategy to get their names in front of consumers. Some type of social, video or offline outreach may be necessary in addition to the above kinds of work.

Hi Again,

No - if they want to promote 2 brands, then the best thing would be for them to run two totally separate websites, in my opinion. Promoting two business names on the same website may have negative consequences in terms of Google's ability to parse the information and clients' ability to identify a location with a business name. Hope this helps!

Hi Silhouette,

In that case, then either route would be appropriate (i.e., bring their branding into cohesion on a single website or build out a completely separate website).

Hi Drew,

I will add to Tom's thoughtful response by recommending that you study the recent Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 (http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors) and look at the different factors that have greatest influence in the mobile environment vs. the desktop environment if the goal is mobile local rankings. Hope this helps!

Hi Silhouette,

If I'm understanding this correctly, your client has

1. Two business names (for example, Red Rock Dental Clinic and Green Tree Dental Center)

2. These two locations are in the same city, but have COMPLETELY different addresses AND phone numbers (let me know if the phone numbers are the same)

3. Completely different dentists and staff at the two offices (if not, let me know)

4. A single website representing both businesses.

If the above is correct, the dentist has two options.

1. Bring their branding into a state of cohesion so that their dental practice has just one name. Then, you would simply create 2 landing pages on the website - one for each of the location, and include the complete NAP of both in the footer and on the contact page. If they go this route, your job will be to do a citation cleanup campaign to edit all mentions of their business on the web so that the single, chosen business name is properly associated with both locations.

2. If they have to keep both names for some reason, then I would recommend that they develop a completely separate website for one of the locations. Here's why: the core signal a local business sends to the search engines is comprised of its name+address+phone number+website. If the client maintains 2 names, they are sending a very confusing signal to the bots that both Red Rock Dental Clinic and Green Tree Dental Center are the business' name. Imagine the bots hitting the website and say, "Wait, what is the name of this business???".  This could lead to a number of problems including citation inconsistency, merged listings, duplicate listings and ranking failures. So, if they must keep the 2 names, I suggest they separate them completely with two different websites. Note, in this case the NAP must be completely separate (the phone number cannot be the same for the two different addresses). And, the content would need to be completely different on the two different websites.

Either route would be fine, but their current scenario is not, in my opinion, okay. Having two different businesses share the same website just isn't something I would ever recommend to any local business owner, even if he owns the two businesses. Upshot: they need to solidify their branding or expand their marketing with the development of a second, unique website.

Hope this helps!

Hi RicktheMarkt,
The main components of a strong Google+ Local page are that:

• There are no violations of the Google Places Quality Guidelines

• You've chosen the best possible categories

• All relevant fields have been filled out with correct information

• You are earning reviews, and if the page is fully merged, adding posts

Beyond the existence and correctness of the Google+ Local page, there are many, many more factors that contribute to local rankings. These include, but are not limited to,

• The authority of the website

• The quality, quantity and accuracy of citations on third party sites (local business indexes, directories, etc.)

• Traditional SEO metrics like age of site, quality and quantity of links

• Social Media participation

In order to begin getting a handle on all of the components that contribute to local search rankings, I recommend that you and your friends study the Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 survey. There is no better place to get the big picture of all the contributing factors.

Now, all this being said, I believe that your friends may need to adjust their stated goals. You write:
"I have a couple friends who need more traffic from their Google Places listing"

It's very important to understand that there was a very big change recently with Google's display of the Places/+ Local pages. In the past, a single click from the main SERPS would take you directly to a business' +Local page. This is no longer the case. Now, if a company's listing shows up, their will most commonly be a 'review' link attached to it. In the past, this would have taken a user to the +Local page for the business. These days, it only takes them to a popup showing the reviews. In other words, it is now much more unlikely that the average user will ever make it to a +Local page.

So, while the accuracy and completeness of a +Local page still play a vital role in rankings, the goal of getting traffic to the page may not be viable, given the fact that the pages have, in essence, been somewhat buried by Google. An odd turn of events, but there it is. It could change tomorrow.

In sum, your friends should formulate a more appropriate goal, such as earning higher rankings, achieving broader brand visibility, generating better conversions, etc.
I hope this is helpful!

Hi Bob,

I'll start with the easiest part of this first: question #4. Yes, Google is not typically showing Google+ links in the SERPs anymore. This applies to all businesses, not just your client's, so that is not something to worry about.

Now on to the harder part.

To make sure I have the details right, this is your client:

http://www.stonebridgedental.com/

This is the domain ZD buit with their own branding on it:

http://stonebridgedentaltexas.com/

If I've got this right, the big question here is how your client's +Local listing got associated with the new URL. Is the client in control of their +Local dashboard? Which URL is there in the dash? Did ZD create a new listing? Typically, when one uses the word 'hijacking', it means that a third party has taken control of the listing. Has ZD actually done this or does your client still control their own dashboard?

On the one hand, because of the strategy of ZD, your client has earned both an organic and local listings on page 1 of the SERPs (hard to accomplish). On the other hand, if the client has no control over what ZD is doing, this may be a problematic situation. What happens if the client cancels their account with ZD? Does the client own the domain? If no, could be problematic. Same with any reviews earned. It sounds to me as if maybe neither you nor the client understood what would be involved when you signed up for this. Is that correct?

If the client is still in control of their dashboard and needs to point the URL back to their own website, they may still be able to maintain their local listing, but could possibly lose that second organic listing. It might be helpful if you could provide further details on this. This is the first time I've heard of ZD, so I'm looking at the situation without having encountered it before. If you can explain more about the situation, I'll be happy to read.