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!

Hi Robert,

Thanks for coming here with your good question. There are 2 important issues here.

1. As First points out, sharing an address with other businesses is problematic. If your client's address duplicates that of even one other business, you can expect troubles ahead. Google will likely merge the info of the two businesses, meaning that your client could end up with the other business' phone number, reviews, or analytical data on her listing. So, sharing an address is out, unfortunately.  The only exception to this included in the Google Places Guidelines (http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528) is this:

Some businesses may be located within a mall or a container store, which is a store that contains another business. If your business is within a container store or mall, and you'd like to include this information in your listing, specify the container store in parentheses in the business name field. For example, Starbucks (inside Safeway).

But, it doesn't sound like your client is within a container store or a mall, so I would not consider this truly applicable to the situation.

2. I cannot recommend using a floor number. Even if the client has a distinct business name and phone number, I feel merging is going to be a likely outcome. Here is an excerpted user comment one a Mike Blumenthal post (http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/19/the-long-and-winding-tale-of-trying-to-fix-a-merged-listing/) regarding a merged business:

"We have had this problem for about a year and Google won’t fix it. They say it will be fixed but is not. Me and the other law firm have joined up and are both e mailing Ashley with the same case no. to try and convince Google to use our user data instead of assuming we are the same company.

Since the address uses a Floor number (Not a suite number) and a mail room sorts the mail, Google says it is the same business even though the other details like the phone number, are different. We both meet clients and have offices in several locations in the Inland Empire, as we both lease from the same leasing company. That is where the relationship ends.

I think the work around maye be to add an identifier after the floor number, such as -A, or -B. So it would appear like #400-A."

(emphasis mine)

You are always supposed to use the precise street address at which the client receives mail when creating any Google Local property. You are not supposed to add or subtract anything from the mix.

So what option does this leave your client with if he/she wants to participate in Local? Getting legitimate suite numbers assigned by the post office to the different businesses on the floor would be the only open road, as far as I can see. You will need to contact the postal service in the client's area, as well as all of the other businesses located on that floor to try to arrange this, if you can. Not a great solution. But as things currently stand, without your client having a distinct address, they are lacking one of the 3 key metrics for local inclusion which are:

1. A unique local area code phone number

2. A unique physical street address

3. In-person transactions with customers.

Hope my reply is, at least, helpful, even if it doesn't automatically solve the issue. Sincerely wishing you good luck!

Great to know. Good luck with the work ahead!

Hi Inhouseseo,

Yes, I have made similar things happen for clients. Most typically, this type of results stemmed from overhauling a bad website. In one case, the client's sales (the real test, right?) shot up 125% in one year. I've had similar results with other clients.

My take on all SEO is this: the strength of your efforts must be based on the competitiveness of your target industry. If my client is a quilt shop competing against 2 other quilt shops in a 50 mile radius, chances are, I just need to put up a really good website for them to beat out the other two, who probably aren't going to have hired someone like me because the industry isn't very tech-oriented. If I put a blog in the site and client uses it once a week, she will probably be going way beyond the efforts of her competitors. I'll get her Local SEM firmly in place and she will dominate the whole local scene on the web. No way am I going to have to do linkbuilding. It's just not necessary.

However, if my client is a personal injury lawyer in San Francisco, that's a very different story. I can write content for him all day, and it will help, but if his competitors are all spending $3000+ a month on linkbuilding with hotshot linkbuilders, he's going to have to match and exceed their efforts if he wants to outrank them. There could be exceptions to this, but I would call this pretty typical.

So, my experience with this is that the efforts one has to make for each client are unique. It all depends upon what efforts their competitors are making. In some cases, all you need is good on-page SEO. In others, it will be a combination on on-page plus Local SEM. And, in others, you will have to bring out every weapon in the arsenal, from linkbuilding, to SM, to video marketing in order to gain the visibility the client seeks.

Hi Konoozi,

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

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

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

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

Hi Lucas,

You've gotten some good advice here. I will add a few thoughts.

Read David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors 2012 if you haven't already. If your area of expertise is more in the traditional SEO field rather than the Local SEO field, this report will bring you up to speed on the importance of things like citations and reviews, which don't really apply to standard SEO. However, because of the publication date of this year's LSRF report, we didn't have a chance to talk about the rollout of Google+ Local, so that data is 'missing'.

To get a jumpstart on that, here is Mike Blumenthal's step-by-step guide on making the Places-Plus transition:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/08/google-for-business-places-forums-wrapup/

Your friend is attempting to break into a very tough market - a major term in a populous locale. To make things more complicated - he offers 2 areas of specialization (Immigration Law and Criminal Law) and these can be broken down into further subcategories of services (theft, assault, etc.). Right now, the site is thin on content to support his work in these areas. The homepage of the site is really lacking in descriptive text. 'Welcome' is a very weak header for the page - he can do much better than this - and the homepage copy makes no mention of his core service keywords nor his geographic location. Homepages are always so important.

I would further recommend that the NAP (name, address, phone number) on his Contact Page and his footer be coded using hCard or Schema. If these are new to you, here are two good resources:

This one is an hCard generator:

http://microformats.org/code/hcard/creator

This one is a Schema generator (be sure to pick Organization>Local Business from the categories):

http://schema-creator.org/organization.php

Robert and TheeDesign have made some important suggestions for you regarding Google+ Local. I will add to this that if you put in major effort and still see your client unable to attain high rankings, you must always consider the possibility of past or current penalties. But, cross that bridge when you come to it. There is a ton your friend can do to improve the presentation of the business, its usefulness to humans and its SEO.

Hi Strathcom,

I am looking into this for you. Trusted businesses are sometimes given the phone-only option, just as less trusted businesses are often given the postcard-only option. Let me see what I can find out for you. I will return.

Update: Looks like you have already started a thread at the Google and Your Business Forum and received a good reply from Treebles: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/business/OXYk9JlWCCY/s8n4jpjN514J[1-25] Also, in case you didn't see this similar thread, here is one with a response from Jim Jaggers regarding making 4 verification attempts to cause the postcard option to appear: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/phone$20tree/business/mPIRxdm5vQw/iqcf5gh9--4J[1-25] Hope this helps!

Hi Daria,

Citations and links are both important, for sure. Did you run through my 5 point list to be sure you are okay on all of those points? I think this is important.

Hello, Daria,

As both Brent & Donnie have mentioned, both citations and links are important parts of a local SEO campaign. The fact that you are doing well organically, but failing to break into the blended local rankings could indicate:

1. That you haven't yet made the right efforts with your Google+ profile and 3rd party directory listings.

2. That you are located too far from the center of business (are you located right next to the other businesses being ranked in the local pack or are you far from them?)

3. That you are suffering from a penalty for real or perceived spammy behavior (such as violation of Google's guidelines, review spamming, etc.)

4. That you haven't received enough reviews to surpass competitors.

5. That your business is too new to begin outranking older competitors.

There are other factors to consider. Those are top ones.

If you've just started building citations (thumbs up on Whitespark's tool), understand that it will take some time to for these to go into effect and begin helping the listing. The same applies to linkbuilding.

I also see room for improvement with the website itself. While it's great that you've got your name, address and phone number on your footer and contacto page, from what I can see, there are only 4 pages currently on the site. Your Horrarios y Precios page lists classes, but could not find a text description of what these classes are. I would expect a site like yours to have a unique page for each of its types of classes, and possibly pages for its wonderful instructors, too. If not unique pages for each, then at least a single page listings all of these things (optimized, of course, for Barcelona). I also do not see a blog on the site, and that might be something else to investigate. Out-writing your competitors can be a powerful approach to edging higher up in the SERPs.

Hope these thoughts help. Buena suerte!

Miriam

Hi Stephen,

Yes, this is very much a known problem. If your clients are involved, first step for them is to report their issues to this thread in the Google and Your Business Forum:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/business/0f1Cu9yLIzY/J21OJDPL1NUJ[1-25]

This thread was started by Google Forum Top Contributor, Mike Blumenthal, to consolidate all of the complaints into one place for review. So, go there and list each client separately (or have them do it themselves) with documentation of what each is experiencing.

Additionally, here is a blog post on this topic from Joy Hawkins that I think will be helpful to you:

http://imprezziomarketing.com/seo-blog/google-maps/a-way-to-avoid-the-google-local-review-spam-filter/

Also, if any of your clients happen to be in the auto dealership industry, be advised that Google appears to be cracking down on reviews in that sector with especial vigor. See:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/08/08/what-should-you-tell-a-client-when-google-loses-their-reviews-a-4-part-plan/

Hope these resources will help you feel up-to-date on this issue, and maybe even help you resolve your client's troubles.

Hi Samuel,

Google will consider you most relevant to whatever your physical address is - this is the locale for which you can work towards your main local/blended rankings.

Beyond this, yes, you can work for organic visibility for other towns you serve in. Having a unique landing page for each of your major service cities is a smart way to go. You can then linkbuild to these pages to go after organic visibility.

I agree that you should not simply go the route of listing towns in a list. Have you considered blogging? Instead of putting too many geo terms per page, have you considered using a blog to showcase weddings you've done in Camden, etc.? A few photos of your band, folks dancing, pics of the venue and 400-600 words of text describing the event, songs the couple requested, testimonials from the bride and groom or family members would make a strong blog post on the subject and could get that long tail traffic you seek. The nice thing about this would be that it would naturally generate very unique content. Though I'm sure there are similarities in all your gigs, each one must be a little bit different, right? And, it would enable you to optimize part of your site for things like regional and neighborhood/district names.

I hope this is a helpful suggestion.

Hi Luke,

I'm so glad Mike replied to you. As Mike said, what you put on your website is up to you, but I was hoping you'd actually describe the scenario going on in your region a little more fully in that thread. It's good you got an answer, but bringing Google's attention to the border change issues and getting a response to that would likely be helpful to lots and lots of your neighbors. Maybe you can attempt to discuss that in their forum at some point.

Hi Ben,

So glad to help!

Hi Ben,

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your good question. So, first step is to be sure your company actually qualifies for local inclusion before you take a step in this direction. Can you say yes to each of the following points?

• The company has a physical address that is not shared with any other business. This cannot be a P.O. Box or virtual office, but must be a real, physical address at which mail can be received.

• The company has a local area code phone number. Not a toll free number. Not a call tracking number.

• The company has face-to-face transactions with its clients, either at the place of business (restaurant, dental office, travel agency) or transacts business at the client's location (carpet cleaning company, landscaper, chimney sweep). Business is not conducted virtually only.

If you can say yes to those factors, then your business qualifies for local inclusion. As far as pitfalls to this, you need to be aware of these:

• As you've stated, people can review the business, but you are correct - they can talk about your company whether you participate in Local or not.

• Google's Local entity is not for the faint of heart. Between constant changes in presentation of data, to numerous ongoing bugs, to competitive sabotage, there is a lot going on in Local that is a pain in the neck to deal with. You've got to stay on top of your listings once you begin. Things change frequently and you need to follow Local SEO news and monitor your listings.

• Before you start creating listings anywhere, but especially in the Google arena, be certain they don't already exist. If they already exist, claim the existent listings rather than creating new ones in order to avoid duplication.

On the positive side, the potentials for increased visibility are awesome and Local is one of the most exciting and lively areas in SEO. If you are just getting into this, I recommend that you read David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors 2012 at http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml. This is the industry's premiere annual report. I also recommend that you become a weekly reader of Mike Blumenthal's blog which most of us consider to be the industry's best: http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml. Finally, I recommend that you study Google's own guidelines thoroughly before creating anything in their sphere: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528. These guidelines are still labeled as applying to Google Places, but they also apply to Google+ Local, so definitely, study them.

Hope these tips help!

Miriam

Hi Luke,

Do you want to link to the thread you started in the Google and Your Business Forum?

My pleasure, Brett. Happy reading!

Interesting suggestion from SEOSHARK regarding citations, but, basically, Google does the choosing when it comes to what they display about your business. Is the title you don't like actually incorrect (such as incorrectly listing your business name)? If so, you could try reporting this as a problem to the Google and Your Business forum, but if there isn't actually anything incorrect in it, you're pretty much stuck with what Google considers to be most relevant. Sorry not to have a happy solution on this one.

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 Brett,

You've gotten some excellent replies here. Let me give you a list of my go-to sources for excellent reportage on this topic, some of which have already been mentioned. Put these in your feedreader and you will have a blow by blow account of the constant changes going on daily in Local:

Mike Blumenthal's Blog

http://blumenthals.com/blog

Mike is considered by most Local SEOs to be the godfather of the industry. He is also a Google Top Contributor (in the Google and Your Business Forum). If you read nothing else, read Mike's blog religiously.

Nyagoslav Zhekov's Blog

http://www.ngsmarketing.com/blog/

Also a Google Top Contributor. Extremely smart guy with very important, factual blog posts.

Linda Buquet's Blog

http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/

Another Google TC. Linda's blog is very active and she is also now running her Local Search Forum. Expect lots of breaking news here.

David Mihm's Blog

http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/

David doesn't blog as often as the above 3 bloggers, but when he does, his stuff is must-read. Also, as the founder of GetListed.org and the annual Local Search Ranking Factors report, David is definitely and industry leader...as well as being a really nice guy!

Greg Sterling's Blog

http://www.screenwerk.com/

An extremely intellectual man who gives best-in-industry commentary on industry news in Local (who just bought who, what is this new technology, etc.). Greg brings a unique perspective to Local.

Matt McGee's Blog

http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/

Matt is a marketing veteran and is the Executive News Editor at Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. He often blogs about local issues and I always really enjoy his commentary on the review aspect of Local. Matt's writing style is truly lay-person-friendly and I value his voice.

Andrew Shotland's Blog

http://www.localseoguide.com/

Andrew is a no-nonsense local blogger with a gift for irony and a ton of experience. He's very respected in Local and while his blog isn't updated daily, what he writes is well worth reading. Another very smart fellow.

Search Engine Land

http://www.searchengineland.com

Regularly publishes good local news, often from some of the bloggers listed above.

Google and Your Business Blog

http://googleandyourbusiness.blogspot.com/

This is where Google tends to make most of their announcements about Local issues, so definitely be aware of this.

We also publish some great Local articles here at SEOmoz from time to time, and in our YouMoz section as well. You're welcome to check out my blog at http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/ but I confess that, of late, being busy has kept me from blogging half as much as I'd like to. There are many other talented bloggers in Local, but what I've listed here are my most-visited sources.

I hope these resources will be just what you're looking for, Brett!

Miriam

Hi Chase,

Thanks, Keri, for the recommendation. Chase and I are now PMing one another and I will endeavor to offer him either personal service or a recommendation to someone I trust, depending on his specific needs.

Miriam

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.

Good, Luke. I really do hope you get an answer on this. Deserves attention!

Hi Luke,

Now, was that you who started a similar thread on this recently about the great confusion of the postal service vs. administration in your country? I know that I just discussed a really similar situation in another thread, but for some reason, I can't seem to find it right now in the system. So, perhaps that was you, or perhaps a countryman of yours in the same predicament.

My thinking on this is that the postal address has to be seen as your core geo data, and thus would be the main thing occupying your footer, contact us page, and the front end of many of your titles and tags. But your situation is extraordinary. People visiting City A want to find a pizza in City A...they don't want to send mail to City B. So, Google would be crazy to penalize you for including City A in much of your optimization, but don't take my word for it.

I find your scenario with the conflict of boundaries to be important enough and curious enough to report to Google. I sincerely recommend that you do so. At the very least, you will have documentation of your efforts to play by the rules should anything go wrong in future. This just isn't an issue that comes up every day, and I believe you and your neighbors deserve an official answer from Google about how they would like you to proceed when such confusion surrounds locale in your area. I'd post about this to the Google and Your Business Forum with a very catchy title, such as:

Our Part Of England Is All Mixed Up - Please Guide Us, Google.

Something like that. Should grab some attention. Here is the link to the forum, if you don't have it handy:

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

I'd love to know if you get an answer.

Woo hoo! You guys are on the ball. The two articles referenced here by Fidelityim and Gyi are exactly what I would have pointed to. I would also highly recommend that you follow Linda Buquet on this issue of medical practices with multiple practitioners. Check this out: http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-duplicate-listing-dentists-doctors.html Nobody knows the ins and outs of Local SEO in the dental industry better than Linda, in my opinion. Hope this helps!

Hi Luke,
Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. Now, I want to be sure I understand what you are referencing by using the word 'geotag'. Please, give a definition of that. The language of Local remains non-standard, so we sometimes use different terms for the same elements.

Doing Local SEO, one has to get into Google's mindset. Google's approach to Local is that everything is founded on physical location. So, the name, address and phone number is the core of any Local SEO campaign. In cases where a client has offices in city A, but also welcomes clients from cities B and C or goes to clients to serve them in cities B and C, the client's main data is still about city A, because that is where he is physically located and that is what Google cares about most.

I'm not entirely sure about your particular client's business model. Is he, for example, a dentist located in San Franciso whose patients come to him from Oakland and Berkeley as well, or, is he, for example, a lawn care specialist located in San Francisco who has a service radius including Oakland or Berkeley. In any case, it's his city of location that counts most, and so, this takes priority in elements such as titles, tags, headers, footers and content.

In the case of service area businesses (plumbers, carpenters, carpet cleaners, etc.) it is a common best practice to create unique landing pages for each city in which the business goes to serve. These do not outweigh his main pages optimized for his city of location, but they are a way to let humans and bots know that the business' employees travel to these other cities to render services. You typically cannot expect to outrank other companies with physical locations in these services cities, but you can hope to gain at least some visibility for these secondary geographic terms.

Now, with what I've described, would you be able to be a little more detailed about what you would like to know, Luke? You are not in any way obliged to name the client, but perhaps you can give a few more details if you have further questions. I'll be glad to stop back by. Thanks!

Hi Carl,

You are not alone in wondering about this phenomenon in which a local listing appears to make organic visibility disappear. We've had several questions come into Q&A about this recently. In fact, what is happening is that the organic listing has typically been absorbed into the local blended listing which contains both first party data (like, from the company's website) + 3rd party data from Google's local index and other sources.

If clients are concerned, it will be helpful to educate them about this and, also, to show them heatmap/eyetracking studies like this one that shows how local listings get the lion's share of eyes on them in the SERPs:

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

Many such studies have reached similar conclusions. Because of this, a high local blended rank is generally to be prized.

In the past, it was common for dominant businesses to have both a local listings and an organic one on the same page of the SERPs. I saw this everywhere, all the time. Now, I am hard put to come up with a single example of the results being configured in this way. Now, pretty much all local results are blended results and the appropriate goal for most local businesses is to get a high blended local listing for their main search phrases.

Regarding deleting the local presence from Google's index, it's really important to realize that this can be really tough to do - some would say impossible. Remember, Google can create a local page for any business at any time from third party data, hence, all the unclaimed listings that have always existed in their local index because they were created from third party sources and not from the say-so of the business owner. So, unless the client were to remove every reference to his local business from his website and across the entire web, there is always the chance that Google will re-create a profile for the business without his permission.

Because of this factor, and because of the vast power Google now has over the local business scene, business owners have had to determine to learn to play the 'game' with Google as well as they can. In most cases, the highest goal being aimed for is a high-ranking blended listing, which it sounds like your client has achieved. So, typically, this would be a time for congratulations rather than concern.

Hope these thoughts are helpful to you!

Hi JP,

I believe what you are describing is Google+ Business Pages and Google+ Local Pages (the pages that replaced Place Pages a couple of months ago). If I've misunderstood, please correct me.

Right now, multi-location businesses are having all kinds of trouble because Google has not yet truly clarified their policy on this. According to Google employee, Vanessa Schneider:

"“Be sure to choose the Local category so that we can bring your multiple pages together to create one listing later on.”

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

As I read this, Google intends, in future, to offer easy management for multiple locations businesses from a single account, but how they will do this is still really up in the air. If you will look at the Google and Your Business Forum, you will see tons of business owners asking about this. Example:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/multiple$20locations/business/A5Itcap9y0I/il_B2XnjeAYJ

Now, the one aspect of your question about which I'm not totally clear is your concern about Google presenting local results to user groups based on their country of origin. Google should do this. Maybe you could describe what is currently happening with your Canadian vs. US-based searches. If there is a problem you are noticing, could you please describe it as fully as possible? Thanks!

Miriam

Hi Networkelites,

If I am understanding the scenario correctly, your client is no longer receiving mail at the major city address, but would have a different locale name on his envelopes in the post. Is this correct? Please let me know if I've not understood you correctly.

If I'm on the right track, then the work ahead of you looks like this:

1. Update the footer, contact page, tags and copy of the main pages (home, about, etc.) to reflect his new location...meaning the city name at which he now receives postal mail.

2. Update your Google+ Business/Local accounts to reflect the change of address.

3. Begin searching the web for every reference you can find to the old address and update these citations to reflect the new address.

If the client is no longer receiving mail at the major city address, Google will no longer view him as a legitimate result for such searches and you must educate the client so that he understands this. Additionally, I strongly recommend that you do not use any geographic terms in the business description field of the client's Google+ Local page as Google has historically treated this practice as spam. The address field is where location info belongs. The business description should be a sales pitch...much like a meta description. It's a great place to include information like:

Voted Reader's Choice by the Washington Post! First visit free with affordable care for your whole family. Get ready to smile!

That's just a really rough example, but you want to think like this in writing your Google+ business description.

Hope my list of points gets you started on the right foot. Good luck to you and your client. Moves are a big deal in local.

Miriam

So glad to be of help, Erik. Thanks for using Q&A!

Miriam

Hi Erik, Smart question, and it's one that I've actually discussed in the past with other Local SEOs. My belief is that Google has no problem understanding that Ave and Avenue are the same thing, so this is not the kind of consistency you really need to worry about as I do not feel it has any effect on rankings. What does have a big effect is inconsistencies like differences in business name (i.e. Joe's Plumbing vs. Joe's Plumbing & Heating) and failure to correctly list elements like suite addresses every time. Hope this helps! Miriam

Hi Cake Website,

I'm looking into whether  the query in your example would be in danger of being removed. I'll return as soon as I have a good answer.

Miriam

Update:

Hi Again Cake Website.

Here are the only guidelines I could find:

http://www.google.com/+/policy/content.html

Cyrus Shepard kindly pointed them out to me. They state:

"Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content. For example, do not use a photo that is a close-up of a person’s buttocks or cleavage."

You might like to check out this article by Anne Smarty on the subject of using logos as profile pics:

: http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/social-media/logo-as-google-plus-profile-picture

And, apparently there was one instance of Google cracking down on an individual who made an obscene gesture in his profile:

http://parislemon.com/post/14907295522/dear-google

Right now, it seems Google is allowing just about anything in profile pics with a few exceptions, so you can at least start out with your practice's photo. Whether it might get removed in future, I can't really say because the guidelines are not very detailed. Hope this is at least of some help to you in deciding your next move.

Great! My pleasure, Donnie.

Hi Donnie,

Okay, I think I get it. Sorry to be slow on the uptake. I believe you saw this page on Yext:

http://www.yext.com/products.html

Yext's PowerListing product is described like this:

PowerListings

Business listing management made simple. Easily add your business
listings to premier local search sites like Yahoo!, Yelp and WhitePages.

It then goes on to list 9 directories for which they are charging you a certain amount  and 30+ directories for which there is no price listed. I found the setup of this page to be very vague, so in the spirit of offering you a really clear answer, I actually phoned Yext just now and spoke with John, a Senior Account Manager.

As I understand it, you've got 2 options with Yelp. You can purchase the $499 deal which will apparently give you enhanced listings in a variety of directories. He described these enhanced listings as ones that you could purchase yourself from the listed companies, but the benefit is central management of all + a quoted 50% cost savings from what you'd be charged if you made direct purchases of the enhanced listings.

Alternatively, you can purchase the Emerging Package from Yext which costs much less and which consists of listings in all the non-priced directories on that page I've linked to, plus you can choose a la carte enhanced listings with from the priced directories, but will be charged the retail price for these. Again, the benefit here is central management.

Now, here's something nice. John asked me to let you know that if you would like to talk to him directly, call him at (917) 210-6709 and he will not only be happy to answer your questions, but he will also give you a discount if you decide to sign up. How about that?

But, to return to your basic question, Donnie - will having an enhanced listing in a 3rd party directory positively influence your Google Local rank more than a free listing? You know, I would be very surprised if this is the case. I have seen no studies to indicate this, but I can't answer this with 100% certainty. So, my approach to purchasing Yext's service would be that managing the listings would be easier and that quoted 50% discount off the list price for enhanced listings would intrigue me if my clients wanted enhanced advertising. My clients are, for the most part, too strictly budgeted to warrant this, so that's a factor.

Hope this helps!

Miriam

Oooh...be careful, Donnie.

Hey Donnie,

We're have a good chat today, aren't we? So, now, I'm still trying to understand your intent here. You can't get free listings via Yext. You have to pay for them as Yext's service is a paid service. I just know I'm not catching your meaning here. Do you have an example to share of an offer you've seen or something like that?

Maybe what you mean is...is there any ranking benefit to paying Yext to get your citations vs. you getting them for yourself, manually. If so, my answer would be: not that I've ever heard of. On an agency level, tools like Yext's are time savers and thus valued, but I still believe that manual citation development is the best way to have the most control over what you are doing.