Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I feel the headache you're experiencing, Donnie. So sorry about this and I couldn't agree with your more that Google's review process leaves much to be desired. But then, I don't know of a review entity that is perfect. Yelp has certainly come in for their share of public complaint for their policies. Google just tends to get the most heat because they are just so darned visible and powerful. What happens on Google directly effects the bottom line of the business owner, and there are no two ways about this. Over the years, I have written rather extensively urging Google to take serious responsibility for the effect they are having on businesses, especially on account of the fact that they initially populated their local index without owner consent. Suddenly, all local business owners were tossed into a sea of publicity, scrutiny and reputation management which few of them had the skills to handle. So, these days, to run a local business you've got to have the time to learn about Google because of its power over your presence and you've got to have good luck when coming up against the weaknesses and bugs of the system.

Google offers superb chances for visibility, but there are definitely big risks, too.

Hi Again Autoczar,

Yes, so ideally, you'd have domain-based email accounts for the different businesses if one is Lexus San Francisco and the other is Toyota San Francisco, if you're dealing with separate websites and separate NAP for the different businesses. If all of your businesses were Autoczar Lexus across 15 different cities, it would be most correct to have a single account to rule them all, but it sounds like there is a genuine difference in the dealerships.

I would definitely wait for the merge before doing anything, because I think there is likely to be some fallout from that and you'll want to see where you stand once it goes through. Then, you might consider transferring ownership to separate accounts for the Lexus dealerships vs. the Toyota ones, but as I've said, this will not be 'fun' to do.

Hi Derek,

Possibly, that is what Donnie means. Thanks for chiming in and we'll have to see what he says when he returns. I'm actually wondering if he means citations from certain sources over others, or something like that. We'll see.

Hello Parvesh,

I apologize that your important question didn't receive a speedier response from me. For some reason, our system failed to notify me. So sorry about that.

Your question is an excellent one, and one that has come up many times over the years since the dawn of Local. Basically, there is no keyword tool from which you can get reliable geo data. Even if you are in a major metro city (like New York City) and tools show you some data reflecting use of your city name in searches, that data is not really reliable.

Because of this, I (and just about every other Local SEO I know) follow this method in performing research.

1. Brainstorm your core terms and plug them into your keyword tool of choice, without any geo terms. So, for you, that might be terms like hair salon, spa, salon, makeovers or whatever it is that your business offers.

2. Open a spreadsheet and document the findings of your keyword research, based on what data you've been given about your brainstormed terms as well as any others that the tool shows you that you may not have thought of on your own. Very often, people search for things in surprising ways you might not have previously considered.

3. Now, go back and add in your geo terms. These would include city names, county names, regional names, state names, neighborhood names and postal codes.

4. For every service/product term, you now have geo terms with which to pair it. So, if you've got a hair salon in Bathurst, one section of your spreadsheet might be:

haircuts bathurst

haircuts bathurst, NSW

haircuts in bathrust

cheapest haircuts in bathurst

best haircuts in bathurst

haircuts postal code

etc.

So, essentially, do your KW research without geo terms and then add them back in, based on your locale. As of this moment, there is no accepted better method. Good luck!

Miriam

Hi Donnie, Can you please define the term 'featured citation'? This is not one I've ever come across. Please describe what you mean by regular and featured citations and I'll be happy to share anything I know.

Hi Autoczar,

I want to be certain that I'm correctly understanding your business model. Are you saying that you are currently controlling 15 different auto dealerships with distinct NAP (name, address, phone number) and distinct websites from a single email address? Or, are you talking about a franchise (different address and phone number, but all businesses are called 'Joe's Auto Showroom' and owned by you)?

If the first, then having each business claimed from a separate account would be preferable for the reason that Google has stated that there is a trust signal in having a domain name email address on the account. So, it's better to claim and control Joe's Auto Showroom with the email address joe@joesautoshowroom than it would be to claim it with bill@billscaremporium.com. Google apparently trusts the domain-based email address to be more authoritative.

If the second, and you are managing a franchise, then keeping all the eggs is one basket is the smarter choice in many cases, most particularly for ease of management. In this way, you, the owner, have control over how all data is managed. In some instances, however, franchises make each franchise partner responsible for his own web presence, including claiming and management of a Google+ Local page. Problems can arise in this situation when partners don't understand best practices, of course, but that all really depends on what each partner has been taught about Local SEO. There is no SEO benefit, at least not that I've ever heard of, of going with one account vs. multiple accounts in this scenario, but there is definitely a consideration of ease of management.

Now, all this having been said, if your accounts are currently set up one way, and you are going to change that in whatever direction, be prepared for a big job on your hands and possible wonky outcomes. Google is almost comically ham-fisted when it comes to business owners updating data - even a simple thing like a change of phone number can cause months or years of problems for the business owner, so my advice is to think this over very carefully and proceed with caution. Good luck!

Miriam

Hi Donnie,

Wish I could guarantee that, but I've stopped underestimating the havoc evil-doers can cause in Google's Local entity. What is supposed to get better in the new Google+ Local environment is the spamming of reviews, because reviewers are now required to have a real ID. Assumedly, then, Joe Jones at the competing pizza house in your town isn't going to be able to go trash your pizza place anonymously because his name would be right on the review. We'll see how that plays out, but my word to the wise is that you should never consider any Google-based listing immune to anything. Maybe someday!

So glad my response was helpful, Donnie.

Hi StrathcomMedia,

I'll answer the easier part of your question first, regarding missing reviews. Unfortunately, Google's handling of reviews has been one of the weakest aspects of their participation in Local. I could link you to thousands of posts and threads on this from the past half decade, but rather than do that, I'll just link to this recent post by Mike Blumenthal describing the current issues with reviews in Google+ Local:

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

My advice to you about reviews and Google is that you should immediately copy any review you get because it's quite possible it will disappear at some point, at which point, you can put the copied review on your own website as a testimonial.

Now to the more complex part of your question: your difficulties claiming your Google+ Local page. What is the exact error message you are getting. Please, copy it here and I will return to this thread. Thanks!

Hi SirMax,

Nice to see you here today. For starters, it's important to remember that local rank is founded not on the concept of where you serve, but where you are physically located. From your description, I'm not totally sure whether your client is planing on opening new offices in new cities or whether his service area radius is simply expanding to include other cities to which he will travel from his physical office to render services. I'm also not certain whether your client has a physical location in City A and City B, but I think you are saying he only has one in city A. If I'm mistaken, please let me know, but for the moment, let's say City A is your client's core local term because it is where he is located, and all other geo terms (cities B, C, D, E, F, etc) are his secondary terms.

In such cases, this is what I do for my clients:

1. City A is in the tags, headers and copy of the homepage and contact page and, possibly, about us. The complete NAP (name, address, phone number) is in the footer sitewide)

2. Cities B-F are mentioned once on the homepage, as in, 'From our location in San Francisco, we come to you speedily in Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose and Mill Valley'.

3. In the navigation, I structure a menu containing landing pages for each of the cities the client serves, including his city of location. The menu links to these landing pages and the pages feature copy that is unique. Landing pages like these are a great place to showcase real projects in each of the cities (i.e. here is Mrs. Jones' carpet in the Sunset District of San Francisco before and after we cleaned it and and here is a testimonial from Mrs. Jones and here is a video of us using our new truck mounted steam cleaner, etc.). Don't just copy and paste the text from one city landing page to another - make it unique.

4. But remember, your exterior local properties (Google+ Local Page, Bing Local Page, Yelp Profile, etc.) are all going to focus on city A, because that's where you are located.

I have seen this method work well for my clients. Now, your concern is that you have already optimized core pages for 2 cities instead of just the city of location and, apparently, your work has engendered high rankings for both the location and service city. If the client is only physically located in City A and you've manage to get him ranking for City B as well, removing city B from his core pages (home, contact, etc.) could well cause a ranking drop for city B. But, if the client has offices in both cities, you can continue to optimize for both on the core pages (this is just fine) and create the city landing page to feature his work in cities C--E in which he is not located.

Hope this explanation makes sense, but please let me know if I've misunderstood your client's business model or if you have further questions.

Hi Tracy, Excellent question, and one I'm sure many people are puzzled about. Google is going to merge the Google+ Business pages and Google+ Local pages in future. I think if you will read this post, you will feel brought up to date: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/08/google-for-business-places-forums-wrapup/ They have already begun merging the pages when manually requested to do so, as you can read about here: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/19/the-g-merge-has-started-google-now-processing-manual-merge-requests/ Hope these resources make it clear to you what has happened already and what is supposed to happen in future.

Hi Donnie,

Unfortunately, yes, competitors can report your business as closed. Here is a legacy thread on this from Mike Blumenthal's copy of the old Google Places Help Forum which he saved when they shut it down:

http://places.blumenthals.com/threadb6b9.html

And here was a highly visible article from the New York Times on this problem:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/technology/closed-in-error-on-google-places-merchants-seek-fixes.html?_r=2&hp

Mike Blumenthal was so irked by this that he actually closed down Google's own listings in Places with a couple of clicks: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/09/14/google-places-now-permanently-closed-with-2-clicks-its-getting-worse-not-better/

Now, these issues were all from last year, prior to the Google Places changeover to Google+ Local, so let's take a look at some very recent reports of this issue:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/business$20reported$20as$20closed/business/1MOJVhteWoQ/Y8zW4MIH86cJ

And pay close attention to Linda Buquet's advice on this thread:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/business$20reported$20as$20closed/business/sZVZ65w4ESE/U_i3NqX6DXYJ

And here is a thread that actually got a response from a Google employee:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/business$20reported$20as$20closed/business/-zkCEShnwj0/Qk1SXUTClEsJ

Basically, Donnie, if your business gets labeled with the closed label, you are going to have to try to appeal to Google either through the forum or their troubleshooter. There is a long, long history of issues with this, as you can see. Sometimes, this issue stems from competitive sabotage, and other times, the root of the problem can actually be duplicate listings or other problems.

I really hope the links I've provided will bring you up-to-date on this troublesome topic and point you in the right direction for resolution!

It's my pleasure, Zack. Now, if your client does serve customers at his/her own location as well as on the road, my understanding of Google's guidelines is that you should show your address and use the Service Radius Tool. I believe this to be Google's preference in such cases. I really hope reporting your situation to the Google and Your Business Forum will yield an actionable answer. Miriam

Hi Kane,

Thank you for sharing the link/attachments, and I really wish I could say, "ah, I know what this is" on this one, but unfortunately, I haven't had this same experience. I looked back to my conversations with a group of Local SEOs with whom I chat and checked around the date that you saw the drop, and not one of them mentioned seeing a similar drop at that time in stats.

What does stand out to me, however, is that the drop you've reported happened close enough to the launch of the new Google+ Local Pages (huge changes) to make we wonder if something got lost in the shuffle for your client.

Your own theory, that what you are witnessing could be a result of merging due to similarity of address, is also worth exploring. Perhaps the client's Google+ Local page merged with that of a neighboring business during the rollout?

I apologize for not being able to shed real light on this, but like yourself, I've not experienced this before and cannot find any mention in my private conversations or on the web that reports a similar experience. I definitely think it's worth reporting to the new Google and Your Business Forum in the technical issues section:

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

I'd be very interested to hear if you get a response from one of the Top Contributors or employees.

Good luck!

Miriam

Hi Zack,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miriam

Hi SteeleSEO,

Good questions here! When it comes to consistency, what you are aiming for is a basic sameness of data, but this doesn't mean all data has to be absolutely identical in all cases, because such a goal simply isn't possible to achieve in certain scenarios. Let's look at your 3 questions:

1. Business Name - this is one that should be identical, but whether this is your legal business name or a DBA, that choice is yours. Pick what you will be doing business as and then make sure that this is, indeed, identical everywhere within your control. Don't be 'Joe's Plumbing' in one directory and 'Joe's Plumbing and Heating' in another.

2. Address - don't be concerned about things like Road vs. Rd. Google is smart enough to understand the meaning of these. However, do be certain that if you have a suite number or other extension that it is reflected across all references to the business. Don't have some listings which say '800 Center Road' and others which say '800 Center Road Suite 9'. That can cause real problems with Google.

3. Phone number - there are so many differences in the way the major directories display phone numbers that it would be impossible for any business to make display identical web-wide. You have to follow the rules of whatever directory you are submitting to, so, do not be concerned that Google can't understand these minor differences.

Hope this helps and thanks for bringing such a good question to Q&A!

Hi Bilal,

Just to clarify, Google Places has been rolled into the new Google+ Local pages, and while there are some changes in statistics, they still exist. See:

http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2611197&topic=2566084&ctx=topic

I would wait 2 more weeks (6 weeks total) to see if the data begins showing up, and if you haven't seen it by then, I would alert Google to this via their Google And Your Business Help Forum, here:

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

You will need to provide your complete business details when you do so, and hopefully, one of the Google Top Contributors or employees will be able to help you, if the stats haven't appeared by then.

Miriam

Hi Cash Champion,

So, this sounds like you would be allowed to have a Google+ business page for your overall organization, but not a Google+ Local page for your individual locations as your business isn't actually local. For more information on the differences, here's Danny Sullivan's article from last November, written upon the rollout of these features:

http://searchengineland.com/google-pages-now-open-for-businesses-brands-places-more-100217

Hello Le Nam,

Keri asked me to stop by this thread and reply to your question.

What you have highlighted in your screenshot is typically known as a 'blended local result'. What this means is that it is a search engine result drawing information both from the business' website, as well as third party sources such as Google Maps or Google+ Local. In the past, Google has used a variety of displays for local business information. These days, blended results like the one you have pointed to have become the most common choice of display, either as a single result on a page of organic results, or as part of a list of 3-7 other blended results.

From your question, I believe you would like to know how a business achieves such a result. The final decision on who gets listed in this very visible manner is up to Google, but a short list of things you can do to work towards achieving this type of listing would be:

1. Have a strong, locally-optimized website, meaning you've got your complete business name, address and phone number (NAP) listed in appropriate places on the site (such as the sitewide footer and contact page) and that your geographic terms (like Pizza Restaurant Ha Noi or whatever they happen to be) are reflected in your site's titles and tags and than you've got good strong copy talking about your local goods and/or services.

2. Create and claim a Google Local profile for your business. I looked up zinaki.com and it appears you are in Vietnam (I apologize if I am mistaken about this), and because I could not reproduce the results shown in your screenshot, I am not 100% certain about exactly how Google is handling the recent migration from Google Places to Google+ Local in your country. In any case, you need to discover this and get listed in Google's local index, either with a Place Page or a Google+ Local page for your business.

3. Then, you will want to start winning reviews from your customers, though Google and other review sites.

4. And, you will want to get your business listed in as many free local business directories as possible. Make sure your business details (NAP) are consistent across every local directory. These listings are commonly called 'citations'.

5. Finally, you may find it necessary to do some linkbuilding to assist with your organic rankings so that your combined organic and local data will hopefully result in a blended listing like the one you've shown.

I sincerely hope this helps, but don't hesitate to let me know if you had something else in mind with your question.

Good luck!

Miriam

You're welcome, Donna. Sorry not to have more direct advice. A couple of things I noticed about ecinity that didn't thrill me right off the bat was the fact that it seems to be still in Beta, it's asking for my email for me to see what the tool does and the About page is really unspecific. To be fair, looks like they are just getting started and they could turn out to be a super service in future, but if they are already marketing the business and attempting to engage business owners like you, the welcome I'm receiving hitting the site isn't making me immediately comfortable. Again, I know nothing negative about the company whatsoever, and this could turn out to be great, but for now, I don't feel instant confidence. I'm sure they'll improve in the future when they are out of Beta.

Have a good weekend!

Miriam

Hello Guido,

Google's choice of display for certain queries is often mysterious. And, while you are being organically outranked by the competitor with no apparent local presence, your blended listing is likely drawing more eyes to it because it is special and larger. I would not look at this in terms of you being harmed by your participation in Local, but rather, that you have sent strong local signals to Google that are rewarding you with that very visible blended listing. What makes this a little different is that, for the moment, Google is choosing the display in which a few organic listings are preceding the local/blended ones. But, I do believe your client is better off than his competitor, in this case.

Miriam

Hi Donna,

Unfortunately, I don't have direct experience with ecinity.com. I believe that's a pretty new service, so there just may not be that much feedback out there about them yet. Between Localeze and UBL, I have repeatedly heard local colleagues make statements of preference for Localeze, while at the same time stating that there just isn't a replacement for careful, manual submission. For my own clients, I've always gone the manual route, but at an agency level, many Local SEOs do find these automation tools to be good time savers.

Sorry not to have an experienced opinion on ecinity. I'll leave your question as unanswered in case one of our members has actually put this tool into practice.

Miriam

Hi Marc,

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

Miriam

Hi Autoczar,

How is Google doing handling the annex that happened? Are the properly listing competitors who used to be in city B as being in city A as of 2007? This would be my main concern, as Google is sometimes very, very slow about understanding and implementing changes of this kind.

I've run into so many scenarios in Local where the business owner is confused about the best way to proceed, given the various rules about address and citation handling, but I want to let you know that this is the first time I've run into your specific situation. I think it would be worth your while to post your question to the Google And Your Business help forum, which is staffed by Google employees as well as a lot of smart Top Contributors. I think your situation is unusual enough to inspire some kind of response, and I'd be really interested to hear what that response would be. Here's the link, in case you don't have it:

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

I would title the question something like:

My City Annexed By Larger City - How To Proceed

You will need to be willing to give full details as to what your Google+ Local listing is and what your cities are in order to receive the best response. I hope you can give this a shot and receive some useful advice straight from the horse's mouth on this. If you do, I'd love it if you would update this thread with what you heard.

Good luck!

Miriam

Hi Michael,

In saying that there are no blended results on the page, do you mean that the local listings being displayed for the client's search term aren't blended, themselves? Non-blended results have become a real rarity, in my experience. Does the first line in his search engine results link to his website? Do other parts of the listing link elsewhere, such as to a Google+ Local Page?

In most cases, what is happening is that the client's local listing is, in fact, a blended listing, combining his organic ranking and his local ranking. Is this not the case with your client, too? I can't rule anything out these days, as there are so many oddities in Google's local sphere, but I did want to clarify this.

If his listing is, indeed, blended local, then you can reassure him that he is getting the best of both worlds. A high, blended listing is gaining him critical visibility and he should be a happy camper.

As to local and universal results appearing on the same page...I used to see this frequently, but in my view, this has become very uncommon. Unless the client is in an area of extremely low competition in which his website is one of the only things Google has to pull data from, it is less likely to have both a local and organic result on the same page these days.

Miriam

Hi Bristolweb,

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

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

Glad to hear it, Taysir, and good luck!

Miriam

Hello Parvesh,

Thanks for the clarification about this being your business. Within the scope of Q&A, I cannot perform a full audit of the situation, which is likely what you are going to need to pinpoint the exact cause of what you are experiencing. I can, however, provide a few quick thoughts from my limited look at the situation:

1. Searching from my own location in N. California, the search term in your screen shot, 'sacramento personal injury law firm' is not bringing up any blended or pack local results, for any business. Setting my location to Sacramento, I see the same thing. So, in this case, it appears that you have not been singled out in a change of results, but that Google is not choosing to display true local results for this query. Unfortunately, this is not something you can control. It it completely up to Google to decide for which queries they will show local vs. organic results.

2. This aside, you mentioned that you've got all the points in my earlier list well covered, but I would take a second look at #2 on the list. As a Local SEO, the first place I always look to begin gauging whether a site is locally optimized is at the footer. On your site, I do not see a marked up full NAP (name, address, phone number) in the the footer, and, in fact, am seeing a toll free number there. While you may be doing other things right on your website, this fact alone would indicate to me that you don't have a skilled Local SEO on-board your team. Lack of proper attention to local optimization can definitely hold back your ability to rank locally for any term, though this is evidently not the cause of your present scenario in which no local firm is receiving local rankings.

3. When a site is failing to rank for any term, I always start looking for duplicates. It appears there is a closed business sharing your address: https://plus.google.com/110885790754843227431/about?gl=us&hl=en

Perhaps this is a partner who has left the business, or you are attempting to shut down individual attorney listings due to Google's recent changes with their handling of multi-partner firms, but at any rate, it's still indexed at this point, even though it has been closed. Without a thorough look at the scenario, I can't say if there are duplicates that could be issues for you, but if there are, they always have the potential to lessen your ability to rank locally for a desired term.

4. Doing a maps.google.com search for 'sacramento, ca' vs. a search for your firm's address, I see that your business is located quite a ways outside the cluster of legal firms near the city centroid. Again, this would be another thing to look into if you are failing to rank for other terms which are still receiving local results.

In sum, there are many, many factors to consider in ranking issues when it comes to local. Right now, for the query you have mentioned, you are gaining the best possible ranking because you are #1 organically for a term for which Google is displaying organic-only results. There is nothing you can do to control Google's decision to display results this way. They could change what they are doing with that specific query tomorrow, but right now, you are in the best position you can achieve in this set of results.

Hope this helps!

Miriam

Glad to be of help, Alice, and good luck!

Miriam

So glad to be of help, Robert! Have a great week.

Miriam

Hi Robert,

Nice to see you on this sunny Monday! I have been hearing good things, on an agency level, about Places Scout for local tracking/reporting. I have not personally used it, but some of the Local SEOs I respect most have spoken highly of it.

You have to sign up for it via this page on the Warrior Forum:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-special-offers-forum/425925-1-software-choice-offline-local-search-engine-optimization-professionals-save-time-automate-your-business.html

I'm not sure how it compares, point for point, with Bright, but I thought you might like to check it out.

Miriam

Hello Alice,

Were you attempting to do Local SEO for this business, then the answer would be 'no, you should not attempt to optimize for Dublin as your main target.' The reason for this is that local results are based on the validity of the physical address and local phone number.

Your case sounds somewhat different, however. If no customers come to the business, then it won't qualify as a local business in the eyes of Google. Because of this, yes, you can certainly optimize for phrases like 'near Dublin' if you feel this will assist the client in some way. But, what you should not expect from the work is that you will be able to outrank true local businesses, locally, who have physical locations in Dublin and are able to take advantage of the different local options like Google+ Local.

Hope this helps!

Miriam

Hello Parvesh,

I want to clarify whether your screenshots are intended to display your own business, or if you are merely illustrating the difference between the local results you would like to have vs. the organic results you currently have. Is your business the Sacramento legal firm being highlighted in the screenshots? Please, do clarify this for me.

In order to send the strongest possible local signals to Google, you will need a powerful combination of the following:

1. A physical address and local phone number within the city you'd like to rank for.

2. A terrific, locally optimized website

3. A Google+ Local page for the business and a clean record with Google

4. Google-based reviews

5. Reviews from other sources

6. Citations (as mentioned in Wissam's comment)

7. Possibly, linkbuilding

The competitiveness of your industry and location will dictate how hard you need to work at each of these things to gain local visibility. If you can see anything on that simple list that you know you haven't fully implemented or explored yet, then this may well be the key to your question.

I'm responding in very general terms here, not being sure of your actual business or the nature of the efforts you have made to date. I hope this helps you get started thinking about a plan of action!

Miriam

Oh, that's great, Scott. Linda is terrific. Please, say hi to her from Miriam. Good luck! Miriam

Hi Scott,

It's a full time job keeping up with all of the changes in Local these days. I really hope the articles have helped - particularly Linda Buquet's workaround post. Thanks for using Q&A.

Miriam

Hi Scott,

While I haven't personally experienced this, I have a couple of resources for you to check out regarding quite significant changes in the way Google is handling medical practices with multi-practitioners:

http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-duplicates-doctor-dentist-lawyer.html

http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-duplicate-listing-dentists-doctors.html

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/20/why-googles-new-policy-on-professional-practices-practitioners-makes-sense/

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/25/a-step-by-step-to-recover-your-we-currently-do-not-support-this-location-in-mapmaker/

From the scenario you are describing, I believe you will find some familiar situations described in the above. I recommend you take the time to thoroughly read the posts I've linked to, as well as the comments following them. Please, let me know if this helps. Thanks!

Miriam

You are very welcome, Brandon. Thanks for using Q&A!

Miriam

Hi Cyril,

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

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

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

Miriam

Hi Saijo,

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

Regarding your question:

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

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

Hope this helps!

Miriam

Hi Taysir,

My recommendation is to put the new content on the company's site. Here's why:

1. You will be developing a much richer, helpful site for the business

2. The value of repeatedly linking from site B to site A from the new content is going to get old and repetitious. You would be better off winning links from sites not owned by the business rather than counting on interlinking between two company sites in hopes of influencing rank.

3. Remember, every time someone finds one of the new articles you'll be writing in the SERPs, they will be entering the company site and being exposed to its brand and calls to action. The more doorways you have leading directly to the company site, the more chances you are creating for that phone to ring and new customers to be one.

Hope this helps!

Miriam

Hi Pharcydeabc,

This is a good question, indeed! I'd suggest you start a new Q&A for this under a new category so that our experts can help you with this new topic. We really enjoy your participation in Q&A!

Miriam

Hi Again!

Unfortunately, though I'm a web designer, I'm not familiar with either product (we build from scratch) though I have run into weebly sites in the past, I believe.

In any case, I do think it's worth the effort to keep those city landing pages.

Regarding making sure you don't lose what you've built up, SEO-wise, yes, keep all URLs the same, if possible. If not possible, set up permanent 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new ones. If your titles and tags are good and are helping you to rank, be sure you migrate those over, too. Be sure your new menu system doesn't create any crawling issues and that you are adhering to SEO-friendly design practices throughout development.

If you're feeling unsure about any of this, I think this would be an excellent time to refresh and solidify your understanding of good SEO by reading our detailed guide:

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Best Wishes!

Miriam