Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Brandon,

The short answer to your key question is - no, there is not currently a tool that provides reliable geo terms. Even if you are in a major city, like LA, you cannot really rely on any tool for this. The reason for this involves data centers, IP addresses, etc.

So, how to Local SEOs conduct keyword research, then? Good question! Here is how I do it, and how the other Local SEOs I know handle this task:

1. Perform your keyword research without any geo modifiers. Search for your brand, your services and products and create a spreadsheet of the terms you discover.

2. From this list, create a second list including your geo terms. These might include city names, county names, neighborhood names, regional names and zip codes. They might also include modifiers like 'in' (i.e. computer repair in green bay).

3. You now have the most reliable list of keyword terms to target.

While there isn't a kw tool that can take the place of this method, I recently became aware of an interesting free tool that helps you generate geographic terms, by themselves. You might like to check this out in helping you determine good geo keywords to add into your list in step 2:

http://www.localmarketingsource.com/local-keyword-research-tool/

Google Insight does provide some help, but don't overlook the most important factor - listening to what your customers call who you are and what you do. If you've been in business for a long time, you may have become aware of interesting terms your customers use that aren't necessarily in-house terms for things. Definitely, look those terms up to see if people are using them to search.

Good luck with the task ahead!

Miriam

My pleasure to help!

1. I would be sure that your main geo keywords are on all your main pages. If San Francisco is your main city term, I would definitely include this on the homepage, contact page, about page and possibly other pages. I would not omit these critical geo terms on your important pages as they are vital to signalling to human users and bots where your booths and your business is located.

2. I would not abandon your method of having a unique page for each city. Especially considering how well this is working for you. I don't believe your alternate plan will work as well. Regarding the re-design, if you are using CSS, re-designing the visual look of the website should not have any effect on page content. Can't you just leave the contents of the city landing pages as-is and bring them into the new visual look with changes you are making to the CSS? This is what I would do. I would not want to lose those important pages under any circumstances.

Hopefully, this reply is useful to you. Good luck!

Miriam

Hello Pharcydeabc,

As Agents of Value has explained so well, you need not be concerned about diluting the relevance of the page with the type of keywords you are listing.

I would not advise putting any misspellings on the page. Remember, the quality of your copy counts. You don't ever want to look like you've got poor writing or sloppy typos in your copy. That being said 'photobooth' is not exactly a misspelling - it's more of a variant.

What I would not do is turn out a sentence like this:

Visit our photo booth San Francisco...

...just because people are searching that way. If it isn't good writing and it isn't the way people talk, don't use it. Remember, Google can pick out scattered keyword phrases from your pages. They don't have to be blocked together. So, a sentence like:

Take home a fun souvenir of your trip to San Francisco by visiting our photo booth....

...is still sending plenty of signals relevant to your keywords.

It's actually, in my opinion, better to mix things up in your copy because this more natural. What you don't want is copy that reads like this:

Visit our San Francisco photo booth because our San Francisco photo booth is the best photo booth of all photo booths in San Francisco.

This won't read well to human users - your target audience - and the needless repetitions won't impress the bots either.

My #1 rule as a professional copywriter reads:

"Write thoroughly and optimization happens naturally."

Keep your keywords in mind and write the most appealing, helpful and interesting page you can and you'll have a much better page than most of your competitors. Good luck!

Miriam

Hi Nightwing,

Nice to see you here. My advice is to wait for the promised merge and see where you're at then. In the meantime, you can submit your email address to Google to be notified of the merge. Here's the link to the form:

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

Hope this helps!

Miriam

Hi John,

I wonder if you will find your issue described in Mike Blumenthal's latest post:

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

There has been considerable fallout from the changeover to Google+ Local. Perhaps you will see your situation described in the above.

Miriam

Thanks for the kind compliment, Dino. Sounds like hunting down citations may be your smartest move. Google draws from so many sources and even a little confusion of data can lead to significant problems.

Good luck in the hunt!

Miriam

Hi Storwell,

I hear you on that. Google, for all its support of human usability, has not done anything to make the review process easy. I truly hope they can refine it in future, but they are going for authenticity, so they want everybody signed in.

I'll be interested to hear if your technique works. My cell is not an iPhone, so I've not been able to test this myself.

Miriam

Hi SCW,

There are two options I can think of.

1. There is a citation source that Google is pulling the title from (a directory listing, maybe even an old one, that has the business listed this way).

2. It's a mistake on Google's part. Google does make mistakes.

If you cannot find any citations of the business with the .com used as the business title, and you would like to try to have this rectified, I would recommend reporting the problem through Google's troubleshooter, wait 7 days to see if you get a response, and if not, report it through the Google Business Help Forum.

It's definitely an oddity.

Hi Jayestovall,

To begin with, it's important to understand that Google will typically see any local business as most relevant to its city of location. So, if you're located in San Francisco (i.e. have a dedicated local area code phone number and street address there) your prime location and best opportunity for achieving high visibility will be for searches that include the phrase 'san francisco' or performed by san francisco-based users.

You are in a very common situation in which you operate in a wide service radius. The typical process involves creating city landing pages for each of your main service locations, and though you typically will not be able to locally outrank competitors who are physically located in those service cities, you can strive for secondary organic rankings for these geo terms.

To make this manageable, make a list of your 10 most important service cities/towns. Develop unique, non-duplicate content for each of these 10 cities. Create a section in your main site menu labeled 'Cities We Serve' or something along those lines and begin listing the pages in this menu. If you don't feel you can create useful, creative copy, hire a copywriter for this important task. Then, move onto your next 10 most important service cities. Build it in manageable chunks and do your absolute best job on every page.

Beyond this, linkbuilding to the pages would be next steps.

Hope this gives you a plan of action that makes sense!

Miriam

Hi Jasarrow,

Agree, this is a tough one. You mention that there was a duplicate listing way back when. Are you sure there was only one. Go to Google Maps and do a search for the business name, any variants on the business name that ever existed, a search for any addresses associated with the business in the past 10 years and any phone numbers associated with the business in the past 10 years. See if anything odd turns up, such as duplicates of which you weren't previously aware.

Martin has given you some very good suggestions, too!

Let us know how it goes.

Miriam

Hi Storwell,

So nice to see you here! Well, this took some research on my part as I was quite surprised by what you had discovered. I had a Canadian colleague and a US colleague test this on their iPhones and they concur with your findings - you cannot leave a Google+ Local review on these devices. Pretty strange! The issue likely surrounds the fact that you cannot log in via the device, and as you have to be logged in these days in order to leave a review, this is probably what is getting in the way.

My Canadian colleague did get prompted with some sort of message along the lines of 'Add This To Your Homescreen' but he didn't follow through on it and couldn't get the message back again, so we're not sure what that was. It may have had nothing to do with this.

Right now, the full Google+Local display isn't even really available on the iPhone. It's more like Maps+Zagat ratings. I expect that Google is fully aware of the issue you've reported here, and will eventually address it. Thanks for bringing such an interesting question to Q&A!

Miriam

P.S. My American colleague just told me something else I thought I'd come back here and add. He is able to log in on his iPhone, but it doesn't appear to make any difference.

Hi NewUser123, Unfortunately, this a known issue with the photo delays. Read this post and watch the video: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/15/google-for-business-forum-update-photos-uploaded-in-dashboard-may-take-1-month-to-appear/ You will see that you are in good company hassling with this. Hope Google will fix this issue soon. Hang in there! Miriam

Hi Xoffie,

What country are you in? Are you saying that no ads like the ones featured in the SEJ article are appearing where you live? I want to be sure I understand your question.

Miriam

Hi Bilal, As Alan has said 2-3 weeks is typical. Are you positive the information you provided (street address) is correct? And does your address comply with the guidelines? Is the address you provided a real, physical street address (not a P.O. Box or virtual office)? Just double-checking on this.

Hi Ocelot,

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

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

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

They will need to sign up for Google +

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

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

Can reviewers leave anonymous reviews?

No. At this point it is real names only.

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

No

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi Everybody, I empathize. Local is going through a major sea change right now and lots of business owners are really confused. I highly recommend that you read Mike Blumenthal's terrific step-by-step transitional guide: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/08/google-for-business-places-forums-wrapup/ I think you will find your questions answered by a careful read of that. Please, let me know if you don't feel you understand anything. Cheers! Miriam

Hi Kevin,

Actually, you can see all of the categories if you click on them. Lots of changes, huh?

Miriam

Hi Kevin,

You're very welcome! Yes, there is currently no sign of verification showing on the new Google+ Local pages. Google is aware of this and says they are working on it. Right now, it's best to expect things to be wonky. There are a lot of issues stemming from the changeover. Hang in there. I expect most of them will settle down over the next couple of months.

Hi Tony,

As Jason Fritton has stated, you can set up multiple listings from the same account. Heads up on this, though - due to the recent sea change in Google's local product (Place Pages changing to Google+ Local Pages) one of the most frequently asked questions right relates to multi-location businesses. According to Google's Joel Headly, there is currently no way for businesses with multiple Google+ Local Pages with a single Google+ Business Page, so this is causing some confusion. According to Google, they are aware of the issue and are working on it.

I recommend you read a couple of posts as you are moving forward:

http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/local-university-advanced.html

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

Hope these resources help!

Hi Kevin,

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

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

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

Good luck!

Miriam

Hi Rich,

Very good response from Jason. Additionally, I would recommend that you read this Google Help Forum thread. I think you'll find lots of good info in it:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/multiple/business/SWzIsqkVyCk/C7x0r9hYNIkJ

Hi Kevin,

Because categories are additive, is there a chance that the client had a duplicate Place Page out there and Google is pulling the old categories from it? In any case, you can edit the Google+ Local page through the traditional Places dashboard. Have you tried this yet?

Hi Duncan,

Your current display in the SERPs is a blended listing. The title is going to your homepage. Other elements are going to Google Maps and your Google+ Local page. So, that qualifies it as blended. As Adam has mentioned in his response, we may not be completely understanding the intent of your question. Can you offer further clarification? Thanks!

Hi David, That's really an interesting scenario you've described of actually preferring your purely organic result over your local one. What has likely happened is that your previous organic rankings have simply blended in with your new local ones, because most local rankings are blended these days. Thomas' suggestion is a creative one and may be worth trying if you truly feel you were benefiting more from a plain organic display vs. a blended local one, but now that you've got your local info out there, how Google chooses to display it may be difficult to change.

Hi Stuart,

Because true Local results are so heavily slanted to where the business is located, as opposed to where it may serve its remote customers, your client's main efforts will have to focus on the main city of location. This typically means that visibility for  secondary geo terms (like those you've mentioned) are going to have stem from your organic efforts (on-page content, off-page links, etc.).

I appreciate your high standards in not just wanting to create nonsense pages describing the regions of the city. These will be of little interest/use to humans - I agree. So, the client needs to help you brainstorm a reason to write about her involvement in those areas. For example, does she do any corporate work for business in Clapham? Could she talk on a Clapham page about how she was hired to come in once a week for a 10 minute massage for each employee as a perk that boosts company morale. Something like this? Or, does she give training workshops in Battersea? Could she write about a seminar she organized there or even just attended?

Creativity is what it's all about when it comes to writing copy that has a genuine purpose and at the same time showcases the work of the professional in various geographic regions.

If you can couple this with linkbuilding, you have a good recipe for gaining organic visibility for terms beyond the single major city term.

Hi Bob,

We're all always learning! A blended result is one that combines information from both the website and 3rd party sources (so, let's say it links to the website from the title but is accompanied by a link to the place/+ page).

A purely organic results has no third party data. This would be your typical old-style result of the title and meta linking to the website.

Most local results are blended these days, but the first page of results typically included both the blended results and some organic results.

Do a search for 'pizza san francisco' in Google. If your results are relatively similar to mine, you will see the page start with a purely organic result from Yelp and another from SeriousEats. This is followed by a set of 7 blended results in which the title element is linking to the websites of various business and is embellished with reviews from Google and Zagat, contact info and links to Google Maps which lead to the Google+ Local pages.

Then, below this, we return to pure organic results (2 for businesses and 1 for Gayot).

I hope that makes what you are seeing in the SERPs really clear to you.

Hi Bob,

Pure organic results are governed by a different algo than the blended Places/+/Organic results. So, to the extent that you have any purely organic rankings, these should not be affected by your issues, but at the same time, any results that are blended are a combo of your organic and off-page, so these would have to be seen as intimately involved in your issues. Hope that clarification helps.

Good luck, Bob!

Miriam

Hi Donnie,

If you're vacating the old address and will be located solely in the new office, you need to change all existent listings and citations to reflect your new address. The reason this is so important is that Google can become very confused if they find two sets of NAP (name, address, phone number) for your business and may not trust your new information because the old info is hanging around out there.

As Guy has pointed out, this is a time consuming process. Do a little every day and you can get it done. It really is necessary. Good luck!

In my opinion, what you are describing is the same business model as a plumber or carpet cleaner who operates out of his home. He serves all clients remotely - none come to his home office. So, if the client lists the home address and phone number and then chooses the hide address function, that is signalling to Google that all work is handled remotely, but that in-person contact does take place, in compliance with the guidelines.

Hi Samuel,

Empathize with the confusion on this. Here is my understanding of how this works: if you've got a separate Google+ Local Business page and Place Page right now, you've got to manage them separately for the moment. Eventually, they will merge. Hang in there!

Hi Kandice,

What, precisely, do you mean by, "Google Counts their WeddingWire reviews". The only reviews Google should be displaying are, as Ian has mentioned, your Google-based reviews, plus the new Zagat 30 point rating system. Can you provide a screenshot or clearer explanation of what you are seeing? Thanks!

Hi Dan,
As Anthony has mentioned, 301 redirecting is likely the best way to go, and of course, because you are changing locations, you will need to ensure that you've changed all of your local business citations to reflect your new locale. This will be very important to do as thoroughly as possible.

Hi Bob,

Where you live, are you still seeing a Google Place Page with a 'report a problem' link at the bottom of the page? If so, you'd go through the problem wizard. If not, you might try the troubleshooter:

http://support.google.com/places/?hl=en-US&rd=1

Again, 2 days ago I would have recommended both with confidence, but with the changes, I'm not sure how support has changed. Start with those recommendations and see where you get.

Hi Bob,
Well, here's a real hold-your-horses moment. As of yesterday, the world of Local has been turned upside down a bit and I am not yet sure of the total implications for multi location businesses. From Greg Sterling's piece, http://searchengineland.com/google-places-is-over-company-makes-google-the-center-of-gravity-for-local-search-122770:

"We asked about management of multiple locations from a single page. Google said that there’s no news for the time being but that’s the ultimate goal:

A single page through which businesses can manage their online presence is a top priority, and we’re committed to ensuring business owners have a clear voice in how their business is represented on Google, via Google+."

So, management of businesses like yours is somewhat up in the air, but I believe I can still answer the main questions you've asked with some certainty.

To date, the acquisition of a legit office (no p.o. boxes, no virtual offices) and a dedicated, non-redirecting local area code phone number are essential to legit Places inclusion, and I am assuming these rules will carry over into Google+ Local. People certainly bend and break these rules, renting virtual offices, etc., but it's not something I'd ever recommend to a valued client.

If you don't currently have these things for California, I'm not 'getting' how you are ranking #1 for San Francisco in the local results. What are you using on the Place Page, in terms of NAP, to achieve these rankings. If it doesn't meet the guidelines, the risk is a sudden loss of rankings if Google takes notice. At least, that's how it has been up until yesterday. I believe the algo will carry over into the new Google+ Local, but as you can tell from my reply, I'm working hard right now to understand what has changed and what remains the same. Strongly recommend that you do all of the reading up you can over the next few days on this, Bob, as it will certainly pertain to your business and your future management of your local presence.

Miriam

Thanks for adding your comment on this SirMax. Very creative and not something I'd thought of!

Hi Arthur,

Unfortunately, no, if you can't receive mail at the old address and are being offered a postcard only option, that won't work for you. Because of this, instead of claiming the incorrect listing, I would recommend that you use the report a problem link at the bottom of the Place Page  (if it still exists and is available to you). Since this morning, though, everything is upside down in the whole Google Localsphere. I'm not totally sure what has happened in Australia, but I believe the migration from Places to Plus is global. In case you haven't read about it, here's a good overview from Search Engine Land:

http://searchengineland.com/google-places-is-over-company-makes-google-the-center-of-gravity-for-local-search-122770

At this point, Google is saying that you can still managed existent listings from the Places Dashboard, so if you do have the ability to report a problem, do so. Let Google know you have a correct listing and point to it and that this other listing is old and the business doesn't exist there.

Today has been the craziest day in Local in recent memory. Lots of changes in the works.

Hi Bob, I'm not aware of a reliable free tool for managing citation accuracy. Yext's paid tool would probably do what you want, but it is costly. Really, the best way to do this is search for your business names/phone numbers, make a spreadsheet of everything you find indexed and then go through the process of claiming and editing any citations you can. It's a hard slog, but worth it to achieve better consistency of data across the web.

Hi Arthur,

I am seeing 3 listings when I perform your suggested search:

Flawless Flowers  22 Market St, South Yarra VIC 3141(03) 9827 7656 ‎1 review "Best florist in Melbourne, thanks again for your help." -  Flawless Flowers  Melbourne VIC 30000409 518 822 ‎ · flawlessflowers.com.auFlawless Flowers  22/163 Commercial Road, South Yarra VIC 31411300 606 000 ‎ · flawlessflowers.comIt sounds as if you are trying to rectify the South Yarra dupes, but you are right, the Melbourne address is incomplete. If you've got all of the details correct in the dashboard, it might be a good idea to go through the troubleshooter process to signal to Google that your information isn't being fully displayed:http://support.google.com/places/?hl=en-US&rd=1However, before you do that, if you've just claimed this listing, you might want to wait a couple of weeks to see if the situation rectifies itself. It's definitely important to clear up the dupe, as Google's total trust in your whole record takes all things into account. You want them to trust that your Melbourne and South Yarra locations are both real.

Hi Yvonne,

I believe the main reason most franchises go the way you've summarized is manageability. The alternative is to entrust all work to individual franchise owners, including not only their own websites/content, but also all of their Local SEO. Can individual franchise owners be counted on to know what they are doing writing optimized copy and creating violation-free Place Pages? Maybe they can, but more often than not, I'd bet the answer to that would be no.

By maintaining control over everything that happens, you control quality. You can do just fine with Local if it's all managed from the top across the board.

On the other hand, I empathize with your wish to try it a different way. Good stuff can happen if you decide to be different, but if you see something working for tons of similar business models, reinventing the wheel may not be the safest or most successful route to go.

Hi Bob,

I want to begin by clarifying what you mean by NAD. I'm familiar with NAP (name, address, phone number) but I've not encountered the term NAD before. From context, I'm guessing you mean NAP but please let me know if I'm wrong. I'll proceed as though I've guessed correctly.

As you may have reckoned, your California location doesn't qualify as truly local, because of its lack of a dedicated street address. You can't submit a hotel room number to Google Places, so until such time as you've got a standard address for the California branch, what you can do is going to be somewhat limited.

Typically, when dealing with a business model that has just a few locations, like yours, you would put the complete NAP in the footer sitewide, and on the Contact Us page, and you would also likely be creating a landing page for each of the 2 offices. Typically, you would be creating a Google Place Page for each location, creating other local business listings for each location and building out content, citations and links for each location. You can do some of this, but the lack of address for the California business is definitely going to hamper your Places efforts. You may be able to build good rankings organically, but if your core keyword phrases are most heavily used by local searchers and receive local SERPs, then you are likely to be outranked by businesses that can publish an address.

Have I helped to answer your question? If you need to add more info about your scenario, you are welcome to do so.

Hi Arthur,

While claiming the listing is an unlikely candidate for causing a drop in rankings, is there a chance that your activity has drawn Google's attention to a situation involving 2 duplicate listings, and, potentially, other problems with your Places record? Why do you have 2 listings? Are they for separate businesses, same business but unique physical location? Could there also be other unclaimed listings out there dragging down your rank (do a search for your business name and phone number in Maps)? Can you provide some more details? Thanks!

Hi David,

As Bede has mentioned, if you can provide a little more information, it would be helpful. Are you in control of both websites/businesses and their associated Google Place Pages? Please describe more fully what you are in control of and what your goals are. I'll look forward to your reply!

Hi Kynduvme, Definitely follow the link Bede Fahey has provided. This was a major policy change that I would recommend you take note of and comply with in signaling to Google the correct business model. By being accurate in your settings, you will hopefully avoid future penalties of your listing.

Hi Chris,
You've received some good suggestions here, and Matt's post at Small Business SEM is a good read on this. At the end of the day, there is currently no tool of which I am aware which offers a comprehensive or accurate picture of local search terms. This is something that comes up again and again in the Local SEO industry. I consider myself fortunate to be in daily contact with some of the best Local SEOs on the planet, and basically, the suggested process for doing keyword research for local businesses is this:

1. Perform keyword research as though Local was not your goal. Just use your main keyword terms (plumber, plumbing, leaking faucet, toilet overflowed, etc.).

2. Make a big list of these terms.

3. Then, go in and add your core Local terms (city, region, zip code, etc.) to each of the terms.

4. If you are working with clients in a region of the country where there are unique language variants, explore these with the business owner. For example, a Canadian plumber may say 'hot water tank' vs. the 'hot water heater' of the USA. Keyword research tools may not show you these variants because their data isn't coming from the targeted geography of the business. So, discover regionalisms and make sure they are being given preference, as this is the way your client's customers talk and search.

You will end up with a big list of terms to work with from this process. Hope this helps!