Welcome to the Q&A Forum

(This is Miriam, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance right now)

Oh, super! Looking forward to hearing how it goes. Good luck!

(This is Miriam replying but I'm in Mozzer Alliance right now)

Hi Michael!

I think the most important thing here is for you to give yourself a crash course in Local SEO. This is a good place to start: <cite class="_Rm">https://moz.com/learn/local</cite>

It's vital to understand that your client's local pack rankings are going to relate solely to their physical location. So, if they've got 1 physical location, that means 1 Google My Business listing and 1 set of citations for that location only. You do not want to acquire extra phone numbers or virtual addresses of any kind. Only the real, physical location can be promoted as a contender for Google local pack rankings, unless you live in a very rural area or have a very niche business. Instead, you are in a competitive industry in a large city. So, main thing is to remember that physical address = local pack rankings. All other service cities = organic rankings.

So, yes, you do need a physical address. The phone number doesn't have to be local, but it's considered preferable by some. I don't see any mention of an address on the site right now, so that's something you'll need to address with the client. If the company does not have a dedicated public address, you can use the home address of the business owner and then, when creating the Google My Business page, be sure to choose the service area business settings that signal to Google to keep the address hidden. Regardless, it's advisable to have the complete name, address and phone number (NAP) of the business on the Contact Us page and the website footer.

The site architecture you'll be building out for the moving company will likely consist of basic pages (home, about, contact, etc.) a page for each service (moving, piano moving, what have you) and a page for each major city you serve. The content on these service city landing pages must be unique and of the highest possible quality you can create. This might include text content, video content, images, testimonials, tips, safety warnings, etc. But, again, be sure to warn the client that you do not want to use virtual addresses on these pages or anything like that. Don't be swayed by competitors who are seeming to get away with thin or duplicate landing pages. This is not the way to go and it makes them weak - you can hope to surpass them with a superior effort.

I'm not sure what you're describing about the links/press releases and blocks of cities. Google's Webmaster Guidelines do not want blocks of city names/zip codes anywhere on your website, so I'm not quite sure what it was that you saw.

Finally, yes, you may have a better chance of achieving higher organic rankings in smaller cities more quickly, because the competition is likely to be lower, but achieving this is going to be a combination of time + effort. It's much better to under-promise and over-deliver, specifically as this is your first job.

Hopefully the Moz Local learning center will get you off to a good start, and we have tons of great content in the Local column of the Moz blog. https://moz.com/blog/category/local-seo

Good luck with the project!

Hey there! You've got a couple different options for ways to track this information down. The first would be to head into your campaign, head over to the Site Crawl and click on the link towards the bottom for Duplicate Page Content. Right below the graph you'll see a button that says Download CSV. Open that up and head on over to column AM and you'll see the referring URL! Another option is to jump into Open Site Explorer and check out the internal inbound links. Hope this helps and let us know if you need anything else!

Note: This is Miriam replying, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance at the moment.

All feedback here is really good! Thanks, everyone, for contributing so generously.

Joricia, regarding Moz Local, I'm very curious that we are not finding anything for the business. Are you able to share the details? If not, it's totally okay, but I'd like to be able to re-produce the results you are seeing.

As others have mentioned, it is definitely not a good idea to have 2 websites featuring the same or similar NAP. This can cause untold issues, unfortunately

I'll look forward to your reply!

(This is Miriam responding, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance right now)

Hi Aleks,

You can do an logged-out, incognito search, but the usefulness of this is somewhat questionable, as each of your customers is going to see different SERPs, based on their own location, personalization, etc. Because of this, there is no absolute local rank for any business - it varies from device to device, from user to user. More on this: https://moz.com/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid

It's really important to train clients to understand that it's conversions, rather than rankings, that you are both working toward, because there are no static rankings for anyone.

In terms of conversions - one thing Google has publicly stated is that the images displayed in your local results have a major impact on user behavior (see: http://localu.org/blog/your-google-my-business-profile-image-your-most-important-image/).

Hope this helps!

Miriam here, signed into Mozzer Alliance at the moment.

Yes, include the suite number within span tags, definitely. You are also right that Google wants suites in the second address line, but for Schema purposes, do include them within the address section.

(Miriam responding here, but signed into Mozzer Alliance right now)

Hi Luke,

If you mean in the footer and it's 10 or less locations, I'd say it's okay to put the NAP for the 8 businesses there, but not in the main body of the page.

My preferred method would be to put the complete NAP, in Schema, for Location A at the top of City Landing Page A, complete NAP for Location B at the top or City Landing Page B, etc. I would not suggest putting all of this NAP anywhere else on the site but the Contact Page.

Hey There,

Ultimately, it's up to Google to determine which page they consider is the authoritative result for a search, but in a multi-location scenario, here's how you can help them make your desired choice:

1. Be sure locations are NOT sharing phone numbers.

2. Be sure you have a unique, high quality landing page for each location. No thin, duplicate pages. Be sure the complete NAP is at the top of each of these pages.

3. Be sure the landing pages are being linked to from a top level menu.

4. Be sure ALL citations (including the GMB page) are linking to the correct website landing page for each location. Be sure none are just linking to the home page or some other wrong page of the site.

5. Be sure adequate citations have been built for each location on trusted platforms and that the NAP is consistent on each one.

6. Be sure there are no duplicate GMB pages for any of the locations, nor duplicate citations with bad/mixed-up data on other pages.

7. Very important, be sure all GMB listings you've created are guideline-compliant. Be aware of any violations and resolve them and also be aware of any past history of spammy behavior on the part of the business.

8. If all of this is already 100% perfect, see if you can make improvements to the internal linking structure and 3rd party links pointing to these landing pages.

Hope this helps!

P.S. This is Miriam posting, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance at the moment.

Hi Chad,

Glad that helped. Regarding time frames, we are unable to provide an accurate estimate on these, as it's a combo of when you added categories + when Google process that and pushes it out so we can see it + when our system updates. Wish I could offer a good estimate, but as we don't have control over all the steps, we can't predict. So sorry about that.

P.S. This is Miriam responding, in Mozzer Alliance at the moment.

Hi Shauna,

You're very welcome! If your client's only real office is in Farmer's Branch, any Google+ Local pages he has built for any other city would be a violation of the guidelines, and thus, at risk for a takedown any time Google might notice them. Because this could then potentially 'prejudice' Google against the whole business, he might find his legitimate location suspected of spammy stuff as well. So, in a nutshell here, the client should not be thinking about what he may lose if he takes down spammy listings - he should be thinking about the preservation of his legitimate location. He's in an at-risk situation that needs to be addressed as wisely and speedily as possible

SAB marketing works like this:

1. You build a website. Your core on-site optimization revolves around the city in which you have a physical office.

2. You only build citations for that physical office.

3. On the website, you develop a unique page of content for each service city. You do not build citations for these location-less service cities. You hope to earn organic rankings (not local pack rankings) with these city pages because of their strength, quality, earned links, etc.

This article is a year old and may have a few outdated references in it, but it should help you discern your client's business model type and understand what a typical marketing plan looks like for this type of model:

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

The only alternative to the above is for the client to establish a legitimate, staffed office in Dallas, one in Plano, etc.

If this is a new client of yours and/or you are new to Local SEO, I think it would be a very smart move to suggest that he hire an expert Local SEO to consult with him. If you've already discovered that he's been engaged in some spammy practices, chances are pretty high that he has engaged in others you may not yet know about. If a good Local SEO was willing to fully audit the business for him or for your agency, they would likely uncover a number of things that need to be addressed to clean up the way the business has been marketing itself and put it on a clean track.

If you're looking for a heavy hitter in this field, I recommend you check out the Contributors box on last year's Moz Local Search Ranking Factors survey. Everyone who participates in that survey does so because their expertise is widely recognized: https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors

Hope this helps!

P.S. Oops, so sorry. This is Miriam writing, by the way, but I'm signed into Alliance at the moment

Hi Dan,

If you go to http://analytics.moz.com/manage-campaigns there is a "Delete" button in the far-right column.

Best,

Peter

Hey there! You've got a couple different options for ways to track this information down. The first would be to head into your campaign, head over to the Site Crawl and click on the link towards the bottom for Duplicate Page Content. Right below the graph you'll see a button that says Download CSV. Open that up and head on over to column AM and you'll see the referring URL! Another option is to jump into Open Site Explorer and check out the internal inbound links. Hope this helps and let us know if you need anything else!

Hi Sander,

You are mentioning Local, but are also saying you serve a state. Local is city-related, not state-related, so I want to be sure I'm fully understanding your scenario. Are you saying:

1. Yours is a local business with a physical location in a specific city or multiple cities and in-person contact with customers?

2. Or, yours is a virtual business with no in-person contact, offering a product to an entire state?

3. You have one product featured on a single page and you want to add a city name (or a state name?) to that product page URL?

4. You have one product and are thinking of building multiple pages to cover multiple cities, adding them to the URLs for all cities in which you offer this product?

Some clarification would help, for sure!

Hey There,

Ultimately, it's up to Google to determine which page they consider is the authoritative result for a search, but in a multi-location scenario, here's how you can help them make your desired choice:

1. Be sure locations are NOT sharing phone numbers.

2. Be sure you have a unique, high quality landing page for each location. No thin, duplicate pages. Be sure the complete NAP is at the top of each of these pages.

3. Be sure the landing pages are being linked to from a top level menu.

4. Be sure ALL citations (including the GMB page) are linking to the correct website landing page for each location. Be sure none are just linking to the home page or some other wrong page of the site.

5. Be sure adequate citations have been built for each location on trusted platforms and that the NAP is consistent on each one.

6. Be sure there are no duplicate GMB pages for any of the locations, nor duplicate citations with bad/mixed-up data on other pages.

7. Very important, be sure all GMB listings you've created are guideline-compliant. Be aware of any violations and resolve them and also be aware of any past history of spammy behavior on the part of the business.

8. If all of this is already 100% perfect, see if you can make improvements to the internal linking structure and 3rd party links pointing to these landing pages.

Hope this helps!

P.S. This is Miriam posting, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance at the moment.

Hi Dan,

I'm sorry about the formatting problem! (Month/day/year) is the standard US display format. We do try to be sensitive to our international clients and customs, but we're still a US company and not always able to accommodate everyone :(.

We definitely appreciate the feedback because we try to make the product as usable as possible. If you'd like, post this comment and any others in our feature request form found here: https://seomoz.zendesk.com/forums/293194-Moz-Feature-Requests. And let us know if we can do anything else!

Cheers, Sierra

Hi Schwaab,

I'm sorry for the confusion. It looks like we sent you that message without actually migrating any of your campaigns over.

We don't have a set schedule for the migrations but it should happen soon. While you're waiting you can either continue to use Pro, or delete a campaign and set up a new one in Analytics.

We're sorry for the inconvenience and hope you get to use the full awesomeness that is Moz Analytics very soon. If you have any further questions email us at help@moz.com.

Cheers, Sierra

(This is Miriam replying but I'm in Mozzer Alliance right now)

Hi Michael!

I think the most important thing here is for you to give yourself a crash course in Local SEO. This is a good place to start: <cite class="_Rm">https://moz.com/learn/local</cite>

It's vital to understand that your client's local pack rankings are going to relate solely to their physical location. So, if they've got 1 physical location, that means 1 Google My Business listing and 1 set of citations for that location only. You do not want to acquire extra phone numbers or virtual addresses of any kind. Only the real, physical location can be promoted as a contender for Google local pack rankings, unless you live in a very rural area or have a very niche business. Instead, you are in a competitive industry in a large city. So, main thing is to remember that physical address = local pack rankings. All other service cities = organic rankings.

So, yes, you do need a physical address. The phone number doesn't have to be local, but it's considered preferable by some. I don't see any mention of an address on the site right now, so that's something you'll need to address with the client. If the company does not have a dedicated public address, you can use the home address of the business owner and then, when creating the Google My Business page, be sure to choose the service area business settings that signal to Google to keep the address hidden. Regardless, it's advisable to have the complete name, address and phone number (NAP) of the business on the Contact Us page and the website footer.

The site architecture you'll be building out for the moving company will likely consist of basic pages (home, about, contact, etc.) a page for each service (moving, piano moving, what have you) and a page for each major city you serve. The content on these service city landing pages must be unique and of the highest possible quality you can create. This might include text content, video content, images, testimonials, tips, safety warnings, etc. But, again, be sure to warn the client that you do not want to use virtual addresses on these pages or anything like that. Don't be swayed by competitors who are seeming to get away with thin or duplicate landing pages. This is not the way to go and it makes them weak - you can hope to surpass them with a superior effort.

I'm not sure what you're describing about the links/press releases and blocks of cities. Google's Webmaster Guidelines do not want blocks of city names/zip codes anywhere on your website, so I'm not quite sure what it was that you saw.

Finally, yes, you may have a better chance of achieving higher organic rankings in smaller cities more quickly, because the competition is likely to be lower, but achieving this is going to be a combination of time + effort. It's much better to under-promise and over-deliver, specifically as this is your first job.

Hopefully the Moz Local learning center will get you off to a good start, and we have tons of great content in the Local column of the Moz blog. https://moz.com/blog/category/local-seo

Good luck with the project!

Note: This is Miriam replying, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance at the moment.

All feedback here is really good! Thanks, everyone, for contributing so generously.

Joricia, regarding Moz Local, I'm very curious that we are not finding anything for the business. Are you able to share the details? If not, it's totally okay, but I'd like to be able to re-produce the results you are seeing.

As others have mentioned, it is definitely not a good idea to have 2 websites featuring the same or similar NAP. This can cause untold issues, unfortunately

I'll look forward to your reply!

Hello,

You're correct, currently the API does not offer this call directly.  However, we've escalated the question to our engineers who are looking at the issue now.  I expect if they do make the change they'll mention it on the devblog: devblog.moz.com

Thank you for reaching out! I'm Maura Hubbell, software engineer and member of the Mozzer Alliance, the Help Team's help team.

I've found out that protecvinduer.dk is responding with HTTP code 302, a temporary redirect, to protecwindows.com. Since protecwindows.com isn't a subdomain of protecvinduer.dk, we won't any redirect from the former to the latter. You need to set up your campaign with protecwindows.com.

Thanks for your question.

Maura  Hubbell