James

You could have seen it in a thousand places as it is fairly well written about.

With our clients, we don't have services pages as we want to focus on pages with titles around keywords. So, if they work on Autos, we would have certain categories listed: Front End, Tires, Engines, mufflers, etc.

The same can be said for Home. Many times we substitute the company name for the "home" page.

Best

EGOL

This may be the best answer I have seen to any question. The beauty of it goes on and on in that anyone in SEO dealing with clients must always ask themselves: Can the client handle the truth and/or understand the explanation?

The explanation is what you just gave and the truth is that no one knows for sure and it will often cost you a lot to get there. The other difficulty for SEO clients is that we live in a world of instant gratification. I have clients who spend a lot with me and regularly ask what they are getting (yes, they get reports, etc.). Interestingly, these same clients will mention they have just authorized a $250,000 TV ad campaign. (Trust me we are a bit cheaper.)

They understand the tv ad no matter what the results; even with excellent results (more and more customers) they have a hard time understanding the SEO.

Egol,

Thanks a bunch for a truly excellent, thought provoking answer.

Robert

Obvious great source and good info from Mike. 
Thanks Petra,

Yes, it is 'geared' towards ppc, but that should be a small issue. Another step or two will likely get you close to where you want to go.

When I do KW research (we do SEM, so PPC and SEO) for some great clients. You have to put in a max CPC to get the table when using multiple KWs. Ignore that it is PPC.

When table shows after max CPC (if CPC is $20 max go to $21) so that I get the max clicks available. Then, go back to Keyword tool (helps if you duplicate a tab and have them side by side). In the KW tool I add the same keywords but with the state (auto tires and auto tires Texas, replacement tires and replacement tires Texas, so forth) I also do broad and exact match - this gives me a sense of what are people really searching on for a localized client.

Then, I can infer the search traffic from the impressions that show on the traffic estimator by looking at all. Again, you put it in using an  excel file and you can export for the inference piece. No, it is not a perfect tool, but if your list of KW's is not overly long you can at least get a good idea.

hope this helps.

Luis,

I am going to suggest you find other ways of getting links. Your first line is a major redflag: I am looking for a community eager to exchange links. I believe the folks at Google would see your effort as a scheme to build pagerank... 

Given that I have gone to your site and see you have some decent links and PA/DA, why risk it with taking the easy way out?

Good Luck,

Robert

Sara

In the keywords tool at upper left you will see: Tools, Keyword Tool, Traffic Estimator. Click on the Traffic Estimator. (see Image)

In this, when you click on location you have the option to target by City, state, etc. You will note that once you start you will be given the option of advanced search which will give you a map that is convenient if doing more than a couple of states/cities. If you do some and get a redundant error, it is likely that you left in US and just need to delete it from the search. (this is all fairly straight forward). A caution is that if you have a fairly long list and ran it in KW tool without using a csv/excel file, copy it before going to the Traffic Estimator as it will be lost and you will need to retype.

This should help you in targeting.

All the best,

Robert

6PiJY.png

Petra,

I agree on your last statement. On the restaurant I mentioned, I zoomed in and out later in the day just trying different ways of looking at it and found that if I started at zero, and continued to zoom out, on the third level, the restaurant was there, but on the fourth it disappeared. (the pin stayed, the places label disappeared). Then, on the fifth it miraculously reappeared only to disappear on the sixth. So, something appears to be at play regarding the buildings around a given location and how they are possibly labeled or geographically identified along with use of polygon for shape, etc.

The link that Miriam provided is a great one and I went back to it on her reminder (second thank you to you Miriam for that link). I remembered the mention of the more you edit (approve other's edits) the faster your listing would get places labels. It does seem to work based on our experience anecdotally, but we have not measured it in any way. Again, even that could be a factor in what we are seeing with where labels appear or disappear depending on the distance zoomed in or out.

Thanks for the very cool question...

Robert

Petra,

You get the internationally recognized ?Hmmmmmm? award this morning.

That means when many people see your question they will say to themselves, "Hmmmmmm?"!!

I wish I had a perfect answer for this, but I believe there are actually multiple variables at play here. For those who enjoy learning and/or improving the web, Google MapMaker is a great place to start. This link goes to MapMaker's add a Place page. (those "spots" are called...Places and the icon that is an upside down teardrop - often with a letter in it - is a Marker).

Anyone can edit Google Maps via MapMaker. (All edits are reviewed by others and you cannot review your own edits). One thing you can do is change the shape of something on a map like an area (e.g. a park, stream, etc) or a building. If an editor has used the line drawing feature to change the shape of a feature, that could potentially affect what shows at a given level of zoom. IMO, another thing that could affect what does or does not show at given levels of zoom would be how often that place is searched for, linked to, and/or clicked on. Also, has it been edited by outside editors and then approved? If it has, I would think that site would show more at broader zoom levels than a similar business which had not been edited, especially if there are a lot of places in that given area.

One I tested that proved out: With similar businesses, where one has verified the listing and one has not, the verified listing will stay longer as you zoom further out. (Even with restaurants where the non verified had over 500 reviews and the verified had less than 100 reviews, the verified stayed while the other disappeared).

You also provided me a new mechanism for determining who is or is not an owner verified listing. Thanks!!!

I hope this helped and I urge all to explore Google Map Maker as it really is a COOL TOOL!!

All the Best,

Robert