Category: Local Listings
Examine the impact of maintaining consistent and accurate local listings on your local SEO strategy.
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Clients are not showing up on Google Places (Maps)
I just want to add, in case you haven't seen it, the latest local search ranking factors. I'd pay close attention to the top 30 difference-making factors in competitive markets when you're going through your audit.
| DonnaDuncan0 -
A customer made a duplicate google plus page, now what?
Hi Jag! Thanks for the links. Here's what I see: Moz Check Listing is surfacing the filled out page as the main Google+ Local listing (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MasterKhechensMartialArtsAcademyWilliamsville/about) and the less filled out page (https://plus.google.com/116492650865307526395/about?hl=en-US) as a duplicate. So, this tool is being shown the better page as main by Google. Going to Google and searching for 'Master Khechen’s Martial Arts Academy Williamsville' I am being shown the better page - not the less-filled out page in the 3-pack: https://www.google.com/search?q=Master+Khechen’s+Martial+Arts+Academy&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=Master+Khechen’s+Martial+Arts+Academy+Williamsville So for this branded/city search, I am seeing what I believe is your desired page - not the thinner duplicate. Searching Google for 'martial arts williamsville ny' the business isn't coming up in the 5-pack, but clicking on the maps results from there, they are coming up further down in the map pack. Clicking the 'be the first to review' link on that result, I am being taken to the thinner, duplicate Google+ Local page. So, that's a problem. Less users are likely to go through all these steps, but it is indicative of the problem and confusion in Google's system being caused by the duplicate listing. Fortunately, the duplicate is unclaimed, which minimizes the potential for penalties resulting from it, but it's still not good that it exists. So 2 questions here: Are both pages showing up in the client's Google My Business dash or is only the good one showing up there at this point? Have you tried contacting Google again (https://support.google.com/business/#topic=4540083&contact=1)? Show them the above data to explain how the duplicate is still appearing.
| MiriamEllis1 -
Brightlocal Citationburst
Hi Corn, I'm so sorry you've not received a reply from the community on this. Could be we have more Moz Local customers here than Bright Local customers I've never used their service, but do hear good things about the company's owner, Myles Anderson. A similar service is also offered by Whitespark, owned by Darren Shaw who is another nice fellow. You might look at past threads here in the forum regarding both companies. I'm sorry I can't offer a personal assessment of either service.
| MiriamEllis0 -
Ranking Not Getting Up
Hi There I believe I gave some suggestions for this site a few months ago here: http://moz.com/community/q/ranking-go-down - I think the only improvement from that time is the graphics look better. Other than that, the other issues still remain. The highest priority is the unnatural links pointing to the site with a lot of commercial anchor text. I would start with that list and let us know if you need more help after that. -Dan
| evolvingSEO0 -
I don't have a business address, Any problem?
Hello, I often list my address, even though we don't serve customers from the address. There are a couple of reasons for this; firstly it strengthens your brand identity and gives people confidence that your business is real, and second because there is no other reliable way to get local search on your side. If you use another address this may look odd and make people suspicious about the business. If you do list your address you can set up your site for people to contact you in the ways that you wish, rather than by coming to your address, if that's what you prefer.
| T0BY0 -
SEO issues with Physician and Practice not ranking for their own names
You're very welcome!
| MiriamEllis0 -
Is Yext worth it?
Hey All - The above reply was created by me. So sorry - was signed into Mozzer Alliance instead of my own account when I created it.
| MiriamEllis0 -
What is personalisation when it comes to local search?
Hi Neil, Yes, it a way, it can make explaining rank to clients harder because there are no set-in-stone rankings anymore, but in another sense, it frees us all from over-focusing on specific rank and focusing more on the most important metric - conversions.
| MiriamEllis0 -
Local Markup
Hi there If you have other locations listed on your website you can use Schema markup to indicate more than one location where you do business if you have two addresses. You can also look into use the branchOf attribute. Beyond that, you can look into Service-area businesses on Google, although I don't think that will really cover what you need. I would look into Moz Local or Whitespark to indicate your storefront business location as well as areas you serve. Business listings will ask you that sometimes. I would indicate on your website (if it's necessary and natural) what areas you serve as well. Hope this helps! Good luck!
| PatrickDelehanty0 -
Actions to take when client is missing local SEO usernames and passwords
Hi there No problem! Let me know if I can be of anymore help!
| PatrickDelehanty0 -
Segmenting Google Mybusiness traffic in analytics
I'm not sure there is a way to segment it because it is Organic Traffic and I don't believe that there is any identifying characteristic in Analytics, although I would love for someone to find one. While you may not be able to glean data from Analytics, you can at least use the Google My Business Insights Visibility report to find out how often your local listings are showing and what kind of actions are being taken. It's not ideal, but something is better than nothing.
| TheeDigital0 -
SEO best practices for store locator and local pages - 301 or not?
Redirecting via a 301 is always the preferred method of pointing one page to another Devon. Just from what I have seen, I can't see a reason why this should cause you any issue. Just have the location pages follow a preferred route and stick with that. Take all of the non-preferred pages and 301 these to the ones you wish to use. You should be fine and avoid any issue of duplication. -Andy
| Andy.Drinkwater0 -
I think I'm doing everything right--why the drop in DA/PA?
Hi there Rand actually just gave some insight to this in another Q+A thread; I recommend reading it! Hope this helps - good luck!
| PatrickDelehanty0 -
Main: category keywords on google plus not showing up
Hello Mattantonino, Thank you so much for your time. Can you tell me step by step for fix please please
| sassynailsalon0 -
How much local traffic should I expect
When you have content of various kinds on your website it can pull in a lot of traffic from outside of your geographic service areas. If you want to measure how much of this is "local" traffic and monetize the "non-local" traffic I would suggest using Google's DFP ad server. You can set it up on your pages to identify traffic from INSIDE of your geographic area and show those visitors your house ads. Visitors OUTSIDE of your geographic area - who are not candidates for purchasing your service will be shown adsense ads or ads from some other network. After you have done this the reports available through Google's DFP ad server will let you know the amount of your traffic that is local, the number that clicked through to your sales pages, the amount that is beyond your geographic area, and the amount of bonus income that you earned from people in New Jersey or some other location where your service is irrelevant. Steep learning curve here, but over the next months and years you can earn a load of dough from people who will never spend a penny with you. If you are really smart, you can set up DFP to display ads for colleagues who own businesses in other parts of the country. They should be willing to pay premium prices for impressions made by people who live in their service area.
| EGOL0 -
Is Google + really being quietly shut down? What does this mean for SEO?
Here's a recent article on the subject: http://marketingland.com/googles-horowitz-no-google-plus-is-not-dead-130328 I think the whole 'authorship' and 'publisher' G+ features; linking real entities (people & organisations) to content, as a way of verifying & qualifying the content as being good quality & from a reputable source must be pretty helpful for Google so i would personally be surprised if they did away with those aspects of G+. I know they have scaled back some aspects of 'authorship' such as removing the authors image in the SERPS but that could just be due to needing to reduce the 'computational budget/bandwidth' they allocate to it.
| Dan-Lawrence2 -
Google + / Local for Business. How to SEO ?... Done the basic but no real change.
Many thanks Miriam, Pete
| PeteC121 -
Redesigned My site
I'd agree that it takes hard work. Make sure your site is as good content-wise as it can be and make sure you only use ethical ways to promote it - trying to take short cuts won't pay off in the long run. You're in the right place to learn how to make your site great - there's plenty on moz and on the site of partners Distilled. Also, try watching the regular Whiteboard Fridays https://moz.com/blog/category/whiteboard-friday Good luck
| Houses0 -
Strategy for a business that has many service locations, but no real storefront?
You're welcome, Vernon. I completely relate to what you're saying. Google entered Local with a brick-and-mortar mindset, which has left SABs a bit on the periphery all these years. I know it can be tough. Good luck in the work ahead!
| MiriamEllis0