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Hi There - Here's what I see when I do your 2 main searches, "nail salon pigeon forge tn" and "nail salon sevierville tn". You are ranking organically on the 1st page of Google for both terms but are excluded from the 7-pack. From what you've described, it sound like you may have violated Google's guidelines by having more than one verified Google+ Local page for each location. If you local rankings disappeared after you claimed more than 1 listing for each location, then this is likely what has caused you to disappear from the packs. This is sometimes referred to as a 'disconnected' listing - when you rank well organically but not in the packs. What steps have you taken since then? Do you still have multiple listings for the same location in your Google My Business dashboard? Have you taken steps to close them, as described here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/4569146?hl=en . Have you tried contacting Google directly to ask about this? You can do so via the Contact Us link here: https://support.google.com/business/?hl=en&rd=1#topic=4539639

hello Patrick Delehanty, how are you doing? thank ou for much for helping. The appoinment have to fixed. my website is #1 ranking with many keyworks, "The duplicate website that needs to be shut down and removed" It was have along time before my google plus ranking #1 before i claimed another page to the same account. I lost all review, stars and scores 2 days ago It was been back again but All ranking losting all. The big problems last two years. " i claimed another page to the same account. I lost all review, stars and scores 2 days ago It was been back again but All ranking losting all." Please help me How I update my Title on my site or my google plus? Please explain to me and sussgest to me please" like this? on my webiste http://sassy-nails.com |   | |   | <title>Sassy Nails Salon|Sevierville|Pigeon Forge|Gatlinburg|Tennessee</title>  | and " When you type in the www. version of your site, a cached version of your site appears, which is very different than your non www. version." How i fix that please help me that? last 3 months i have been using? Moz.com pro Service and Local Service but I was not helpful for me? I am really need help again how I to use build"  services like Moz Local  to help you build citations specific to your business category, as well as location. Google and other search engines use this information to return their local search results, so you should definitely take advantage of it!" Do you know the zip code" 37863" distance 37862 about 3 miles but my listing not ranking in Pigeon forge Tn (37863) "nail salon pigeon forge tn" but some keywords " Nail salon gatlinburg tn" ranking In Gatlinburg (37738). What and big problems my google local business" https://plus.google.com/+Sassy-Nails/about Please help me make ranking my main Category" Nail Salon" In my city. data=!3m1!4b1 data=!3m1!4b1

Hi Hans, Unfortunately IP addresses are not great on a desktop pc, not always but sometimes our Internet Service Provider seems to play havoc with our actual location. However on mobile it is usually a lot more reliable, so make sure your site is mobile friendly! As long as you have all your data set up and Google+ and the likes linked then your local listings will work correctly,  I wouldn't recommend targeting a popular IP location as it is not your true location. Keeping your town/city in your tagging will help for local searches for those who include there location in their searches. But if your client's ISPs have their IP address located wrongly, I am afraid this is something you cannot compensate for. Kind Regards, Jimmy

Thank you both! This really helps.

Hi Patrick, Thanks so much for replying. So, if for example i had a main parent page called house removals which is effectively where we explain the business and how it works and what we do. Then just to appear in some more local searches we had pages coming off of it called 'house removals london', 'house removals birmingham' and 'house removals manchester'. The pages that are ranking are the location specific pages. If i was to put a canonical tag to link them back to the house removals page would we lose any of our ranking and would the house removals page effectively just take the place of the sub page? I'm a little bit nervous to put canonical tags in because it's taken me a while to get us ranking so well. Thanks for all the other advice I will definitely have a look through, Cheers, Robert

Google is pretty finicky when it comes to displaying maps listings. As others have mentioned, it can take ages, and they don't make the process an easy one. Did you make sure that the box indicating that your business serves customers at its location is checked off? Google doesn't want to show businesses on maps unless they actually serve customers there. Here are some updated rules for showing up on maps. I hope they help!  http://localu.org/blog/rules-for-google-plus-local-for-business-listings/

Hello Miriam, All excellent points.  I will be making some modifications to existing content today and begin writing requirements for separate city landing pages. Thanks so much, J

Hi Miriam, Thanks for your reply.  Yext may be overkill for what I want right now, so I'm going to try Moz Local and another, less well known service (LocalSiteSubmit) and see which seems to do the best job of showing me the status quo, and fixing errors and omissions.   Sort of an A/B test for site submit tools.      Looking forward to trying the Moz tool, I have a lot of respect for the entire Moz brand so imagine this will be another solid tool. Appreciate your response!     ~Michael

Thanx Dan For Your reply

Great! Will definitely take all your advice along with others that posted here. Thank you and everyone who responded.

Hi Nathan, I recommend going with USPS version. I use SmartyStreets.com to look these up. Also, recommend you check out Nyagoslav Zhekov's recent post on acceptable NAP: http://www.whitespark.ca/acceptable-google-maps-nap-abbreviations-and-variations

I'll try that, thanks.

Hi Again, I showed your image to a few very good Local SEOs and no one had ever seen anything like it before. Maybe some type of radius function. Maybe Google is testing something. Update: I stand corrected. Someone I spoke to says they have seen this in the Google My Business dashboard and that it was called 'hit radius'. It might have been something showing where most calls or traffic were coming from. I guess it's not a well-known feature whatever it is! Might be worth it to take it to the Google and Your Business Forum and see if you can get more info on this from a TC there.

Thanks Tom

Hi Michael No problem! Glad to hear everything worked out - if you need anything else feel free to let me know! Take care!

Nice feedback here. The one thing you've asked about that I don't believe I've seen addressed is your question regarding having geographic modifiers in your business name. You are correct - Google does not want these, unless they are part of your legal business name or DBA. This was a bit of a goofy situation. Originally, Google's guidelines expressly forbid the use of anything but the legal business name or DBA in the business title. Then, in the fall of 2013, they suddenly changed their policy on this, permitting business owners to add descriptors. So, at that point, lots of business owners jumped on this and added city names and other descriptors. A little over a year later, Google reversed their policy, returning to their original stance on this in which they do not want city names, state names, etc. in the business title unless they are part of the real-world business name. You can read the guidelines here, under Name: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

Hi Andre! I wish I knew more about Local SEO in Germany, but your screenshot looks like the new-ish 3-Pack that Google rolled out in the US last winter to replace their Carousel results. See coverage of this here: http://searchengineland.com/google-axes-carousel-new-local-3-pack-208710 For hotels, restaurants and other hospitality/entertainment searches, Google had rolled out the Carousel in the summer of 2013, but this has been replaced by these results. Naming conventions have been kind of scattered. You'll hear terms like 3-pack, snack pack, local stack, hamburger pack. I think it's just easiest to call it a 3-pack. I'm not sure when these 3-packs rolled out in Germany, but this is likely what you are seeing. The upshot is that it has just become harder than ever to compete when Google is only awarding pack status to only 3 businesses!

That is very interesting William, I personally loved Yelp's idea hated the execution. They are now borderline black mailers IMO. I hope others will respond so we can see some actual data. Nice post Miriam!

Hi there Go for relevance - you can have a link from a high domain authority site that isn't remotely relevant and it won't do you any good. If the chamber of commerce sites are relevant to the area you serve, then go for it - you're an operating business in that area. I have to say this though, don't build links strictly for the metrics of the site - build for links that you feel are going to benefit your business, bring you traffic, potentially convert your audience, and offer value to the user. The best way to link build is to ask the following questions: Does this link help my website? Is this link relevant to my website? Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it? Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website? If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy? Majestic has a great tool to help you understand the topical relevance of a site's backlink profile. Hope this helps! Good luck!

Thanks Miriam. I kind of figured that and I do citations primarily so customers can find my clients. I just wanted to make sure that I was delivering as much as possible to our clients. Again, thanks!