Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hey Matthew, You're so right that it can be hard to figure out who to hire, and when it comes to Local SEO, you definitely need a service provider that specializes in this field. In addition to the Moz recommend list Don has linked to, I recommend that you look at the list of people who participate in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey. Everyone on that list is a recognized expert in this field. See in the right column of this page: http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors With that list, you should have some really terrific providers to consider!

Thanks guys! I didn't think it would make a difference, but wanted to get another point of view. I appreciate it!

Isabel - I sent you a couple PMs.  Let me know if you still need help but we have an office in HK with a Chinese speaking team that have a lot of experience ranking sites in Baidu.

Thanks a bunch!!

Hey Brett! There are some nuances to this I want to be sure I'm understanding. How many physical locations do you have? Are you saying that you have 1 physical location from which you are serving all of those states, or do you have physical locations in each of the states? Are you meeting face-to-face with your customers in each of these states, either at your office or at their homes/businesses? Please, answer these 2 questions as fully as possible. Regarding instances in which Google does not show local results for a given query, this is based on their internal interpretation of what is most relevant. Google makes a decision about whether a searcher's intent is local or not, and also, they determine whether there is enough relevant local data to show on a given query. No one (but Google) knows all of the ins and outs of these decisions, but it's not something you can really influence. The important thing is to recognize whether Google is showing local or organic results for your core queries and then do everything you can to become dominant in those results, either via local or traditional marketing methods. Remember, too, that results are personalized - so you searching from Hawaii are not seeing the same results that your customer is searching from California I'll look forward to your replies on questions 1 & 2.

Yeah... Thanks. You caught me being lazy with the CSS. Rather than create a separate class for that H2 and text, I opted for some in line CSS and never went in and updated the overall  CSS. It's an older site done in Concrete5, which I build everything in, and it makes it too easy to cut those corners and that website has not had a design refresh in couple years. Regardless, it dominates its local sub-market online. Thanks for the continued info!

Thanks for contributing, Linda Good tips - and very important to note the fact that 'guilty by assumption/association' is something to be aware of.

Hey Victor! Read these and you'll be totally up-to-speed on this: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/11/25/guide-to-using-call-tracking-for-local-search/ ...which is a follow up to Mike's 2013 post on this : http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/05/14/a-guide-to-call-tracking-and-local/ I think you'll find these to be right on the money

Hi Ali! I like Ryan's thinking and also want to emphasize one important point. Just because the new homepage will be beautiful, doesn't mean it can't include any text. There should still be crawlable text on the homepage, meaning you can still talk about your service there. Don't do away with all text.

It's a fairly simple process to transfer ownership of a Google My Business page. See Google's instructions for how to do this.

Thanks, will give it a go!

Hey Scott, That's a tough problem, but removing the phone number would not be a good solution as it is one of the 4 core pieces of NAP+W data that Google and customers need to see about any local business. I wouldn't trust a business with no listed phone number and expect most customers would feel the same about this. I like Bryan's common sense suggestions on this. What I would like to add is that your thread has made me curious as to what it is about the client's business that is making it so confusing to customers that they need a 15 minute explanation before they understand the business model. Maybe the very best thing to do here would be for you to coach the client into whittling that down to a 4-5 sentence explanation that takes less than 1 minute to explain. Think along the lines of an elevator pitch. No business should require a 15 minute explanation, if we're just covering the basics. Likely, what the client is experiencing is that it's necessary to then move forward from the basic explanation to the conversation that leads to discovering the fitness of a prospect and then closing a deal. While there is no way to avoid putting in this time, again, it comes down how the conversation is managed. I am thinking back to my own early days when I found it frustrating that I would spend a great deal of time listening to customer's issues and explaining my service, only to discover many minutes into the conversation that their budget did not match my fees. What I eventually learned from this was to mention my rates within the first couple minutes of the conversation. At that point, I would either hear, "Oh, I can't afford that." or "That sounds reasonable." This helped me determine whether a further investment of my time in the discussion was appropriate. It may be that your client is struggling with something like this and needs to refine her communications so that she can tell the difference between a good match and a poor one within a couple of minutes of answering her phone. One other suggestion ... have the client answer the phone and then put the customer on hold for 30 seconds. In that 30 seconds, run an automated on-hold message with music and voice disclosing the key components of the pitch. By the time the owner then takes the customer off hold, they will have heard the basics.

Hey Peter, It's generally considered a best practice to have your NAP at the top of your location landing pages, and I don't see any problem with you doing this and referencing the NAP again at the bottom of the page. Just be sure you're making each landing page unique and of as high quality as you can accomplish.

Kathryn, All the advice so far is solid, and live by the link provided by Miriam. I would also suggest ensuring a few items. Solid directory management practices (Moz's new tool looks like a great start) will certainly help, including areas served on pages where possible (Google +, Yelp, etc.) Connect with and get links from local BBBs, Chambers of Commerce, and other local non-directory type business listings. If your cleaning services are commercial, and you have any .edu or .gov customers, see if you can gain any links from these sites. A blog article, a news item thanking you for a contribution, anything. Highly local, and a lot of value.

Hi Ron, It's perfectly fine to run your business out of your home. No danger of being banned for this. Just be sure you are obeying Google's guidelines regarding how your address is displayed based on your business model: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

Hi Vlad! I see  - you are talking about a contained business, but are asking about the address rather than the name of the business. In that case, I recommend looking up the business on smartystreets.com to see what the USPS deems as the official address of the business, and go with that version.

Many thanks Laura, A Very comprehensive answer to my query. I was referring to local organic search results with reference to  whether citations would help with them as opposed to maps etc but I think by what you're saying is that they will. I will read those articles you kindly linked in as well. Many thanks Peter

Many thanks Miriam I will get a citation audit done. thanks Peter

Hey Paul! If this is actually just one business, it should only ever have had 1 Google+ Local page. Google+ Local pages are meant to represent physical locations ... not a menu of services. So 1 physical location = 1 Google+ local Page. Unfortunately, if I'm understanding this correctly, Google would consider this situation of multiple pages to be a violation of their guidelines: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en So, the best thing in this scenario would be to consolidate everything into a single website, build out unique content on the website for each service offered, but have just 1 Google+ Local page and a set of additional citations to support the single physical location. Now, if I've misunderstood and this is actually several different physical locations, please let me know.

Yup. As an example, run a search for "portland made leather" in comparison to "hand made leather"  The localization factors are definitely a consideration in the first one (without displaying the Local Listings box) and less so in the second. Of course the first few results are going to also be ranking as they do for other considerations, but local plays a part in it, both on and off page.