Google+ local SEO question regarding attorney services

[cgman]

Should attorneys check the boxes for:

1. My business has service areas where I visit customers at their location and
2. I serve customers at my business address (within x miles)

This is for a law firm that sees clients in the office, as well as making accommodations to visit them at their location when they are unable to come to the office.

[WhoWuddaThunk]

Are you in a major city?  Is your distance going to cover other cities?

[cgman]

Yes a major city. If I set a distance radius it's going to cover a lot of other smaller cities which do bring many clients.

Right now I have it set to a 119 mile radius which seems to let us show up in many of the surrounding cities. However, we seem to rank off and on in the actual city the office is in. I'm having problems with yahoo listing and suspect that may have something to do with it.

[WhoWuddaThunk]

Where do you typically rank for your main location?  How are the searches spread out?  Does everyone just search the main city expecting good results, or do they search individual cities?

In my industry people just search the main city, which is why I ask.

[cgman]

In local results we only rank well for 1 major keyword, the others I'm having a harder time with as many of our competitors have very old domains compared to our 1.5 year domain. I've gotten more (better) citations than most of them but struggle with Yahoo listing and some duplicate listings that show up once in a while.

For many of the smaller keywords that people may type in naturally we still rank on page 1, just not in the local bunch, which is where I'd like to be unless we're #1 on that page (not very often yet)

Typically, attorneys offer services in 1. entire state or 2. a major metropolitan area that covers multiple cities including 1 large city. Right now we'd like to cover such metropolitan area so I have the radius set for a certain distance that we don't mind driving out to.

I just performed a bunch of searches with location set to various cities and it seems that local results do not show up in search.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi CGMAN,

Which dashboard are you seeing? The old one or the new one? The 2 options that you've listed in your original question are worded in such a way that I'm not recognizing them. Please, provide further details. As an aside...a 119 mile radius is enormous. It's typically considered a best practice not to go above 20-30 miles and I would be surprised if the big radius you've set is actually contributing to rankings. Curious about that.

[LindaBuquet]

Sorry but that setting could cause you problems AND won't help you rank in those other areas. The service area setting does not affect ranking at all. You could set it for the whole state but you'll still only rank in the city you are located in if it's a competitive term.

Attorneys should not use that service area setting at all. Even if you sometimes go out to customers. Google has lots of issues with service area businesses, so that setting could confuse her since most attorneys only do business at their office. Again it won't affect ranking (positively BUT could affect it negatively I think).

I'm consulting for a Dentist right now that should be #1 but isn't. In doing their audit I discovered someone mistakenly set up service areas on the G+ business page. Just fixed it last night and am anxious to see if correcting that setting helps their ranking. (Complicated to explain how/why it would but I can if anyone needs more granular details.)

[cgman]

I'm using the new dashboard on Google+. You log in as yourself and go to edit your pages / local page, the 2 are merged now I believe.

http://imgur.com/V7wIV8A

I set it to 119 miles because that's the area that encompasses Southern California (all of which are legitimate locations for our business) i.e. we service all of the cities here. I only did that because that's the area we cover, not to game the SE for any rankings.

[cgman]

I was told otherwise by Mike Blumenthal and that if we do service clients in other areas then we should set a service area. However, I'm facing the same problem you are with your dentist client that we only show for 1 or 2 keywords in local results, the rest are global / not part of the local "pack".

I'm curious how the change to the setting for your Dentist will affect rankings. Please keep me informed if you don't mind and email me at cogentgene@gmail.com when you notice something different.

Thanks!

[LindaBuquet]

I took screenshots, easier to see, but try to visualize...

They are located on the south east side of the big city they are in. Service area included their zip so drew a radius around that zip. Well when you looked at the service area on the map the pink/orange radius stopped just short of downtown and didn't cover downtown, west or north, just southeast. So I felt like searches for City Dentist they may not rank as high because essentially that setting told Google they only serve southeast corner and not whole city.

We'll see, but I'm also doing onsite Local SEO and local hooks and that's what gives the most ranking boost, so when they jump it will be hard to know for sure if it was changing that setting or the Local SEO stuff I'm doing.

[cgman]

I'm just curious what made you say that setting a service area for attorneys might negatively impact rankings. Do you have any data to back that up? If so, I'm very interested in seeing it.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Cgman,

I can't speak for Linda, but what I believe she is saying is that SABs have extra problems to deal with, so why even list a brick-and-mortar business as one if you don't have to? Typically, a legal firm would be considered a brick-and-mortar business and listing it as such would simply be 'easier'. Linda, is that what you meant?

[LindaBuquet]

Sorry, should have been more clear. Did not mean ranking order per se... More so trust and standing with Google.

I help folks with G+ L problems all day and lots of the problems over past year have been re traditional service area businesses like plumbers. Hundreds of thousands of listings were deleted, many were down for months. (Largely due to hide your address violations which does not apply here but there are a myriad of other problems tied to SABs - which in Google's eyes often tend to be on the spammy side.)

Also Google is now deleting SABs from Map Maker so you can't see history to do troubleshooting.

Additionally SABs are not supported for merging with G+.

Specifically with attys, many set up additional offices - often times virtual offices that are not staffed - which is a violation. Sometimes to try to avoid getting deleted, they'll set up service areas for these additional locations. If you work with Google a lot you know she often paints with a broad brush and deletes or suspends listings that follow certain spam patterns. Throws baby out with bath water so to speak.

So in my opinion there is just sort of a bias I guess you could say against SABs on multiple levels. That's gradually changing.

I try to teach folks to learn to think like Google and avoid possible spam filters or things that could trip a red flag. I just feel like why create unneeded attention, possible closer scrutiny or risk the algo making a wrong assumption, over a setting that does not have any upside at all.  Google looks at data in aggregate. Almost all attys serve clients at their office and do not have service area set up. So why be different and risk it. Especially if no benefit.

But again I help people recover from problems all day long, after they've done something that's already tripped them up. Therefore I see more problems than most and tend to be over-cautious because I know how time consuming and tricky it can be to fix something on Google local AFTER you get suspended, deleted or a rank penalty.

Hope that helps clarify. Was in a rush before and maybe should have explained better, but it's alot to explain and even in this reply that's only part of it, but I think enough to help highlight some points.

[cgman]

I understand. Though, I've learned that for years.. and ongoing... Google has been blind to its own rules, especially with attorneys setting up remote un-staffed offices. I can point to several of such attorneys who consistently rank at the top by doing this (even as we speak).

I guess it won't hurt to try to disable service areas to see what happens, its not like we rank in other cities in local results anyway.

I just wish there was more input from people who work with attorney clients and their take on this issue.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi CG,

I will leave this question open for discussion rather than marking it as answered in case any attorneys drop by who would like to add to it.

[LindaBuquet]

Yep Miriam, that's what I meant. You just said it shorter and sweeter!

[Gyi]

I agree with Linda above. The service areas setting can cause a lot of issues. Specifically, if you didn't hide your address, your listing might be removed:

Don't receive customers at your location? Serve customers at their location? Select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option within your dashboard — if you don't hide your address, your listing may be removed from Google Maps.

https://support.google.com/places/answer/177103?hl=en

Also:

If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option.

https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en&ref_topic=1656880

I'm not sure that this is still the case.

In my experience working with law firms, we've found the most success not using the service area(s) settings.