Google Local landing pages

[jonnyholt]

Just wondering what the best way to handle the landing page from a google plus local profile is.  I had changed it to page that I created for the specific location with a citation with correct NAP, but realized that in OSE that my root domain lost almost all its G+'s.  I'm torn and just looking for some advice.  I've done quite a bit of work trying to correct citations, adding citations, and reading reading reading to learn more about Google Local but the results have been pretty rough.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jonathan,

Google's guidelines regarding this are pretty short:

Website & Phone: Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location.

• Use a local phone number instead of a call center number whenever possible.
• Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or “refer” users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business.

So, provided the page you use as the landing page on your website represents the actual business, then you're pretty much free to choose what you want to do. Commonly, for a single location business, the landing page provided will be the homepage. But, for multi-location or multi-partner practices, it's a best practice to create a landing page for each entity and link each Google+ Local page to its respective landing page. Does one of these strategies represent what you did for your business, or did you do something else?

[jonnyholt]

because the company has two locations, I created a page for each location called /townname and then linked each google plus account to those pages.  The page has photos, a google map, and the correct citation with correct NAP but because it's a fairly new page, it doesn't have much PA.  I was reading up on the metrics that most people think affect rankings on Moz and people think the landing page that is link from a Plus profile having less authority can effect ranking.  I'm seeing some positive move in the rankings (a page or two) so perhaps it's starting to work

In the end there's just so much bad information out there in regards to SEO that I'm always second guessing myself.  I think I am still on the positive path that you and others have helped me too and am hoping for confirmation results as I continue to fix citations and create new ones where needed.

[jonnyholt]

As a secondary question, I know NAP is name, address, and phone number, but many of the directories and websites where I have been adding or correcting citations also have a website.  Do you think it matters whether the website is consistent to the Google listing?  So when I add a citation, I always link to the /town page (which is hopefully growing the PA and DA.)  Do you think this is helpful or should I just always link to the homepage?

As a side note, I have also realized that all the G+'s that I had acquired on the profile are no longer linking to the front page of the site, so OSE isn't acknowledging them anymore.  Don't know if this is an issue or not but just an observation.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jonathon,

You will often see NAP referred to as NAP+W. The W stands for website, and it is often included in this acronym because of the importance of consistently linking to the same page from your citations. What you did is right, in my opinion, to create a landing page for each of the two locations. Where you may have issues is in not consistently linking to the respective page for the given city. Always link City A to landing page A in citations, and the same with City B. Don't link some of them to the homepage. If you've identified consistency issues like this, definitely clean them up.

Regarding your lost Google+s, I'm afraid I don't know what the cause is. Perhaps one of our members will have encountered something similar.

[jonnyholt]

well I thought I had lost the G+'s because I changed the landing page from the front page to the town landing page, but now I'm thinking there has been a change at Google because the number has drastically reduced.  I'm not completely sure how the + works, but if I had to guess, the + count on your Google Plus Local Business page will reflect how many +'s your landing page has.

This page : http://google.com/photojennettephotographyAustin had over 1000 +s 3 days ago...  I changed the landing page and boom now it has 58.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jonathan,

Yes, I've seen reports of similar things in the past. Example: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-plus-discuss/HFmNW-LJAYI

Typically, these seem to have come in waves for a ton of people at once. I haven't seen anything about this in the past couple of weeks, though. Might be worth reporting to the above forum to see if a bug is going on.

[jonnyholt]

Apparently they may come back in the next few days.   So Miriam, now that I have two Google Plus Local pages (I set up and verified the Denver location today) is it ok to name each page by the location?  As it stands, both Google Plus Local pages are named  "photojennette photography"

In the past I know you have said adding a city name can be considered keyword stuffing and I don't want to do it if you think it may harm the rankings.  Google suggested and added the vanity URL "http://google.com/+photjennettephotographyAustin for the first page thats been up for a while.  Should I change the name of the page to "photojennette photography Austin" so I can change the name of the Denver page to "photojennette photography Denver"?  Thanks in advance for your guidance and response.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jonathan,

In regards to the business title on the +Local page, nothing has changed. Think of it this way: McDonald's is just McDonald's over their infinite number of locations. You should do the same. This is not the same as your custom URL, to which Google will append the city name in some cases. So, leave the titles the same.