Is getting a top position in a local results block acheiveable if you are outside of the central zone ?

[Sam-P]

Most of the keywords / phrases we are targeting have the city (London) appended to it ie. service name London, service name in London etc.

The business of the site we are working on is located in London, but not in central London. Because of this i think the site is not being ranking as well as it could be (compared to other sites that in the centre or nearer to the centre with seemingly lower profiles, including have no reviews on their Google + Pages).

The site itself is relatively strong fluctuating between 3rd and 5th spot for the target phrases in the organic listings, but because of the local block which sits under position 2 our site always towards the bottom of the first page.

We've submitted the site to all the relevant local directories and listings sites, got 3 google reviews on the Plus profile and added the correct local html schema markup to any of our sites pages where our address is mentioned, but still we are sitting at around #12 on the local listings block (when you click Map results for...) at the bottom of the 7 local listings. So the site dosnt seem far off being on the front page, but I feel ive exhausted the optimisation i can do, any ideas how i can make any gains in these local listings ?

[customerparadigm.com]

Sam -

Quick question: have you changed your Google+ listing to a Service-area business?

If not, you'll want to set up the business so it not based on the physical location / address (i.e. your business address in Sufolk), but serves a greater area (i.e. London). In order to do this, you will need to set up your Google+ account as a Service-area business on Google.

This is perfect for a trainer, local plumber, tree trimmer or construction crew that works at customer's locations (either homes or businesses) vs. your home address.

My recommendation would be to go here:
https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038163?hl=en

... and set up your service areas based on the zip codes or cities that the business serves.

You also have the option to check or uncheck, "I serve customers at my business address."

You might need to go through another round of verification to make this change, however.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

• Jeff

[Patrick_G]

Sam,

Here are a few thoughts.

"We've submitted the site to all the relevant local directories and listings sites" - If you haven't already, I'd use Moz Local or White Spark, just to make sure you really have hit them all. I used to have a list of the ones I considered important, but was blown away by all the other listings available, after visiting those tools.

Also, make absolutely certain you have the exact same name, address and phone number in all your listings. I've seen slight variations lead to long-term issues for small businesses.

That said, you're not the first person who has voiced frustration over not being near enough to the centroid, being the issue.

Is your address prominent on your website as well, ideally listed on every page in some form if it's a highly localized page? I've heard (not sure it's true) that Google is looking more and more at your own website property to impact how well Google+ does in search rankings.

You might also want to look at Moz's latest local search engine ranking factors report. I'm sure that might spur some other ideas.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Sam,

You're getting some great feedback from the community - I have a couple of thoughts to add. While the concept of a city centroid has long existed, this has gradually given way to the concepts of:

1. An industry centroid

2. The user as the centroid

You can read more about the industry centroid concept here: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local-important/8906-google-local-centroid-not-city-center-affects.html

And I highly recommend watching the Bright Local webinar in which some expert Local SEOs weigh in on key local search ranking factors and touch on this emerging concept of the user as the new centroid:

http://www.brightlocal.com/2014/11/13/insidelocal-webinar-local-ranking-factors-discussed/

I hope these are helpful tips!