Not showing up in Google Local Pack despite being #1 ranked for keyword

[anthonydegalbo]

Hey everyone,

This has been an on-going problem that we've been having for a select location of ours. We've been #1 ranked for the keyword "dog groomers near me", however we don't show up in the Google Local Pack (top 3 locations box). We have a high 4.9 rating with 20+ ratings, and the other locations that DO show up have a 2.4 and 3.6 rating with less reviews!

I've exhausted every resource and have even geo-tagged our specific photos on our landing pages. I'm not sure what to do anymore as we're already #1 ranked on every similar keyword.

Thank you, Anthony

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Anthony!

Thanks for coming to the community with your question. Please, let me know if you're able to share your website/actual business with us here. Then we can all take a look at your specific scenario instead of just making random guesses.

In addition to that query, can you please explain:

1. How many locations you have

2. Are the locations in different towns or all in the same town?

3. Did you notice a ranking drop for this problem location, or has it never managed to rank? If a sudden drop, can you pinpoint the date? If it has never ranked, can you estimate the age of its GMB listing?

Thanks, and looking forward to your replies!

[anthonydegalbo]

Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique in Des Plaines, Illinois. We are a dog grooming franchise (I'm in the marketing department here at corporate) This is one of our select locations that is continually having this problem.

1. We have multiple locations throughout the country. (we show in most of the google boxes for our select location)

2. All of the locations are very far from each other (different states)

3. It's ranked #1 on every single relevant keyword you can think of (dog groomers, dog grooming, dog grooming near me, etc)

It never shows up on the google box for "dog grooming" or "dog groomers" however it will show up when you say "best rated dog groomers in des plaines"

There is other groomers that have 2.4 stars and are shown on the local pack while we aren't.. I just don't get it. They are also right next to us so location isn't the problem.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Anthony,

Thanks so much for answering my questions.

When you wrote, "There is other groomers that have 2.4 stars and are shown on the local pack while we aren't.. I just don't get it. They are also right next to us so location isn't the problem."

.... my first thought was that you might be being impacted by the Possum filter. This filter specifically has the effect of filtering out businesses that are in the same building or couple of blocks with other businesses in the same business category.

However, when I do a search for "dog grooming des plaines il", your listing is not being filtered out at the automatic zoom level of the map (which would be diagnostic of this being Possum). I see you ranking in the 8th position when I click on the Google Map in the local pack and look at the Local Finder view.

So, while this isn't a straight-up case of Possum, because your listing is visible but is simply ranking lower than competitors, what I do see is that you are in a location that is very densely populated with dog groomers. Google is having to choose between a whole bunch of competitors located within a very tiny area, and - for some reason - they are choosing your competitors over you. And I concur with you that the fact that you are ranking #1 organically for this term, but are not #1 in the local pack is weird.

I have some specific recommendations for you, which I'll number:

1. I recommend that you go through the exercise of doing a competitive audit between yourself and the top ranking business in the local pack. Here is a blog post of mine, including a spreadsheet, which will walk you through that process: https://moz.com/blog/basic-local-competitive-audit

2. I just ran your business through Moz Check Listing and your citations look in great shape, with the exception of a few duplicate listings you should fix: https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1N0IlMjUyMmxvY2F0aW9uX2lkJTI1MjIlMjUzQSUyNTIyNGE1ZjJjMDAtNzE2Yi0xMWU3LTgzOWMtZjUyMzYzMTM5ZWY0JTI1MjIlMjU3RA==

3. I highly recommend that you equip the franchisee at that location to answer the Google Q&A the business received and that they start using Google Posts on a weekly basis, as both could possibly start to bump up local rankings for this location. I recommend that you look further into populating Google Q&A with some of this location's FAQs, as well as answering public Qs that come in.

4. Finally, I recommend you take a look at this post by Joy Hawkins from a couple of years ago regarding ranking highly organically but not in the local packs. Not sure it's applicable to your scenario, but it would be worth reading in case any of it rings a bell to you: https://searchengineland.com/rank-high-organically-not-locally-case-study-240692

Please, feel free to come back with further questions!