Local Map Pack: What's the best way to handle twin cities?

[AaronHenry]

Google is increasing cracking down on bad local results. However, in many regions of the US there are twin cities or cities that reside next to each other, like Minneapolis-Saint Paul or Kansas City. According to Google guidelines your business should only be listed in the city in which your business is physically located.

However, we've noticed that results just outside of the local map pack will still rank, especially for businesses that service the home. For example, let's say you have a ACME Plumbing in Saint Paul, MN. If you were to perform a search for "Plumbing Minneapolis" you typically see local Minneapolis plumbers, then Saint Paul outliers. Usually the outliers are in the next city or just outside of the Google map centroid.

Are there any successful strategies to increase rank on these "Saint Paul outliers" that compete with local Minneapolis results or are the results always going lag behind in lieu of perceived accuracy? We're having to compete against some local competitors that are using some very blackhat techniques to rank multiple sites locally (in the map results). They rank multiple sites for the same company, under different company names and UPS store addresses. Its pretty obvious, especially when you see a UPS store on the street view of the address!

We're not looking to bend the rules, but rather compete safely. Can anything be done in this service based scenario?

[vmialik]

Hi,

Two key factors are location and competition. If you are already ranking for your primary area, great.  If you are ranking for other locations as an outlier, even better.  Now to get the outliers to rank higher is tricky. Because of location and competition. If there are many other businesses in the area where you are an outlier, location is a much stronger metric then many others in this case. If competition was low your chances could be better.

Here are some ideas:

1. Go crazy and get all the local citations directories and creative means like citations in your relevent youtube videos and other assets. Basically create a stellar citation profile. See if this helps if not so much or not at all, that means location and competition are in the way here and are giving precedence to other businesses.

2. If you are showing up on local results as an outlier, if you are showing up that means eye balls are looking, yes you may be lower than other businesses, but if you can get significantly more higher end reviews. This could set you apart and give you that conversion despite an outlier position.

3. Try ranking for organic results for the city + industry you are going for, it might not be too competitive and this might be a better position than as an outlier

4. Increase social signals to your website, and Google local page.

Hope this helps!