Why are we ranking so poorly for this keyword

[adriandg]

Hi Joel,

That is funny because yesterday it was 100% complete.  I just took a look at it again today and yet again google places had erased all my categories.  I was fully aware of being 100% complete and having the place claimed.  We have done both of those things months ago, yet we are still consistantly outranked by less complete google places with less citations, less reviews, and less page authority.

I think there is something else going on here, something bigger than just what you are suggesting, i would appreciate if anyone else has any other ideas!?

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[adriandg]

We have 3 seperate locations with 3 seperate google places location pages.  Are you saying that these should all be just one page?  I don't see any duplicates other than those three locations pages, link?

[NickPateman81]

Just want to clarify that completing your Google Places profile (on its own) does not effect ranking. Going from 91% complete to 100% complete will not have any direct benefit on results - however, by doing this you may be adding more relevant information that could potentially boost rankings.

Set up your Google Places page with whatever info is useful to a user - follow the guidelines and then build your associated URL as an authority. Sure, there are optimisation techniques on-places but a large chunk of ranking (from my experience) comes from your website's authority.

[adriandg]

Thanks Nick,

I understand this, and we actually have been working quite heavily on increasing our page authority and domain authority.  I feel we've come quite a long way and we actually ahve higher domain and page authority than most of the sites ranking on the 1st page of google places for the search term "self storage toronto" but for some reason we are burried waaaaay down on the 7th page amungst many other sites which have incomplete google places pages, and very very poor domain and page authority.

The only thing i can tell is that it seems google will either choose to rank you well in the organic block or the places block. and if you rank well in one you don't rank well in the other.  I just want to understand how we can get it to rank us well in the places block instead of ranking us #2 in the organic block, which is actually below the places block.

[NickPateman81]

It's an interesting topic. I work with a range of local companies who we have generated large amounts of traffic through local listings. In many cases we have two results ranking on the first page of Google. However what you say about it being more difficult does appear to be true from my experience.

If you like, PM me your website URL. I'll take a look at it and give you some suggestions. It may simply be that you haven't been listed in Google Places for long enough - it does take Places considerable time to get its head around new listings!

[adriandg]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for taking your time to help us.  Our website is www.storwell.com
We have a domain authority of 37, and a page authority of 42.

On the first page of listings for the keyword "self storage toronto" in google.ca we get:
Rank - website - PA - DA
#1 - www.canada-storage.com 45/100     35/100
#2 - www.publicstoragecanada.com 34/100     34/100
#3 - www.migsonstorage.com/ 63/100     56/100
#4 - www.spacestoronto.com/ 34/100     23/100
#5 - www.applestorage.com 38/100     26/100
#6 - www.ulockitministorage.com/
#7 - spadinaqueen.com/
-------- end google places block ---- begin organic search results
#8 - www.jiffystorage.com/
#9 - www.selfstor.ca/
#10 - www.centronstorage.com/
#11 - ME! www.storwell.com/

If you continue into just the google places / google local search results you find us eventually at
#70 - www.storwell.com/toronto-self-storage

Could it be because we have listed out website as www.storwell.com/toronto-self-storage in google places instead of listing it as www.storwell.com?
We have three locations, with three google places accounts so i had put:
www.storwell.com/toronto-self-storage
www.storwell.com/mississauga-self-storage
www.storwell.com/scarborough-self-storage
for each one of the locations in google places as the web address.
Would it be better to just list www.storwell.com as the web address for each of the places accounts?

[NickPateman81]

I always list the root domain URL for Google Places. If Google decides that another URL is more appropriate then they will change it.

How long have you had Google Places set up? It does take some time to rank. You may also want to consider changing the title element of your home page to reflect 'self storage toronto' rather than 'toronto storage'. If you would prefer that Google ranked /toronto-self-storage for 'self storage toronto' then there are ways to try to trigger this.

[DanHill]

Have a look over here -> http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

[MBayes]

We have noticed that Google is looking much deeper into the reviews the  places account has.  Of the 6 positive reviews for this company , 5 are from users who only submitted one review,  that being the one on this company.

I think Google has a grading system on reviews, and it can go positive or negative.  I would encourage the client to get a lot  more reviews from customers, and also spread them around to sites like City Search, insider pages, yelp, Angie's list, Yahoo.... Make sure they have set up their company profile on those pages.  The profiles also can also act as a citation once people review the company.

Our number one fix for rankings problem for a local company is get real reviews on multiple review sites.

Not sure this is it.. but I don't see anything else that could be causing it, unless the places account is relatively new.

[redvalecomms]

when you say relatively new, what do you class this as?

[TheEvilchippy]

Hi There,

I've been tackling this same issue with my site, and I think I have your problem diagnosed - It's your domain relevancy and authority. You have modest authority, but low relevancy.

It looks like you're trying to rank locally for the following terms (or variants):

• Toronto Storage
• Etobicoke Storage
• Mississauga Storage
• Scarborough Storage

But, here's a breakdown of your (relevant) anchor text:

• Toronto Storage - 5 Linking Root Domains with Anchor Text
• Self Storage Toronto - 4 Linking Root Domains with Anchor Text
• Storage in Toronto, Scarborough & Mississauga - 2 Linking Root Domains with Anchor Text
• Storage Toronto - 1 Linking Root Domains with Anchor Text

Besides "Toronto Storage", your links are providing you with very little relevancy in regard to the terms you are trying to rank for.

According to David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors, citations, domain authority, and quality of inbound links are the most important factors that you can actually use to set yourself apart from the competition (assuming most people are smart enough to include relevant addresses, categories, etc in their place pages). You are currently doing the equivalent of trying to rank for "dishwasher" with links that only have "kitchen" in the anchor text.

Conclusion:

Build links with the terms you want to rank for as the anchor text. I just experienced the exact same problem and the link building shot my places traffic though the roof for a very competitive space.

How:

Fire up Google and do a search for a phrase you want to rank for like "Toronto Storage." Make sure the MozBar is installed and explore the links of your top competitors. Copy the links that aren't junk using the terms you want to rank for as the anchor text. This is somewhat time consuming, but you currently have so few links that you are going to discover a goldmine of opportunity with about two hours worth of work.