Google Places

[JML1179]

If you rank on google places, I have noticed that you do not rank on the front page as well. I have a site that ranks on front page for it's keywords; however, because they are (1) on google places, they don't show up when someone is localized to that area. They show up on google places but not on front page. If you turn of localization, they are first in serps.

How can I get around this?

Two separate sites? One for Google+ (Places) and one for SERPS?

[GoodAtMarketing]

seo for google places is done by building citations and organic local seo is done by building your brand in your local community, and earning links to your website. google ranks google places and the local organic section on local links and citations. You should be able to rank for both

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Joseph,

I want to be sure I understand your question. I believe what you are asking about is why it is uncommon for a business with a local ranking (with the grey lettered pin) to also have a first page organic ranking? If I'm misunderstanding, please let me know, but I'm pretty sure that this is what you are asking about.

Let me give you some history on this. Prior to the Venice Update in March of this year, it was quite common for strong local businesses to be able to dominate the search engine results. A single business might have a pinned local ranking, one or more organic rankings, video results and citations (from places like Merchant Circle and Yelp) all on page 1 of the Google search engine results.

After Venice, however, there was a pretty obvious change in this that was noted by lots and lots of Local SEOs and Local business owners. Suddenly, if you had achieved a Local rank, you were very unlikely to have a second, organic listing on page 1. In fact, for some months, I could not find a single business that was achieving this multi-spot dominance any more.

However, we started to see some changes in this a few months away from Venice. Linda Buquet and some other Local SEOs managed to get double rankings by optimizing a secondary page of a client's website in a few instances. Adam Steele of Nightlight Media wrote a piece on this topic, which you can read here:

http://www.nightlitemedia.com/2012/05/organic-and-google-places-ranking-on-page-1/

Definitely read that to see if it helps. However, I believe that things have changed again. I am encountering enough instances of businesses being able to get multiple page 1 rankings these days to believe that there has been some tweak to the environment. However, I will add that where I am seeing these double rankings tends to be in smaller towns with modest competition, though there are some exceptions to this.

I would not advise you to build 2 different websites for the same business. That would likely lead to confusion on Google's part and a possible loss of trust in your profile/loss of rankings. Rather, it's important to understand that when you achieve a local ranking (in the pinned local results) you haven't actually lost your organic ranking; it's simply been subsumed into the blended/local ranking which is comprised of both organic and pure local factors. Nearly all results I see these days are blended results, drawing on both organic and local signals. Very, very few are the old Pack results any more.

So, what can you do? Don't knock a high Local ranking. Heatmap studies indicate that more eyes are drawn to the local listings than the organic ones. But, do build the strongest site you can, ensuring that all pages are properly optimized and that all of your Google Local participation is violation free. And, expect the display to keep changing. I could hit publish on this right now and wake up tomorrow to discover that Google has again changed the ratio of businesses getting double page one rankings. This stuff is constantly in flux. Hope this information helps!