Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hey Lee!

Kudos to you for being aware of the guidelines on this. That's excellent, and glad you've seen Linda's forum post on this important topic, too. Yes, if the offices are staffed, then I think you'll be fine. The main this is that you be sure the offices are staffed and that in-person contact is being made with the customers.

Hey Ira,

I believe some of the commentary on that thread is from just last year, so that's fairly recent. Here's a review from 2016:

http://hubbion.com/reviews/synup/

And here's a 2016 comparison chart that might help: http://localseochecklist.org/citation-submission-services/

So sorry not to have first-hand experience with this.

Hi YesDesign Team,

Did you visit the link I included in my earlier reply? I make quite a few suggestions for the diversification of city landing pages in that article that I think will really help you! Hope so!

Hi Zach,

I want to be sure I am understanding your question. I'm not sure what you mean by having both a Google Places page and a Google+ Local page for your business. Google Places is currently still in existence as a dashboard for Google+ Local. See: http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2623007

Now, your query is kind of special, because of the nature of your business. Back in early 2010, Google stopped showing true local results for web design and seo firms and certain other types of marketing firms (see: http://www.searchengineguide.com/miriam-ellis/google-shoves-their-liaisons-off-maps.php) I believe that there may have been 2 factors involved in this decision: 1) heavy spamming in those verticals and 2) a belief that such businesses are more virtual than local.

As you can see in this Mike Blumenthal article from just last month, Google continues to treat these categories of businesses differently, when it comes to Local: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/11/12/google-local-search-results-where-none-have-gone-before/

Because of this, any efforts you make with Google's Local products will be hampered by the fact that they do not choose to display website design companies in their true blended/local results, though I believe it's still possible to exist within maps.google.com.

However, Local SEO Andrew Shotland had a highly-publicized experience with his SEO company and Google last February that is worth reading about, if you haven't already: http://www.localseoguide.com/hey-seos-if-google-maps-calls-dont-answer/

I hope these resources will prove helpful, and if you would like to return with further clarification about what you mean in regards to having both a Google+ Local page and a Places Page, I would be glad to read it. Please, link to objects whenever you can. Thanks!

Hi Kanya,

That's right - if the company is not local, having a P.O. box where they receive mail is totally fine. No worries about that.

Hey There!

It sounds like a new GMB listing is in order to me. Like you, I'm a Local SEO, but without having complete knowledge of the situation, I'm making a general guess instead of giving informed advice. It's not unheard of for marketers to pay to consult with others marketers when in doubt. If, with the business' whole scenario before you, you're not 100% convinced you know the right course to set, it could be invaluable to to reach out to someone else in the industry and offer to pay for their time to consult with you while looking at the actual business and its history and goals. In your shoes, if I wasn't sure my advice was perfect, that's what I'd do

Hi Lindsay,

You've asked an important question. All of local search hangs on NAP (business name - address - phone number). The consistency with which a business' NAP is published across the Internet is key to its ability to rank. For SABs like yours (service area businesses like plumbers, dog walkers or carpet cleaning companies) without brick-and-mortar locations, Google requires that you include your address while creating your Google Places/Google+ Local page, but that you choose the option that hides it. Google does not want the addresses of SABs to be displayed on their local products. So, despite the fact that your address will be hidden in the SERPs, it will still be listed in the backend dashboard and Google will know what it is. Most typically, for SABs, this address is their home address.

Google considers any business as being a most relevant result for its city of location. If your dog walking business is located in San Francisco, then Google considers you as a most relevant result for queries that either stem from San Francisco-based devices or use the words 'San Francisco' in the search term. Even if the the dog walker walks dogs in Oakland, Berkeley or San Jose, Google does not care about this. Google primarily cares that the dog walker is located in San Francisco and is most likely to show her in the local results only for San Francisco-related queries.

So, typically, what SABs must do is go after the local pack results for their city of location and work towards getting organic results for their other service cities. The most common strategy for this scenario is the creation of unique, strong city landing pages for each of their service cities. All of the above is standard operating procedure.

However, your scenario presents a somewhat unique problem if I am understanding your explanation correctly. Are you saying that your service area has nothing to do with your home address and that you do not offer services in your own city - only in other cities? If so, then you are in an atypical situation. If you only walk dogs in other cities and not your own, then the use of your home address as a home base for your business is not going to help, and is likely to drive business your way that you cannot fulfill. In such a case, your options would be to:

1. Not attempt to make use of the basics of Local SEO; not to use your address in any form; not to get a Google Places/Google+ Local page or other citations for your business. You would need to rely solely on organic SEO in hopes of gaining some organic visibility for these other cities where you serve but are not located. You will be at a disadvantage, however, because competitors who are physically located in these other cities will almost certainly receive preferential treatment from Google.

2. Get a physical location in at least one of your service cities. This must not be a P.O. box or virtual office of any kind, as this is forbidden by Google. Instead, you would need to rent a modest physical space from a company like ActivSpace.com and set up shop there so that you could proceed as usual with Local SEO.

If, however, I've misunderstood your explanation and you simply mean that you have a large service are that does include the area in which you live, then you can proceed like any SAB. You can:

1. Build a strong website, with city landing pages for each of your service cities

2. Create a Google Places/Google+ Local page for your city of location, using your home address but hiding it in the dashboard

3. Proceed to build citations for your business

4. Utilize other forms of marketing such as linkbuilding, Social Media, video marketing etc.

I hope this answer helps you see a clear path ahead!

Hi Masterworksintl,

Bede is offering you good advice. You need to report the closed business as closed, and also engage in work to remove/edit any references across web that feature the old address. This can be a big job, so be prepared to spend some time on in, or hire a professional citation editor to do the work for you. It's amazing how many citations of a business can appear around the web in even 6 months' time.

Hey Brett!

There are some nuances to this I want to be sure I'm understanding.

1. How many physical locations do you have? Are you saying that you have 1 physical location from which you are serving all of those states, or do you have physical locations in each of the states?

2. Are you meeting face-to-face with your customers in each of these states, either at your office or at their homes/businesses?

Please, answer these 2 questions as fully as possible.

Regarding instances in which Google does not show local results for a given query, this is based on their internal interpretation of what is most relevant. Google makes a decision about whether a searcher's intent is local or not, and also, they determine whether there is enough relevant local data to show on a given query. No one (but Google) knows all of the ins and outs of these decisions, but it's not something you can really influence. The important thing is to recognize whether Google is showing local or organic results for your core queries and then do everything you can to become dominant in those results, either via local or traditional marketing methods. Remember, too, that results are personalized - so you searching from Hawaii are not seeing the same results that your customer is searching from California

I'll look forward to your replies on questions 1 & 2.

Hi Meier,

Hmm, I'm not aware of a plugin that auto-generates links to all your review profiles. Maybe someone else in our community knows of one? However, just for fun and inspiration, check out this page: http://barbaraoliverandco.com/reviews-testimonials/

If that were my client, I'd put the asks higher up on the page, but this is Mike Blumenthal's client so I won't second guess him

Also, be sure you are reading the review guidelines of each platform you're planning to showcase before you move ahead.

Hi Oren,

I do not have direct experience with Google Business Photos for my own business and am hoping a member who has will pop in to speak of their experience. To this conversation I would like to add a little on-topic question of my own for these members.

While there is certainly nothing negative about utilizing this Google opportunity, I can't help but think that its usefulness has been significantly diminished by the fact that Google has now essentially buried Google+ Local pages in the main SERPs. These business photos typically reside on the Google+ Local page and in Google Maps, I believe, so while they may still be accessible via Maps, there are too many hoops to jump through now for an average user to reach the + Local page from the SERPs. So, my question, and I hope this will help Oren, too: do you think it is still worthwhile to invest the time in getting 360 business photos given the recent changes in Google's handling of + Local pages? I'd be very interested in your answer.

Hi Brian,

You should not create a Places/Google+ Local listing for the mailing address location. You must have a real, physical address and unique local phone number to seek inclusion in Google's local products. So, until you have a physical address and not a virtual address, mailing address, P.O box or any other variant, you should not attempt to create a listing. This could definitely hurt your overall standings with Google because it would violate their rules, and of course, you don't want to do that. Here are the guidelines for your perusal:

http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528

Hi There!

So, local rankings are mainly based on the physical location of your business. Are you talking about a local business or are you maybe talking about a virtual directory? If the former, then it is important to use your city terms in your optimization, whether this is items in a navigation menu, wording in a URL, title tags or main body copy. But, if the latter, and the business is a directory without a physical location, then it will not be eligible to rank in the local results.

Please, feel free to provide further details if I'm not quite catching your meaning here. Glad to keep chatting!

Hey Meier,

Neat topic! If the competitors' local profiles have a high page authority, links are a good guess. This isn't really my area of expertise and I'm hoping you'll get abundant community feedback, but it could be that the competitors are doing barnacle SEO. Are you familiar with that term? If not, check out: http://www.searchinfluence.com/2011/01/barnacle-seo-original/. Have you done a link audit of the competitor?

I'm referring specifically to page authority, here, of course, which is not the same thing as where a business ranks within a given platform like Yelp.

And, neither the page authority of a local business listing nor its internal ranking on a third party platform = Google local pack rankings, which are believed to be made up of several hundred factors. Organic rank definitely does influence local pack rank, but there are so many other factors to take into consideration, including (as you've pointed out) spam.

Hey Oren,

I'm back with some totally interesting feedback for you. As I mentioned, I asked around a bit amongst colleagues and while there is a difference of opinion as to whether 360 has any influence on rank, I got an extremely cool reply from Mike Blumenthal who pointed out some visibility of the product that I had not previously run into. Mike has given me permission to quote him here:

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The Google Business photos (interior street view) are reasonably visible and show on the front page of search when you scroll over the listing or click on the listing in the carousel. So in that sense they are as visible as any piece of local data can be

If he feels that quality and sensibility of his office are such that they provide a competitive advantage, assuming that he is showing on the first page, then they probably make sense. Usually they are a one time investment and if there are not too many rooms can be had in the $500-700 range

I generally recommend them for industries that are visually "sensitive" i.e. where decor is a critical part of the buying process…. B&B, fancier restaurants etc....Would I recommend them to the local lawn and garden shop? Probably not.

Click this example

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So, there is something new! Whether you have the carousel view for your industry and are ranking highly in it would be deciding factors. I sincerely hope this helps you to get further in the decision-making process and thanks to Mike for his input. There's a reason we call him 'Professor Maps'!

Hi Tom, So glad to hear it!

Hi Nick,

Your citations should all list the same URL if you are dealing with a single physical address. Citations may or may not act as followed links for your business, so in building them, earning links is not really the primary goal. Rather, you are building citations to be sure your local business' name, address, phone number and website are consistently distributed across a wide variety of local business platforms.

Hi Michael!

I'm sure our cool community will love to help you out in any way they can. We'll need some further details, though, to dig into your scenario. The link you are sharing is going to a login screen (so, not visible to the public). Can you share:

1. The name and address of your business?

2. The top 1-3 keyword phrases you're hoping to compete for?

3. A link to your website?

If you're able to share these details, I'm sure you'll receive good feedback from the community

Hi vzPRO,

Thanks for the follow-up. It may well be that a Google rep will recommend precisely the same thing they recommended to you, but just in case not, I think it's better to go through the contact form. Really appreciate you sharing that you had success with the process, and sharing the dates, too.

Hi Kevin,

Google's review product has been buggy since day one, but as of the rollout of the new Google+ system, the rise in review issues has been totally astronomical. The Google and Your Business Forum is literally drowning in complaints about this.

Read Mike Blumenthal's quick post: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/07/30/google-local-and-review-issues/

And here's another one from Mike that's been widely cited: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/09/24/asking-for-reviews-post-apocalypse/

I have seen lots and lots of threads in the Google forum about reviews being visible when logged in, but not in public.

Here's one: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/business/XQYWVOCFebc

Here's another: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/review$20only$20visible/business/9ro8W8hzKiM/CALKB8W7vwAJ

I wrote a post here at SEOmoz back in August on the subject of lost reviews:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lost-your-google-reviews-take-a-proactive-stance

However, despite the efforts of things like the Mike Blumenthal consolidated thread of lost reviews (referenced in my above blog post) the review system continues to be totally broken. This is a cause of huge frustration, particularly since Google has made it increasingly difficult to even leave a review. When so many of them get filtered out, the appeal of making an effort to review a business is certainly diminished. Google is basically trying to fight spam - which is good - but they are throwing the baby out with the bathwater in too many cases when it comes to reviews.