Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
Hi Erin,
Chris' advice is exactly what I would have given. Go ahead and add the 800 number to the masthead of the website or elsewhere in image text. Just be sure that the indexable text on the website features the local number, and be sure that this local number is the one being used on all of the client's citations. Consistency is king in Local SEO.
Glad you figured this out, Bob. For anyone else coming across this post, I'm assuming the original question here was referring to NAP consistency. A comma, of the kind Bob has identified, should not detract from the desired consistency. Things to worry about would be a difference in the business name, the numbers or spelling of the street address, a wrong zip code or phone number. A comma isn't going to make any difference.
Hi Tomer!
I'd advise creating all of your listings under the same account so that you can manage them all from a single Google My Business dashboard.
Hi Ray,
Harvey is definitely pointing you in the right direction. Definitely read David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors. It is the premiere annual industry report. *Do bear in mind that the last report (I'm a yearly participant) was published just prior to the launch of the whole Google+ Local system, so it does not reflect that big change. Here are 2 pieces I send my own clients when they are just getting acquainted with Local:
The Zen of Local SEO
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1314
The Rudiments of Local
SEO http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1344
Local ranking factors are very diverse...there may be more than 200 factors in Google's local algo. Here are some of the most widely cited factors:
Lack of violations on your Google Places/Google+ Local profiles. Nothing kills rankings like violations. Memorize the guidelines: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528
Age and authority of your domain (you can't control age but you can build authority) - Local and traditional optimization of your website
Consistency, quantity and quality of citations
Quantity of Google-based reviews
Proximity to city centroid of the target city and proximity to Google's cluster of similar businesses
Traditional SEO factors such as quantity and quality of links and co-occurrence.
Social factors
That's just a start, but it does sum up some of the main things that go into achieving a high local rank in the city in which your business is physically located. Read David Mihm's report, the 2 articles I've linked to and the Google Places Quality Guidelines I've linked to and you will develop a very clear picture of your business' opportunities, its present failings and its room to grow.
Hi SEOSarah,
You know, this is such a good question and is one I am positive must be occurring to many Local SEO and local business owners as we transition from the old Places dashboard to the new Places for Business Dashboard. As you've correctly observed, the old dashboard contains those additional details fields, but the new dashboard lacks them. So far as I know, nobody knows whether Google ever plans to re-introduce those fields into the new dashboard They may or may not, but these clearly have not been transferred over from the old dash to the new. A similar conundrum has arisen over the old custom categories and the new dash which allows for 10 categories but will only accept pre-set choices.
If you are still seeing the old Places dashboard then, yes, I would take the time to fill out the additional details section if appropriate. Even if this isn't being displayed, I would assume that the data exists behind the scenes in Google's cluster of information about the business, so why not fill it out? It should only take a few seconds to do and can't hurt you.
As to categories, though, if you are still seeing the old dash, I would recommend against choosing any custom categories as these are definitely not making the transition to the new dash. I would choose from Google's pre-set category taxonomy only.
Hope this helps!
Hi Swendt!
In most cases, yes, you'll want to update the existing GMB listing with the new data. But just to be sure you're covering all bases, do check out this great recent article from Search Engine Land:
http://searchengineland.com/business-owners-guide-moving-office-234671
Hope this helps!
P.S. Just a heads up that you may need to postcard-verify again with Google when you move. Not always, but sometimes.
Hi Abi,
We're glad to have you here! I want to be sure I'm understanding your question. Yes, that rule is still true about Google only counting the first link to a given document. I believe you are concerned that if your menu doesn't say Auto Locksmith Boston, you will somehow be losing out. While it's good to have optimized items in your menu, you don't want to look spammy. This would look spammy to me in a menu, and I bet it might to Google to:
Auto Locksmith Boston
Auto Locksmith Portsmouth
Auto Locksmith Truro
Auto Locksmith Plymouth
It's just too repetitive. So, what can you do? You can create a main page for your locksmith services in your city of location. The goal of this page will typically be to attain high LOCAL rankings. You can then create city landing pages for your service radius cities, but don't stamp them out cookie-cutter fashion. Find something unique to write about your involvement in those other cities, and don't just list them in the menu like I've shown above. Write something interesting, helpful and cool. The goal of these pages will typically be ORGANIC rankings, because you're unlikely to locally outrank competitors in neighboring cities who have their physical shops there.
So, you are a single entity offering this single service...Auto Locksmithing. That deserves one page. But you can write up your service cities, too, so long as what you're doing is unique and useful.
In sum, I recommend that you menu contains a link for Auto Locksmith Services, and then you have a separate area of the menu showcasing your work in different cities. I do not recommend making a menu like the one above.
Hope this helps!
Hey Ron,
That's a good resource you've linked to, but I think what SEOSarah is talking about is growing pains switching from the old dash to the new one. Some of the old fields no longer exist in the new dash and the data in them isn't being displayed on the new +Local pages, so I think this is causing some confusion for people.
Hi There,
I'm so sorry, but I've never marketed a business in the UK or Ireland. If you don't receive a response from a UK marketer in the community, I recommend taking your question to Google's own Google My Business forum:
https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-My-Business/ct-p/GMB
You are certain to get an answer there.
Hi Tim,
I have not personally had to deal with a situation like yours in relation to Yahoo. Chris has made a good suggestion. I'll add this link:
I would try signing into the client's account from there and see if you can get direct contact with Yahoo that way. Sorry not to have a better solution, but I don't have enough practical experience with a brand new building + Yahoo maps. If you do get through and get a response from their team, I'd appreciate it if you return here with an update. Good luck!
Hi Rachel,
Yes, that's pretty much what I was concerned about. Unless that's an office that's staffed during normal business hours, then having a GMB page for it would be a violation of Google's guidelines. It would be important to show those guidelines to the client and explain to them that Google not only has the ability to read signs on the fronts of buildings, but will likely remove the listing should they realize its just a postal address. Not only this, but the takedown of the NY listing could also negatively impact the NJ listing.
So, the very best thing you can do for this client is likely to be totally honest with him, show him the guidelines and explain that he is risking the good name of his company (in Google's eyes) by attempting to appear to be physically located in a place that he isn't. Most business owners care way too much about the future of their companies to do something like this, once they have the proper education. That's where we come in, to help clients make sound decisions based on our own education.
There are appropriate ways to market a business in locations where you don't have a physical office - ways that have no risk attached to them and that have been endorsed by Google - but having a GMB page for a mailing address isn't one them. Hope this helps and good luck to you in helping get your client a better, safer path!
Hi Allenrocks,
You write:
I suppose the solution is to become more creative about rewriting the same services.
Yep, that's pretty much the solution. I know, for some industries, this is really challenging. For others, it's easier. Try to get the client involved as much as possible to discover ideas. Good luck!
Hi Netlover,
The following local business indexes/directories require phone verification either part of the time, or always:
Bing
Yelp
Foursquare
Infogroup/Express Update
iBegin
Other forms of verification will include email and postal mail verification or a combination of these with phone verification. Hope this helps!
Hi Rachel,
When a business is a service area business (like a plumber, locksmith, electrician, housekeeping service, etc.) it's totally fine to build content on the website about the cities they serve, even if they aren't physically located there. It's a best practice for these types of business models to have a page on their site for each major service city. Requirements are that each page be totally unique and of high quality. The thing you want to research here is landing page content. Here's an article of mine from 2014 on this. Some of the terms are outdated due to Google changes, but the basic ideas are the same:
https://www.google.com/search?q=moz+local+landing+pages+guide&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
This is a start, but it would be a great idea to research this topic further for other ideas about the types of content you might create. However, unless the business has postal queries, including the mailing addresses on the pages will not help and might just be confusing. Hope this helps!
Hi Bob,
My take on this is that the part that needs to disappear from the various service pages is the 'richardson-tx-cosmetic-dentistry', but, I will beg to gently differ regarding total removal of the city names. I would recommend URLs like this:
http://koooskidental.com/teeth-whitening-richardson-tx
http:/kooskidental.com/invisalign-richardson-tx
http://kooskidental.com/dental-implants-richardson-tx
etc.
Those URLs aren't too long they are highly localized, which I feel is totally the way to go for a local business website.
Hi Drew,
I will add to Tom's thoughtful response by recommending that you study the recent Local Search Ranking Factors 2013 (http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors) and look at the different factors that have greatest influence in the mobile environment vs. the desktop environment if the goal is mobile local rankings. Hope this helps!
Hi Jonas!
I haven't had to deal with special characters much, personally, but here's how I look at this. It's going to be most important that your website and your Google My Business page match up - so, it sounds like Google is supporting your special character, so be sure your website is branded that way, too. As for your other citations, I do feel some concerns. You may need to stick to building citations only on those directories that support your special character, or what you will end up with is a bunch of citations that are sharing your phone number, address and website URL, but not your name.
Unfortunately, even if you do stick to building citations only on platforms which support the special character, you are likely to run into a problem because of the way data is shared around the local ecosystem. For example, if you create a citation on golocal and they do accept your character, but they then push that data to das ortliche, and this platform doesn't support the character, it could automatically change the N°1 to No1, meaning that citation inconsistency could end up being auto-generated around the web for the business, simply because of the way data is shared (see: https://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-europe). So, basically, I think you're going to have NAP inconsistencies no matter what you do here.
Is it a big enough problem for the business to consider re-branding? That really depends on how well their business is already known. If they aren't well-known, a re-brand might make sense.
Matt,
Cody has given you some excellent replies. Just want to be sure this point hits home. Do not write your title tags like this:
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Home
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - About Us
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Rates
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - FAQ
Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Etc
These are nearly duplicates. Title tags appear as the first line in many search engine listings and should read in a manner that engages the user, as well as incorporating your keywords. Be sure you are writing a unique title, header and meta description for every page on the website.
Further, if you are planning to work with mainly local businesses, it will be critical that you understand not just traditional SEO best practices for on-page optimization, but also Local SEO best practices for on-page optimization. There are special opportunities and best practices both on-site and off for Local business that your website design firm will need to master in order to be helping clients achieve the visibility they will be hoping for.
Hi Robert,
I think you've raised such an important point here:
"I think you are falling into a very bad trap in SEO. You are looking for the "thing" that is going to do it and that does not exist IMO.".
That is quite correct. We know that the Local algo consists of several hundred different factors. Success depends on getting many, many little things right - not just one big thing. I found this comment to be extremely insightful.