Local Targeting without the city’s name
-
Here’s an interesting one for you guys: We show up on page 1 for “Edmonton web design,” (our website is http:web3.ca), however when you search for just “web design” in our city, we don’t seem to show up at all. I know Google is now placing a higher percentage or local companies in a search. So my question is: how can we show up better for a local search that is just “web design”? Does this just come down to domain authority & content or are there other key local factors at play?
-
Hi Gordon,
Thanks for coming back for further clarification, and I apologize if my response was too vague to be properly understood. Let me try to explain this better.
When you do a search for something like 'pizza manchester' or you do a search just for 'pizza' from a Manchster-based device, Google will typically show you 3 types of results. One will be the traditional organic results that have been around forever. There will also be PPC AdWords results, right?
But there will be a third type of result for this specific kind of query, and that will be the true local results, which are accompanied by the grey tear-drop shaped pins with letters in them. Those are the local results, currently most typically linked to the business' Google+ Local pages. They are governed by different data and are really separate from the traditional organic results.
Google may show only one result like this on a page, or they may show 3, or 7, etc. The display has changed many times over the past half decade, but basically, the idea here is that these must be viewed as totally distinct from the other types of results on the page, as different factors govern them.
What we were discussing earlier is that, back in 2010, Google stopped showing true local results for website design and SEO firms. So, you'll get organic results for these queries, not local ones.
I hope this makes better sense.
-
Hi Miriam,
I guess I'm simply showing my ignorance by asking the question how can I tell the difference?
-
Hi Web3 Marketing,
I'm finding it challenging to provide a really good answer to your reiterated question, because, to me, 'web design' just isn't a local search, because Google doesn't view it that way. If personalization is having a localizing effect on some devices, signed in/not signed in, turned on/turned off, then, yes, we can sort of say that Google is giving some local treatment of this as they would to all queries, but overall, I think this has to be viewed organically rather than locally.
That being the case, your organic SEO is likely going to boil down to a mixture of the traditional age+content+links+authority, etc. Of these, I would imagine that your content strategy would be really crucial in sending a strong message of locale, so that, in those instances where you are seeing some effect of localized personalization happening, you might gain an edge. The trouble is, are your potential clients seeing these types of SERPs or are they simply seeing the common, broad results for this broad search term?
-
Hi Gordon, Thanks for your reply. The results you are seeing are organic, though, not local, right? If they are actually local, that's big news. But, even if they are organic, then, yes, that is different than how I see this broad search handled where I live in the US. No local companies...just (presumably) big companies.
-
From what I've been seeing, it depends how your browser is set up. For instance, if you have geotargeting turned off on your phone, you will get much broader results, however, I have seen the same local results (just like Gordan) When searching from my desktop. So that still leaves the question: how can you perform better on a local search without the city's name? That is - from a computer where google has your location set to your specific city (Edmonton in my case). We will see what effect a new website for http:web3.ca will have.
-
I wasn't aware web design companies were treated differently.
I've just typed web design into google here in Manchester, UK, and the top 5 spots are taken up with Manchester based companies....
Maybe it's different in the states.
-
Hi Gordon, By that, I meant that standard Local procedures relate to typical business models like those. Web Design firms, however, fall into a category of their own, and Google handles them differently than they would almost any other local business model.
-
Hi Miriam,
you say " If you were a plumber or a doctor, the answer would be simple". How so?
-
Hi Anton,
Because of the nature of your business (web design), you fall into a funny category in Google's handling of the SERPs. If you were a plumber or a doctor, the answer would be simple, but Google hasn't shown local results for queries like 'web design Edmonton' since 2010. Both website design and SEO firms all got knocked out of the true Local index at that point, and so, your efforts for rankings actually have to be viewed as organic, rather than local, because of this oddity.
What are you seeing when you simply search for 'web design' from an Edmonton-based device? Are you seeing organic rankings of any local companies, or are they random, national businesses. When I search for web design from my computer, I don't get any companies in my town (despite the fact that my own website design company is located there!) What I do get is big, monster design firms and entries from things like Wikipedia giving definitions of the term 'web design'. So, that leads me to view a search like 'web design' as a really broad search. I'm not doing a technical analysis of each of the top 10 listings, but whatever their authority is, Google is showing them to me, and it appears to have nothing to do with my locale.
Do this same search yourself, and I would bet you are seeing the same. If so, this means that ranking for the broad term 'web design' would be a matter of major organic SEO work (and probably not something most web design companies are even aiming for) simply because of the scope of the competition. Now, if you are seeing something different than what I'm describing, that would be worth noting, too. If Google is showing Edmonton-based companies for the broad search, that would be very interesting to me to know.
At the end of the day, regardless of what Google is displaying, everything must be viewed from an organic mindset rather than a true local one, because of Google's handling of web design firms.
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there an index of local blogs somewhere?
I'm trying to find (and evaluate) blogs in my area, but searching for them via google has been pretty tedious so far. Does anyone know of a website where I can locate blogs in my area? For example, ideally, I'd like to go to something like www.blogfinder.com, type in Tampa and get a list of all the blogs dedicated to this area. Anyone know of anything like that? Thanks, Ruben
Image & Video Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Will it help/hinder our local seo by including our local adress on multiple pages?
We have a large website that targets the whole UK. It has landing pages for every town in the UK. For the towns that this particular business has a bricks and mortar hq, we have set up a local/places page. We then added the corresponding places adress to the appropriate town page on the website. This is just a handful compared to the 3,000,000 towns our site aims to rank for. Question: Would it help or hinder our SEO efforts to add the local addresses to other town pages in close proximity to the original? For instance say we have a places address for croydon in London. Would it hurt to add this address to pages that target towns near croydon, such as Mitcham. All opinions greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Image & Video Optimization | | Silkstream0 -
Local listing services that will do phone verification of ownership
can you please tell me some local listing directory services that will do phone verification instead of sending out the post card?
Image & Video Optimization | | netlover0 -
LOCAL SEO: Franchise --> One storefront. Multiple territory. Multiple listings?
An interesting problem came our way, and I'd love your help in solving it. An individual I'm chatting with owns and manages a number of territories of a service-based Franchise business around Eastern Iowa.**His territory covers multiple cities and zips. He services all of those places, but does not have a physical presence in all. There is one company office. But he has local numbers for each territory.**The corporate franchise's website is dynamic. It shows the 'local' number and information based on the visitor's location. Basically, little microsites for each franchise territory.Three years ago he set up individual Google Places pages for each territory, using a PO box address and the local phone numbers. The Google listings are set up not to display an address. The kick is -- those addresses are now expired. Those Google Local listings still exist, and drive considerable traffic in each target city. As you can imagine, this also causes havoc on his other citations. There are scattered (YP, Yahoo, Yelp, etc) listings for each address. Their name in GetListed brings up all five different addresses, each with a number of web properties already claimed.Now that I've offered to help, I need to determine the best way to move forward. Suspend the verified listings with hidden addresses and move to a single listing for the office location? We could add all of the zips in manually, but it would cover a very wide range, and could lose its rank in local SERPs. Even with a well-optimized description. And the local numbers would likely not show up. Keep the listings. Don't touch them at all. The owner is looking to maintain the look and feel of a local business in each of his territories. That is difficult to do with a single listing. Assuming we decide not to touch the active listings (option 2), what will we do for other listings? Do we claim a local Yahoo listing for each location? Just for the corporate office? Would love to hear how others have attacked the multi-territory franchise problem, or would in this case.Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | SocialJosh0 -
City/Town content pages for a local business
Earlier this month I asked a private question on the use of schema for service area pages on a home improvement contractors website. The question led to Miriam Ellis giving me some great ideas about creating content for pages specific to the clients service area. The goal here would be to rank for [roofing contractor + city] using a URL similar to: mycompany.com/service-areas/city-state A great idea Miriam gave me for creating content for these pages: Showcasing a previous project in that city/town with a well-written project description, photos, videos and client testimonials. Her advice is excellent and I wanted to share it with you. I also wanted to open up the discussion and see what others have had success with. If the company is relatively new, and doesn’t have the work history to create pages such as this, what would you do?
Image & Video Optimization | | WilliamCarr0 -
Our site is showing up #1 for most terms with a blended local listing, but no longer in the organic listings
...after some SEO updates were made. While I am ecstatic about a #1 local listing, I am concerned that we aren't getting that second organic listing on even the top 50 results! Besides improving the content and SEO on the inner pages with the hopes to get them to rank, does anyone have any suggestions for what we are doing wrong? We (dm-remodel.com) are ranking well for things like "ann arbor kitchen remodeling" and "ann arbor bathroom remodeling" Thank you very much for any help!!
Image & Video Optimization | | MeganCough0 -
Local SEO address question - adding a suite number for shared address for office building
Hi, I have a client that has an address that is shared for a few different businesses in the holistic health field. My client is a chiropractor. There is an eye doctor, massage therapist and acupuncturist aslo sharing the same address. It's a subburban setting with two buildings all sharing one address. In the interest of preventing any merged listings down the road, I recently added un unofficial suite number to his website and Google places business listing. I also did this for all of his online directory listings, and for Bing and Yahoo as well. Did I do the right thing here? It seems to be having a positive impact on his local SEO as far as I can tell. Or at least there has not been any negative impact in the last 6 months Your thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | MozMan20 -
Multi-site listings in Google Local/Place pages
I've had problems with a client that is a local medical center with multiple sites/addresses. We've created a Place Page for each location and linked it to the location page on the client's website that matches the address on the Place page. But that means we're not linking to the medical center's home page -- and Google Places doesn't like that. I know this because after we'd owner-verified each Place Page, Google went in and just changed the website link that was a deep link to a location page and replaced it with a link to the home page. But now there's not an address match. How should we handle this? Related question: Does it make sense to claim a separate listing in Yelp and other local directories for each of the separate locations since they each have a unique address? Will Yelp & other local directories allow for links to non-home pages on the client's website?
Image & Video Optimization | | DenisL0