Weird: Local Landing Page Not Showing In "City + Brand" Search Query
-
Hi Mozzers,
I've noticed something strange that I can't quite wrap my head around. I'm hoping it's an easy fix and I'm just overlooking something.
Backstory: I'm managing all things digital for a local flooring retailer that has 6 showrooms in the region. I've done basic local SEO - local landing pages with proper markup, GMB set up and verification, Moz Local scores are in the 80% range for each location and improving steadily, etc. However, one of my locations is way behind all of the others in both organic searches and the map.
Recently, I did a search for "city + brand" for this particular location in an incognito window and the page came up on the 4th page. When I perform the same search for any of the other locations, the respective landing page come up 1st or 2nd along with the homepage. I even searched using the title tag as well as a few more specific searches and still nothing on the first page.
This is weird, right? Has anyone experienced this before? Search Console came back perfect, so no penalties and it's definitely being indexed.
For reference, the page I am referring to is http://www.nextdayfloors.net/locations/columbia/ and the location query I am using is "Columbia, MD"
Any help is much appreciated!
Thanks!
Tim
-
Hey Thomas,
By a happy coincidence, I just happened to write a blog post on this here recently:
https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages
Hope it gives you some new ideas!
-
Thanks for all of your insight! The company rebranded from Bill's in 2014, so we're in the process of cleaning up the citations. It does take a lot of time for 6 locations!
One question regarding the content on the landing pages... what else would you recommend adding? I already have 300+ word body copy, hours, directions, map, photos, store manager, etc.
Thanks again!
-
Hey Thomas!
-
Perfectly fine that they kept the number as long as you are working on getting every possible old citation cleaned up to reflect the new address/new number. Moz Local will help with this, but you may need to do some manual work as well. Good to know that no locations are sharing phone numbers. That can be a disaster!
-
Regarding duplicate content, you might want to check out this post, https://moz.com/blog/how-to-defeat-duplicate-content-next-level but if you've only got 6 locations, I would honestly recommend also doing a manual read-through of each of the 6 landing pages to be sure they are actually unique and helpful (i.e. not just swapping out city names or making a minimum effort in some way).
-
Good idea to make the Locations its own link in the menu. That could help!
-
Getting duplicates like these resolved is going to be very important: https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMk5leHQlMjUyMERheSUyNTIwRmxvb3JzJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyMjEwNDUlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjJOZXh0JTI1MjBEYXklMjUyMEZsb29ycyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjY1MDUlMjUyMERvYmJpbiUyNTIwUm9hZCUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjIxMDQ1JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyNDEwNzQ0ODk1MCUyNTIyJTI1NUQ=
The shared phone number between your business and a business called Bill's Carpet Fair is concerning. I don't know if this stems from re-branding or something else, but this would be worth doing a full citation audit for to be sure Google is convinced that your business ... and not Bill's ... is located at that phone number.
-
On these pages, I recommend that you put the business name with the rest of the NAP. Right now, it looks like the name of this business is Columbia, MD Flooring Showroom and you have the address separate below with no name.
-
You might also want to consider putting the 6 locations in the footer.
-
Finally, the content on the landing pages is a decent start, but there's room for improvement, and if you want to convince Google that a landing page is more worthy of top billing than a homepage, assessing and improving the content could be an important step!
-
-
Thanks for checking in, Miriam,
-
So, what is interesting here is this store moved locations in 2014, but kept the same phone number. I've been using Moz Local to help clean this up. Other than that, absolutely not sharing numbers.
-
Yes, it's all unique as far as I'm concerned. Is there a good way to check this?
-
This is something I've heard a few times. We will be adding a Locations link to the top of the page (third nav where Specials live now). It's currently accessible via Ways To Show > In Store
Thanks!
-
-
Hi Thomas!
I see what you mean regarding the homepage rather than the landing page coming up, though the knowledge panel to the right is correct for this location. 3 Quick Questions:
-
Are you sharing phone numbers between any of the locations
-
Is the text on all of your landing pages unique, or is any of it duplicate text?
-
I am not finding an obvious option in your menu to see all of your locations on the website. Something like 'Cities We Serve' in the top menu. What's going on with that?
-
-
There's a lot that could be going on here. How are the citations for each of the locations? Also have you configured the local schema on each local landing page? I wrote an article here on Moz a while back that I think might be helpful:
https://moz.com/ugc/get-your-multilocation-business-ranking-in-multiple-cities-with-one-domain-21815
-
Hi Tim,
I'm seeing much stronger results for my searches on this end. With a query of "columbia next day floors" I have the correct in the 4th organic position. With a query of "columbia md flooring showroom" I'm seeing that same page in position 8.
I will say that this location appears to have tougher competition than the others. Reviews on your Google Local page will help close the gap. Also, it is possible to get the site-wide footer location text linked?
Happy Optimizing!
Lindsay -
However, when I put 'next day floors' in Moz's local search I see you may have some duplicates. Google could be choosing what they perceive is the best instance of the query in some searches and you may be seeing that listing being pushed further down in the SERPs.
-
When I ran a similar query the Columbia, MD location shows up on the first page. It is the Dobbin rd location.
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
-
Business has multiple locations, but want to rank for commutable cities, geographies
Hello, The business I am working for has multiple locations, but the service they provide is one that you would commute for. At present, they have 20 or so pages with yucky geographical keyword stuffed content (think "New York computer services" and they are based out of a suburb (maybe 40 miles away). For some ridiculous reason, some of these pages are ranking for exact match search terms? We are in the process of revamping the whole site-taking approx five sites and integrating into one mega site. I want to first, figure out the best strategy for ranking for the region that each is in and serve, without being spammy like the previous SEO. I want to eliminate the spammy pages without losing the rank and link juice. What is the most appropriate and above-board strategy? These are my thoughts. Should I: 1. Keep the pages, but tweak them enough to make the content quality? If I do, should they be geo pages? Should they be "locations served", statistics of the area, etc? 2. Group the pages according to region (one page per region) that are location-oriented and tweaked to still include the terms they were ranking for (without the spammy look and stuffing), along with a map, etc? And then, I have to figure out how to redirect so not to lose the value we have now for some of them. The company deals with treatment for addiction, so in recommending and tips-remember that our audience will commute by car, and eventually (hopefully) by plane. 😉 Thank you so so much for any and all help you can provide! Sorry for such a long description!
Local Website Optimization | | lfrazer1231 -
City Pages for Local SEO
Hey Mozzers, I have a local SEO question for you. I am working with a medical professional to SEO their site. I know that when creating city pages, you want to try and make each page as strong as you can, showcasing testimonials from people who live in those towns, for instance. Since my client is in the medical profession, i was going to include a list of parks from that town and say something about how, "we want to encourage good health, etc." However, i began to wonder whether i should just create one, large resource for the surrounding towns having to do with parks, dog parks, and athletic activities and link to it in the top nav. thoughts? Nails
Local Website Optimization | | matt.nails0 -
Hreflang errors "no return tag" sitemap.xml , and local search landing page with wrong Languages
Really need help , our website when search in google(US) will provide global page (keyword:asus/asus zenfone3). and search console also return "no return tags"another wear thing is when use googlebot crawl sitemap.xml googlebot cannot finish the file less than a quarterCan you please advise on what needs to be edited or changed to make sure my implementation is correct and not returning errors?
Local Website Optimization | | June01270 -
Sub domain for geo pages
Hello Group! I have been tossing the idea in my head of using sub domains for the geo pages for each of my clients. For example: one of my clients is a lawyer in a very competitive Atlanta market http://bestdefensega.com. Can I set his geo page to woodstock.bestdefensega.com? Is this a viable option? Will I get penalized? Thoughts or suggestions always appreciated! Thanks in Advance
Local Website Optimization | | underdogmike0 -
How to build backlinks to brand new foreign website?
I want to rank a website based on 3 german keywords. i see there is possibility for that because i didn't see optimised website in first results. The domain name is based on my main keyword. how to start building high authority links to my website. Can i place my anchor text backlinks on English high pr websites?
Local Website Optimization | | malekmz0 -
Target broad keywords for local or broad keywords+local city?
Hi, Is it better to target broad keywords in a local market or target 'broad keywords + local city'? Or both? The sites I'm working with currently have landing pages for each 'local city/town + keyword' ... they each have about 5 services they offer and about 7 or more nearby towns they service. This means I'm tracking about 35+ keywords per client. That seems to be a bit much. Am I wrong? Would it be just as effective to target broad keywords and track them locally being that the local market isn't very competitive. Of course the broad keywords yield more search volume according to google keyword tool. However, the current setup is sending a worthwhile traffic volume to the site. According to Miriam's article http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide I'm working with a business model 2 - single brick and mortar location servicing many areas nearby. Thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | LinkPoint0 -
Which internal page approach is better? Couponsite/Kohls OR Couponsite/Houston/Kohls
Google will use the user's location for a restaurant search but it doesn't look to me like it uses it for a national company like Kohls. Is there a way to determine that? Assume I have no physical local presence in Houston for answering the question. Assume also that the coupon I list is a national one that applies everywhere. It seems to me that a facebook post that uses the first one as a link is better because more people live outside of Houston than inside and will see it as relevant, AND I may list it for more than one city. But, for specificity perhaps it makes sense to have the second one as it may be more likely to show up in a Google search result by someone in Houston.. Your thoughts please? Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | couponguy0 -
Separate Domains for Different Locations (in Different Cities)
We are in the process of building a new website for a client with locations in Tucson and Phoenix. Currently, they have one website that encompasses all locations, however, we are going to build them location specific websites (as many of the services are different between locations). Now my question is, as far as SEO goes, which one of these options would be the best? Option 1: Have separate domain names for each location. For example, StevesPetTucson.com and StevesPetPhoenix.com. _Pros: Easy to target specific, local keywords. Better looking domains. _ _Cons: Splits backlinks between two domains. _ Option 2: Setup StevesPet.com/Phoenix and StevesPet.com/Tucson. Pros: Keeps all backlinks pointing to one root domain. Note: We are going to use seperate WordPress installs for both websites, regardless of how we setup the domains. As we will be using different templates, menus and so on, we found this to be the best option. Thanks for any advice!
Local Website Optimization | | McFaddenGavender1