Google Business Places SEO Question
-
Hi All,
I have set up different Google Business Places listings for each of my locations for my business. I want each location to rank for their retrospective keywords.
So from an SEO point of view to help these rank..
When choosing Keywords/Categories for my listing , should I use my main keyword + my location
example - I have a carpet cleaner hire depot in London and I want to rank for London so should my keyword be just carpet cleaner hire or Carpet Cleaner Hire London. My other depot is say in the location of Watford so should that listing have keywords that contain Watford in them ?.
Also - Should the description contain my localised keywords ?
I have looked around and cant' find much on this topic
Any pointers would be greatly appreciated
thanks
Sarah
-
Hi Sarah,
Good questions!Regarding choosing categories - no, do not use geo terms in the categories. This will likely lead to penalization. Some tips: it's best if you can choose at least 2 of Google's pre-set categories as your first 2 categories if you can't find pre-set choices for all 5, but if you have to use your own custom-written categories for the last 3, that's fine. Be sure they follow the 'is-not-does' rule. So for you, your business IS a carpet cleaning company, so a category like that is fine, but your company DOES carpet cleaning and that is not an allowed category. Similar examples: plumber is okay, but plumbing is not. Dog walker is okay, but dog walking is not. Hair salon is okay, but hair cuts is not. So, be sure to follow this rule.
Regarding what to put in the business description field, again, strongly advise against using any type of geo terms in this field (no cities, zip codes, phone numbers, regional terms, county terms, etc.). While there has never been a public rule against this, it has long been observed that the use of geo terms in the category field can dock your listing. So, avoid that. The best use of the business description field, in my opinion, is to offer up your key selling points in this area. For example, if you've won a Best-Of award. Or if you offer a free initial consultation. Or a money back guarantee. Or have 35 years of experience. In other words, share your unique value proposition here.
I also try to avoid using any of the keywords in the description field that I've already used as a category. Again, this isn't a publicly acknowledged rule, but it has been observed in the past as possibly being problematic.
The only thing you need for Google to understand the locale of a given Google+ Local page is its address and phone number field. Fill these out accurately and depend on that rather than using geo terms any place else on the listing - not in the business title, categories, description or anywhere else.
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
-
Homepage is deindexed in Google
Please help for some reason my website home page has disappeared, we have been working on the site but nothing that I can think of which would block it. There are no warnings in google console? Can anyone lend a hand in understanding what has gone wrong, I would really appreciate it. The site is: http://www.discountstickerprinting.co.uk/ Seems to be working again but I had to fetch the home page in google console, any idea why this has happened cannot afford a heat op at this age lol?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Google News error in Google Search Console
My google search console states some errors as below: 1. Article fragmented Some of the urls in this error are the category urls. How to make google bot understand it is a category not an article? 2. Article too short In fact the article is quite long. I do not know why this is happen... 3. No sentence found In fact, there are a lot of sentences Please help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | binhlai0 -
Homepage disappeared from Google
Hello, Since 2 weeks, our website is losing positions in Google. After years on the first page, we dropped for our main keyword to the 3rd page. Seems that all the positions we lost, were ranking with the homepage. Now, we are on the 3rd page but with a less important page. How is it possible that only the homepage disappeared? Is there any explanation for that? I hope there is an explanation, so we can fix the trouble. Kind regards, Tine
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TineDL0 -
Google images
Hi, I am working on a website with a large number (millions) of images. For the last five months Ihave been trying to get Google Images to crawl and index these images (example page: http://bit.ly/1ePQvyd). I believe I have followed best practice in the design of the page, naming of images etc. Whilst crawlng and indexing of the pages is going reasonably well with the standard crawler, the image bot has only crawled about half a million images and indexed only about 40,000. Can anyone suggest what I could do to increase this number 100 fold? Richard
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichardTay0 -
Google places Ad
Like adwords is their any good way of advertising a business place at Google map? If the answer is yes.Can you please take me through the process and give me rough idea about cost?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | csfarnsworth0 -
Google Places - Advanced Question
Hi All, Ive found multiple threads about previous issues but I haven't found any tailored to my specific question.I know there are a large amount of factors so I wanted to see if any other individuals had ran into this previously. We are currently in a centralized position in a major city. We are discussing moving the main office about 15 miles away into another city, moving us out of the main city where we have been for the past 3 years. The city where we are currently located has a lot more GEO search volume compared to the new city search terms and variants of. If we move will our local rankings drop when someone searches in the city where we were previously? How long would it take for this ranking to fall? Or would we still rank because we are moving a short distance away and have a large amount of citations there? I know we would need to change over all our online directories, on page etc..Any other suggestions on a smooth transition? I know there are many factors that go into this and any past experience, guidance and/or assistance is greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PRKEL0 -
Followup question to rand(om) question: Would two different versions (mobile/desktop) on the same URL work well from an SEO perspective and provide a better overall end-user experience?
We read today's rand(om) question on responsive design. This is a topic we have been thinking about and ultimately landing on a different solution. Our opinion is the best user experience is two version (desktop and mobile) that live on one URL. For example, a non-mobile visitor that visits http://www.tripadvisor.com/ will see the desktop (non-responsive) version. However, if a mobile visitor (i.e. iOS) visits the same URL they will see a mobile version of the site, but it is still on the same URL There is not a separate subdomain or URL - instead the page dynamically changes based on the end user's user agent. It looks like they are accomplishing this by using javascript to change the physical layout of the page to match the user's device. This is what we are considering doing for our site. It seems this would simultaneously solve the problems mentioned in the rand(om) question and provide an even better user experience. By using this method, we can create a truly mobile version of the website that is similar to an app. Unfortunately, mobile versions and desktop users have very different expectations and behaviors while interacting with a webpage. I'm interested to hear the negative side of developing two versions of the site and using javascript to serve the "right" version on the same URL. Thanks for your time!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davidangotti0 -
A few questions regarding listings in Google Places
For an SAB (Service Area Business) with a hidden address - Can you have more then one listing? Can you use a free Google Voice number? Can you forward the number to a main number? Can the listing be in an office building? Such as a rented space... For a non SAB listing with the address visible - Can you use free Google voice numbers for each listing and forward them to one main number?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryan_Loconto0