Google locations question for organic search...
-
If you set your Google location to "Dallas, TX" and you do a search for "web design dallas", my client shows up #4. If you change your google location to anywhere else in the US, he is #1. How can I be #1 in Dallas and the US?
(My client is not really in Dallas but I didn't want to give away the city, their site, etc)
-
Hi Trey,
Sorry I wasn't able to offer you a better response on this one. And that is definitely tough when clients are overly preoccupied with rankings.
One other little question for your consideration: In terms of the 4 top businesses' distance to the Dallas city centroid, how close is your client? Again, my standard thinking would be that this would only affect true local results, but who knows? Is the business ranking #1, perhaps, closer to the center of the city than your client?
At any rate, I'm glad you have a few ideas to follow and wish you good luck. Happy New Year!
Miriam
-
Thanks, Miriam.
My original thinking was that I didn't have enough local citations, links, etc. So I concentrated more on that. Then I tried to get only high pr backlinks. Then worked on social marketing knowing that plays a bigger role nowadays. According to the links analysis tool provided here, I am in significantly better seo shape than the competition. There is one site, however, that has significantly more backlinks than I do. Maybe that is the reason...but then again, why am #1 everywhere else? Who knows?
I believe you are correct in that there is no simple answer to this. Just one of those things, I guess.
I will take your advice and see if Bill has anything about this.
My client (who is a web designer - just not in dallas) is one of those "gotta be #1" type guys. We had the biggest argument over this because me, rank tracker and everything thing else said he is #1 but his location is set to "dallas" and he is #4 there.
Thanks, again.
Trey
-
Hi Trey,
I'm sorry you've been on the trail of this puzzle for months to no avail. I want to assure you that I do understand what you are talking about in regards to the setting of location within Google, etc. I have a feeling the reason asking this question in fora isn't yielding a simple answer is that there isn't a simple, standard, across-the-board reason for the ranking variations that you've observed.
I believe that, as the SEO on the project, your best shot will be to use whatever competitive analysis tools you prefer (we have awesome ones here at SEOmoz) to see if you can spot a meaningful difference that would explain why Google feels one site is more relevant to the query than the other, if the person is searching from within the city in question. It may turn out to be something as simple as a title tag structure that favors the local term to something as complex as the authority or locale of the links pointing to one site or the other. It will take some digging and is not something that can be answered at a glance.
That being said, I'd like to throw a couple of notes in here for your observation.
Using your hypothetical query (I understand this isn't really your client's industry or city), I see slight variations in rankings when I search for 'web design dallas' from my own city in California, 'web design dallas tx' from my own city in California and 'web design dallas' when setting my location to Dallas, TX. The top 4 businesses are all moving around slightly within the top 4 positions for these very slightly different searches.
What makes me curious about this situation is that 'web design' is one of the few local queries for which Google refuses to show local results. Their policy is not to treat web design firms as local, but looking at the little ranking variations, I have to wonder if some of the local search ranking factors are being applied under the surface. Now, what I don't know is if your client is actually a web design firm or in one of the other few industries that are barred from inclusion in local search. If they are, I wonder if Bill Slawski at SEObytheSea has written about any patents that might speak to these observable variations. It might be worth contacting him directly about this. He's very good.
There are also the effects of personalization to consider, and whether this is causing any of the ranking variations.
The upshot is, I can't provide a simple answer because I believe in-depth analysis will be required to discern the differences, however large or small, that might be causing Google to handle the results this way. It's probably going to be slightly different in every case. I think you've got a big challenge to surmount...and I hope you don't have one of those difficult clients who pins all expectations on rankings instead of conversions.
Sincerely wishing you good luck in your work and I would be very happy to hear from you if you managed to discover what you feel the solution is!
Miriam
-
Yes, I know. Thank you for your reply.
I understand all that. I have watched that video and a hundred more just like it. Maybe I'm not explaining myself well enough.
I'm talking about how you can set your location on google. After you do any search, if you look to the left, halfway down, you will see a place where you can set your default google location. If you set that to Dallas, TX and then do a search for "web design dallas" you will get different search results than if you set it to San Diego, CA (example) and do the same search for "web design dallas".
I got the #1 spot but not if your default Google location is set to Dallas, TX. So if you set your google location to anywhere else in the world and do a search for "web design dallas", I am #1. If your google location is set to Dallas and do the same search, I am #4. Can't figure it out.
I have asked this question for months and nobody knows what I am talking about or can't give me a straight answer. Thought for sure someone here might have a clue.
Thanks, again.
-
Hi Trey,
I'm the Local SEO Associate here in Q&A and just wanted to pop in to mention that Google does not show Places results for web design companies. They haven't since January of 2010, if I recall correctly. Definitely check out the tutorial JP has mentioned, but bear in mind, your efforts to rank organically for any term are pretty much going to come down to the old standby's of how the site is optimized, linked within, linked to, marketed and used by humans.
Miriam
-
Thanks for the reply.
I'm talking about organic search - NOT Google Places. I understand the differences but my keywords don't show a Places listing when searched.
And yes, my keyword shows up #1 in the rank tracker tool.
-
Are you talking about coming up in Google Places as the #1 position or in the regular organic search? Rand just put up an awesome tutorial on local search - go to Learn SEO, then Pro Webinars and look for the one about local content. I just finished watching the video, and it was awesome! Tons of ideas.
Did you use the seomoz.org/rank-tracker tool? Does it show you rank #1 for this term? My guess is that it doesn't....I'm interested to know.
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
-
What to do about one site dominating search results? (multiple pages ranking)?
Anybody have thoughts on dealing with search results where the same site gets listed multiple times? "weebly vs wix" is one example (same site #1-3, repetitive articles, not crazy high authority), but I see this now and then. I know Google likes variety, so it's weird for me to see results like this dominating search results. Thoughts? What gets these sites to take over the top rankings for a specific term? Any way to rise up in this situation, outside of the usual? Any tips on duplicating this kind of success?
Competitive Research | | davidwaring0 -
Is anyone else getting this search result?
One of our blog posts (http://dress.yournextshoes.com/celebrities-dresses-skirts-wind/) used to rank well for "windy skirt", but we're not ranking anymore. When I search for "windy skirt", all the top 10 results are Youtube videos. Is anyone else seeing this? gs1eVsn
Competitive Research | | Jantaro0 -
How to beat directories in local search.
After just a couple months I'm placing on the first page for some keywords but I need advice on how to get over the hump. Search results for "Lakeville Snow Plowing" and "Lakeville Snow Removal" return directory results for the 1rst 3 listings above the local results.. I'm right below that at 5 and 7.. (I'm not showing up in local results even though I have a radius but that's another issue) Any tips or advice to compete against these type of results rather than a direct competitor? How does a small company with limited to no budget go about outranking BBB and Manta.com? I'm considering purchasing the BBB membership, and I imagine a link from them would be helpful, other than that, I could use some advice. Derrick
Competitive Research | | dwallner0 -
Local SEO questions
Been getting into Local SEO a bit but still not completely up to speed on a few things. Would appreciate any input by experienced local SEO's to any parts of this: Ill ask my broader questions within the context of an example. I have a client who is a part of a keyword niche that isn't exactly what Google might consider "local". What i mean by this is that if you are a car accident lawyer and you type this into Google Google with spit out local results because it seems to know which terms are searched for with intent to find local results. This client makes essentially medical form software which I dont get any local results for when I search for their keywords. But they do have a local focus as in they have an address in a city which is a target market. The client told me they are looking to target other markets nationally as well down the road. However they don't have brick and mortar locations for these other cities so I am under the impression that it wouldn't be something we could target locally. This brings up a strange question in my mind though - if you need an address for a physical location for each city you want target...if you want to target the whole country locally, you would need to have a location in every city? Is there any way to target local focus without purchasing a new office in every city you target? Or can you target a state with one office etc or is Google bond things down to cities or understood regions? Does it sound like this company should even be doing local? The last part to this is whether or not there is any way (tool?) to figure out what local areas are searching for you keywords? Why doesn't Google allow us to use the Keyword Search Tool to see traffic etc for more than just a nation or the globe? What I would love to see is, which cities get the most traffic for X keyword term and have the lowest competition. Then it might justify having to buy some Regis office in a random location. I feel like this doesn't exist but maybe some of you have some ideas to direct me...
Competitive Research | | eastco0 -
Tracking competitors in search engines
Hi Mozzers, I'm using Advanced Web Rankings (AWR) to track my site and a number of competitors in Google - seeing how rankings and brand visibility change from week to week. I didn't set this up from scratch and I'm worrying with all of the recent algorithm changes that I might well be tracking the wrong competitors. Is there a tool or methodology I can use to find the biggest players in the market? I'm in the travel market so there's lots of choice and I track the large sites but want to be sure I'm aware of smaller/mid-sized sites gaining visibility without me tracking them via a platform like AWR. Many thanks!
Competitive Research | | panini0 -
Advice on using google analytics and webmaster tools....for noobs?
I was wondering if anyone could suggest any resources on how to use GA and webmaster tools? I just sort of look and see my stats, etc...but I'd like to learn how to find my low hanging fruit, and try to help it rank better. I don't really use those tools as well as I should. I know there various spreadsheet's you can use, etc, but I haven't found a good (and easy to understand) resource that helps you learn how to use those tools together well. Thanks
Competitive Research | | NoahsDad0 -
Important link building question for me!
Hi, When building backlinks how important is the location of where the website resides? For example, if I was targeting a search term in Google UK, will link building from websites hosted on UK servers have a higher positive impact on rankings then building links from websites hosted on US servers? Lets say in the above UK hosted is better, what if you have 2 websites hosted in the UK but one with .com and one with .co.uk, I take it from a domain point of view the .co.uk will have a better impact on SERP's then the .com. Now looking at the above from a more wider scale lets say I have the following: A .co.uk website aimed at a search term in Google UK. Example: 1. 100 backlinks from websites hosted in the US with .com extension. 2. 100 backlinks from websites hosted in the UK with .co.uk extension. Is it a FACT that number 2 will 100% be more beneficial in UK rankings? Cheers
Competitive Research | | activitysuper1 -
Question about Keywords & Ranking
I hope this isn't too basic of a question, but I am confused about something. If you use the Keyword Research tool and type in "Stained Concrete Flooring", the 3rd result (stainedconcrete.org) has the lowest numbers of any of the sites in the top 8-10... Is it because they have a large amount of traffic? or is there some other factor that I am missing?
Competitive Research | | Timvroom0