How do I Improve Google Local search position
-
Hi,
I think its called local search position, what I'm referring to is when you do a search on a keyword and google lists not only the best matches but also usually the second match is a group of 3 businesses with telephone numbers, google reviews and at the bottom of the group it will say something like: "See results for <your keyword="">on a map. This is what I'm referring to. in anycase my question is if I click on the link to see more results on a map I'm listed as number 3, however on the search page before where the link is displayed which I just clicked on I'm not being listed and instead one business name is being listed three times, each of the listings uses the same address but a different telephone number, In addtion the business that is being listed three times is also listed in the results being returned above in this case position #1 for the keyword I have searched. I assume this has something to do with them also being listed in the group of local businesses below three time.. The business I'm interested in getting listed in this group of results is currently being listed page 2 position 5 for the keyword..</your>
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated..
Thanks in advance..
-
Yes, a citation is mention of your business on the web. It's usually accompanied by all of your NAP data. The more citations you have (with consistant information) the more Google can trust you with a good ranking. (Because it is an indication that the company which is listed is indeed doing what they say they do and they are located at the place where they say they do.)
-
Hi,
thanks for the info could you please expand on what you mean by more local citations? are citations sites such as : Google Places/Local, Yahoo local, Foursquare, Hotfrog, Yelp and much more. as was described above by @westleysmits ?
-
Rob,
There are generally two separate factors that I would focus on: number of local citations, and number of reviews (actually the velocity of reviews). Consider working heavily on getting more local citations. Make sure the NAP (name, address, phone number) data is consistent everywhere. I would also focus on reviews and getting more reviews of your business posted, as well.
-
Don't try to do it through Google Map Maker. Instead go to Google+ under your personal profile.
- On the left hand side in the sidebar you will find a link 'Pages'
- Click 'Pages' and then click 'Local business
- Type in your company name. It will show existing companies with that name. Choose your company.
- Follow the rest of the steps.
After some time a postcard will be send to your companies address with a pin-code. This pin-code can be used to verify you as the owner of this page. Then you will have full access to edit the content of the page.
-
Thank you very much for the both thorough and terrific answer. I have another question. I have tried to contact google maps ( Google Map Maker ) on several occasions asking them to change the website url that the business listing is pointing to each time they deny it for some reason, I'm not exactly sure why, so I was thinking perhaps I'm better off creating another business entry same address, different website, and using our toll free number, ideally I would prefer to just update the original listing but can't seem to get the reviewers to do it.. I will try once again. maybe that explains why our competitors have several listings.. I think changing the business listing to point to our new website url is very important so that I can then follow your instructions and have everything to point to the same correct new website..
-
Hello Rob,
In order to improve your local SEO you would need to claim (or create) your company's 'local listing' pages across platforms. A lot of websites out there list local businesses such as Google Places/Local, Yahoo local, Foursquare, Hotfrog, Yelp and much more.
Many of these platforms allow you to claim the page where they give out your company details so you can fill in the information about your company yourself. Once you've done this you need to make sure the information there is correct.
Enter your company name, address and contact details everywhere in the same way. For a computer it's very difficult to understand that avenue is the same as 'ave' in an address.
Fill in a good description, add photo's/video's if you have any and make sure the listing describes clearly what your company does and what it is all about.
The most important one of these is your listing on Google Places/Local. This page will actually rank in the search results as you described. Make sure you fill this in as good as you can. Google will use this information and compare it to other listings of your company. If they see that the information is consistant this would indicate to Google that the information is correct and they will trust you more and more. This would help you rank better in local SEO for related search queries.
Another good thing to remember is that reviews help you rank too. If you've got loyal and satisfied customers, ask them to write a review for you on your Google Places/Local page.
Note: Don't pay people for reviews or anything. It's against google's guidelines to buy or sell reviews just like links.
Some resources to get you started:
Hope i answered your question. If anything was unclear or if you have any more questions please let me know and i will do my best to answer or explain more.
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
-
HTTPS Google Search Console Verification
Hi we have clients http version of our site verified in our search console but for some reason the https version is not verified, do you usually have to install another HTML tag to do this? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bridhard80 -
Google Manual Action Disappear
Hi Guys, I have a website that received unnatural link message. We had started link removal process, disavowed not approachable links and file reconsideration four times but all the times Google sent some samples of unnatural links and rejected our reconsideration. Last week we again disavowed non approachable links and planned to file reconsideration after a week but today when i tried to file reconsideration, Manual action message was disappeared. We haven't received any message from Google. The same case was happened with one more of our site earlier. Manual action disappeared means it has been revoked or something else??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RuchiPardal0 -
Penalty from Google due to spam that was not our doing
Hi, My company has enjoyed pretty good rankings for our main keywords in Google for the past 13+ years we have been in business. We have always been very white-hat about our SEO -- always erring on the side of not doing anything rather than risking a penalty. Well, last Thursday, we received the dreaded Google penalty due to a pattern of unnatural links. The hit is devastating - we are not even in the top 50 for our own company name anymore. Through research, we believe we have found the culprit -- and it has nothing to do with any of our own actions. We operate a discussion forum, and there was a link to one of the threads that was being used as the target for a lot of link spam -- Chinese blog comments, etc. We had nothing to do with this, but obviously someone had an agenda and was working on spamming to this page. Who knows - it may have even been the company that was being discussed negatively in the thread, attempting to have us blocked. We discovered it the same day we received the penalty notice, and issued a reconsideration request, detailing what we believe we found. So far, we haven't disavowed any of the links, but I am thinking we should. We have asked Google if they're able to just turn off any link juice for that one page, especially since we don't know who is doing this spamming, and whether they will continue. Has anyone experienced something similar? How does one prevent themselves from receiving a penalty that they had nothing to do with? What is there to keep any competitor from launching a spammy link-building campaign to get their competitor removed from Google? Is there anything we can do to resolve this? Thanks for any and all thoughts...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kylie_rw0 -
Buying a Google News website, against Google Terms?
We are looking at buying a business that has a number of websites Is it against buying a business that has a Google News website and continue to use the site? Once the business is sold, would google remove the site from its News?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
Local Competition Analysis
Hi Mozzers, I've been mainly B2B focused, and am used to estimating the amount of work necessary to best competition for organic results, but now I have a local client. I need a method to estimate the amount of work necessary to get listed in the one-box for my chosen queries. Can someone point me in the right direction? Any help appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
SEO - Why variation in Google positioning? Are we penalized?
Our webiste is made of 2 different parts hosted in 2 different directory on the same domain: 1. The website itself, which can be seen as a catalog. 2. A blog on WP. Sometimes we lose 50% of our traffic and 5 to 10 days later the traffic goes up again. When looking at position in Google it appears that when losses of traffic happen, the Google positions of pages from the website become bad. The blog pages themselves keep their good position. Suddenly after few days we find our previous good postioning and we have a good traffic again. Here at the questions we have: 1. Why do we have variation on our Google positioning? Which parameters can influence? Bounce rate? Speed? 3. Why only the website is penalized and never the WP blog whereas they are on same domain? If someone has experienced it before or has a idea, your expertise is welcome... Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ZOD0 -
Google Experiment
Hi there, are there any implications for organic seo for implementing google experiment. Where you send users to a new page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Search Spike over the weekend
I own a website, and recently had a HUGE spike in organic search traffic from Google over the weekend. It seems to be going back down. Anyone have any idea why? Anyone have any similar experiences? odd-traffic.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alhallinan1