Local SEO citations
-
Hello all
I've just started doing some local SEO citation stuff, using Whitespark. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to run different searches/listings for different keywords for the same business? For example, 'digital marketing manchester' and 'website design manchester' - or would you simply just do one keyphrase?
All help appreciated!
William -
Keri is quite correct about Google not showing web design companies for main local queries, and David is also correct that adding 'in' to these queries will typically bring up these local results. Why Google makes this big distinction between 'in' and not 'in', nobody knows. Presumably, the use of 'in' makes Google more convinced that the user is, indeed, searching for a local solution. Kind of an arbitrary distinction on G's part.
-
Thanks everybody for getting back to me - very helpful, and pretty nuanced....
-
I have seen a few different results where they did show a local result, such as when searching for something like "web design in city"
It seems like the word "in" makes a difference of when local listings pop up, as compared to doing a search like "web design city". Did MOZ ever do a study on this? I'd like to see results if so.
-
Also, Google doesn't show SEOs or web designers in the local results, and hasn't for several years.
http://searchengineland.com/google-hides-seos-web-designers-32671
-
To answer your question, it's fine do queries for "digital marketing manchester" and "website design manchester" in whitespark to see if you get different citation options for each category.
As David mentioned, I would not do multiple listings within each citation that's a bit spammy and overkill, plus it might send an alarm to the citation you're building.
-
I would specify all your main services on the listing that allow you that ability. Most will only have select categories you can fit under, so on those use your main service you want to rank for / provide.
On the citation listings that allow descriptions, this is where you can get a bit more creative. Since I'm sure you spent a lot of time on it ;), use some of your page meta descriptions, and content from the site to make your descriptions. This will keep all your content and listings closely related to your subject matter, and keywords.
I would not set up different listings for different keywords, as this somewhat dillutes the purpose of the listing, which is to verify what you do, who you are, and where you are. Having a separate listing for each service will not only be harder to keep track of and take longer to set up, it can get looked at as spammy, and further dillute the "what you do" portion of info since each one will say something different.
You should be able to fit under digital marketing and web design under most listing categories. Google might even see them as similar services after Hummingbird, who knows?
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
-
Practitioner Vs Practice Listings: Local Pack Issues
Hi, and THANK YOU! in advance for any input you give, its much appreciated. We've been doing research on this and also wanted to see if the community could provide any more input. We work with a plastic surgery clinic. The namesake of the surgery clinic is that of the first doctor: Practice Name: Gardner Plastic Surgery Plastic Surgeon 1: Dr. Gardner (we've worked with him since at least 2015) Plastic Surgeon 2: Dr. Baccaro (joined practice June 2018) Plastic Surgeon 3: Dr. Crespo (joining their practice starting Sept. 1 2020!) To summarize our issues to date: As we brought on our new surgeon Dr. Baccaro in 2018 we decided to ultimately claim his practitioner GMB listing, and to claim Dr. Gardner's (which had been unclaimed and we had to eliminate duplicates.) Before deciding to utilize the supplementary practitioner listings, we were managing/optimizing their main practice listing: Gardner Plastic Surgery. We continued to primarily/heavily optimize “Gardner Plastic Surgery” and mimicked the details for “Dr. Gardner” and “Dr. Baccaro” From Dec. 2018 - Jan. 2020 we would from time to time notice that "Dr. Paul Gardner's" individual listing was showing up in Local Pack instead of "Gardner Plastic Surgery" but it was not really a big issue, happened very occasionally. Around Dec. 2020 - Jan. 2020 we experienced some Google errors when trying to create Google Posts with videos--it resulted in a few very random and unexpected suspensions. We were posting appropriate content, it seemed that Google was struggling to process our video files from API and it would get stuck in a loop etc. All in all the suspensions happened, and we worked with Google many times to try to understand and stop that from happening. Fortunately that hasn't happened since (and we now don't post videos to Google posts because that was a bit too stressful. We still upload to main photo/video area) Since February 2020 to present we have consistently noticed "Dr. Paul Gardner" appearing in place of the well-optimized full of photos/videos/posts "Gardner Plastic Surgery." We thought algorithm updates etc./COVID were all factors as to why doctors may be more prescient than a clinic. There were times where we thought it was fixed for sure, only for it to continue to crop up. Specifically we were trying to rank for the search term "naples plastic surgeon" What We've Done So Far: I've done a LOT of research and understand a number of errors we were overlooking from Q&As like this (duplicate categories/phone numbers): https://moz.com/community/q/gmb-page-for-law-not-ranking-but-individual-attorneys-names-are And: https://moz.com/community/q/partner-outranking-main-site-in-local So I understand we have some decisions to make on the best path forward. We’re guilty of just about all of the issues Miriam elaborates on. ** As we move forward there are a few elements at play:** They are adding a new surgeon to the practice in September, we’re excited! Making a clear decision before he arrives is important With the addition of the 3<sup>rd</sup> surgeon “Gardner Plastic Surgery” is actually changing the name of its business to “Naples Plastic Surgery” as its much more suiting to the growing scope of practice. ** To end:** Wow. I wrote a lot and really appreciate it if you stuck with me! Some thoughts I had that I wonder if anyone has insight on: Is the fact that “Gardner Plastic Surgery” is “Dr. Gardner’s” namesake a huge factor into why the individual doctor is popping up more often? He’s well known and his name and his business name have been around the internet for years longer than Dr. Baccaro etc. Do you think changing the name to “Naples Plastic Surgery” along with other needed updates could help address the issue? Could our string of unfortunate, though ultimately well-intentioned suspensions be part of what’s enabled “Dr. Paul Gardner” to prop up as well? Should we choose to heavily optimize all listings and see how diversifying categories etc. helps? Should we try to de-optimize and focus on practice profile for now as that’s our main listing? If you have any other recommendations, I’d love to hear them. I think working on optimizing and diversifying our listings would be useful. Thank you again.
Local Listings | | MoxxiMarketing0 -
Do any Local Rank Trackers Report This Way?
I'm having trouble finding a local rank tracking service with useful reporting. I've tried several and for the money, have gravitated toward's Whitespark's service as for $25/month I can track unlimited locations. But their report is indicative of what I've seen time and time again in my 18-year experience as a Software Developer and Internet Marketer. Whomever is making the design decisions isn't a Seasoned (Local) SEO, and/or probably hasn't done their homework well enough by talking to seasoned SEOs. Their Summary Report looks like this (see attachement). When I'm doing Local SEO I'm looking at a lot of reporting data but among that, probably the most important is: How many of the listings moved up into position #1-3 on Local Finder which is also usually the Local 3-Pack (sometimes a 2-pack explaining the discrepancy in the first two rows between the number in the #1-3 column.) I also want to know how many listing moved UP into the #4-10. And vice versa, what fell out of #1-3 and #4-10. The problem with the format of this report, if a listing falls from #2 to #5, it will be a decrease in #1-3 and an INCREASE for #4-10. This would give me the false impression that a listing that was below #10 came into the #4-10 when in actuality the increase in #4-10 was because of a decrease in #1-3!! One situation is positive the other is negative. What I want to know is how many listings (totals without getting out the calculator): moved up into #1-3 (White Spark does this via the Increase column in the Local 3-Pack row) moved up into #4-10 moved down out of #1-3 to #4-10 moved down out of #1-3 to below #10 moved down out of #4-10 to below #10. Does anyone know of local tracking services that give you this kind of data in this way? XQppQKs.jpg
Local Listings | | Consult19010 -
Top Local Organic Rankings, But Nowhere to be found on Google Snack Pack
I've been working with a local gym for a while now. We successfully got the gym to beat out all its competitor and now it consistently ranks in the 3rd or 4th result for all major local industry keywords. For example "gym in [city]". The only thing above us is Yelp and other directory sites. The problem I am running into is we do well organically, but when it comes to Google Snack Pack we aren't in the top three or even 10. You have to go deep into the next pages of the map to find our business. I did find that we use to be categorized as health club in Google My Business, but I changed that three months ago. Some more additional info, the site when I got the account moved to a different url. So many directories and sites that linked to us in the past link to the old url. The old url is 301 redirected to our current url. I haven't found much info about this topic and am looking for any experience or insight?
Local Listings | | JasonKhoo0 -
Pictures on Google Local not ours
Hi all- We recently had some pictures show up on our local profile that are not our store. When you click on them they have links to someone's blog as well. Can someone tell me how these got here and more importantly how to get rid of them. We've looked everywhere but can't find them to get rid of. Thanks for any help! Ken
Local Listings | | CandymanKen0 -
Local seo citation tools
Hi I have been manually adding my details to local/national directories in order to help my ranking in my google places placing. It is a bit of a grind, and I am aware there are tools out there. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with any of them? I am UK based. Also I was ranking for "Liverpool Photographer" on google places for a couple of months and it brought in quite a bit of work, although I have since slipped back to about 15th, so out of the visible results. I am mainly a wedding photographer so my home page was optimised mainly for "liverpool wedding photographer" Although I hired an SEO company who changed the home page title to "liverpool photographer", I cannot remember if I was ranking on places for this keyword because of this change or I was already in the results before the changes were made. So my question is how Can I rank for "liverpool photographer" and "Liverpool wedding photographer" on a places result at the same time? I hope this makes sense. Best wishes. David.
Local Listings | | WallerD0 -
2 listings on Google Local....Need Help!
Hi All, One of our client have 2 business listings on Google Local for same business (same NAP but different website). Actually, their first website was under Google Penalty. They tried to remove the penalty but could not get rid of it so they bought a new domain and started working on it and listed the same business with new website URL. Now, their business is having 2 listings but with different URLs. How can we merge these two? Please advice. Thanks in Advance.
Local Listings | | sachin-sv0 -
Moz Local
Is there anything similar to Moz Local in London, UK? I need to run citations for 2 local businesses 'but' and want to use 'trusted' platforms. Please share you experiences and how this has helped your clients. Thank you Gary Victory
Local Listings | | GaryVictory1 -
How to get a verification tick next to the URL in a Google Plus Local page?
Google Plus Local: https://plus.google.com/+PrestedHallFeering Website: www.prested.co.uk So how do I get the verification tick next to the URL on this businesses Google page? Also, even though the website is much strong then those in the map listings for Wedding Venues In Essex, whats preventing this website from appearing in there? My local optimisation knowledge is poor!
Local Listings | | jasondexter0