Snap Pack & Yelp/Angie's list Page authority

[Meier]

Hey gang,

First off thank you for any advice. I know we are all busy trying to make our money so I really appreciate everyone who chimes in.

Links to studies and articles are also much appreciated.

So. I am by no mean an SEO expert, I prefer to dabble in outreach and authentic link building campaigns. So you can imagine my frustration when I pull off a successful campaign, get about 4 or 5 great real links, raise in organic, but don't budge on the maps.

I have noticed something.

1. My competition's yelp page has a couple more reviews than me (btw it's a locksmith site, I know it's a rather spammy industry, I don't do black hat...)  BUT their yelp Page Authority is like 46! Same thing with their angies list, BBB, etc etc. MINE IS 1 across the board.

Now I know the internet is changing. There is usually no reason for a locksmith site to have a viral blog. Google is looking toward more Citation based authority for local ranking factors. (Or at least that's what they say, I feel like their algorithm is not yet advanced enough to catch all the spammers.)

So I am going to have an ethics meeting with my company and make sure we are alwyas treating our customers fabulously as well as sometimes intentionally asking for a review, not just on google, but across all of our web 2.0 platforms.

BUT

How do I get MY page authority on these directories higher? By back linking to them? DO you guys think these companies actually had campaigns to get links to these directories? Did they just PBN em'? Am I stuck in 2013!?

Much love guys.

[MiriamEllis]

You're welcome, Meier. So sorry, but I'd not be able to make a guess as to how your competitor acquired links. You might want to consider consulting privately with a good SEO consultant about that, to whom you can show the exact situation in confidence.

While we're on the topic of Yelp, if you're looking for some pro tips, I really enjoyed this video. You might watch it and jot down notes:

http://localu.org/blog/guest-video-top-10-yelp-tips-small-business-2016/

[Meier]

Miriam thank you so much. I like your style.

I have heard of barnacle SEO but I thought it was kind of an outdated thing.

I'm really curious of these companies just bought links and pointed it at their yelp or they just had some many good reviews that link got featured on a stronger intentional yelp page.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Meier,

Neat topic! If the competitors' local profiles have a high page authority, links are a good guess. This isn't really my area of expertise and I'm hoping you'll get abundant community feedback, but it could be that the competitors are doing barnacle SEO. Are you familiar with that term? If not, check out: http://www.searchinfluence.com/2011/01/barnacle-seo-original/. Have you done a link audit of the competitor?

I'm referring specifically to page authority, here, of course, which is not the same thing as where a business ranks within a given platform like Yelp.

And, neither the page authority of a local business listing nor its internal ranking on a third party platform = Google local pack rankings, which are believed to be made up of several hundred factors. Organic rank definitely does influence local pack rank, but there are so many other factors to take into consideration, including (as you've pointed out) spam.