Evidence that high organic rankings impact positioning in the Google local pack?
-
I'm looking for articles/evidence that if you have a high ranking organic listing that it will improve your chances of being in the local pack. I came across this about a year ago, but I have had trouble finding articles to support this.
Does anybody know of any recent articles and/or studies that show a correlation of high organic listings and local pack visibility?
Thanks!
-
Thanks Miriam. I too am doing some research on the correlation. It seems like common sense but I was something to prove it. I'll be in touch with my findings.
-
Excellent point, Joy. Organic authority as Possum defense!
-
I haven't seen an article recently that addresses this but can say with great confidence that organic ranking has been one of the biggest determiners of who gets filtered or not filtered in the 3-pack ever since the Possum update. In the dozens of cases I've analyzed, usually the listing that wins is the one that has the highest organic ranking.
-
Hi BigChad2!
Great topic. One thing that might be helpful to you would be this year's Local Search Ranking Factors survey of some of the best Local SEOs in the world:
https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
You'll see that quality of inbound links to domain and domain authority of website are both top 10 local pack ranking factors and, if you drill down, you'll also see things like HTML NAP matching GMB NAP, diversity and quantity of inbound links to domain, page authority of GMB landing page URL, topical keyword relevance of domain content, etc. all being cited as top 50 factors. So, these are all organic factors that industry folks believe impact local pack rankings.
That being said, I'm not aware of any recent formal case studies, per se, that have taken screenshots of the correlation between high organic and high local pack rankings, but this would be something you could likely easily pull together if you needed to do so to illustrate/prove a point.
To undertake such a project, I'd do a variety of searches in cities across the country, such as "Dentist Santa Fe", "Dentist Boston", "Dentist San Francisco", etc. I'd do it across several industries, as well. I'd create a spreadsheet and notate the local pack ranking position of the top 3 and then its organic ranking. My bet will be that, at the end of the study, you'll find a high apparent correlation. It won't be the case for every single business appearing in the pack, because some will be there due to spam or other factors that have nothing to do with their website. But, my guess would be there would be a pretty high instance of those businesses with top 3 local rankings also having page 1-2 organic rankings.
For this search "Dentist Santa Fe", I see that the top 3 in the pack are all 1st page organically, and I see this phenomenon for many, many searches, and it offers a good explanation why an annual survey like Local Search Ranking Factors reflects that Local SEOs have noticed this behavior as being common.
I'm sorry I haven't seen a recent article on this, but doing a small study should be relatively easy if you should need to present proof of this phenomenon. Hope this helps, and if anyone in the community has authored or read such a study recently, please share!
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
-
Google Local Listing Visibility for Regional Queries
I manage a variety of small local programs that are located in areas that are more known by the region than they are by the town (the Adirondacks and the Catskills to be specific). In the past, the local algorithm understood that when the query was related to the region, it would show a variety of results from that region. It seems that for the Catskills they have changed the algorithm to pinpoint the center of the region and only show results that are in the near vacinity of that pinpoint, rather than a variety of results from the region. The Adirondacks however is still showing a variety of results. For those of you not familiar, the Adirondack are 9,375 square miles and the Catskills are 5,892 square miles and are both very rural mountain regions and popular travel destinations. Google clearly understands that these regions are geographically oriented and shows a local pack for relevant results such as "Catskills Resorts" or "Catskills Restaurants", but over the past few weeks, they have started only showing 2 results for the query Catskills resorts, both located near Shandaken, NY becasue that is where Google has deemed the marker for the Catskills is (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Catskill+Mountains/@42.009289,-74.3996212,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89dc665668f82f31:0x3b012376423b8efa!8m2!3d42.0092908!4d-74.3821116) In reality, there are hundreds of resorts within the Catskills. (Note there is a Catskill, NY within the Catskills, however Google is not even confusing this town with the region). Does anyone have ideas on how to get Google to understand that the Catskills are more than Shandaken, NY? I feel like we suddenly have no hope of ranking locally and most of the businesses I manage are located in very small towns that people are not specifically searching for.
Local Listings | | Your_Workshop0 -
Google My Business pages for New Construction Communities
I have a number of builders of new homes as clients. Typically, they build out a whole neighborhood at once and give the neighborhood a fancy name. We were planning to create Google My Business pages for these communities but then ran into some potential challenges. As new communities, they are sometimes not on Google's radar yet Some of them have model homes where you might take a tour with a realtor that serves the community exclusively but many don't. So here come the questions... Is there a way to make Google speed up its process of recognizing new addresses? I have to choose an address to associate with the GMB page, probably the address of model home. Is this going to create annoying problems for a buyer who someday buys that model home? Since some communities don't have a model home, I could arbitrarily assign an address of one of the neighborhood homes to the GMB page, but this leads to the same question about creating a GMB page that will exist after the builder has sold all the houses in the community. Will it be weird to have the GMB referring to someone's private residence down the road? My assumption is that claiming a GMB page would help with local ranking if someone searches for something like "new homes" in addition to providing easy driving directions to someone who has done a bit of research and Googles the name of the new home community while out driving and searching for homes. These seem to be the main benefits, but are the challenges associated with questions 1-3 even worth the trouble of trying to claim listings for these communities?
Local Listings | | TheKatzMeow0 -
GMB listing not showing for local searches
Hi all, I've optimised an existing GMB listing that has been in place for over a year. The client is a yacht/boat broker and marine repair outfit based in Mallorca. When I search for terms that they 'should' be ranking for on Google and on a Maps search, they are nowhere to be found, yet their listing does show when you type in their company name. I've read lots of Local SEO guides and followed their advice but I'm not sure what I'm meant to do next?
Local Listings | | Bee1590 -
Multiple google places listing
can i submit few map listings in different address from my same user and on the same IP etc
Local Listings | | SEOLocal920 -
Google My Business for 2 Websites With the Same Location
Hi,
Local Listings | | alihus
My client has two separate websites with different business names but under one location and phone number. The websites are for two separate services that he offers.
My question is that if creating two Google+ for business pages for the two businesses bad for their SEO or local ranks?
And what about creating local listings for both?(This does not seem logical to me personally!!)
Thank you for the kind answers in advance.0 -
Do Local PPC Ads Get Ranked Higher Even Though the User Doesn't Specify Search Location
See the attached image.I searched for a drug called "Actos". The first Google Adwords result was a result specific to "Arkansas" which is odd because I didn't specify that I was in Arkansas. I understand that Google makes that recommendation because Google knows I'm in Arkansas. The resulting landing page has NOTHING to do with Arkansas and you can view it here: http://bladdercancerlawsuit.org/actos-bladder-cancer/My question is this: Does the fact that the AD has the name of the user's state (Arkansas) make the "click" less expensive or higher ranking or both? Is this known by Adword specialist community? I'm wondering because this is an expensive keyword and hard to guarantee top position for. If this is a technique we should incorporate, I'd love to do it. U1dfiiE
Local Listings | | iprov0 -
PO Box for a Local Client
I have a local client who is adamant about not publishing their address anywhere online. They are a local (regional) company, and work out of their home. I advised that PO boxes do not fill within "accurate guidelines" for Google Places (and moving forward any citation building is going to be tough). Any way to get around this besides buying a generic mailbox that isn't a PO Box? They feel putting their home address anywhere leaves them vulnerable to people showing up at their home, and considering the industry they are in, it is possible this could lead to negative confrontations and I understand their concern. Any ideas for me?
Local Listings | | cschwartzel0 -
Sponsored Listings Hurting Local SEO?
We use a service which sponsors listings on various popular directories. In turn, it changes our phone number so that I can qualify if the call is a lead or not and then charge us. Unfortunately, while this service helps exposure on those directories, the phone number as well as the website are different. How much of a problem is this for our local SEO? Other directories include Suerpages and Citysearch. -Brant
Local Listings | | BCB11210