Keywords in GMB title...
-
Hello,
I have a client who is trying to rank in Maps for "city name house call vet." Their GMB name is NOT their business name... it is: "Business Name the House Call Vets, Dr. Jack Millen"
I know that it is a best practice to have the GMB title be ONLY their exact business name.
However, I worry if we take out the keyword "House Call Vets" from the GMB business name, they will tank for Google Maps "house call vet" searches.
All the top ranking GMB pages have "house call vet" in the GMB business name (even though it is not in the actual business name of all those businesses).
Should I worry about deleting "house call vet" from their GMB page even though it is not a part of their actual business name?
Will Google still rank them for "House Call Vet" searches in Maps?
Right now they are ranking like 6 which is not great but not horrible in a very large market but also not as high as I think they could be.
Thanks in advance for the help!
-
I would like to add, that I completely KW stuffing is not a good idea at all.
Adding a city name will not really help you, adding a service type might. BUT, this is all very risky.
Additionally, if you consistently are getting your name edited to what it reflects in the real world (As a TC I check the Secretary of State and the Street View) , there is a limit to the number of times a listing can be corrected before a suspension happens.
In some cases, you may also end up with a hard suspension. (Especially if a TC gets involved.)
Play by the rules, and make edits to competitors as Miriam suggested. Also, if you do the legwork report competitors that are using Virtual Offices/PO Boxes in the advertiser forums.
-
Hey Mike,
I hope you'll take a peek at my Monday blog post which Paul has linked to in his reply to you. It deals with precisely this topic. Your dilemma is a really common one, and so frustrating, I know! Basically:
-
Yes, you should remove the keyword stuffing. It's a guideline violation, and therefore, a risk.
-
Yes, this may cause rankings to drop - you will have to build authority in a Google-approved way to get it back.
-
Yes, Google can "soft supsend" the listing if you don't remove the kw stuffing, which will likely cause your listing to become unverified and your reviews may get lost because they aren't associated with a GMB account anymore. You'll have to re-claim the listing if you get caught, but I can't guarantee the reviews will come back (this is scary).
-
Yes, Google is doing an awful job catching this type of spam, so help them out. Once you've cleaned up your own listing, start reporting every single competitor for spam. It would help if you could achieve Local Guide status in Google, as it will give your spam reports a bit more oomph...better still if you can get to know a few other Local Guides and team up to repeatedly flag a business for spam. You have to be on the lookout after you report a business for business title spam - very often, they reappear with the spammy name intact! Arggh - so annoying. But be persistent.
Again, hope you'll read the article, and thanks for asking an important question.
-
-
Putting keywords in the GMB business name has a very high risk associated with it. It's against Google Terms of Service and they say they will suspend any account they catch doing it.
But as you note, many businesses are doing it and getting away with, at least for some period of time.
So the question becomes "how much risk is the client willing to accept"? Because if they get caught, their account gets wiped out and they lose all the work they've done to build up ranking, reviews, images etc for their GMB page.
I tend to agree with Miriam Ellis who just wrote about exactly this on Monday in her post. Build a good-quality GMB page within Google's guidelines to ensure long-term survival, including optimising for the "housecall" terms in description, reviews, etc. Then spend a bit of time reporting the offending pages as spam
Hope that helps?
Paul
-
If I could, I would give you the answer to your question but unfortunately, I can't and as I see nobody is helping you, maybe the right place to look help is on Google Advertiser Community.
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
-
GMB illegal edits to phone numbers
A client in the skip hire sector contacted me to say that someone is submitting edits to multiple competitors' GMB accounts changing the phone numbers to theirs. It has caused a huge row and legal ruckus as the competitors naturally assume it is them diverting calls. It definitely is not them but could be lead generation companies they use or other competitors trying to discredit them. They are growing fast and are upsetting longstanding players. Has anyone come across this before? If so how did you handle it and is there any chance of Google listening to them and assisting in the situation. Any advice is gratefully received. PS these guys are very ethical and are mortified at the situation they find themselves in.
Local Listings | | KarenJames0 -
Does a lot of Google Business Account create website SEO keyword spam?
Hi, I have an SEO client from Abu Dhabi and when I handover the project - they got only one Google My business page. One month after SEO keyword rankings found to be great. However, from last week onwards, I have noted keywords ranking is dropping.When I checked with their map - one of the keyword map rankings also lost.When I cross-checked their listing - it has been showing -they listed 8 Google my business verification.Using the same website and same phone number - just to make their presence all over Abu Dhabi.My question is -does this affect SEO keyword ranking?
Local Listings | | Navya12340 -
How are you all handling temporary closings on GMB?
Hey! Obviously things are crazy right now and in my company, we are having to temporarily close some locations. How is everything handling that with GMB? Obviously I will post but should I add special hours?
Local Listings | | danieldaher2 -
I have a site with a lot of subdomains and I want to see what keywords each is ranking for.
Do I have to enter them manually, one at a time, in the keyword subdomain search or is there a way to submit a list of subdomains and have Moz generate a report of the results?
Local Listings | | thallstd0 -
How can we better control GMB photos on Google SERPs?
Has anyone had luck choosing photos to display on SERPs for their Google My Business profile pages? Recently, Google has been overriding our photo choices and they've picked some terrible, user-submitted photos to show on SERPs. Our clients are understandably upset about this and we've tried flagging photos which works only a small % of the time. When we call Google they say they can luckily remove individual photos, but this isn't too scalable across dozens of clients we work with. How can we have better control over the photos that show on GMB listings? Any suggestions or best practices would be appreciated! Attached is an example of one we have showing on SERPs for a dealer. Screen-Shot-2017-10-25-at-2.16.52-PM.png
Local Listings | | SummitAuto1 -
Not showing in local for primary keyword
I have a client in the junk removal business and I can't get him to show in local for junk removal +city. Junk removal is not a Google Plus category so we have to choose Garbage Collection Service, which everyone else does as well. I've optimized the site and the local listing pretty well, much better than the competitors, but we're still not showing. It's not that we're asking to rank better, we're just trying to get on the list for the one term that makes all the difference in this business. I feel like there's a junk removal party going on and we're not invited. I've thought about a possible over-optimization penalty, but there's no G warning or message and we use fewer keywords than our competitors and have no spammy links as some of the competition does. Some companies that are no longer in business are visible. I just can't figure out what we might be doing wrong. Any ideas or suggestions I might have missed?
Local Listings | | Dino640 -
Removing phone number from GMB = lower rankings?
Hey, all! I have a client who needs for people to see her website before they call her, or else she spends 15 min explaining what's already on the site. Her Google My Business rankings are excellent for a lot of keywords (yay!), so people are seeing the number big and bold and just picking up the phone. I called GMB support to ask if removing the phone number would affect rankings, and they said "I don't think so". If this weren't a HUGE deal to the client, I wouldn't take the chance, but she feels that she's losing business by being on these calls when legitimate prospects try to call and get voice mail. So... any experience with removing phone numbers from GMB, or any other creative solutions to the quandary? Thanks so much for reading! ~ Scott UPDATE: Well, we went ahead and tried it anyway, and our GMB listins on the 7-pack nosedived! STRONGLY recommend against this, at least with the current algorithm!! The phone number is back now. 🙂
Local Listings | | measurableROI0 -
Is it best to avoid the meta keywords tag?
We were earlier using the meta keywords tag on our pages and on reading a recommendation on Moz for the same being redundant, we went ahead and removed the same! Can anyone provide inputs on whether the meta keywords tag is really irrelevant or actually detrimental to a page? Thanks
Local Listings | | prsntsnh0