Ranking Dropped Off for HOMETOWN + BRAND
-
I work with a number of local businesses that generally rank well for the query "HOMETOWN + BRAND." The brand is not the business name. In late August, three of these businesses (all located in the same large US city and owned by the same parent company) stopped ranking for this important keyword. They were all in pos. 1 before., and now they're not on the first 5 pages. There are no issues or errors recorded in Search Console, rankings haven't shifted dramatically for any other keywords and the GMB listing is fully filled out and completely accurate. I'm banging my head trying to figure out how to fix this issue and start seeing my page 1 rankings again.
Also, I'm not sure if it's related but I have seen a significant increase in organic traffic from a city within the same state that's about 3.5 hours away. I thought maybe there was something on the sites telling Google they're located in the wrong city, but I'm not seeing anything.
Any suggestions or ideas? Any help would be extremely appreciated!
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
-
I cant rank well on google or bing
hi guys, I hope I can make some sense to you guys with what is occuring with my website. I am an absolute novice here. I used a drag and drop website 3 or 4 years ago, not sure exactly at the moment when i purchased the domain. however I did pretty well using paid search on both google and bing for quite some time and fairly descent in my area long beach, ca for organic for some of my keywords ( tv install, tv wall mount installation , and tv mounting service). At some point I noticed a drop last year and so this year I decided to try and do a better job on my website by making it mobile friendly and the whole https thing. I basically had to redo it and then after I was finished, the company I use for my website then transferred my website over to original domain. www.coastlinetvinstalls.com Now, If i do a search for some of the keywords im trying to rank for on google , I show up on the first page in my area on some days, and on the google maps for my local business in my area. On bing, however, Im nowhere to be found for any keywords I used to rank for. It use to be the opposite before I did this whole website fix up or whatever you want to call it. I would be on the first page for anything related to my keywords. Wat happened with bing ? any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance,
Local Website Optimization | | Matt160 -
Difficulty Ranking Two Locations in the Same City
We are in the self-storage business and have locations through the Pacific Northwest. As we grow, there are cities where we've added multiple (2-3) locations. But we're discovering that we're having a great deal of difficulty ranking for all of these. For instance, we have two locations in Vancouver, WA. One is West Coast Self-Storage Vancouver, and the other is West Coast Self-Storage Padden Parkway. Both are in Vancouver, WA, but for the most part, only West Coast Self-Storage Vancouver is getting ranked. In fact, on those searches where Vancouver ranks, Padden Parkway doesn't show up anywhere. Not in the top 10 pages anyway. Each location has an outer landing page and an inner details page. On each page, we've placed unique, city-optimized keywords in the URL, Page Title, h1s, content. Of course each location has a separate NAP. Each location also has its own GMB page. Each location has a decent amount of reviews across multiple sites (Google, Yelp, GetFiveStars.) Both locations were previously on their own domain until a year ago when they were redirected to their current URLs. Both of those original domains were close to the same age. With the Padden Parkway location, we've tried to be even more hyper-local, by including the address in the URLs and in the h1 of the outer page. We've also created an h2 that references local neighborhoods around the business. We're also running into this situation in at least one other city, so I'm wondering if this has something to do with our url structure. Other businesses in our space use the URL structure of domain.com/state/city/location. We only go down to the state level. What are we missing?
Local Website Optimization | | misterfla0 -
An attorney left my clients firm and we still rank well for her name
We've taken down the attorney's official page. Should we redirect her old page to the home page? Do a custom 404? I'm sure there's a best practice here but I'm blanking.
Local Website Optimization | | TheKatzMeow0 -
Ranking nationally but not locally
Hi everyone, I'm working with a client that has a strange situation. He's ranking for his target keyword on a national level but when searching locally, he's in the 100s (see attached). Any idea what could be going on here? He did have an old domain that got hacked that is redirecting to his current domain. Thanks, Tim lmSSXdT
Local Website Optimization | | TimKelsey0 -
Theory: Local Keywords are Hurting National Rankings?
I've read a good amount here and in other blog posts about strategies for national brands to rank locally as well with local landing pages, citations, etc. I have noticed something strange that I'd like to hear if anyone else is running into, or if anyone has a definitive answer for. I'm looking at a custom business printing company where the products can and are often shipped out of state, so it's a national brand. On each product page, the client is throwing in a few local keywords near where the office is to help rank for local variations. When looking at competitors that have a lower domain authority, lower volume of linking root domains, less content on the page, and other standard signals, they are ranking nationally better than the client. The only thing they're doing that could be better is bolding and throwing in the page keyword 5-10 times (which looks unnatural). But when you search for keyword + home city, the client ranks better. My hypothesis is that since the client is optimizing product pages for local keywords as well as national, it is actually hurting on national searches because it's seen as local-leaning business. Has anyone run into this before, or have a definitive answer?
Local Website Optimization | | Joe.Robison2 -
Ranking for similar local keywords
Hello All, It's my first day using a Moz Pro account and it all seems really good so far! Our business has 26 stores throughout the UK so I created a store locator page that has a page for each store. Inside here, I've created unique content for the same products for each store and it's really working wonders. The problem here though is one of my locations (Rotherham) contains two stores - so I feel that they'll both be fighting for the position all of the time. Would a canonical tag be suitable for this? I do need both pages to appear in Google's map results but as for organic rankings of keywords - it shouldn't matter too much if just one page appears. Thanks! Liam
Local Website Optimization | | LiamMcArthur0 -
Omitted Results city-queries for the same brand on different subdomains?
I've noticed on a few occasions where two subdomains share the same brand and are also attempting to rank for phrases specific to one city - the stronger subdomain tends to send the other subdomain to the "omitted search results" for those city specific queries. The subdomains do tend to have some duplicate content that they share but if the two pages on the different subdomains are unique for the search phrase in question wouldn't Google choose to surface both results? Or is this a question of domain diversity in the SERPs where the 2 results would just be too similar since they share the same root domain and have topically similar content? I've seen cases where they can share the first page of results but more often than not it seems that one is sent to the "omitted results". Any thoughts on strategy in this situation? The companies being described end up wanting to rank for the same city because they both serve a portion of the city in case anyone is wondering.
Local Website Optimization | | GSO0 -
Why My Site is Ranked for Few Hours on Daily Basis in Google SERPs
We have observed Google is shuffling our ranking on daily basis for our website: www.strokesexhibits.com, which is annoying. Almost on daily basis, in evening hours we are in ranking against almost every keyword for few hours (roughly 6-12 hours) but in the morning hours we are back to 50+ to 100+ positions. This is not happening with our domain only but facing same issue with the Google plus pages and few articles which we have on some high authority sites are behaving in same way. For better understanding, please have a look on following stats (Evening Screenshots were recorded yesterday after 8:00 PM, Morning screenshots were recorded after 9.30 AM - GMT +4 Time Zone). all following results are related with google.ae Keyword: Exhibition Stand Evening: 2 Google plus posts are in ranking + One main website page is ranking. Position 2: http://screencast.com/t/Yf2SLQNRJEm Position 4, 6: http://screencast.com/t/sDs2nShaAGr2 Morning: Google Plus pages disappeared + Different main website page is in ranking in back pages. Position 87: http://screencast.com/t/XT8hCEmOY Keyword: Exhibition stands Evening: 2 Google Plus posts are in ranking + One main website page Position 2,3,6: http://screencast.com/t/kF3PaVtwWe Morning: All above pages disappeared from ranking & new pages appeared in back pages. Position 75: http://screencast.com/t/nMTEWJlT Keyword: Exhibition stand design Evening: 2 Google Plus & one main website page is in ranking Position 4,5: http://screencast.com/t/ENUg4Do4i Position 78: http://screencast.com/t/xf8NeMzH Morning: Above pages disappeared and 2 new pages got ranking in back pages. Position 72, 73: http://screencast.com/t/1VidK4cx Keyword: Exhibition companies in dubai Evening: 2 Google Plus pages are on first page + Home page of website on back pages. Position 4: http://screencast.com/t/F3ljdakI3bU Position 8: http://screencast.com/t/evuDLuuL Position 70: http://screencast.com/t/xQ24Mdm9DV Morning: Home page dropped 11 positions + google plus disappeared Position 81: http://screencast.com/t/FD1IxnqL Keyword: Exhibition stand fabrication: Evening: 2 main website + 2 google plus + 1 second brand site + 1 third party website + 1 youtube link – all related to us are in ranking Position 1,2: http://screencast.com/t/kZACVnUS1yG Position: 4,5,7: http://screencast.com/t/JyAKX2bv66t Position 11,12: http://screencast.com/t/2CdJMMHB8 Morning: One page lost by position 1 + One page disappeared and new page appeared in ranking + google plus disappeared + youtube gained ranking of 2 positions + 3rd party link also gained ranking by 3 positions. Position 2, 4: http://screencast.com/t/JwJfa0Je Position 8, 10: http://screencast.com/t/wHup3X6Isu Keyword: Exhibition stand contractor Evening: 2 Google plus links + One main website link on back pages. Position 4,6: http://screencast.com/t/bMJlI7cco Position 100: http://screencast.com/t/twBOwFbR Morning: Google plus disappeared + main website page still on back pages & gained 2 positions. Position 98: http://screencast.com/t/tMXHmkiQWFE Keyword: Exhibition stand installation Evening: 2 main website + one Google plus is in ranking Position 2,4,5: http://screencast.com/t/GfyXZn19 Morning: All 3 pages disappeared & new single page is in ranking Position 3: http://screencast.com/t/i0fdgZvVZwUk Any Suggestion???
Local Website Optimization | | strokesinteriors0