I'm back about a month later to report that it finally appears to have worked. Google is now pulling up my metatitle for a variety of queries.

Now I want to get Google to show local landing pages in the SERPS instead of the home page so that the location shows in the title and appears to be more relevant. Always a challenge.  I know the standard tactics, but specific ideas are welcome. Building a silo of local pages around estate planning is hard as the topic is not really local.

Nuances welcome.

I tend to think you're right about the title. That most likely does look like a page title to Google and then you have identical titles on all pages! I replaced it with an image. We were already in the process of putting the first lines on the local pages into h1 tags, so that's done as well. It will be hard to know which one does the trick, but as long as it works I'm happy. This is standard routine SEO that needed to be done anyway.

For all queries that return the home page, Google is not showing my meta title. Instead it replaced it with the official business name which of course makes it harder to rank for key terms since they don't exist now in the meta title. You can see this is you search on "mt view estate planning attorney". The site in question is dureelaw.com and the title showing is "The Law Office of Daniel L. DuRee." View the source and you'll see my meta title. Why is Google substituting it?

Perhaps this page is cannibalizing off of the one you want: http://www.marquess-dental.co.uk/tooth-whitening-marquess-dental/ They share essential the same title tag.

also in looking at your competition, they have a very strong architecture. Search on site:www.thecosmeticdentistry.co.uk "teeth whitening" and you can see all the pages in that "directory."

This is a tough one  because you don't even have the word whitening on your home page! It's as if Google is saying, I know you're relevant but I don't know what page to show so I'll just show the home page instead. Makes no sense, but most of these home page cannibalizations make no sense either. Sure hope someone can crack this nut.

Follow up here on how to edit White Pages. I emailed them. There response was:

Option 1:

Add all your listings with Yext: http://www.yext.com/pl/whitepages/index.html

With a Yext Powerlisting your business info will be added on WhitePages and other Yext partners such as Yelp, CitySearch, Yahoo!, MapQuest and Superpages.

Yext features:

• Enhanced photos 
• videos & special offers 
• insights into how many people view or click on your listing
• self-service implementation.

Option 2:

Contact InfoGroup

So there you go. Go through the data aggregators. Moz/Local tool is good for this.

Just tried to correct a phone number in a listing in White Pages. Their link to edit goes to a Yext signup and there is no other way to edit the listing at all. If you click on Feedback you'll see an outdated how-to which no longer applies. So apparently, White Pages has gone to the dark side too. I'm really not happy with this Yext takeover because it appears to be trying to force small business owners into an expensive plan they don't need. (It will cost my client 2 x $499 to correct their 2 listings.) I sent Whitepages an email and asked them to either update the listings or take them down. Not sure what will come of it. And I hope Google is reading this because if consistency in NAP is as important as everyone says it is, then I want Google to know that consistency has just gotten that much harder and very expensive.

Kathy

Kurt,

Acxiom provides data to Local.com. You can see it in the fineprint at the bottom. And since local.com apparently does not let you update any of their listings directly unless you go through Yext, then my recommendation is get your information correct at Acxiom and hope the data will flow through. As for Hot Frog, I was actually able to claim that one and didn't have a problem at all.

So happy that Moz here came out with their own local search listing tool.  I recommend checking that out.

Kathy

Do people really search for red Boston Bruins hats? Or do they search for Boston Bruins hats? Frankly, as a consumer, I'd find it annoying to have to sort through that many more pages if you implemented A. But since color may be important, I'd make it a filter as AWC suggests. I'm not familiar with Shopify, so don't know if it's built in. If not, I'd build it. I'd address your last usability concern the same way - i.e., customize your software.