Welcome to the Q&A Forum

@jonathanleplang Hi Jonathan, sorry to hear about your client's predicament. Review loss of this kind typically happens for two reasons.

One, there's a bug in Google. Check the Google Business Profile help community and Sterling Sky's Local Search Forum when review loss happens to see if others are reporting a similar experience. There have been historic periods in which Google has accidentally made reviews disappear and then reinstated them.

The second cause is that Google has removed the reviews because they became suspicious about the profile, for some reason. For example, here's a recent article about a business losing the majority of its reviews because of review gating: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/google-removes-hundreds-of-reviews/ and another about why new reviews might not be publishing: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/google-reviews-not-publishing/. Read those with the client and try to root out whether they might unknowingly be violating Google's guidelines (see: https://support.google.com/local-guides/answer/7400114?hl=en#zippy=%2Cadvertising-solicitation%2Cfake-engagement)

If you are unable to discover the cause of what is happening, it's time to contact Google about the case. Good luck!

@millieandtilly Good morning! I don't know much about Nitter other than that it is a Twitter alternative. I recommend you read Tom Capper's recent tutorial on disavowing links to learn more about what to do with links you've received that you don't want: https://moz.com/blog/when-to-disavow-links

@pg181 Thanks for bringing your question here. Good news is, the space should not have any significant impact if you use whatever Google's preferred version is within Google's own product. The town issue may confuse customers who are new in the area though, but there's nothing you can do about this other than advocating for the USPS to get it right.

@scottlinklater So great you were able to share. So, my advice after reviewing this would be no, do not pay for this. It is totally fine to pay for advertising, so long as it is disclosed as paid advertising. If it's not disclosed, that is where you would have concern like those you mentioned in your original post.

While I am unfamiliar with this directory (I don't know very much about SEO in Australia) there are a few things about the site that are causing me a bit of concern. Among them is this language:

"Guaranteed Exposure Directly Off Google Page 1"

I'm assuming they mean "on" Google Page 1 and I am not sure how any company can guarantee search engine rankings of their pages, since none of us control Google.

There are other signals that are concerning that I won't go into, but at the end of the day, I would recommend building out your listings on free directories that area relevant to your customer base and saving your ad budget for disclosed advertising.

@scottlinklater Hi Scott, are you able to share the identity of the directory so our community can give opinions? Without that information, it's a bit of a guess.

@fslpso Good morning! Good for you for wanting to improve your online visibility. If your business is virtual (looks like online tutoring) then the Google local packs are not the right direction for you, as those are for physical businesses that serve clients locally in person. If I'm understanding your model right, then what you need to study is organic SEO. Here are some great options for you:

The Beginner's Guide to SEO is one of the most popular, free, longstanding resources here at Moz: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

You might also like to enroll yourself in Moz Academy for exceptional training: https://academy.moz.com/

I hope these offer you a great start!

@jgoethert That is a huge change for your business, if you are not only rebranding but also losing your website. Sterling Sky has a good checklist for rebrands here: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/rebranding-your-business-checklist/

I am curious regarding the role of the website in this. If the GBP (formerly GMB) listing is going to be pointed to the new owner's website, it will be their domain authority which underpins the listing's rankings. If, however they are going to continue pointing the listing toward the downgraded old website, that's a big problem. If that's the case, you will want to be sure that permanent redirects are being put in place to pass as much ranking power as possible from the old pages to the remaining home page. The company should definitely be investigating all of their SEO options to protect the strength of the brand they've acquired, insomuch as it can support the visibility of the overall new brand.

@blitzna101 Important question you are asking here. May I ask, do you have physical locations in each of the cities for which you've built a landing page and are you directly serving customers (face to face/socially distanced) or is your business model virtual, with no physical locations and no in-person customer service?

Dear Bryan,
Please accept my apologies for the delayed reply to your important question. I only just now noticed this thread. If you are looking for sound advice on this, I highly recommend this article:

https://www.sterlingsky.ca/multiple-google-my-business-listings/

@btreloar Oh, my goodness! Thank you for catching this. It's a typo on my part. Should either read:

Prominence, relevance and distance (distance being Google's term)

or

Prominence, relevance and proximity (proximity being an industry term)

I will get this typo to the editor; it got past us both, and we'll get it fixed. Thank you for catching it!

First, I want to thank all of our awesome community members here who continuously post interesting, tough and good Local SEO question in the Moz Q&A forum. I love chatting with you all, and I hope you'll keep asking away, giving us all the opportunity to muse and learn together.

I think 2018 is going to be challenging and fun, and have a few thoughts on that I'd like to share, hoping you'll reply with your own tips and predictions. In the new year, I believe:

1. Quality is going to further solidify as the most apparent differentiator of local businesses, giving those companies with the most considerate and excellent service and policies the upper hand. Memorably good customer service will drive the high-star reputation and word-of-mouth marketing that leads to success.

Small local businesses have an advantage here, in their agility to implement the most genuine home-town excellence, but bigger brands can strive for this, too. From skilled phone service, to adequate in-store staffing, to employee training, to dedicated management of all online local assets, to initiatives that make a lasting, positive impression on consumers, quality is the key ingredient to loyalty, which is what every local business should most pursue in 2018.

2. Speaking of loyalty, I would especially advise SABs to leave no stone unturned in earning it. Google's LSA program will be a serious disruptor of business-as-usual in this sector, changing the makeup of local SERPs and striving to become the middleman in the service industries. SAB owners won't love having to rent back their customers for a fee to Google, so developing Google-independent streams of leads and repeat customers will be vital in any city where LSA rolls out in the coming year. Serving in a smaller town? Begin working on Google-independence anyway, particularly via word-of-mouth marketing so that you have these streams running in advance, should LSA move beyond the more densely-populated areas.

3. While developing Google-independence, don't overlook Google opportunities that are still free. I think Google Posts was the most interesting development of 2017, and there has been some anecdotal evidence that weekly use of this form of knowledge panel microblogging may give a small ranking boost. Be an early adopter and take advantage of that.

4. 2018 may be the year in which Google finally cracks down on two things: keyword stuffing of the business title and review spam. I'm sure they're tired of the complaints surrounding the former and if Google's commitment to identifying quality remains in place, sooner or later, they have got to deal with this false signal of relevance the same way that have with EMDs. As to the latter, Google's increased focus on reviews over the past year is apparent in the sheer number of emails they are now sending out regarding them. Also fascinating to see that we're closing out 2017 with third-party reviews finally reappearing in Google's local products, after years of absence and trouble with the FTC. Overall, Google knows that their review corpus is dependent on consumers trusting it, and better spam detection methodologies and better/faster response to review spam reporting has got to be on their to-do list. This could be the year!

For local businesses, protection lies in abandoning any type of spammy practice (from keyword stuffing to self-reviewing). And, being proactive if you are the victim of review spam. Report it. Raise a polite but firm hullabaloo. Let Google know you hold them to reasonable standards of accountability in their role as public arbiter of brand reputation.

5. The best Local SEO agencies and local business will dig deeper into the history and tactics of organic SEO than ever before. We need to understand Hummingbird, RankBrain, and matching content to the buyer journey with the best of them. We need to master not just linkbuilding, but the relationship building that makes it most authentic and of most lasting value - and this is an area in which local businesses have a massive advantage over virtual ones, in that we can actually meet our neighbors face-to-face to build beneficial bonds. And we need to get a real handle on the technical side of SEO, understanding how site structure, handling of the robots.txt file, and the management of indexation and accessibility issues impact us. When we put high-level knowledge of all these considerations together with our Local SEO know-how, we can be successful in new, exciting ways we may have overlooked in the past.

Oh, there's so much more I could say about the interesting things I see coming in 2018, but I'd love it if you'd talk now. What do you see in our industry's near future? I'd love to know. And let me take this opportunity to wish you all a fun, exciting and prosperous new year!

Hey Awesome Local Folks!

I thought I'd take a proactive stance and start a thread on the new doorway pages update from Google, as I feel there will be questions coming up about this here in the forum:

Here's the update announcement:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/03/an-update-on-doorway-pages.html

And here's the part that will make local business owners and Local SEOs take a second glance at this:

Here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages:

Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?

I think this will naturally lead to questions about the practice of creating local/city landing pages. At this point, my prediction is that this will come down to high quality vs. crummy quality pages of this type. In fact, after chatting briefly with Andrew Shotland, I'm leaning a bit toward seeing the above language as being strongly geared toward directory type sites and large franchises. I recommend reading Andrew's post about his take on this, as I think he's on the right track:

http://www.localseoguide.com/googles-about-to-close-your-local-doorway-pages/

So, I'm feeling at this point that if you've made the right efforts to develop unique, high quality local landing pages, you should be good unless you are an accidental casualty of an over-zealous update. We'll see! If anyone has thoughts to contribute on this thread, I hope they will, and if lots of questions start coming up about this here in the community, feel free to link back to this thread in helping your fellow community members Thanks, all!

Hey To All My Local Pals, Here

Recently, I watched a totally fascinating LocalU video in which Mike Blumenthal introduced a hypothesis that there may be a way to analyze what, specifically, is triggering a specific local pack. Now, Mike is stating that correlation is not causation in explaining this, but basically what he starts talking about at around 4:40 in the video is that what you are seeing rank well in the local packs may be demonstrably caused by what you see ranking organically beneath the pack, or may be caused by totally different signals.

Mike says,

_"If you're seeing the top 10 results are all IYP industry sites, and there's a pack showing, and the highest local site is 24 or something in organic, it's unlikely that that's what's triggering the pack. And so then you want to look at third-party triggers and see if that's what's actually triggering the pack." _

Obviously, all of us who do Local are familiar with the idea that a tremendous variety of elements contribute to pack rankings, but I am particularly intrigued by the idea of looking at the organic result beneath a pack and determining that there is little or no correlation between them, and this then driving one to look elsewhere for contributing factors.

In a recent response to another thread here on Q&A, I discussed some common local pack ranking failure causes when organic rank is high. What I'd love to see is whether, if you look at some of your clients' desired packs, can you tell if organic signals are driving them, or can you see that it's not organic signals driving the pack, as Mike suggests. What, in those cases, does appear to be driving the packs?

I'd be so interested in a discussion on this. What do you see? What do you think of Mike's suggestions?

Hi Michelleh,
You will find differing opinions on this. Most of the Local SEOs I know use Localeze over UBL these days. I have seen doubts expressed regarding the current value of UBL. I have not used Yext, personally, but recommend you read Mike Blumenthal's recent review of their product:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/03/01/yext-local-seo/

I'll quote from Mike's post here:

"Pluses:

-From a management and process point of view for the local SEO the service makes sense. Its fast and efficient and provides some tracking. What would take 6 or 7 hours is done in 15 minutes. If outsourced it would cost in the range of a $100 but the quality and consistency would not be as good.

-It seems to generate between 5 and 6 additional citations that Google thinks are important. Why that should be the case with listings that have already been claimed is not clear.

-The service allows for specials to be easily created and disseminated quickly and things like hours to be changed in a timely fashion.

-There is some reporting and there is decent multilevel management so an SEO can allow clients to access their own reports.

-If a business were to move or change phone numbers it provides a very efficient way of grappling with that issue.

-Whether you use the service or not, Yext’s Local Search Scorecard is a great way to assess NAP consistency across a wide range of sites.

Negatives:

-The reporting is lame. Although in conversations with Yext’s Howard Lerman, they will be adding additional features and color. One of particular interest will be review tracking.

-The cost in and off itself is expensive and it is an annual recurring cost. There is a small reseller discount that starts at only 5% and with enough volume goes up.

• Web traffic from these sites is small compared to Google and even comparing to Bing or Yahoo. But that isn’t Yext’s issue."

I think the main concern with Yext's product is its cost. If you can afford it, it might be a good choice, but as I've said, most of the Local SEOs I know appear to continue to favor Localeze.

And, there is the alternative, as pointed out well by ITRogers, of doing this manually and making your own spreadsheet to keep track of your work. I don't consider this inferior to any product being offered because you have total control over exactly what you are doing. In many cases, manual submission might be the best choice, and if you do it yourself, it is certainly the most affordable!

Greetings to our great Moz Community!

It's been a fascinating year in Local Search, and I thought it would be good to jot down a few of my personal predictions for the year ahead. I'd love you to add yours, as well, so that we can all think together about the local businesses we'll be marketing in the new year. Here we go:

1) Major player weaknesses could lead to a changing of the local guard

Whether it's Facebook's ethics scandals or Yelp's downward stock trends, loss of public confidence could mean a shift in a local search platform hierarchy that's been pretty well established for some years. These brands' ongoing challenges could spell out opportunity for newcomer brands, or could simply drive more people to Google. Google has had its own problems this year, but nevertheless...

2) Google will continue to dominate and monetize local search

For so many users, Google IS the Internet, and that's an advantage no competitor has been able to overcome. In 2019, I expect to see further monetization of local SERPs, including LSA, in-pack local ads, booking buttons, and other forms of lead gen. Local search marketing will become more spendy. For more on creating strategy in this environment, read: Why Local Businesses will Need Websites More Than Ever in 2019. And, for retailers...

3) Real-time Online Local Inventory will become a real "thing"

I'll have an article coming out on this in early 2019 on the Moz blog (Update: Now Published: https://moz.com/blog/taking-local-inventory-online), but in a nutshell, we're on course to cross a new threshold in search. You'll finally be able to search for local inventory and get accurate information about who near you stocks what in their stores. Google's See What's In Store feature will be part of this, but so will emerging third party technology. User behavior will change as a result of this, and just like we've all integrated online mapping/local search into our daily lives, we'll soon be familiar with using search to find local inventory. This is really great news for retailers of all sizes! Meanwhile...

4) The line between brands and people will blur further

2018 has been a fascinating study in what appears to be a rising consumer expectation that brands align with customers at a philosophical level. We saw Nike's stock go to a record high due to their deft read of the nation and company alignment with Colin Kaepernick, while other retailers lost millions over culturally-insensitive content. Big rewards and boycotts represent the two extreme ends of this spectrum in which your CEO isn't really a private person anymore, but rather, a member of the larger society with a voice that will be assessed for its empathy to causes, groups and events. This puts brand employees in unfamiliar territory, having some of their fate rise or fall based on the public stances of company leadership, and it puts a new premium on skillful awareness of societal trends. Because of this...

5) Smart local brands will speed up focus on sustainability

Political pundits are predicting that the 2020 US election may be referendum on Climate Change. This means that US customers will be inundated with messaging and news surrounding this over the next two years. We're already seeing big brands like Patagonia respond by saying that they're "in the business of saving the planet" and Salesforce co-CEO billionaire Mark Benioff promising that his company will be running on 100% renewable energy by 2022. I predict that a growing body of consumers will increasingly expect and reward sustainable brand practices. 2019 will be a very good year for the local businesses you market to do a green audit of their business model, implement change and then promote their Climate-friendly practices. Think big on this, because...

6) Reputation will be key

Everything a local business can do to please and retain customers should sit at the core of the business model. Whatever it is that gets your customers to leave positive reviews, return for repeat business, recommend you via WOM to their friends and family, and view you as a vital component of local commerce will have a serious impact on your reputation, rankings and revenue. Google recently stated that 27% of local searches have an intent of reading reviews about a specific business and our recent State of Local Industry Report here at Moz found that 91% of respondents agree that reviews impact rankings. Reputation, and the awareness of its role, will be very big in 2019.

7) Link building will become more deeply integrated into Local SEO

Local Search Ranking Factors 2018 cited links as the 6th most influential local pack factor. This means that smart local SEOs will double down on their organic skills and start pursuing relevant links for their clients with professional, organized strategies and good tools.  Any Local SEM package that leaves out link building will be incomplete.

All in all, I predict we're in for an exciting, challenging year in which clear vision and a dedication to service will be the keys to local business success.

**Now it's your turn! Where do you see us going in 2019 in the local search industry? Please, share your own predictions! **

Hi Rich,

I know those EMDs can be so tempting to use, particularly because Google still appears to have a bias towards keywords in the domain after all these years, but I'm going to attempt to explain here why you are likely hearing 'no-no' on this.

Your topic is such a good one, that I'm going to break this response down into 4 different parts, looking at this from 4 different viewpoints.

1. You're an electrician physically located in Jacksonville. You install lighting, you install wiring, you do residential work, you do commercial work. You offer half a dozen or more different services, but they all fall under the general heading of electrical work. Because you have a single office you're working out of, you are only allowed to build a single Google My Business listing, based on your Jacksonville location and using the categories Electrician and Electrical Engineer. You set this up as a service area business in your GMB dashboard, because you serve a variety of towns around your Jacksonville location. You are not allowed to create additional GMB listings for each of your services nor for cities where you don't have a physical location. So, in sum, you've got one GMB listing, properly categorized and listing one business name, one address, one phone number and one website. This is the sum of the information you are sending directly to Google about your business, via the GMB dashboard.

2. Now, we need to step into the shoes of a Googlebot to picture what happens from here, once you've created that GMB listing. We (the Googlebot) have this info about ABC Electrical at 123 Main St in Jacksonville, phone number (904) 365-7777 and URL www.abcelectrical.com. We head out to the web to cross-check this data we have with every other piece of data that seems to relate to this. We run into confusion very quickly because we start to encounter:

• The same physical street address on 6 different websites

• A shared phone number on 2 websites

• Some duplicated content on 4 websites

• A shared or similar business name on 3 sites

We thought the electrician told us his business was ABC Electrical at X address, X phone number and X website URL. So what is all this stuff? How does ABC Electrical relate to ABC Electrical Jacksonville Beach, or ABC Electrical Palm Beach, or Enterprise Electrical Jacksonville? We aren't totally sure and we don't think we 'trust' our data about this business which seems confusing. We'd rather rank a business highly when we're positive that it's relevant to the searcher, and we just don't feel sure how relevant ABC is, given how their data is all over the place. In fact, there's a chance ABC could be trying to game us, trying to appear as if it is 6 businesses instead of 1 and in 6 locations instead of 1. Hmm, we don't really like that at all.

3. Okay, so that was us being Googlebot. Kind of silly, I know, but I find it helps me to tell a story to myself like this to help me envision possible paths. Now, let's turn back into being you, the business owner. You have been in your industry for a long time, and have been building a brand called Empire Electric. You've had a single website you've been working to make the very best site on its topic in its geography. Likely, just doing this has represented a considerable investment of time and money. You've got a blog on this site, and it's challenging enough to find time every week to write something awesome on it, but you're doing it. You're making that time. You're dedicated to building that brand!

Now, suddenly, instead of concentrating all the spare time and budget you have on your one website, your one blog, you are considering splitting that up into 2, 3, 4, 5 different parts. Ask yourself seriously if you will have the time to develop totally unique, high quality content for each separate site, and to write not one blog post a week, but five, so that every site you run is equally good, equally the best of its kind in its city. Or, if not the time, the money to pay a really excellent copywriter and blogger to achieve all of this for you on an initial and then ongoing basis? Or, will trying to run all this and/or pay for all this just end up detracting from your original goal of making your company and main website the leader in its industry/geography? Will you end up with half a dozen poor quality websites instead of one powerhouse website?

4). Now, finally, let's be me - the Local SEO, or any of those other Local SEOs you've heard 'no-no' from on this. Why are you getting this response? It's because this is what we've seen with other businesses that went with a multi-site path instead of a single site one:

• NAP inconsistency across multiple websites, killing trust in the true data for the brand.

• Duplicate content

• Thin, weak content

• Neglected websites

• Owner burnout

• Efforts being spread too thin to have the effect we hoped for

• And, in extreme cases, filters, penalties and GMB takedowns!

So, that's what the no-no comes from. If you're hearing this, it's because this is what Local SEOs have seen so many times, they are worried that the same things will happen to you. To be totally honest, those you've heard this from likely feel doubtful that your business is going to be the exception that ensures that all guidelines are obeyed, no NAP is shared or convoluted, no content is thin, no content is duplicated,all sites are kept fresh and active at all times, and that there is absolutely ZERO footprint linking one website to another in any way. That is a really big list of requirements, and in fairness, it is actually possible to meet all of those requirements. It may be that you do have the time, the funding and the technical skills to meet every one of these requirements for a multi-site approach. If you do, then, yes, you could go this way.

But will it be worth it?

It's my personal opinion that it is almost always better to build the best darned authoritative website in your industry/geography, putting every bit of time and money into turning that site into a powerhouse for your brand, rather than spreading yourself thin over a bevy of websites. After all, at the end of the day, it's your brand that you want on the lips of your neighbors. You want them to know to call Empire Electric for all of the electrical needs. You don't want them to try to remember they saw some site called electricalservicesjacksonville.com. That's not a brand. It's just a bunch of keywords.

Moz is a good example we can look at. It offer a variety of products and services, all under the Moz roof. But, imagine if Moz instead had one site for this forum, another for Pro, another for Local, another for our blog, another for YouMoz, one for Seattle, another for our customers in Portland, and San Francisco, and Denver. Doesn't it make it easier for you, the community member, to know you just come to Moz for everything we offer? And wouldn't it be easier for your customers throughout Florida to know that they just come to Empire Electric for every service you offer in every city in which you serve?

Whew - long response, but it's scenarios like these that represent a major decision for a business like yours, and they deserve all the thought you can give them, taking into account how all paths might affect the future of your business. I'll just close by addressing the fact again that, yes, Google is still weighting EMDs in Local SEO. I see totally awful websites ranking because of keywords in their domains ... but I do not expect this to last. I predict that the continuous growth of Google's sophistication will one day result in a crackdown on these low quality sites. When that day comes, I'd certainly be glad I'd built a fortress at my single, branded domain and I'd sit back, and watch those EMD competitors who never deserved to rank well in the first place fall down the rankings. I'd be in pretty good shape

Hope this helps!

Hi John,

You really need a full audit here, but here's what I see at a glance, searching for 'heating and cooling duluth mn'. I didn't see a mention of your most important keyword phrase, so that's the one I chose.

• You are ranking #7 in the Maps pack, visible when you click the 3 pack for more results. So, it's not that you're nowhere (thank goodness) - it's just that you're lower than 3 in the pack

• The 6 results ranking above you are all physically closer to the cluster Google has designated as relevant for this search term. Look at the map and mouse over each entry in the left-hand list and you will see this behavior. Though Google is drawing a pretty wide radius for results, you are outside of it. Note that this is not a circular radius. Blesener looks about as far away as your company, but, they are closer to that shoreline area where the cluster is clearly based. https://www.google.com/search?q=heating+and+cooling+duluth+mn&oq=heating+and+cooling+duluth+mn&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.6459j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#q=heating and cooling duluth mn&rflfq=1&rlha=0&tbm=lcl&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:4&rlfi=hd:;si:

• Remember that getting into a pack when you're not located within the city of search is a rarity rather than the rule. So, it's easy to explain this away by saying that you're not in Duluth, so you shouldn't expect to rank for any Duluth based-or-related searches, but because we can see that your competitors are getting this extra nice treatment from Google while not being in Duluth, it does call into question other factors. It's important to note that there may be NOTHING you can do to overcome a cluster, but you want to be sure you've done everything possible before giving up hope.

• Why is your address visible on your GMB listing? Do customers come to your place of business? If so, A-OK, but if not, then your address should really be hidden to comply with Google's guidelines for SABs.

• No competitor outranking you in this pack has more than 4 reviews, and I totally agree with you that I'm seeing some pretty iffy websites outranking you in the local pack (but, again, this may be a geo issue you can't overcome). Nevertheless, absolutely implement a review acquisition program and see if that won't move you up a couple of notches by going beyond the 4 reviews you have to 10 reviews, 20 reviews, etc.

• On your website, I wouldn't advise keeping your links to the 3 city pages in the footer. If you serve 3 cities, you should link to your landing pages for them from your main menu. And you really should have a page for Hermantown. Even if it's a small city, it's YOUR small city. Promote with pride and it will look more natural that you're saying "we're in Hermantown and we also serve Duluth, Two Harbors, etc."

• I do see that an effort has been made to differentiate the content on the 3 city landing pages. That's good to see, but I believe you could go farther with these. What about video documentaries of your projects? Testimonials from customers in those cities? More targeted advice about microclimates in the given cities? What can you do to take these from being long pages of text that are basically using the same headings to being 3-4 really glowing pages that are going to convince users that your company is simply the best choice in the area?

• How well do you feel you are doing going after more longtail terms? Heating and Cooling appears to be a major phrase for your industry, but how are you doing for your various products/services? Have you built sufficient content to cover all of these? Are you answering every possible questions someone might have relating to these?

• It looks like you've got a strong start going with citations (https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMk1NVCUyNTIwSGVhdGluZyUyNTIwJTI1MjYlMjUyMENvb2xpbmclMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjI1NTgxMSUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMk1NVCUyNTIwSGVhdGluZyUyNTIwJTI1MjYlMjUyMENvb2xpbmclMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjI1NTAxJTI1MjBNaWxsZXIlMjUyMFRydW5rJTI1MjBId3klMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjI1NTgxMSUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjIxODcyOTE1ODUlMjUyMiUyNTVE) so how are you doing beyond the basics? Any way to get this business blogged about by a local blogger or written up in the local news?

• Finally, your organic rank is a concern, for sure. Building on what loganr has written, you need to do a full technical SEO audit to be sure that there are no errors creating this lack of organic rank. I highly recommend: https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015

So, in sum, you need to:

• Face the reality of out-of-city limitations

• Get reviews

• Improve site architecture

• Improve landing pages

• Develop further citation opportunities

• Hide GMB address if applicable

• Do a full technical SEO audit

*Please remember that this is just a start - an at-a-glance impression I've had. Hopefully, you can dig deeper, either on your own, or by hiring experts.

Hi Catherine,

In order to qualify for local inclusion, avoid penalties and prevent merging, your client must be able to answer yes to the following 3 points.

1. Does the business have a unique, dedicated physical address (not a virtual address, P.O. Box or shared address)?

2. Does the business have a unique, dedicated local phone number in the city of location (not an 800 number, not a call tracking number, not a shared number)

3. Does the business have in-person transactions with its customers, either at its own location (like a restaurant) or at the customers' locations (like a plumber)?

If the business does not meet any one of these 3 criteria, it does not qualify for local inclusion. I don't know where your client is at on points 2 and 3, but if they can't say yes to point one, Local SEO will be nothing but problematic for them. Here's why:

If 2 or more businesses share an address, suite address or phone number (or even if their names are too similar), Google will frequently merge the business details of the listings. This means that Joe the Barber can end up with Jim the Plumber's business name, phone number or reviews showing up on his listing. Merging is one of the most difficult issues to deal with in Local, and one to be avoided at all costs.

Here is a Google help file on this issue: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175290

Your client's best hope is to:

1. Secure a unique suite number in the building at which he/she works and at which mail can be received.

2. Search for all citations of the business web-wide to correct any existent citations so that they include the new suite number.

Hope this helps!

Hi Perfect Pitch Concepts,

Google's rules have not changed regarding P.O. boxes (see: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en). Google states:

Do not create a listing or place your pin marker at a location where the business does not physically exist. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.Your business location should be staffed during its stated hours.

What you are seeing in the screenshot you've attached does not reflect a change in Google's rules, but a failure on Google's part to uphold their own rules. The P.O. box listing you've referenced is in violation of the guidelines and will likely eventually be taken down by Google, but this could happen tomorrow, next month or two years from now. It is not uncommon to find spam like this is the local SERPs, unfortunately, but it is definitely not a good idea for any Local SEO to advise any client to violate Google's guidelines. We have to teach clients how to succeed while adhering to the guidelines. Feel free to use the 'report a problem' link on the competitor's listing to report the P.O. Box as spam.

As you know, in most cases, Google deems a business as most relevant to its city of location. Because of this, if your client is not located in Athens, he is unlikely to appear in the local pack of results for searches stemming from Athens-based devices or containing the term 'Athens'. There are some exceptions to this, but they typically involve geographic regions or niche industries about which Google has less information and in which there is a low level of competition. A roofer outside a major city is unlikely to appear in the pack for those major city terms, regardless of what type of service radius he sets on his local listing. It looks like you are achieving high organic results for the client for a term that is important to him, and this is typically the best you can do for any SAB who lacks a physical location in a service city.

I totally understand how frustrating it can be to see spam in the local results. In some ways, Google has made major improvements in this area, but, as you can see, there is still a lot of junk getting through their filters. A Local SEO can set himself the task of using all available allowed method for his clients with the confidence that they will ultimately stand the test of time, whereas spammers' listings have a definite shelf life and may expire at any time. Hope this helps!

Hi Tony,

The creation of city landing pages for SABs (service area businesses) is still a common best practice. The key here, though, is not to simply put up 40 near-identical pages with different geo terms on them. You've got to create awesome pages. I would consider creating 40 awesome city landing pages all at once to be an awfully tall order. Any business owner is going to feel overwhelmed by this, and even a talented copywriter is going to feel bogged down by such an order. If this were my client, I'd say, "Let's take this 5 cities at a time. For each of our first five pages, we're going to:

• Write up 3 project descriptions

• Take super before-and-after photos to illustrate the completed projects

• Shoot a video and transcribe it

• Interview our best customers in that city and get testimonials

• Create a unique special/coupon for each city

• Create one unique feature for each city that no other city landing page has. For example the page for City A might feature an interview with the business owner. The page for City B might feature 5 emergency stain removal tips. The page for City C might feature recommendations for choosing carpet types for the home that stand up to most wear. City D's page might showcase how the company supports the Little League in that town. Etc."

This somewhat strenuous method intentionally avoids taking shortcuts and results in pages that are created with a lot of thought and care. The point here is to take the necessary time to assemble very persuasive, helpful content that will come across as exceptional to website visitors coming from a specific town. Once the first 5 pages are done, move onto the next 5. Eventually, you will have created the 40 desired pages, but each will be a little masterpiece of creativity and care.

Do remember, of course, that it's vital to set the business owner's expectations correctly on this: the goal of these pages will be to achieve organic rankings for his service cities, not local rankings, because he doesn't stand much chance of ranking in the local pack of results for cities where he isn't physically located, due to Google's bias in this matter. But, high organic rankings can make phones ring for SABs, and pursuing this visibility with real care instead of a slapdash approach remains the best way I know of to achieve a goal like that of your client.