Ranking for keywords locally with multiple locations
-
If we have a company with multiple physical locations across multiple states, but selling the same products, what would be an optimal strategy?
- All local locations have been claimed, but the site is not coming up for searches with local intent.
- If the corporate site focuses on the "products", what is the best way to get that associated with the individual locations as well?
- When implementing json+ld, would we put the specific location on the specific location pages and nothing on the rest?
- Any other tips would be great!
Thanks in advance,
-
My pleasure, and thank you for responding with this extra info.
So, you have an eligible local business model with GMB listings for each of your locations that aren't coming up for the local searches you feel they should or want them to. You have a single site with a landing page for each of the 12 branches, but are aware that you're not yet taking full advantage of GMB features.
There are 3 core things you need to do here.
-
First, you need to make certain that there are no obvious barriers to the local pack rankings you feel you should be earning. So, this means ruling out guideline violations, review violations, suspensions, technical website flaws and duplicate listings. It also mean ensuring that there aren't any filters at work that are causing your listings to be filtered out in favor of competitors. For example, if two businesses are in the same building or within a block or two of one another in the same Google category, one may be filtered out at the automatic zoom level of the map due to the Possum filter. Or, in some cases, a business might be located outside of Google's city borders, and therefore find it hard-to-impossible to rank within that city. In other cases, Google might be tightly clustering the results around a specific area of a city, and if you are outside of that radius, it might be a bit harder for you to compete. So, your first step is to establish where these challenges are. If they fall under the realm of bad practices, you'll need to correct them. Otherwise, it's simply important to observe how Google is behaving surrounding your desired search phrases so that you understand the lay of the land.
-
Next, you need to identify the local pack competitors for your core search phrases in each geographic market. Here is my tutorial on Finding Your True Local Competitors. You have 12 businesses, so I'd start with just one to familiarize yourself with this process. Once you know who the top competitor is for each local pack you're hoping to get ranked in, audit them. Here is an example basic local business audit: https://moz.rankious.com/_moz/blog/basic-local-competitive-audit Audit your location against the competitor's location and see where they are stronger than you.
-
Now that you've identified your competitors' strengths in each market, create a strategy for improving your metrics so that they match and then surpass those of your competitors.
This is the basic process for discovering why you are ranking where you are ranking in the context of each of your geo-markets and for basing a strategy for improvements on the findings of your research. If all else fails and you don't have the internal resources to undertake the work, hire a good local SEO agency to do it for you.
Hope this helps!
-
-
I realize the URL would be helpful, but I can't share at this time.
1. Yes, all locations are physically staffed.
2. Yes, the Google listings have been claimed and verified for years.
3. Just one web site with separate pages for the individual locations. Again open to suggestions if there is a better recommended way of doing this.
4,5. at the moment, no GMB is not being taken fully advantage of. I hadn't heard of SWIS before today. That looks really interesting though...
6. We have 12 locations.
Thanks for the response!
-
Good Morning!
The best way to get community suggestions targeted to your unique situation is to share your website URL and the main term you're trying to rank for with us. If you can do so, that would be great, but if you're not able to share that info publicly it' okay.
I have some questions for you:
-
Are your physical locations staffed locations where your staff meets face-to-face with customers? If not, please further describe your business model.
-
You mentioned you've claimed your listings, by which am I right in guessing you mean your Google listings? If so, how recently did you do this?
-
Do you have more than one website? You mention a corporate website. Are there other websites as well?
-
Other than claiming the listings, what else are you doing to market the business? Have your location landing pages got strong, unique content on them? Have you built out citations for each location? Have you earned links to the website and the landing pages? Are you making full use of GMB features, like Google Posts, Q&A, photos, etc?
-
Are you using Google's SWIS feature to showcase your products on your Google Business Profile? Or any other GBP features to highlight your products?
-
How many locations do you have?
Please, provide as much info as you can so that the community can offer best suggestions. Thank you!
-
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
-
Geo-location by state/store
Hi there, We are a Grocery co-operative retailer and have chain of stores owned by different people. We are building a new website, where we would geo-locate the closest store to the customer and direct them to a particular store (selected based on cookie and geo location). All our stores have a consistent range of products + Variation in 25% range. I have few questions How to build a site-map. Since it will be mandatory for a store to be selected and same flow for the bot and user, should have all products across all stores in the sitemap? we are allowing users to find any products across all stores if they search by product identifier. But, they will be able to see products available in a particular store if go through the hierarchical journey of the website. Will the bot crawl all pages across all the stores or since it will be geolocated to only one store, the content belonging to only one store will be indexed? We are also allowing customers to search for older products which they might have bought few years and that are not part of out catalogue any more. these products will not appear on the online hierarchical journey but, customers will be able to search and find the products . Will this affect our SEO ranking? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks - Costa
Local Website Optimization | | Hanuman881 -
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 -
How to Get 1st Page Google Rankings for a Local Company?
Hi guys, I'm owning a London removal company - Mega Removals and wants to achieve 1st page rankings on Google UK for keywords like: "removals London", "removal company London", "house removals London" but have no success so far. I need professional advice on how to do it. Should I hire an SEO or should focus on content? I will be very grateful for your help.
Local Website Optimization | | nanton1 -
Is it deceptive to attempt to rank for a city you're located just outside of?
I live in Greenville, SC (who has a large "Greater Greenville" reach). I work for an agency with many clients who are located just outside of the city in smaller towns, sometimes technically in counties other than Greenville. Often, they provide services in the city of Greenville and aim to grow business there, so we'll use "Greenville, SC" throughout site copy, in titles, and in meta descriptions. Are there any negative implications to this? Any chance search engines think these clients are being deceptive? And is it possible these clients are hurting their ranking in their actual location by trying to appear to be a Greenville-based company? Thank you for any thoughts!
Local Website Optimization | | engeniusbrent1 -
Copying a Website For Better Rankings in a Specific Country
I've got a blog with some tools and business directories (https://www.webhostinghero.com). Actually my website is in English and is hosted in the US since its biggest source of traffic is from there. My second biggest traffic source is India. The issue is that while my website is really well optimized (in terms of speed), it is still slow for visitors from India. So my question is: Would it be possible to have a copy of my website on a web server located in India and use a sub-domain (ie.: in.webhostinghero.com) to access it without being penalized by Google? Would that be considered duplicate content? What would be the HREF LANG tag set to for India (EN-US, EN-GB... EN-IN??) I thought that having a sub-domain for a specific country could also help its rankings. Thanks in advance for your inputs. P.S. Sorry my english sucks.
Local Website Optimization | | sbrault740 -
Landing pages of web pages for multiple cities served
I have a customer that services literally hundreds of towns. I'm trying to figure out the best way rank in each town. Should I create a landing page or a webpage for each city and optimize for each particular town ( facts/information about the town. SEO titles H1, H2 and alt tags? Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | Miles230 -
Ranking not up in google
Hello Everyone, I am having problem to get ranking for this 3 domains http://goo.gl/L5e2Y2 http://goo.gl/QsU9gq http://goo.gl/igTT76 can anyone help, please Thanx in advance
Local Website Optimization | | falgunipanchal1 -
Not displaying the address and its effect on local rankings.
I have just started working with a plumber in my local area to provide a website and generate leads from a combination of SEO, social media and advertising. The issue is that he is adamant that his address should not be displayed anywhere on the site or on any of the citations we are looking to build. This is even after I explained the importance of this information to rankings and the fact that his address can be hidden from view in local listings. I have already come to the conclusion that getting in the typical 7 pack will be near impossible without verifying the address or building citations without a address. But I would like to hear your thoughts on whether you believe ranking organically is still a possibility or whether I should just focus on social / advertising.
Local Website Optimization | | yabyy140