Local SEO - when ranked in pack, No SERP

Hi,

One site has been optimised for local and I am now seeing it in the top spot for maps in a 7 pack which is great, but what I've noticed (whilst it was dancing) was when the site didn't appear in the pack I was #1/#2 in SERPs, when it appears in pack, I drop from SERPs and only appear in the pack which is 3rd from top giving me a lower place).

Has anyone else experienced this and does this mean that to get in SERPS I have to do a campaign again for that (even thought when I'm not in the 7 pack of maps it appears near top of SERPS) or does it mean you can't be in both for the same keyword?



Thanks all

Rogar said:

Hi,

One site has been optimised for local and I am now seeing it in the top spot for maps in a 7 pack which is great, but what I've noticed (whilst it was dancing) was when the site didn't appear in the pack I was #1/#2 in SERPs, when it appears in pack, I drop from SERPs and only appear in the pack which is 3rd from top giving me a lower place).

Has anyone else experienced this and does this mean that to get in SERPS I have to do a campaign again for that (even thought when I'm not in the 7 pack of maps it appears near top of SERPS) or does it mean you can't be in both for the same keyword?



Thanks all

Click to expand...

This is pure randomness from my experience..

Best thing to do is continue to build biz dir citations, backlink them with your keyword (perception marketing!) This floods the front page with yelp, yellowpages, etc for client's business...then get reviews on those biz dir listings (make sure to make them look natural...use 4/5 stars instead of all straight 5s).

..and

Build links to MS domain with a good ratio of long tail/naked url/main keywords

What I've found to work very well is placing Google authorship tags on the site...makes the site pop out!

Check out this guide for that:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/google-author-tags/

If there is virtually no competition and you seo the sh*t out of your site,you can get the site in serps and places.I have a listing I did in a low comp keyword where the site is No1 and all 3 places listings are using the site as well,so effectively top 4 spots with the same site.not pages homepage.I was testing stuff out in places and used the same site in 3 listings.
If you click show more local results,the "competition" are 4th onwards so don't show.I had a theory about how it worked and wanted to test something out,the site of no real value so I took the risk.It's rare,if anyone else is seoing their site unless you start building a massive network you will most likely not get the same site in places and serps.

Personally I aim for a site for places and a seperate one for the serps,2 spots is always better than one,mobile users will use places 90% of the time as it's one click call,PC users will probably visit a site and consider places as well.

You can never have the SAME URL in both places and organic at the same time for a keyword.

You can however have DIFFERENT urls show up for the same page (some organic, some places).

Do this by creating city landing pages alongside targeting the main domain url


Why aim first first spot, when you can own the first page?

adeptbob said:

You can never have the SAME URL in both places and organic at the same time for a keyword.

You can however have DIFFERENT urls show up for the same page (some organic, some places).

Do this by creating city landing pages alongside targeting the main domain url


Why aim first first spot, when you can own the first page?

Click to expand...

Would you like to place a bet on that!I have a screenshot of it.As I've said,very low comp.e.g no real competition.Point is your statement is incorrect.Try using the same url in some low comp places listings,make up a business name or 3 but use the same site.Work the site with good seo,you'll see what I mean,test stuff,it's what I do.

You're free to believe as you wish,I know,that's the difference.It's low comp,certainly doubt it would be achievable in any semi competitive niche because there will be other people doing seo,there isn't in this niche.There are only 55k competing pages,it's no big deal,it's just possible.

cloakndagger2 said:

Would you like to place a bet on that!I have a screenshot of it.As I've said,very low comp.e.g no real competition.Point is your statement is incorrect.Try using the same url in some low comp places listings,make up a business name or 3 but use the same site.Work the site with good seo,you'll see what I mean,test stuff,it's what I do.

You're free to believe as you wish,I know,that's the difference.It's low comp,certainly doubt it would be achievable in any semi competitive niche because there will be other people doing seo,there isn't in this niche.There are only 55k competing pages,it's no big deal,it's just possible.

Click to expand...

I'd like to see the screenshot of this, or just mention what the keyword phrase is; I have yet to see the exact *same URL* in the same blended SERP - I'm not saying this isn't possible, but I'd like to personally examine it further.

In my experience once you have your URL set in Google+ Business Places Page (whatever you want to call it now), that exact URL will not show up twice in that SERP. So if you have somedomain(dot)com in your places page, somedomain(dot)com will not show again in the same blended SERP. Though if you have somedomain(dot)com on your places page, somedomain(dot)com/service-or-service-location-or-keyword-phrase-etc can show up in the organic section (or vice versa), along side your local listing G+ Page in the local 7 pack on the same blended SERP - As this was mentioned in the prior post, since the two are not the *exact* same URL, even though they're both from the same domain.

Now an exception that I have seen is when somedomain(dot)com is on your places page, your website is set rel=canonical to the www(dot)somedomain(dot)com, and you might be acquiring links or linking consistently to www(dot)somedomain(dot)com (or vice versa). As we *should* know somedomain(dot)com and www(dot)somedomain(dot)com are two different URLs, thus having it possible to have the exact same page show up in the organic and local listing on the same blended SERP. - I have verified this; Google "beauty supply San Diego"

I do suspect this is just a temporary flaw, as you do not see www and non-www websites ranking side-by-side organically in the same SERP. Though this might have to do with the canonicalization or duplicate content filter...

That's my little golden nugget I'm sharing today. This might help the other members as I have read issues with their organic listing disappearing when they were added to the local 7 pack, dropping their ranking a couple places... To them, I suspect that you've done your link building for either www or non-www, so just claim and change your G+ local listing website field to the other. Better yet, Google the website and see which version of your URL is being indexed. I guess you could also optimize a page within your site for that keyword you were dropped from, but I think the other method may be quicker, since you were already ranking well organically.

Also NOTE: when you are looking at any G+ places page, Google will always drop the 'www' on the *display* URL. You can hover over it to see the actual destination URL. You have to actually claim the business and edit your basic information to add or drop the 'www' in the website field.

FALSE!

I show up #1 in local search and in organic search.

adeptbob said:

You can never have the SAME URL in both places and organic at the same time for a keyword.

You can however have DIFFERENT urls show up for the same page (some organic, some places).

Do this by creating city landing pages alongside targeting the main domain url


Why aim first first spot, when you can own the first page?

Click to expand...

CosmicSoundz said:

FALSE!

I show up #1 in local search and in organic search.

Click to expand...

As I interpret your statement, you're saying when you search in Google Places you're number 1 and then when you search in Google Web you're number 1 - which isn't uncommon. Is that what you're saying OR do you mean in blended SERP you can see your *same* URL in the organic section and local section?

I did the search eval thing for a while for google to better learn the thought process. The biggest point they push is Best Set of Results for the Search Query. If google serves you in PPC, Organic and Places at the top is that the best from a results stand point or is it better to show multiple results.

Yes, you can have all 3 at the top spot - PPC, Organic and Places - however it is extremely rare for that to happen.

adeptbob said:

You can never have the SAME URL in both places and organic at the same time for a keyword.

You can however have DIFFERENT urls show up for the same page (some organic, some places).

Do this by creating city landing pages alongside targeting the main domain url


Why aim first first spot, when you can own the first page?

Click to expand...

one can
most sites are on both places at same time

swift551 said:

one can
most sites are on both places at same time

Click to expand...

Please give a search term example of the same URL (not just the same domain) in both places at the same time.

alexiusxerxes said:

As I interpret your statement, you're saying when you search in Google Places you're number 1 and then when you search in Google Web you're number 1 - which isn't uncommon. Is that what you're saying OR do you mean in blended SERP you can see your *same* URL in the organic section and local section?

Click to expand...

I thinks what he was trying to say that you can show up and organic listing and in 7 local pack on SAME PAGE.
In one the niches we are working with we managed to get 1 spot for main KW and where 2in 7 pack - we showed up 2 times on same page. It was like these:
1st Spot - www.oursite.com
2nd Spot - www.compet1.com
3rd Spor - www.compet2.com
------
1st Local Business 1
2nd Out Company Name
3rd Local Business 2
4th Local Business 3
5th Local Business 4
6th Local Business 5
7th Local Business 6
------
4th Spot - www.compet3.com
5th Spot - www.compet4.com
6th Spor - www.compet5.com
7th Spot - www.compet6.com
8th Spot - www.compet7.com

So it's possible, but not easy... Required lots of links to main site and lots of citiations to places page, both have to have strong authority.

Is there a good guide that talks about the difference between optimizing for SERP and for local? I am probably making newb mistake here. I did normal SERP driven pyramid linking campaign with geographic modifier in keyword. I listed on business directories and built up Google+. I have a couple hundreds WH backlinks so the BH ones are not out of place.

I read that you will have a site for SERP and a site for local. Do you mean subdomains of same site or a different www altogether? In my case, I don't really need to SERP #1 except in my geographic area because it is service based.