Problem ranking a lawyers website

Hi everyone,

a client of me is a lawyer and I am trying to rank his website and google places entry.
I created the google places entry and competition is very soft.
However, only three results are displayed.
The entry is optimized for the keyword and I've created a bunch of directorylinks to his website.
Any idea what else I could do and why there are only 3 and not 7 results?

We are still trying to figure out what the pigeon update did, but a few things are obvious, it gutted the maps box, and basically handed yelp the internet.

A lot of search terms that used to throw a 7 box (and for the record it could be a 3, 7, or 10 box depending on the market) do not throw a box, and the size of the boxes is all over the place. Some keywords are throwing a box one hour and not later.

Yelp pages are in the top 5 spots in a lot of markets, especially for heavy traffic local keywords, but I am seeing some less competitive local terms that have individual sites above the yelp results.

Generally everything is still all over the place, but I have been running some comparisons and it seems to me that a lot of the results in the maps box have a lot of visits to the Google local business page.

To get in the box, you are going to need plenty of good citations and reviews.
for now and give it a few weeks to settle. Complete, consistent citations and in the case of a Lawyer, it all has to be first class.

But right now, everything is still dancing. Just build the fundamentals.

There are a lot of things that play into ranking on the Google Business Local listings. The top things are:

1. Set up your website in a silo fashion and use the Google local categories that you want to rank for as pages on your site.
2. Get a lot of citations.
3. Get more Google reviews than your competitors
4. Optimize your Google Business listing with more pictures and videos than your competition

This is the best advice I can give you and it has worked well for me.

And EMDs still do well for local also.

If you had to choose between a Facebook review, a Google Local review and a Yelp review, which would you choose?

Eggplantus said:

If you had to choose between a Facebook review, a Google Local review and a Yelp review, which would you choose?

Click to expand...

Why would you have to choose? Just wondering.. Each would be important to prospective clients, so I would like to have as many as possible for each and a presence on each platform... If you are asking for ranking, I would guess G since G is where you are trying to rank...

I'm at Pubcon now, and it seems like it's just an extension of G. It seems like G is chipping away at the organic results, local included, and pushing everything to PPC. G authorship is dead, local is somewhat in chaos: from G places to G maps to G business; then there's confusion over G+. I cannot wait until Ungagged so that I can hear what the "people" have to say.

Eggplantus said:

If you had to choose between a Facebook review, a Google Local review and a Yelp review, which would you choose?

Click to expand...

Google local hands down.

Eggplantus said:

If you had to choose between a Facebook review, a Google Local review and a Yelp review, which would you choose?

Click to expand...

One hand goes to Google and other goes to yelp.

Do you have keywords turned on in your seo plugin? Do they match your categories in google maps?

Thanks very much Techxan

Now I know who to follow when it comes local SEO.

.lawyer domains are now available. Get the domain your-local+.lawyer and move the site to (and 301 redirect the old to). It`s a long term benefit - once You verify your g+ business and link it with the site be sure it will give you(r client) massive boost in ranks.

liberox said:

.lawyer domains are now available. Get the domain your-local+.lawyer and move the site to (and 301 redirect the old to). It`s a long term benefit - once You verify your g+ business and link it with the site be sure it will give you(r client) massive boost in ranks.

Click to expand...

NEW Domain extension is great idea, i just apply on it redirect