Ranking in Google Organically and the local 7 pack - will my idea work?

Long time lurker, first time poster- great place here

I have about 15 lead generation sites in local niches (Australia) - I'm ranking in the top 3 organically for all of them, and am struggling with the local 7 pack. Google doesnt seem to have a set algo, and depending on the keyword, there will be 1-3 organic sites ranking above the 7 pack, in some cases all of them rank under the 7 pack.

I want to dominate both, but dont want duplicate sites in each niche. Can I use separate pages though?

For example.



So the page that you assign into Google local is an internal page that is built around that keyword. Will this allow me to rank in both Organic and local?

Any help would be majorly appreciated.

Also, a semi related question: I have 3 lead sites that were hit slightly in the recent 2.1 update, from #1 to #20-30. Can I turn them into local sites? If I add them to Google local, will they still rank through citations etc, even though they have incurred a slight penalty it seems? I'm trying to figure out if there are separate ranking algorithms for Organic and Local.

Really appreciate any sort of assistance here, thank you.

Digivent said:

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I think it's a great idea. I wouldn't name the page by the keyword, but rather the proper business name, i.e.


For local listings, Google is more concerned about the business name than the keyword (i.e. plumber). Make certain all your local citations are aimed at the secondary page. It's going to take some discipline, because you don't want the primary (organic) page to compete with the local, secondary page in the local search results, so I would avoid having the business address on the primary page, which means it can't be in the header or footer of the template, which means the NAP is going to have to be added in the content, or custom CSS or whatever it takes, just so long as the only page that has your business address and maybe your phone number in computer readable text is the local page. (The phone number can be displayed prominently within a .jpg on the home page.) Watch your alt text and meta descriptions too. I'd treat the local page as "local only" and the organic page as a standalone "global" website.

This is really a good post. I get these questions all the time and I've been thinking about the strategy for over a year, and you are the 1st person here that has ever posted a workable idea. Everyone else silently reads me blathering on and I never know if I'm way out in the weeds or not.

This would also be a good, workable solution for dealing with multiple locations. Each location get's it's own, dedicated, secondary page. Oh yeah, and also I would make absolutely certain of 2 things.

1) The ONLY URL associated with your business in the local citations is the local page.
2) The ONLY outbound link from that local page goes to the organic, home page. You want all that good, local juice to feed straight to the home page. You also want prospective clients to go the main page. You could have the address on the home page too, just have it "hidden" as an image on the page (so it can't be read by the spiders, crawlers, etc...)

Anyways, the point here is that there's lots of ways into the local page, but only one way out. I wouldn't link to facebook, twitter or anything from the local page. But I would have FB, T, etc... all linking to the local.

For the organic SEO, make sure not to aim spam at the money site. Build some good, safe pyramids, and keep that trash away from the money.

FWIW, I'll throw in one more thing. NAP consistency and NAP "clarity" is REALLY important. It's not enough to be "close enough". A lot of SEO's give the NAP a general look-over, and in their opinion it looks "pretty good" and in fact it's horrible. One deviation away from standard is too many. I rank in highly competitive niches because while I'm micromanaging every single ASCII character of the NAP in every single local citation I can find, grooming them all, over & over again, petting it like it was a cat, my over-aggressive, "generalist" competitors are adopting blackhat methods and raising flags, and ignoring critical and confusing messages being sent to Google from the local citation landscape. Example, out of 30 citations, there are 3 different addresses, 2 different telephone numbers, and when you run a search of both the address and the phone number, you find multiple businesses claiming both.

Google does not reward businesses that do not know where they are or what their phone number is with extra juice in the local search results. So it's OCD micromanager - WIN, over-aggressive generalists - LOSE.

It just might work.
Though tricking google can be a dangerous game
especially in Local

Test with one of your lesser sites 1st

Nigel, this is fantastic, thanks heaps for your conclusive insight. I think we need a case study!

Additionally, this could open up the ability to rank a national lead gen site in several capital cities..


Instead of just ranking for one city, we can rank a national city with headquarters in every capital city - into every google local pack nationally.

I think we could look at tripling our traffic through this method, from a conservative standpoint..

Digivent said:

Additionally, this could open up the ability to rank a national lead gen site in several capital cities..

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Instead of just ranking for one city, we can rank a national city with headquarters in every capital city - into every google local pack nationally.

I think we could look at tripling our traffic through this method, from a conservative standpoint..

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I see this all the time. Google <city name> <computer repair> or <city name> <locksmith>.

Take note of what the scammers are doing and avoiding doing any of that.

This isn't scamming, I have national lead gen sites that can service every capital city, however Google only allows you to have 1 x google local listing for the homepage of the site, so you have to be "limited" to one city.

Digivent said:

This isn't scamming, I have national lead gen sites that can service every capital city, however Google only allows you to have 1 x google local listing for the homepage of the site, so you have to be "limited" to one city.

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Based on what you've said, it's a scam. Google Places Terms of Service spells out explicitly what is and is not allowed, and what you are doing is not allowed. That doesn't mean you CAN'T do it, however it does mean that if anyone at Google takes an interest in your network, the whole thing will come crashing down.

I got a phone call a few weeks back from some guy that had a nation-wide referral service for locksmiths set-up and one day it all came crashing down. He wanted to know how much I would charge to rebuild each of his local listings, and he did NOT like my price. He though he could earn $xxxx per week by paying me $xxx, when in fact it was going to look more like $xx,xxx. AND, it wasn't going to happen by next week, either. As an FYI yes it's a lucrative place to be if you can get there and if you can stay there, and you aren't going to do either if you aren't careful. I recommend posing under several accounts on and ask the experts there hypothetical questions. They will not explicitly help you to game the algorithm, but if you pose as a disgruntled small business owner that cannot understand why a PO Box at Mailboxes, Etc... does fall under the category of legitimate business locations for Google Places, etc... they might give you some help finding workarounds. Also you don't want to be letting on what the "big picture" is going to be, for a very LONG list of reasons. What you are doing is simple. An average Joe trying to get a fledgling business off the ground in one small city. That's all anyone else needs to know. Start making "big talk" and discussing various angles, and people will 1) stop helping you and 2) start thinking about how to steal your idea.

Nigel Farage said:

That's all anyone else needs to know. Start making "big talk" and discussing various angles, and people will 1) stop helping you and 2) start thinking about how to steal your idea.

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Wow, straight talk. I would love to pick your brain with some questions. First, do you venture outside local with your knowledge?