Google Maps Optimization and Local SEO

[Ohioquotes]

I believe I mean Google Locations.

[jsteele823]

Proximity to where the searchers are searching vs where your business is located

Honestly, I'm starting to question this. The company I used to work for ranks just as well here (40 miles away) for the same terms they do in their own town, even though I've registered 3 new businesses within 10 miles.

Proximity is out as a top factor, in my mind. Not sure why that is the case, though.

[Lb1878]

I believe I mean Google Locations.

What the heck are you talking about? lol you have me all confused now.... Google Places (used to be Google Local Business Center) is where you create a listing that shows up on the maps as part of a 3 pack, 7 pack or 10 pack. You can pick multiple categories that best fit your business, add images and lots of other info about your business. If this is where you created your multiple listings, you need to make sure you have only 1 and cancel any additional occurrences of your listings. If you have external information (citations, reviews from sites other than google, etc.) they'll eventually get added to your 1 listing.

Jsteele, based on what Ohio is reporting, I would tend to agree with you, contrary to what I've said. I only say that b/c I've read it in many different places. It doesn't seem to hold true for our site of course...lol at least not the last time I checked.

[Ohioquotes]

Sorry! I meant Google Places. And yes...I noticed I have 3 or 4 different ones. Same address, same phone number etc...Different titles. One is Affordable Health Insurance. Another is Low Cost Health Insurance.

But each one is used for a different search term. I thought you are allowed to do that.

[Ohioquotes]

Oh...And what is the 3, 7 and 10 packs?

Thanks.

[pagi]

Oh...And what is the 3, 7 and 10 packs?

Thanks.

It means when you do a search on Google and include a geo location e.g. Dentist in Ohio and at the top Google lists a map and then nearby businesses in packs of 3,7 or 10.

Also, you need to consolidate all those different business listings that share the same address/phone etc into one.

[Ohioquotes]

It means when you do a search on Google and include a geo location e.g. Dentist in Ohio and at the top Google lists a map and then nearby businesses in packs of 3,7 or 10.

Also, you need to consolidate all those different business listings that share the same address/phone etc into one.

I assume you can have separate ones for Life insurance, Health Insurance and other types of insurance. Same address etc...but different products.

[Lb1878]

Okay, now that we are on the same page finally...hahaha Google Places is basically a place to list your brick and mortar business location. No matter what you sell or how many different variations of products you offer, you should only have 1 listing per business location. What you are doing is likely hurting you. If you have a different physical location where you sell the different types of insurance, than you can have more than 1 listing. By the way it sounds, you only have 1 physical address therefore, you should only have 1 business listing. You can use your profile to fill in the different types of insurance you sell such as in the description, categories, etc. but you definitely need to consolidate your multiple listings like pagi and I mentioned earlier. Google penalizes you for having multiple listings.

We had 2 different listings and were barely showing up until we deleted the older listing and created a newer, optimized listing. The old listing had several reviews attached to it and other user data. It took about 3 weeks or so for that data to associate with our new listing. Now we are ranking at the top for several different search terms. The 1st thing you should do after reading this is delete 1 of your business listings and optimize the other.

Good luck and happy Friday!

[Ohioquotes]

OK. Thanks. I'll do that this weekend. Heck, if I didn't know this, I was going to create three more listings!

The only problem is that I need separate descriptions for each listing. I realize the address is the same but there are three different products that people search for. As an example, if somebody is searching locally for life insurance, they will not be interested in a health insurance listing.

[CatalysteMarketing]

Oh no... HANG ON!

Some of the information here is wrong and you are going to get messed up.

"The 1st thing you should do after reading this is delete 1 of your business listings and optimize the other."

That is absolutely the wrong advice!

I work with lots of clients who have duplicate listings and am a level 3 mod at the Google forum mainly trying to help people with duplicate listing problems.

1st, you can't have multiple listings, it's against the TOS. Secondly it will hurt your ranking because your Google trust factors will be divided up between listings.

BUT DON'T just DELETE.

You need to merge the listings 1st, wait at least 2 weeks for Google to complete merging the data, then remove a listing a different way - you don't DELETE it. You have to do this carefully or you can loose any reviews or trust factors you may have accumulated so far.

I'll show you the only instructions Google has for merging listings so far BUT THEY ARE WRONG. I have asked them to fix this and give better documentation for merging listings and they are working on it right now.

Do steps 1 - 4 but DO NOT DO #5. It's wrong. By the time Google merges your data in about 2 weeks, hopefully they'll have the new instructions finished.

http://maps-forum-announcements.blog...-business.html

Again, don't do step 5 yet. You'll know when Google completes the merge once all your stats match for all the different Places.

Another important point. Be sure you know in advance which listing you want to keep and where it is in your dashboard. (#1,2,3, etc.) Once the data merges they will all look the same and it's easy to remove the wrong one.

I just took a chiropractor from #44 to #1 who was in a HUGELY competitive large city. I did a lot of other things besides the merge, but the successful merge had a lot to do with the shift in his rankings.

Hope this helps!

[Lb1878]

I stand corrected on the "delete" factor, my apologies. I thought I hit a delete button but after going back into our Places Dashboard, our 2nd listing (older) is still there but suspended. There is a delete option on the dashboard which I have not done. I definitely thought I hit delete but now I do not know what I hit to stop displaying the other listing.

I did not have to do anything special or additional once suspending our older listing. We had received an additional review or two but after about 3 weeks, the information that was contained in the older listing re-associated with our newly optimized one.

Catalyst, thanks for the correction. Now I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what I did to stop the older listing from displaying....

[pagi]

Now I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what I did to stop the older listing from displaying....

You login to Google Places then view all the listings you control.

Create a new one, then as the listing you are creating matches the address of a listing that is already live on Maps it asks if you want to claim the business listing already live at that address.

You claim it and thus remove and merge the old listing while also keeping the details of the new one you just created. I can't confirm whether you keep reviews from the old listing though as any that I've changed did not contain reviews and citations anyway. Although I would assume you do keep reviews etc as it seems logical that you would as they are the same address/business.

[Ohioquotes]

Oh well. I already deleted five of the six listings and kept the original one I created.

Hopefully I won't get penalized too much. I was easily in the top three for many phrases.

[Lb1878]

Ohio, sorry for that advice but I thought I hit the delete button. I did go back into my console and saw a "delete" button next to my current listing. I can't remember if I hit delete and it just paused the old listing or not. The old listing is still under my console and paused per say.

Pagi, I think as long as the information of your business listing is the same, it will merge over. As mentioned earlier, we did it and it took a few weeks for the existing reviews and citations to migrate over. We also received 2 additional reviews so I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it but I doubt it.

[mtreidl]

Hi guys,

Sorry if this sounds like I'm asking to be spoon fed, but I've searched the site and can't find where I am suppose to add it.

Any help is greatly appreicated!

Best,
M