Can an SAB (out)compete a physical location GBPs that share the same service areas?

[calmicrobio]

Can SABs get to the 3pac and outcompete GBPs with physical addresses?

Id guess it depends on proximity of the searcher to the physical location GBP. Maybe.

Are there any examples where an SAB can locally outrank a physical GBP that exists within the Service area of the SAB? I do not know of any. If it were true id guess everyone would prefer SABs.

 

[keyserholiday]

Yes, a SAB can outrank an GBP, showing the address. If the SAB sets up citations and gets a steady influx of reviews, they can compete.

Here is a side-by-side view of a SAB on the right and a GBP showing the address on the left.

 

[fisicx]

If the SAB sets up citations and gets a steady influx of reviews, they can compete.

What do you regard as citations?

I hope you don't mean signing up for every directory you can find. Google advised against doing this years ago in a number of posts and articles.

 

[keyserholiday]

What do you regard as citations?

I hope you don't mean signing up for every directory you can find. Google advised against doing this years ago in a number of posts and articles.

No, I don't mean signing up with every directory. I mean the main ones, Apple Maps, Bing, Yahoo, and Yelp.

 

[JS Girard]

No, I don't mean signing up with every directory. I mean the main ones, Apple Maps, Bing, Yahoo, and Yelp.

Plus whatever more specialized directories (e.g. local/state, industry-specific etc.) show ups in queries that the business is interested in. If any that is.

 

[fisicx]

That I understand. I've always called these self-referrals. Citations I consider someone else saying how good you are at what you do. But that's just semantics.

If every plumber in Berlin signed up with the same directories I'm not so sure there would be much overall benefit. But if one plumber had referrals from a load of review and local sites (like nextdoor) I suspect the benefits would be higher. It certainly works that way for local SEO.

The general rule for inbound links is: the easier the link is to obtain the lower the value of that link. Ideally you want everyone else to do the linking for you.

 

[keyserholiday]

Every time I look into a business struggling to rank, they never set up any citations. They only set up GBP and Facebook accounts. I doubt that every plumber in Berlin would set up citations. Setting up citations is the difference between triggering a knowledge panel and not showing one. I had a back-and-forth with one agency owner who didn't believe in citations. A Google search for their brand wouldn't trigger their KP. They purchased citations from Whitespark, and voilà, their KP appeared.

For links, the new rule is that the more traffic the page receives where the link is posted, the more credible the link is considered. So, yes, a link on Nextdoor would carry a lot of value. For one of my side projects, the first link I received was from Reddit. I ended up creating a brand new keyword for the second time. It ended up getting an estimated 320 monthly searches, now Landmark Recovery Sucks receives an estimated 140 monthly searches.