Confused. Very low authority websites keep ranking higher in Google Maps

[suzievermeulen]

Hi,

How is it possible that for some of my clients (restaurant industry), I can't seem to get them to rank higher than #4 on Google Maps... #1, #2 and #3 all have much lower Domain Rating (under 10) while my clients have 30+, they have less reviews, and their Google My Business profile is less optimised....

Very confusing why they keep ranking above us no matter what we do! Any advice is welcome

 

[Yan Gilbert]

It's tough to diagnose without details, there could any number of reasons.

 

[zach.todd]

Hard to say without knowing more, but I would be curious about the listing names. From what I've seen, the name seems to play a significant role in ranking, hence so many listings trying to stuff all sorts of keywords into their titles.

 

[suzievermeulen]

It's for the keyword "Apollo Bay restaurant". The competitors are not keyword stuffing... For some reason, this business keeps ranking #1 for this keyword and most related keywords: Apollo Bay Fishermen's Co-Op. Their domain rating is only 11 and you can tell they have done nothing with on page SEO! Number 2 is Apollo Bay Seafood Cafe Apollo Bay Seafood & Fish & Chips - Apollo Bay Seafood Cafe, their website is really bad with only domain rating 5.....
My client's website is Great Ocean Road Brewhouse - Local Craft Beer & Restaurant Apollo Bay with domain rating 32....

 

[cbpayne]

Google does not use Ahrefs Domain Rating metric to rank sites.

 

[zach.todd]

Reviews are most likely not the differentiator here, as your client has a better base of reviews for sure.

Looking at these three locations in Ahrefs, I can see that Great Ocean Road Brewhouse has over 1,000 backlinks, where the other 2 both have below 50. Without enough time to really dig into it, I wonder if some of these links might be hurting more than helping.

If I look at the ranking and referring page graphs at the same time, I can see their rankings steadily decrease as the number of links increases. It might be worth checking some of these links, using something like Moz's spam score, to see if it might help to disavow a few.

 

[Bernhard]

Hi,

How is it possible that for some of my clients (restaurant industry), I can't seem to get them to rank higher than #4 on Google Maps... #1, #2 and #3 all have much lower Domain Rating (under 10) while my clients have 30+, they have less reviews, and their Google My Business profile is less optimised....

Very confusing why they keep ranking above us no matter what we do! Any advice is welcome

Your Customer does not use the term Apollo Bay in its GmB Naming the top ranked ones do. I have made the experience with my customers that the name in the GmB Account has quite a high impact on the local ranking.
Sry for my bad english as i am native german speaking. What i forgot: its listed as a hotel not a restaurant.

 

[Yan Gilbert]

It's for sure the keyword in the name that is making them rank first for anything with 'Apollo Bay' in it. Search for only 'restaurant' and they will more than likely be much lower down the list.

 

[Bernhard]

It's for sure the keyword in the name that is making them rank first for anything with 'Apollo Bay' in it. Search for only 'restaurant' and they will more than likely be much lower down the list.

Yes, but as long as her customer is listed as a hotel instead of a restaurant, this will not help her a lot. Therefore i suggest that she first of all, starts to correct and completely optimize the GmB Account for a higher ranking.

 

[suzievermeulen]

Thank you, everyone. That makes sense about having Apollo Bay in the Title name... They are listed as a restaurant though (main category), not sure why it's showing up as "hotel" for you? Hotel is an additional category in the GMB listing.

 

[C Rowe]

Try making the first <h1> your search phrase ( Apollo Bay restaurant ) instead of the logo and menu

 

[bruce@brucejone]

it's showing a hotel for me. gorbrewhouse - Google Search
Also see some errors in localbusiness structured data.
And some possible duplicate GMB listings here: PlePer Tools - Find duplicate listings in Google My Business

 

[ed5150]

Thank you, everyone. That makes sense about having Apollo Bay in the Title name... They are listed as a restaurant though (main category), not sure why it's showing up as "hotel" for you? Hotel is an additional category in the GMB listing.

Yep..........I have been dealing with the same thing in Melbourne and my conclusion has always been keywords in the GMB name. Businesses that barely exist in my business *(guitar lessons) can have no website or commercial presence, no reviews, no GMB activity, poor organic ranking , 10 kms away and outrank me because guitar/lessons (often not a name that matches their actual business) appears earlier in their GMB name.

The most recent update - after initially tanking us - seems to have reduced this a bit , for which I am thankful.

 

[Bernhard]

Try making the first <h1> your search phrase ( Apollo Bay restaurant ) instead of the logo and menu

not correct, Google local search is mostly based on the informations in the GmB account. Any optimisation in the site is mostly for the organic listing and has a little effect here. But nevertheless any optimisation is helpfull.

 

[Rich Owings]

@Bernhard I disagree. While I don't think changing the H1 will move the needle, organic signals do seem to influence map pack rankings. I always take a look at title tags, home page text, location/contact page and services pages.

 

[Bernhard]

So do i, as i wrote "has a little effect" not no effect. But as long as there are optimisations to make on the GmB Account, they value more.