Confused...

[nathscb]

Hi All,

I've been working on my businesses local search visibility (Surfing Croyde Bay).

We are a surf school and adventure centre with a surf shop in Croyde, North Devon in the UK. We are trying to get in the 3 pack for surf lessons, surf hire, surf school, croyde surf lessons, croyde surf hire and surf lesson croyde for example.

We have 51 reviews with an average 5* rating and have answered all reviews.

Our citations are numerous and clean.

I believe that our GMB listing is fairly well optimised and our website health is good.

The problem is we aren't able to feature in the 3 pack, yet we feature at 4,5,6 in the local search listings. We are competing with other businesses that have weaker inbound link profiles (researched through ahrefs and SEMrush) and lower Google review scores and count. It's driving me crazy.

I am currently working through @JoyHawkins LocalU membership guide to try and fathom out what's going on. I'd be so appreciative of some help if anyone can offer some advice.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Can you list the keyword and exact search location you are searching from?

 

[nathscb]

Hi Joy,

For example: "croyde surf school" - 51.1300° N, 4.2244° W - which is Croyde, UK

Nath.

 

[carolyn2]

Hi Nath,
I always get nostalgic when I come across anything related to Devon. I spent almost 2 years living in southern Devon near Sidmouth working on a farm and doing subsistence farming - growing our own food etc. Anyway, about your question. Your listing is definitely being impacted by a proximity filter from what I can see just by looking at the map. Your shop and Saltrock Croyde which looks like another surf shop - same category - just 2 doors down. Lots of places are in little clusters nearer to the beach. Map listings are a different algo than organic - when it comes to Rank Brain. You're going to need to "feed" it with stronger signals so your shop listing isn't treated as "6 of one and half a dozen of another". So you're not losing your mind and you're close - once you get more of the local signals you'll start to pop up in there.

 

[nathscb]

Hi Nath,
I always get nostalgic when I come across anything related to Devon. I spent almost 2 years living in southern Devon near Sidmouth working on a farm and doing subsistence farming - growing our own food etc. Anyway, about your question. Your listing is definitely being impacted by a proximity filter from what I can see just by looking at the map. Your shop and Saltrock Croyde which looks like another surf shop - same category - just 2 doors down. Lots of places are in little clusters nearer to the beach. Map listings are a different algo than organic - when it comes to Rank Brain. You're going to need to "feed" it with stronger signals so your shop listing isn't treated as "6 of one and half a dozen of another". So you're not losing your mind and you're close - once you get more of the local signals you'll start to pop up in there.

Hi Carolyn, thanks very much! Glad you remember Devon well We feel very lucky to live where we do and enjoy this part of the world on a daily basis.

When you say "feed it with stronger signals" is there something specific I need to do. Is it get more citations, niche citations, reviews or add more local content to our site? Or all of the aforementioned, or something else?

Really appreciate you taking a look at this! Thank-you! Nath.

 

[carolyn2]

Hi Carolyn, thanks very much! Glad you remember Devon well We feel very lucky to live where we do and enjoy this part of the world on a daily basis.

When you say "feed it with stronger signals" is there something specific I need to do. Is it get more citations, niche citations, reviews or add more local content to our site? Or all of the aforementioned, or something else?

Really appreciate you taking a look at this! Thank-you! Nath.

You are most welcome - happy to be of help. If it were me, I'd start with press releases and specifically the ones that let you embed your GMB listing. You would want to do things off site - from what I can see you're ranking #1 organically - well done. But like I said the map algo is different and you need to do things that will "break" the filter but in a good way. You obviously are in a competitive market because everyone is in the same location. The goal is to find minimum effective dose. So if you did a press release say every 2 or 3 weeks for a while then see what happens. I'd love to hear how you progress - so please feel free to message me. - Carolyn

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Nath,

2 things I'd suggest starting with. First, suggest an edit to correct the name of the 2nd listing. Adding keywords to the business name is against GMB guidelines but really helps ranking so it's likely giving them a huge boost.

Second, I'd suggest changing your primary category to "surf school" if the school keywords are more important to you than surf shop.