De-emphasizing a Physician's GMB Listing

[Jay_SEO]

I found this related article from 2014 on this topic, but there wasn't any real resolution, so I'm curious if there is any new advice for 2020.

I manage two GMB listings for a neurosurgeon in two different cities, one major, which is his primary location, and a second satellite location that is in a nearby suburb of the major city. For frame of location reference, Fort Worth, TX, is the primary location with Weatherford being the satellite location.

The Fort Worth location used to be the listing that would pull primarily across a wide range of ZIP Codes; however, as I learned today, for whatever reason the smaller satellite location is now winning practically every ZIP Code search.

My first thought would always be that this is a proximity issue, but I used the gs location changer Chrome extension to emulate searches from several ZIP Codes, INCLUDING the one where the Fort Worth clinic is located, and they all triggered the satellite location that is farther away. For instance, the satellite location pulled even though it's distance was farther for all of these ZIP Code searches: 60 miles vs. 33 miles/43 miles vs. 16 miles/77 miles vs. 50 miles.

So while I would agree that the idea of de-emphasizing a listing is really not a best practice, in this case, it seems like even in cities/ZIP Codes where the preferred listing SHOULD trigger, it's not.

Any suggestions on how to either de-emphasize the satellite listing, considering both are essentially optimized the same otherwise (it's the same physician, so pretty much everything except the location is the same).

Thanks for any/all suggestions.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Are you able to list the links to both listings? It would help us troubleshoot.

 

[Jay_SEO]

Are you able to list the links to both listings? It would help us troubleshoot.

Of course.

Here's what he wants to be the primary listing for Fort Worth.

And here's the secondary location in Weatherford.

You will see some differences across the listings, starting with his name starting with "Dr." on the Fort Worth location, which does not exactly match his name on his bio on our main .com site. That was one change I made earlier this year that seemed to force the Fort Worth location to gain prominence, though it doesn't seem to matter today.

Thanks for the help/recommendations.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Jay,

They are using different categories so that would likely impact which one ranks for different terms. I'd suggest removing all the categories off the one you don't want ranking well and use just a single generic category like doctor.

Also, they're both going to the same landing page. I wouldn't suggest this either. I'd usually suggest having a different page for each location but if you don't want the Weatherford listing ranking anywhere you could link the Fort Worth page to the homepage of the website and it would likely rank better.

 

[Jay_SEO]

Hey Jay,

They are using different categories so that would likely impact which one ranks for different terms. I'd suggest removing all the categories off the one you don't want ranking well and use just a single generic category like doctor.

Also, they're both going to the same landing page. I wouldn't suggest this either. I'd usually suggest having a different page for each location but if you don't want the Weatherford listing ranking anywhere you could link the Fort Worth page to the homepage of the website and it would likely rank better.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have only recently changed the categories as a test to see what changes may have an impact on making the Fort Worth regain the dominant search option. I failed to mention previously that the keyword search the physician is most concerned about is his name "dr atif haque"...so I'm not sure that the category updates will matter for that kind of a direct name search.

Also, I wish that we were able to have unique location pages for each location where a physician practices, but our current site structure bundles things onto one page. So I know that's terrible, but it's unavoidable based on our current site structure. I'll see if swapping the resolving URL from his bio page to the site's HP makes a difference.

Thanks again.