GMB listing not ranking for Brand Name + City

[nwinezog]

When searching for Brand Name + Fort Worth, the location in Arlington TX always shows up unless you are really really close to the Fort Worth location (used local falcon and valetin.app to verify this).

I also checked to see what the distance was to City Center of Ft Worth. Arlington location is 5 miles further away.

The Arlington location is older (1+ year vs 2 months) and has more reviews (500 vs 50), but still it's like 25 mins away from the Fort Worth location and even if I'm searching for it from outside of the city I would at least think the branded search would bring up a 2 pack for those locations.

I've tried shoring up any NAP differences, adding additional categories & photos, verifying citations and yet I can't seem to get it to work.

Any ideas here on what else to do?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@nwinezog, it's hard to say, especially without being able to look at the specific business, but here are some factors to look at:

1. Similarly-named local competitors in Arlington. Google may be unsure whether a given search is for you or for them.

2. The one-box factor: is the Fort Worth location the ONLY Google Maps result on the page, or is it one of three? If it's the only local-map result on the page, that suggests there are few or no competitors in Fort Worth Google considers relevant (prompting Google to show a brand-name search result). In Arlington it's possible there are just enough relevant nearby competitors that Google chooses to show a 3-pack, and you happen not to be in it.

3. The landing page URL. If the Fort Worth GMB listing points to the homepage and the Arlington listing points to a "location" page, that could be it

4. It may not be clear to Google you mean Arlington TX. (There are other Arlingtons.)

5. Diversify where you get reviews, if you haven't already. Shouldn't all be Google Maps reviews.

6. Try other search terms.

7. Check the AdWords Ad Preview & Diagnosis Tool and see whether your results are the same.

 

[nwinezog]

@nwinezog, it's hard to say, especially without being able to look at the specific business, but here are some factors to look at:

1. Similarly-named local competitors in Arlington. Google may be unsure whether a given search is for you or for them.

2. The one-box factor: is the Fort Worth location the ONLY Google Maps result on the page, or is it one of three? If it's the only local-map result on the page, that suggests there are few or no competitors in Fort Worth Google considers relevant (prompting Google to show a brand-name search result). In Arlington it's possible there are just enough relevant nearby competitors that Google chooses to show a 3-pack, and you happen not to be in it.

3. The landing page URL. If the Fort Worth GMB listing points to the homepage and the Arlington listing points to a "location" page, that could be it

4. It may not be clear to Google you mean Arlington TX. (There are other Arlingtons.)

5. Diversify where you get reviews, if you haven't already. Shouldn't all be Google Maps reviews.

6. Try other search terms.

7. Check the AdWords Ad Preview & Diagnosis Tool and see whether your results are the same.

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond in depth.

1. I’d be surprised if this was it as the brand name is pretty unique and not that likely to confuse google.

2. So when searching for “Brand Name Ft Worth” in the regular search results the Arlington location is the only location shown (local knowledge panel I believe it’s called) but there is a location of this brand in Ft Worth. In Google Maps result, both the Arlington and Ft Worth locations show up. Which leads me to believe google is showing the Arlington location for “Brand Ft Worth” due to age of listing, # of reviews, photos etc but it’s hard to confirm that.

3. All listings website section point to homepage and each specific location’s page is used for the order url (restaurant industry, thin content but allows people to order online, and brand doesn’t want to change this setup)

4. That makes sense

5. We have been doing yelp, TripAdvisor, Zomato etc

6. Will do

7. That’s a great idea I’ll check that out when I can

 

[Phil Rozek]

One other factor to consider is whether one location has more name-recognition than the other, and more people searching for it by name. Google's more likely to show the more-searched-for location, perhaps more than it should. Google often skates where the puck seems to be headed.

Of course, it would be tough to tell which location is searched-for more....

 

[nwinezog]

That's a good point and something I'll try and look into. I would think that because the Arlington location has been there longer it would be more searched for.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@nwinezog, I would think so, too. Though if the Fort Worth location seems (to Google) more searched-for and popular as of late, it's conceivable that location has become Google's favored child.

 

[nwinezog]

Yep that makes sense! Thanks again for your insight @Phil Rozek, really appreciate it!

 

[JoshuaMackens]

When searching for Brand Name + Fort Worth, the location in Arlington TX always shows up unless you are really really close to the Fort Worth location (used local falcon and valetin.app to verify this).

I also checked to see what the distance was to City Center of Ft Worth. Arlington location is 5 miles further away.

The Arlington location is older (1+ year vs 2 months) and has more reviews (500 vs 50), but still it's like 25 mins away from the Fort Worth location and even if I'm searching for it from outside of the city I would at least think the branded search would bring up a 2 pack for those locations.

I've tried shoring up any NAP differences, adding additional categories & photos, verifying citations and yet I can't seem to get it to work.

Any ideas here on what else to do?

Late to the game here but how old is the Fort Worth GMB page?

 

[JoyHawkins]

3. All listings website section point to homepage and each specific location’s page is used for the order url (restaurant industry, thin content but allows people to order online, and brand doesn’t want to change this setup)

I would test linking the website field to the location page for the Fort Worth location to see if it helps this. Sometimes when you have a chain/brand that links everything to the homepage it causes what you're describing to happen.

 

[nwinezog]

@JoshuaMackens No worries! The Ft Worth location is about 3-4 months old, and Arlington is over a year old. Thanks Joshua!

@JoyHawkins That's a great idea! I'll give that a try! Thanks Joy!

 

[JoshuaMackens]

@JoshuaMackens No worries! The Ft Worth location is about 3-4 months old, and Arlington is over a year old. Thanks Joshua!

@JoyHawkins That's a great idea! I'll give that a try! Thanks Joy!

The age is likely the culprit. I'm sure you hate to hear this but I imagine over time, as Google releases the reigns on your listing, more users find it and click on it making it the more relevant result for the Ft. Worth location, it will work itself out.

You could build citations and get reviews to speed up this process.

 

[nwinezog]

@JoshuaMackens I do agree that it's most likely the problem here. Which is always fun communicating back to the client haha.

This location like the rest of them is in Moz Local so the bases are covered on that and they have someone on their side working on gathering/monitoring reviews.

Thanks for your input! Really appreciate all the suggestions!

 

[JoshuaMackens]

No problem!

Just a heads up, Moz Local is not a business listing solution. I know they say they are but they over market themselves on that front. As a small example, they don't add listings for Google, Bing, Yelp, Yellowpages, or Facebook, which I would say are the 5 most important listings to have. If they don't add listings for the 5 most important listings, where else are they missing important listings?

Moz Local is a great service to fix the data aggregators, but that's it.

If you haven't had a separate service, that's an actual business listing service, go through and do listings, I would highly recommend that.

 

[nwinezog]

Thanks for heads up on that! Much appreciated!