Google Places - 2 Business Locations... Help?

[nitromax]

Hello Linda,

I appreciate and thank you in advance if you are able to take a look at this and offer some advice. We've chatted briefly in the Google forum on a problem I was having with a clients Places listing a few months back... (which is now pulling #1 rankings on tons of great keywords!)

At any rate I have another client that has a tanning salon in 2 different cities. I designed and SEO'd their main website from the ground up (Bronze Tanning Salon | Richmond Hill GA Pooler GA | Airbrush Tanning | Spray Tanning | Sunless Tans | Tan Salons | Tanning Beds).

After I optimized everything (on page and off page), on August 31st, 2012, I flipped the Pooler GA location on (meaning, as the last step in the optimization process I follow, I finally specified the Website URL in the Places listing (Bronze Tanning Salon Pooler GA | (912) 721-7819 | Airbrush Spray Tan Service | Sunless Airbrush Tanning Salons | Spray Tanning Shop | Tanning Beds Equipment Store | Airbrush Tan | Spray Tans) and upload the photos and videos, etc... and then submitted it.) About 24 hours later their places listing went to the A position and I had multiple pages from their site on page 1 as well for just about every keyword and keyword combination I had optimized for, videos included!!! (tanning pooler ga, tanning salon pooler ga, airbrush tanning pooler ga, spray tan pooler ga, etc...)

The same night that everything went #1 with the Pooler GA location, I then went back into the Places Dashboard and repeated the above steps in the Richmond Hill GA listing using the URL (Bronze Tanning Salon Richmond Hill GA | (912) 226-7096 | Airbrush Spray Tan Service | Tanning Beds Equipment Store | Spray Tanning Shop | Airbrush Tan | Spray Tans | Sunless Airbrush Tanning Salons). Same thing happened as with the other location. In 24 hours all of those same keywords mentioned above with the city "richmond hill ga" on the end went #1 as well, their places listing in the A position.

I was naturally excited as it takes a lot of work to make it all come together as you know.

It stayed that way for about 3 weeks and then all of a sudden the Richmond Hill GA location slipped down to the E position in Places, and the organic rankings were all but gone, well they were buried, (accept the videos, and they are still doing well).

In the process of trying to figure out what the heck was going on I was trying to strengthen my optimization by creating their Google+ Local Business Page for the Richmond Hill location. It reported that it was NOT verified yet. So upon trying verify it the address specified in their places listing was NOT the address showing on the sample post card they were going to send. So I reported this problem to Google on 9-25-12:

"When I copy and paste my address from my Google Places listing, which has already been postcard verified, (60 Exchange Street, Suite C-5, Richmond Hill, GA 31324, United States) into Maps it reports this: 60 Exchange Street, Suite C near Fort McAllister, 3894 Fort McAllister Rd, Richmond Hill, GA. It does NOT list my business Bronze Tanning Salon. If after searching my address in Maps I click Next until I get to Page 3 my business shows up as the A listing on that page with the exact address I just copied and pasted. Some how Google is mistakenly associating my business address with that 3894 Fort McAllister Rd address. Another problem that seems to be directly related to this is that I have setup a Google+ Page located here: Bronze Tanning Salon - Google+, and when I try to verify it the following address shows up on the sample postcard it says Google is going to send me: Bronze Tanning Salon, Fort McAllister 3894 Fort McAllister RoadRichmond Hill, GA 31324. So I am lost as to what to do. Can you please help?"

The very next day on Sept 26th their Richmond Hill GA places listing was back in the A position and their website was at #3 in the organic results. I thought the problem was solved. It didn't look quite as impressive as the Pooler Ga listing, but I was happy.

I didn't hear back from Google until Oct 10 where they told me they fixed everything and verified it. A day later or so, for the first time, when you clicked on the places listing it would display the Google+ Local Business page which now finally displayed the videos I upload in the Places Dashboard. All was still looking good in the search engine results.

Then about week later, their places listing for Richmond Hill GA completely disappeared off the map (https://plus.google.com/101438335248345294918/about?hl=en), I mean GONE, along with one of their competitors, unless you actually type in their business name and city. Their competitor listing was NOT optimized in any way, and didn't even have a website specified in their listing, so I'm not even sure why they would have killed that listing.

Their Competitors Listing which is also GONE for NO apparent reason!!!https://plus.google.com/109438290105317533189/about?hl=en) Interesting note on looking at the category in this listing! It says "Tanning Salons" plural. That is NOT the category that comes up in Places right now, it's "Tanning Salon". Must be an older listing?

For a while, when you looked at some of my citation sources (Bronze Tanning Salon Richmond Hill, GA) the map that was displayed on the page showed that Fort Mcalsister Address/location, but I see in checking it today it finally is matching up with the places listing. I thought this address problem may have been what was causing the issue, but it's fixed and the listing is now GONE!

If you look at the optimization I did on the main website, the Pooler GA side and the Richmond Hill GA side (when I first released them to google) were, for the most part, identical in nature, with the exception of using Pooler GA and Richmond Hill GA as the city names. And of course all the optimization was city specific. I have since been tweaking things on the Richmond Hill GA side ONLY and trying to scale back some of my SEO. But I'm not sure what happened. I HAVE LEFT EVERYTHING in the Pooler GA pages exactly the same!

Do you see anything obvious that stands out to you? Maybe I've been staring at this too long and I just need an objective opinion? Why would it list the pooler ga location in the #1 ORGANIC spot (if there was something wrong with the site), and be in the A Position on the same page, but not for Richmond Hill? If the website is good enough to give the pooler listing #1 why would it not also give Richmond Hill the same results? (It did in the beginning!)

Pooler now only ranks well in Places for Tanning, or Tanning Salon Pooler GA. All of the other pages of the site have all but disappeared. Videos on all are doing OK.

The places listing comes up for "tanning beds equipment richmond hill ga". It is also showing for: "airbrush tans richmond hill ga" and "tans richmond hill ga".

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The term "airbrush tan richmond hill ga" has our Richmond Hill location URL listed in organic at #2 with 4 videos to follow. So it likes our location page???
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Interesting about Pooler: "airbrush tan pooler ga"... NO organic listings.

I have been to the Webmasters Tools area for this site and have checked everything. No errors, no suggestions on problem titles or descriptions, etc... No red flags that I can see.

Am I not optimizing for 2 locations correctly? Should there be a separate YouTube account created for each city location or is it OK to have all the videos for both locations in a single YouTube account?

On the main pages of the site the 2 addresses shown in the sidebar are an image, so they cannot be read as text. The sidebars change on the optimized pages starting at the 2 main location URLs specified above. The footer is the same on all pages. Any problems there? I link to a KML file for each location in the footer. Is that bad?

Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated.

I'm starting to understand your position on NOT being a Google Places Optimizer anymore! ugggg

Thank you again for contributing so much to all of us! Please know your time is appreciated very much! The following program called Jing is great for making support videos if you care to respond that way and post a link to the video (Download Jing, Free Software for Screenshots and Screencasts)

Chad

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey Chad,

Good to see you again and thanks for posting!

WHEW! That was a LOT to write (and read) . I just took a quick peek and see lots of issues.

Unfortunately I'm behind schedule on some consulting clients I need to do major research for. (With paying clients I go tons deeper on research so it takes a couple hours at least to get to bottom of complicated cases. Whereas here or at at G forum when I give quickie advice, I can only go so deep on any one case because jumping around trying to help lots of different people.) I'll do my best to get back to this by 11 tomorrow night, but am totally jammed up.

OR hopefully in the meantime some other pros will jump in with some insights. The address problem is over my head but hopefully one of our MapMaker Expert Reviewers can help with that one.

 

[nitromax]

Hey Linda,

I understand completely! I hope to be paying you one day to consult with me. I know everyones time is valuable. If I had more time to spend selling rather than figuring out problems (and apparently learning what I'm doing incorrectly) I'd be farther ahead in more ways than one!

A few tips pointing me in the right direction would be great if and when you are able.

Thank you kindly!

Chad

 

[Linda Buquet]

I'll mention 3 really quick things (there is lots more).

BUT I caution - don't start just tweaking away and changing things as we give you tips. Take all the tips, organize and think everything through. Do your due diligence to see if you think the advice is accurate. Then make all changes in a word doc. Really analyze it. Record everything as is, and record all the changes. Track.

1) Title tags are WAYYYYYYY too long and KW stuffed.

2) I don't know for certain but could bet same KW more than 2 times in title tag trips a filter and looks like over-optimization. Pick best key phrase and at max ONE more. (However in your case have to be careful because Tanning Salon is also in name, so if you use name and 2 phrases with tanning that's tanning 3 times and over doing it.)

On your home page you have tanning related KWs 6 times. On location pages 7 times. That's just going to get a penalty and seems already has.

Create dedicated pages for the other KWs. Don't try to string all those KWs into one title tag.

3) Title tags have exact same KWs on both location pages think duplicate KWs in title tags on diff location page probably gets a ding too.

There's more including issues on Place pages. But that's all I have time to give tonight.

 

[baltimoreseocompany]

Thats what I thought first time I read posting..way over optimized with your keywords & locations..

 

[Linda Buquet]

Also see this important post re over-optimizing KW in title tags.

Local SEO Warning: City in Title Tag - Former Google Spam Team Member Speaks Out

 

[Linda Buquet]

Whew, here I am, before 11 PM as promised.

Ok so I would remove city and Tanning Salon from both G+ L pages.

Myself and others have suspected a ranking penalty for repeating city in description. I just recently saw Blumenthal say - 10 point ranking penalty for City in description. I personally would not repeat Tanning Salon since in name either. Say something like Looked for a gorgeous tan? Just not the word Tanning.

Very odd though. When did you verify? Are Stats blank? Because neither page has "Similar Places" section at bottom which normally tells me it's a new page, not in the local database yet, so likely won't rank for about 6 weeks from verification or until that section shows up.

However I think your biggest problem is organic penalties. So just fixing G+L won't help. AOL uses Google PURE web search with no local - no G+L influence at all. So is a good way to flush things out to see if the problem is organic or G+.

Since you have Tanning Salon in the name and domain you should rank high in both cities. You only rank in Pooler - nowhere to be found for Richmond.

AOL search: Tanning Salon Pooler GA #1
AOL Search

AOL search: Tanning Salon Richmond Hill GA - Not in top 50
AOL Search

Think main prob is organic but the probs I see and have mentioned I would think would affect both locations. Not sure why only Richmond is being penalized. So sorry, that's all I have time for. Need sleep.

 

[Flash]

I think you error is in that there is either no link to the Richmond Hill location page, or less links.

If I click on Locations, I get the .com/locations/ page where I'm offered your locations via clicking on one of two jpgs. One leads to .com/locations/pool. The other leads to .com/appointments/richmond-hill-ga/ Notice that it is appointments, not locations, in the url. The page is a login page, there is no address info for Richmond Hill. You'll see that your link from the jpg is correct, but .com/locations/richmond-hill-ga/ redirects to .com/appointments/richmond-hill-ga/

You list the location page on the Places page, but when the system check it, it too would be redirected to the appointments page. That's a double whammy; it means the address can't be verified and that you're doing a redirect, which Places does not like.

You then have another error on your site, if I click on Locations in the menu bar and then choose from the drop downs, the Tanning Richmond Hill GA link is wrong.

So your two main ways of getting to an address page for the Richmond Hill location are broken.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Whoa, good catches Sherlock! Great detective work! I missed those.
That redirect to the empty appt. page from the G+L page took forever too for me.

 

[nitromax]

Hello Linda and Flash,

Flash - I was making some adjustments to the site late last night using a plugin called pagemash which allows you to organize the directory structure of your pages. You must have checked it about the same time I was tweaking a few things on the Richmond Hill side ONLY. Once I had everything set I checked all the links and they were working properly. But thank you and sorry I happened to be working on it when you were checking it out, I didn't mean to waste any of your time. I do apologize.

Linda - Great advice all around. I appreciate the time you have spent helping me on this. I didn't know that about AOL search either! Great tip! Thank you for everything!

If I could ask one more thing with regards to a company that has more than one location...

When creating citations in business directories. If a company has, say 2 locations or more, is it best to specify, as the website address in that business listing (lets say it Yelp), the URL to the main company website (straight to the .com)? Or specify the same URL that you put as the company website address in that locations Google Places listing (which might be something like: http://www.site.com/cityname)?

Chad

 

[Linda Buquet]

Kinda depends on specific situation. I go over a few different scenarios in my on-site Local SEO training but there are lots of different scenarios. I mean one Q is citations, but the other is how to handle NAP on site. It gets complicated with multi-location businesses. So right answer is usually - it depends.

 

[nitromax]

OK! Thank you again Linda! You are most kind!

Chad

 

[nitromax]

Hi Linda,

I was wondering if you have heard anything about this directory: SearchMonster Web Directory | Online Website Promotion Listings | Human Edited Directories | searchmonster.org - searchmonster.org

I was looking into one of my client's Webmaster Tools area and specifically how many back links their site had, and there were over 1500+ links from that directory to the Richmond Hill location of the site we were talking about in this thread. It was that location that disappeared and is still gone from the Google SERPs.

Interesting how the Pooler location does NOT have any links from that directory and it is still ranking #1 for the most part.

Just curious if maybe the Richomnd Hill site was getting penalized because of that directory. Is there any way of checking on that that you know of?

Thank you!

Chad