How do you know if your places listing is disconnected from your site?

[shondarogers]

Trying to understand how you know if your places listing is disconnected from your site. Guessing because you show up #1 organically but not in 7 pack below...if that is the case, what steps should you take to diagnose/correct the problem.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Shonda,

I have a whole new section in the new Advanced Video training that covers specifically how to diagnose/troubleshoot. This is one of the main problems I end up doing consulting about.

Most of it I explain verbally and it's too complicated to type out. There are something like 7 possibilities.

Tied up for next 2 days prepping for the Pro conference call, but if I can find time Friday I can try to pull something together.

Oh wait, there is just a brief overview of what to check toward end of the last G+ L training you took. Check the word doc.

 

[shondarogers]

Great - thanks Linda - will go check the word doc.

 

[RyanScollon]

Hi Shonda,


Just to make things clear, appearing #1 in organic and not in the 7 pack does not really mean there is a problem. I have started to notice a trend with the different things you need to do to appear in either local or organic. For organic it appears to be the optimization of the website, so the best thing to do would be some keyword research to make sure the terms you are ranking for are popular and relevant. These can then be used in your page titles and meta descriptions. You will also need to make sure all the content is relevant and includes the keywords. But if you are already ranking #1 in organic, im sure you don't need to do this!

To help your rank in local, the first thing I would do is add the rel=publsiher tag to help google trust the link between your google places listing and the website. For more help with the rel=publisher tag, read this post.
Another thing to do is to fully optimize your places listing with pictures, descriptions and make sure the place listing is verified! I actually have my own blog post on how to optimize your places listing from start to finish so feel free to check it out. If you have already done all of this, thats great! Reviews can also be very useful so try a get at least 1 or 2 reviews a month and it will gradually start to help. Now the last step is citations. Google needs to trust your website and address, so by creating citations on popular directories will not only show co occurrence of your address, but will increase your visibility as more people will be able to find you.

Hope this helps!

Ryan from Bowler Hat