🐦 Local Falcon is giving me sleepless nights...

[AndySimpson]

Okay, I am having a love hate relationship with Local Hawk Falcon at the moment, at the start of the week I had a eureka moment with one client and already seen some very positive movement (more green marker pins) by making just a few quick edits.

However, I now sit here and wonder what the hell is going on...so I come here for you to throw some suggestions at me, if you don't mind.

My question is simple...why?

Search term 1: "personal injury lawyer near me"

However...

Search term 2: "personal injury attorney near me"

That's it, attorney / lawyer changes everything! The GMB site url points to the home page and the following is in the page copy:

• attorney - mentioned 13 times
• lawyer - mentioned 9 times
• "personal injury attorney" - mentioned once
• "personal injury lawyer" - mentioned three times
• "Lawyers" is used in the homepage title tag
• the term "near me" is also on the homepage

It's been a long day so come tomorrow morning I might wake up with an answer, but at the moment I'm just wondering what might be going on.

Thank you!




#shouldhavegonetopubcon

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Andy,

Do me a favor - check that same search in Bright Local's tool using a couple nearby zip codes. Are you seeing the same thing there as well?

 

[Yan Gilbert]

Hmm, I have done longer term scans on a lawyer we worked on and there was a difference between 'lawyer' & 'attorney' results. Not this stark though. Similar thing can happen with 'auto accident lawyer' and 'car accident lawyer' for example.

Optimizing for one doesn't mean that the other will improve even though they might be synonyms. Exact match words in the home page Title have a big influence. If you can, try switching attorney & lawyer in the Title and scan it over a few days to see what impact that does.

 

[AndySimpson]

Thank you both, I'll run some tests as suggested and let you know.

Yan, nice work on the upgrade...now I have the heat-map I wanted

 

[AndySimpson]

Hey Andy,

Do me a favor - check that same search in Bright Local's tool using a couple nearby zip codes. Are you seeing the same thing there as well?

okay just ran a test using BLs zip code tool and got "the same" results

i.e

personal injury lawyer near me
- not in the 3 pack
- killed by local comps with higher review scores

personal injury attorney near me
- #1 in the 3 pack
- out ranks 2 competitors with much higher review scores

FYI I am not obsessed by this term, etc, I just want to know why there can be such a difference. OR if anyone else is seeing such a difference in the same / similar terms for a client(s).

 

[Yan Gilbert]

Local Falcon and BL source the data differently so it's good to know that they are giving comparable results.

I had misread your original info and didn't realize 'lawyers' was in the Title tag and that is what is ranking worse. Maybe drop the 's' to get the exact match on the word and see if that does anything. From what I am seeing, the GMB algorithm is not as sophisticated as the organic one for matching synonyms and variations.

Edit.. is 'attorney' in the GMB title?

 

[AndySimpson]

Local Falcon and BL source the data differently so it's good to know that they are giving comparable results.

I had misread your original info and didn't realize 'lawyers' was in the Title tag and that is what is ranking worse. Maybe drop the 's' to get the exact match on the word and see if that does anything. From what I am seeing, the GMB algorithm is not as sophisticated as the organic one for matching synonyms and variations.

Edit.. is 'attorney' in the GMB title?

Thanks Yan...boy, are you creating more work for me over the last few days or what!?




...in a good way!

 

[Stefan Somborac]

Totally agree with Yan.

1.) Try dropping the "s".

I always give the example of a search for "Apple" having different results than a search for "Apples". The former obviously shows Apple, the company, in the first position in the SERPs, the latter tends to favour the Wikipedia entry about the fruit.

In the case of lawyer/lawyers, you don't have the same extreme case of one being a generic term and the other being one of the largest brands on the planet. However, if one of your competitors is laser-focused on ranking for one form of the word (i.e. singular OR plural) they have a good opportunity to outrank a site that tries to balance the use of both singular AND plural.

Google can clearly distinguish between singular and plural but that doesn't mean that they are lumped together and treated as the same word (as the "apple" example illustrates.) I would argue that it actually makes Google better at discerning when it's important to differentiate between the singular/plural vs. when they function as equivalent terms.

2.) Also, Andy, you mention keyword counts but not locations. Any of those in <h1> or <h2> titles? What about in image alt tags? (Some will argue that <h1> and <h2> don't matter much anymore but if they are still minor factors, every little bit helps!)

 

[Chris Ratchford]

I'm quickly becoming addicted to Local Falcon! But I don't know if I can show clients this without being able to clearly explain inconsistent rankings with each map pin... I've tested a number of clients and competitors and I can't see any commonalities.

 

[JoyHawkins]

@Chris Ratchford - Can you elaborate on what's inconsistent?

 

[Chris Ratchford]

@JoyHawkins not the tool, but the results. SEO is (has) becoming a crapshoot.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I am finding that SEO for dentists is becoming SUPER hard. I feel like results in that industry are easier to come by with PPC.

 

[Chris Ratchford]

Jesus lord, help me! When @JoyHawkins says dental SEO is super hard, I need to find a new gig!

 

[Yan Gilbert]

@Chris Ratchford

Rankings can be jumpy at times, especially with the frequent updates that Google seems to be rolling out recently, and it may not be a good idea to get a client used to seeing direct ranking results. Ranking tools are meant to be able to help you make optimization decisions based off of the data that you collect, but the ultimate measurement is the outcome of the number of increased leads.

If you do show ranking reports, I suggest to do so infrequently, that way if there is something negative that comes up, there is time to recover and the client won't be pointing to every hiccup that appears.

As for the scan, the keyword coverage-area drop-off can be steep or gradual. It really depends on the strength of the keyword for that client as well as the amount of competition in the area. It's true though, it's definitely difficult to pinpoint why sometimes, but that's pretty much our job to find out.

 

[Chris Ratchford]

Thanks Yan!

 

[Tim Colling]

I am finding that SEO for dentists is becoming SUPER hard. I feel like results in that industry are easier to come by with PPC.

Gee, that couldn't be Google's intent, would it?

 

[OneBlessedDude]

not to get side tracked but number
1, does anyone have an affiliate link for falcon, looks legit?
2, I also believe with medic goog has added major weight to the "dancer" / "randomizer" in the algorithm, especially for the high "paying" kw's.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Okay, I am having a love hate relationship with Local Hawk Falcon at the moment, at the start of the week I had a eureka moment with one client and already seen some very positive movement (more green marker pins) by making just a few quick edits.

However, I now sit here and wonder what the hell is going on...so I come here for you to throw some suggestions at me, if you don't mind.

My question is simple...why?

Search term 1: "personal injury lawyer near me"

However...

Search term 2: "personal injury attorney near me"

That's it, attorney / lawyer changes everything! The GMB site url points to the home page and the following is in the page copy:

• attorney - mentioned 13 times
• lawyer - mentioned 9 times
• "personal injury attorney" - mentioned once
• "personal injury lawyer" - mentioned three times
• "Lawyers" is used in the homepage title tag
• the term "near me" is also on the homepage

It's been a long day so come tomorrow morning I might wake up with an answer, but at the moment I'm just wondering what might be going on.

Thank you!




#shouldhavegonetopubcon

What's the category for the GMB page? And how old is the client's GMB page?

 

[whitespark]

As others have mentioned, I'd look to the title tags and the GMB categories. Try playing around with those and see if it impacts results.

I'd want to scan review text as well for mentions of lawyer vs attorney.

Also, I'd also look beyond the site and GMB to try to get a sense of how much the rest of the internet seems to sway towards lawyer vs attorney. Try searching for business markers along with either "lawyer" or "attorney" and looking at the number of results. Example:

 

[AndySimpson]

Hey, thanks all for the feedback, currently at SMX East so will be responding and testing to your brilliant comments and suggestions over the next few days. Cheers!