Local Maps Decrease - Nonuniform Rankings in Geo Radius

[dgervase]

I’ve got a long term (15+ year) client in Charlotte, NC. They have hundreds of real reviews with a 5.0 score. They get a few reviews a week, so there's been no dropoff. GMB profile is completely filled out. We post at least once a week on there.

For the past couple of months we’ve fallen out of the Top 3 for our main services. Phone calls are down 50-60% or more.

Charlotte area local rank reports (SemRUSH) show Top 4-7 which obviously moves us out of the map listings.

The Local Falcon report below shows the results for one of their main services without "Charlotte" included in the keyword. Report is set to 7 x 7 grid with a 4.0mi radius.
No reason why someone wouldn't drive 30 min to this type of business.

When Charlotte is included in the keyword (Charlotte + Service Name), the results to the north drop to mostly 6-7. Results to the south stay the same.

I've done testing with a VPN that lets me search from a specific zipcode (.gs location changer) and the results seem to be inline with SemRush and LocalFalcon. Client is seeing the same thing at work and from home.

I’ve done extensive local citations and articles related to the services and Charlotte but I can’t seem to gain any traction.

Any ideas of what I can do to improve the results to the South and overall?
Thank you in advance!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

It's hard to say without knowing the actual keyword and business in question. Based on your description it sounds like it could be a filtering issue or a physical address issue.

I outline some other things to check in this article.

 

[dgervase]

It's hard to say without knowing the actual keyword and business in question. Based on your description it sounds like it could be a filtering issue or a physical address issue.

I outline some other things to check in this article.

Hi Colan, thanks for the reply.

Client is Rosensteel Fleishman, PLLC

Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer | Rosensteel Fleishman Law Firm

Charlotte, NC law firm that focuses on Car Accident, Personal Injury and Wrongful Death cases. Our experienced lawyers and attorneys are here for you. Call Now!

www.rflaw.net

Main keywords I'm looking at are:

Car Accident Lawyer
Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer

I've attached updated LocalFalcon scans for the 2 keywords. You'll see we do significantly better on Car Accident Lawyer.

1) I don't believe it's a physical address issue. Both the physical address and mailing address show Charlotte, NC in the GMB profile.

This is a real office location, not a fake virtual one.

While the client is a personal injury law firm, there is also a divorce / family law firm in their building : Home | GGF Lawyers | Divorce Law
I've never seen them show up in any of our searches, and they only have 4 reviews.


2) We've got 444 reviews and a 5.0 rating.

It depends on the search, but I'll often see firms with significantly less reviews outrankings those with more. In general all the firms are located within the city limits.

Warren & Kallianos, PLLC : 106 reviews
Auger & Auger : 202 reviews
Price Petho & Associates : 292 reviews
Tippens & Zurosky Attorneys LLP : 195 reviews
The Law Offices of Jason E. Taylor, P.C. Charlotte Injury Lawyers & Attorneys at Law : 128 reviews

The above firms will often outrank the 2 below which have more reviews.
DeMayo Law Offices, LLP : 1,151 reviews
Law Offices of James Scott Farrin : 477 reviews

3) When I do a manual search using a VPN set to Charlotte, NC
Car Accident Lawyer : #4
Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer : #6

When I set the VPN to their zipcode 28024
Car Accident Lawyer : #4
Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer : #6

4) SemRush when set to Charlotte, NC
Car Accident Lawyer : #2
Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer : #13

SemRush when set to their zipcode 28024
Car Accident Lawyer : #5
Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer : #17

5) Just organic results when VPN set to Charlotte, NC:
Car Accident Lawyer : #6
Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer : #8

When VPN set to their zipcode 28024
Car Accident Lawyer : #5
Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer : #8

Any insight you can share would be a huge help.

 

[keyserholiday]

Google doesn't award rankings based on who has the most reviews or who has the highest ranking. This is a bad SEO myth that needs to be killed. Your issue is that you are being filtered out by the other law firms in the area. I suggest removing the additional category of law firm as several other non-personal injury law firms are using it. I would suggest getting some local links and sponsorships set up.

 

[dgervase]

I just ran BrightLocal's GBP audit. Here is the comparison for a few of our primary terms against the local competition.

One thing that jumps out is that we've upload 824 images, and most of the other firms are less than 100. Not sure if too many images could hurt.

Besides that, I'm not seeing any trends across these reports.

What could be making the Jason E. Taylor firm outrank us consistently. We're beating them in every category.

How can Shane Smith or Bradley Law be ranked at all? Their metrics overall are significantly lower than the rest.

Thanks

 

[dgervase]

Google doesn't award rankings based on who has the most reviews or who has the highest ranking. This is a bad SEO myth that needs to be killed. Your issue is that you are being filtered out by the other law firms in the area. I suggest removing the additional category of law firm as several other non-personal injury law firms are using it. I would suggest getting some local links and sponsorships set up.

Thanks for the reply. I went ahead and removed law firm and attorney as subcategories.

I know you can never have enough citations and links, but if you look at the comparison PDF I added I'd say we're in line with the other firms.

In terms of Services, should we only use the ones supplied by Google, or should we add in custom ones like "Car Accident Lawyer" and "Charlotte Car Accident Lawyer" which we've done. It seems like everyone has added lots of custom Services with multiple keyword variations.

 

[keyserholiday]

For starters, stop running comparison reports as they don't paint the real picture. Google doesn't reward ranking based on how many photos you have or how many citations you have. Local SEO has completely evolved over the years and we need to start looking at building a brand. The number ranking factor is the business name, then the primary category, then on-page optimization, then the backlinks. Take everything you know about Local SEO and flush it down the toilet. Your client is surrounded by countless lawyers and law firms all competition the same rankings and search terms. Google is reward the others because they have properly optimized their onsite SEO. There is one quick tweak that you could make with your Yext citations to increase your rankings.

 

[dgervase]

I ran the comparison report as I'm trying to figure out specifically what the other firms are doing better than us. We used to outrank everyone but have slowly fallen behind.

Would you mind sharing what the tweak is we could make on Yext? I currently have a BrightLocal campaign running to submit to all of their aggregators.

I'll work on optimizing onpage. Thanks.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I took a look and I agree that this is likely a local filter issue. Start by reporting any of the competitors in close proximity to you that are keyword stuffing or breaking Google's guidelines.