Local Rankings Worse At Business Than Local Search Grid Reporting

[codyecp]

I'm sure this has probably been touched on a million times and I just couldn't find the appropriate articles. But we have a client who showed us his local/map search results while sitting in his business and he's on page 4 of maps. Meanwhile, when searching his money KW from our location, he shows up #1 for "service - geo" and in the Brightlocal local search grid, he's doing extremely well.

I've never seen a discrepancy like this and usually it's the reverse scenario.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything similar? Just looking for some sort of verbal explanation I can give.

 

[ElizabethRule]

If a business owner searches the same thing over and over again, and never clicks on a result, Google will assume the results they are showing are not relevent to them and stop showing them. I have personally never seen such a large discrepancy, page 4 is a bit extreme.

Have they tried an incognito window?

 

[codyecp]

If a business owner searches the same thing over and over again, and never clicks on a result, Google will assume the results they are showing are not relevent to them and stop showing them. I have personally never seen such a large discrepancy, page 4 is a bit extreme.

Have they tried an incognito window?

My colleague was on a Google Meet with the client when this was discussed. The client had shown his personal search results and confirmed the very large discrepancy in Chrome, but not in Incognito. However, the client mentioned the same results in Incognito also (I take him for his word there without visually seeing it).

His personalized search results could be playing a factor here somewhat. He mentions a few competitors frequently who were showing up in the top 2-3 map results (on the same Google Meet call). Assuming these are competitor listings he's clicked on multiple times.

 

[ElizabethRule]

Yeah a grid rank tracker is the only way to know truly know what the rankings are for any keyword at any particular location. I would trust that over a personalized manual search.

It can be tough with clients who constantly search for their businesses. I once had a client who would walk/drive to different streets in his city to do searches weekly, it was a bit obsessive!

 

[keyserholiday]

Yeah a grid rank tracker is the only way to know truly know what the rankings are for any keyword at any particular location. I would trust that over a personalized manual search.

It can be tough with clients who constantly search for their businesses. I once had a client who would walk/drive to different streets in his city to do searches weekly, it was a bit obsessive!

I am so glad I don't work directly with franchises anymore. I constantly dealt with the why can't I see my business when I am miles away and at my home. Is traffic up, yes. Are phone calls up, yes. Are leads up, yes. Can you accept any more clients, no. Well then?

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

@codyecp Just like you, Jason, and Elizabeth we often interact with our clients asking why their search rankings are "bad" at their specific location or why their Ads aren't showing up. We fortunately are able to train 99% of our clients, at least for Ads, to use the Google Anonymous Adwords Tool, to assure them that their Ads are running. As @ElizabethRule pointed out, Incognito has shortcomings when it comes to searches at at very specific location (like an address). I also find that Incognito can further be misleading, as specific searcher's location may be derived from several factors such as device location (IP address, Wi-Fi location, cell phone triangulation, or GPS). Even though we provide monthly local grid reports, we still have the occasional client that insists they are not showing up where they should on search results. So to help with their concerns and to either validate/invalidate their personal findings, we share with them this great website tool that makes it super easy for them to provide a very specific search location: Local & International Google SERP Checker

Often times our team uses it too, between grid report runs, to do ad-hoc address location searches and preliminary research.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

It can be tough with clients who constantly search for their businesses. I once had a client who would walk/drive to different streets in his city to do searches weekly, it was a bit obsessive!

I had a client that did the same exact thing! Maybe we traded clients

 

[codyecp]

@codyecp Just like you, Jason, and Elizabeth we often interact with our clients asking why their search rankings are "bad" at their specific location or why their Ads aren't showing up. We fortunately are able to train 99% of our clients, at least for Ads, to use the Google Anonymous Adwords Tool, to assure them that their Ads are running. As @ElizabethRule pointed out, Incognito has shortcomings when it comes to searches at at very specific location (like an address). I also find that Incognito can further be misleading, as specific searcher's location may be derived from several factors such as device location (IP address, Wi-Fi location, cell phone triangulation, or GPS). Even though we provide monthly local grid reports, we still have the occasional client that insists they are not showing up where they should on search results. So to help with their concerns and to either validate/invalidate their personal findings, we share with them this great website tool that makes it super easy for them to provide a very specific search location: Local & International Google SERP Checker

Often times our team uses it too, between grid report runs, to do ad-hoc address location searches and preliminary research.

The Google Ads clients can be frustrating in many ways. We had a client constantly search his "service - Geo" keyword and complain his ads weren't showing, even though statistically his campaigns were running very well and his money "service-geo" keyword showed top of page roughly 15% of the time. It was a highly populated, highly competitive market so the main money keywords were roughly $15-20 CPC. Rather than focusing on conversions, the client just wanted to see his ads at the top. So he forced us to blow the budget out and up CPC's on 3 money keywords so he could see his ads. Wasted a ton of money and missed out on many opportunities during that 2-3 week run...

 

[austins36]

Have you tried doing GEO SERP Research? Mobile Moxie has a great SERP tool. Being able to put yourself in a specific location w a specific device and get results will be valuable in these scenarios.

Also, another tool you could use to change your location is "GS Location Changer" from the Chrome Store. Simply put in the client's address and try to see what's ranking from the perspective of where they're located.

 

[Dheeraj]

Client are most of the times skeptical for their rankings. However the tools available in market justifies it. We used to track local rankings with Agencyanalytics and as they don't have grid tracking functionality its impossible to believe on the rankings they show there.

If we setup the city as the target location Sterling, VA and it displays top ranks I'm unable to know from which point of location they are bringing the SERP. There are very few tools in the market where they shows perfect geo grid ranking reports and if these reports are also getting questioned by clients due to personalised results its really typical thing to justify correct rankings.