Maps Help Needed - Ready to hire the right Google pro!

[michaelkingdom]

Hi everyone,

I'm having trouble showing up on maps. I do have a very strong organic presence but for whatever reason my maps presents is very weak. I'm looking to work with somebody that can solve this issue. I have been diligently working on my maps results for over 3 years and I think there is something basically wrong with my listing. But of course that would be up to a Google professional to decide.

I have worked with several SEO professionals and we have worked on my citations, social media, nap, videos and other relevant information.


If you think you can figure this out I'm eager to work with you!


Here's a video I made just for this forum (the only one I am asking this on). It shows the issue I am having:

MVI 1796 - YouTube sorry about the shaky camera

Feel free to contact me at michaelkingdom@gmail.com

Thanks,
Michael

 

[michaelkingdom]

You can contact me any way you prefer. Email, PM, call etc. Thanks all!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for offering up such a concise, descriptive video. It seems to me you really understand Google Maps rankings well.

I moved this to the "Local Search Pros Wanted" section of the forum. Most pros are off today so not many visit here on Sunday. So tomorrow morning around 10 your time, please come back and bump the post, if you haven't gotten any replies.

 

[michaelkingdom]

Thanks Linda. I appreciate the support.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Curious to see what Joy might have to say about this.

Have you contacted Joy Hawkins with Sterling Sky, Michael?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Joshua!

Joy & Colan from Sterling Sky is who I would recommend for this type of troubleshooting too.

 

[michaelkingdom]

I did work with Joy before and she indicated I was outside of what Google deems the Sarasota area. However, as the video shows, that may not be the issue since many others in other towns are showing up in maps. Also, I'm not visible at all even when zoomed in on maps. Very strange.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I took a peek over the weekend and noticed a couple things...

I searched for home inspector Sarasota (singular) and you came up #3 for me, here in Utah without geo-locating search or anything. (But you don't for me today.)

Do you have Sarasota as the city in your address in dash? Because the address on Google maps says Sarasota. Or is that due to how you set up your service area?

What categories do you have in GMB?

 

[SEOExpertBrad]

Is your location legit, not a virtual office, etc? Has it been used for a previous similar business before? Just taking a stab, on mobile at the moment. Scratch that.

 

[michaelkingdom]

Here's an image of my dash. My location is a brick and mortar home I have lived in for 10 years. No other business histories here.

 

[Eric Ainsworth]

After a quick look over, I think it's because you are slightly south of the Sarasota area. I have a customer that is a service business like you, they are hitting all of the best practices and are well above the competition in the 5 meaningful metrics but cannot get into the three pack. I concluded after weeks of research; it was because of their physical address.


Google heavily weighs addresses inside city limits.

 

[SEOExpertBrad]

I would agree with this.

 

[michaelkingdom]

Did you see the video where I zoom in locally on my area, redo the search and I am still invisible? Something is keeping me from appearing in Maps. Companies with no web presence are appearing in my local area and I am invisible.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Michael,

I remember you

I watched the video and wanted to add a few comments.

In the beginning of the video you looked in the dashboard and mentioned your organic impressions were much higher than your maps impressions. I just wanted to clarify that the "Listing on Search" is not your organic traffic. This is still traffic that's going to your GMB listing but it's happening on Google.com. The stuff under Maps is people searching on Maps.Google.com or on the Google Maps app. For more on that, read this article.

Your organic traffic isn't going to show up in Google My Business at all. You can see it in Search Console but the only way to separate GMB traffic from organic traffic is to use UTM perimeters in GMB. More on how to do that here.

Regarding why your ranking is low, I would still say that the reason why you don't rank well for "sarasota" terms is because your address is not in Sarasota (it's in Gulf Coast Estates like you clarified in the video). You can confirm this because you rank fine if you just search "home inspector" from your area as you can see here. It's not "home inspector" that you aren't relevant to - it's Sarasota.

I personally have not found a way to overcome this since the Possum update. Ranking locally (in the 3-pack) for terms that contain the name of a city you don't have a location in is almost impossible if you have a lot of competition.

 

[Broland]

Hey, sorry I did not see this sooner.. I may have saved you some time/money. I just haven't been around much but happened across this now while looking for something else.

Anyways, looks like you've made some progress, but I'm fairly certain you have a -5 penalty. I don't believe your problem has to do with the Gulf Estates thing, that part is more about being within the map view of the 3 pack and if not you just have to rank much harder to get the map view to adjust.

So the penalty, here's why I think that. You're at #6 now. If you adjust the map view slightly north, just enough to get it to refresh you pop up at #1 - even though that is moving north and away from your location.

Some other notes just from a quick look:

You're ranking #3 for 'sarasota home inspector' and 'home inspector sarasota', but with location set to sarasota and searching 'home inspector' you're at #16. This points to some possible overo ptimization, likely off site.

You don't have a 6,7, or 8 SERP for your brand even if you type in the domain.com

Quick search results yield some typical spammy SEO tactics/properties.

Hiding the address as a service area biz then making it visible, back and forth can throw flags too.

You also mentioned "several SEO professionals" - that's often a common thing with Google detecting penalties and things like PBN links.

PBN links are the most common correlation I've seen with these penalties, but no 1 thing causes a penalty. There are very many factors that Google uses to detect spam tactics, and it's harder to get out of one than get in one. (I'm not saying start disavowing links, that could make things worse).

Not all is lost, people have recovered. There is a lot of this that can be reverse engineered to figure out but it's not any one quick and easy fix - unless you just get lucky and happen to fix enough of the right things.

Feel free to get in touch and I'll see if I can help more or point you in the right direction of where to start.

 

[michaelkingdom]

Hi Broland, since I started the business four years ago my organic rankings have steadily increased. I've gotten into the top 5 for most keyword searches. At the same time my Maps has remained flat. Once a month or so I'll get a spike where my Maps presence will go up to a desired spot and then drop back down.