Ranking High Organically but Low in The Local Pack

[BryceG]

Hello all!

I've seen many people post with similar problems as me, but I still can't seem to overcome this issue.

I work for a company called Garage Brewing Co in Temecula, CA and it is my job to get us ranking in the "local pack." Now, we are doing pretty well in organic search results, as we rank way higher than all of our competitors for keywords such as "breweries in Temecula ca" or "Temecula breweries." We rank in positions #3 - #7 for various keywords (only Temecula blogs and Yelp rank higher), while our competitors are struggling to even make the first page of the search results.

However, my competitors, with lower domain authority, less back links, less referring domains, and are frankly just smaller companies, are outranking us in the Local Pack. For some reason, we are ranking around #7 - #13 in the local pack. This does not make sense to me? How can we do so much better than them in organic results but so terrible in the local pack? I have made sure that our NAP is consistent across the web, that we have a strong site health, that my GMB is optimized, that we are posting on social and Google, that I have included schema tags, etc.

I even tried Joy's tip about making sure we're in the right city, and it shows that we do fall within Temecula's city boundaries. Our address is 29095 Old Town Front St, Temecula CA 92590. After all my efforts, it seems that our placement in the local pack hasn't budged.

There are two things I can think of as possibilities why we might not rank higher in the Local Pack.

1. While we do have our brewery that operates in Temecula, CA, we also have our office in Murrieta, the next city over, where we receive mail. However, all of our efforts are targeted towards Temecula, as that is where the brewery is. The way I see it is if we change our address to Murrieta, it would only confuse customers. Is it possible that this conflicts us for ranking in Temecula??

2. I have read up a lot on how keywords in reviews effect your Local ranking. While "craft beer" and "brewery" are by far our most popular keyword, Google decided that it didn't want to acknowledge those words and instead acknowledge that our most popular keyword is "pizza" (an item we no longer serve). Is it possible that by not having our target keyword as a "popular keyword," that our rankings for Temecula breweries in the local pack decline?

3. I'm getting effected by the "proximity filter?" I'm not really sure about this one.

I appreciate any help!

Thanks,

Bryce

 

[carolyn2]

In a nutshell, sounds like for the niche you're getting more success with niche relevance. But coming up short on the proximity relevance. Organic is niche relevance, Map is proximity relevance. You would want to have some content relevant to the city you want to rank higher in at the very least. BUt this is definitely a proximity issue.

Updated: You might have a scan in local falcon run to see how far out your proximity goes and then figure out where it drops off. It might be other competitors not just your main address. And with having only one address on the site and a different one on the GMB (assuming that is what you're describing) doing so would be confusing and introducing mistrust of returning your GMB for the area.

 

[BryceG]

In a nutshell, sounds like for the niche you're getting more success with niche relevance. But coming up short on the proximity relevance. Organic is niche relevance, Map is proximity relevance. You would want to have some content relevant to the city you want to rank higher in at the very least. BUt this is definitely a proximity issue.

Hi Carolyn!

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Your assessment is exactly correct about our niche relevance and proximity relevance.

Now, when you mention that this is a proximity issue, how should I go about combating this? Just having more content relevant to the city (Temecula)? I'm not sure I follow. Are you talking about content on our website? For example: including an "Other things to do in Temecula, CA while you enjoy your stay" page on our site. Or are you talking about Google/social media posts relevant to Temecula?

Thank you for the help, I appreciate your words of wisdom!

Bryce

 

[carolyn2]

Bryce - I can provide a few guidelines that hopefully will point you in the right direction. If I were to hazard a guess having looked at the site and general lay of the land around you (looking also at the competitors to the north of your location) - there is something on your site that is either

1. confusing google because of mention of the other city, or
2. not making the Temecula connection stronger -

I did this search - site:garagebrewco.com Murrieta and looks like it's most likely both -

Something to explain Murrieta such as, why is it even on the site - unless there's a connection on say the licensing - it may be that just having it on your site is enough to cause Google to waiver on it's when it has the choice to serve other options that do not have that confusion - your competitors to the north.

I'd like to help more but now we're entering into an area where our clients pay us to diagnose and correct. If you try the above you may find these actions alone that you can adjust may remove the items causing confusion. It's possible then with a page about Things to do in Temecula will strengthen the connection to that city that Google will "see" it more relevant to the proximity.

If after trying that you want to talk more, feel free to private message me.

 

[BryceG]

Carolyn, you are absolutely amazing for looking into it. I can't thank you enough! I'll go ahead and utilize your suggestions and give it some time. I'll keep this thread posted if those tips were able to make the difference. Thank you for the invitation to message you privately should I need further assistance.