Ranking okay in organic but terrible in local

[Jamie Steigerwald]

I am still trying to figure out why my client is ranking so poorly in local search. Here are the details:

Keyword: Irvine Real Estate
Website: Irvine Real Estate & Homes for Sale | Value Real Estate Irvine, CA
Google+ : https://plus.google.com/+ValueOC/

Currently they rank about 150 on local (map) but are ranking better then 5 of 7 in the blended 7 pack organically when checking using AOL search.

Here is a screen shot of the places listing:


Here are the details of the address. No matter how hard I try I can not get Google to accept the Suite number on line 2.


There are a couple of things to note. First there is no image is showing in map search, but does show in organic when searching for business name. The other is that prior to 3 weeks ago there were multiple accounts associated with the place by virtue of being managers of the Google+ page. These accounts have since been removed and not there is only the one account associated with both the Google+ and Places.

Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated! Cheers.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Jamie,

Would have been helpful if you added to the other thread. I've been going back and forth, reading everything I helped you with before trying to piece together.

Couple things you said in the other thread. Linking to it here so I can more easily track it down next time.
Do I have a hidden dupe/merged listing?

One piece of good news. Back when you 1st posted about this client, they didn't even rank for KW + Steet + City. "Real Estate 14 Hughes Irvine, CA". Now they do. So that tells me they've at least worked into the local database.

In the last thread you said "In the dashboard for all 3 I have listed Suite B102."

What did you mean by all 3 dashboards???

Not sure if this is an issue... This may be a bogus listing? https://plus.google.com/110986214396829772717/about?gl=us&hl=en. Same cat and address -suite. You could have client check and if not at that address mark as does not exist.

I said in the other thread:

"Jamie no time to find but I've written tons of posts here about the fact name, KWs and city should not be repeated in description.

Repeating city can cause a 10 point or greater ranking penalty. I cover the whys and wherefores and best practices in detail in training but too much to type out here.

You have name repeated once, Irvine 3 times, CA once and KWs a few times."

And I think I mentioned that if it was a KW/city repetition ranking penalty sometimes the penalty lingers for months after you clean it up.

So those are all the issues I see after a 2nd look.

 

[Jamie Steigerwald]

Hi Linda sorry I didn't use the previous thread I had a brain fart

What I meant by "In the dashboard for all 3 I have listed Suite B102." was that at the time I had 3 managers in the Google+ page so it showed in 3 different dashboards and one of those accounts still had the old dashboard. I have since removed all but the one owner.

Park Place Services is not the clients listing. When I search on phone for that business it looks like there was another real estate/mortgage company in that same building at some point. I don't believe it is there any longer.

Does the description look clean now?

If you can think of anything else please let me know. I am curious about what a 10 point ranking penalty means. Does that mean it could move from 150 down to 140 or it is 10 points on a scale of some kind like 1-100?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Linda Buquet]

"10 point or greater"

Yes description fine now.

Re Park Place. I didn't think it was their. And it's maybe not the problem but if it's not there I'd mark it closed or moved or whatever the case may be.

All that said, it's an uber competitive market and I can't see anything else wrong in the time I was able to put into this one. Maybe someone else will have time to do more detective work tomorrow.

 

[Jamie Steigerwald]

Hi Linda thank you for the time that you put in. I will continue to plug away at the organic side and hopefully those efforts will push things along on the local side as well.

I have a couple of bucks burning a hole in my pocket waiting for you to finish your update to your training. Maybe after training I will learn a couple of things to push this along a bit faster.

 

[Linda Buquet]

The Advanced G+ Local is ready and has been since Oct. and it's a pre-requisite before taking the On-site Local SEO course.

So you should get started with G+ L and by the time you are finished the new expanded Local SEO course will be too.

 

[Jamie Steigerwald]

Should I be concerned that this person is trying to edit my clients listing in Map Maker.

Bheadz77

I have read that it is bad to make changes in Map Maker but it seams like the change is correct. Not sure what to do, any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hmmm, based on other edits looks like he's maybe newer at MM and just trying to do minor but correct edits.

But I don't see a reason to go out of his way just to reformat suite. And now it's going to be in the backwards MM address format that looks weird in US.

Suite B102, 14 Hughes, Irvine, California

But it's not wrong or a bad edit, so I would not worry about it.

 

[Jamie Steigerwald]

Thank you for putting my mind at ease in just leaving it alone.

I guess I will just hold tight and see what happens.

I did notice a curious thing when looking at the building address in map maker, Google Map Maker, it appears that the business name "Value Real Estate" is mentioned twice. But I can't find any kind of dupe anywhere.

Doe anyone have any thoughts on what that is and if something should be done about it?

 

[Ben Bowen]

Looks to me like the MM edit is correct. MM has a different format for suites- they should go on line 1. Note this quote from Dan Austin:

"As for the perennial issue with suites, the same rules still hold true after the changes. MM and Maps have a separate, smartly organized field for suites and other address data (such as building one), whereas the Dashboard has a confusing, free form system that can often lead to unexpected results, such as all the data showing up on one line in MM (even though it appears correctly formatted on Places). Why Places has never fixed the field in the Dashboard is baffling, even though there have longstanding calls to do so. (My note: MM on the other hand ALWAYS puts the Suite BEFORE the street address which is very weird in the US.)"

The whole article is here: Google MapMaker Update Summary: One Database to Rule Them All | Understanding Google Places & Local Search

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes, it's technically correct.

However we've been fighting to get the display address changed to US format.
Suite, street, city is the way most of the world does it. But in US and Canada, an address formatted as follows looks retarded to a US consumer who does not understand. They may even think that business owner goofed or is dumb IMO.

Often the suite is replaced with # so an address looks like:

#204 123 Main Street.