The weirdness of organic results for certain queries

[HoosierBuff]

Does anyone have any shorthand way of explaining to a client the weirdness of the Organic results (not map pack), for certain queries.

For example, I have a bank in Rural Tennessee, and if you search "bank" in their area, the map pack has on target results (as you would expect), but, below that in the traditional organic, it is MOSTLY national banks, some without even a presence in tennessee. . . . . .and the thing is, its not exclusively national, but, 95% national. There are a couple of local results, but, hardly even local, almost more regional in nature.

How is this happening?

 

[Phil Rozek]

1. Links.
2. Mo links.
3. A scarcity of smaller, truly local banks, because they've been killed off by bigger banks.
4. A surplus of online, non-in-person services that big banks can and do offer nationwide (e.g. credit cards).
5. Google's monitoring of when people click on this and when they click on that.

 

[HoosierBuff]

Thanks Phil - second time you've answered my question, and, the second time the answer has been "links".

 

[Phil Rozek]

@HoosierBuff, indeed, that's Google's (spoken and unspoken) answer to most.

In this case, though, of course more is going on than just links.