If you’re like most business owners, you experience a tiny bit of panic when your website’s ranking in Google’s coveted “7 Pack” of local listings begins to drop.
Google’s 7 Pack Map & Local Listings
Rightfully so. We all depend on ranking well in our local area, and when that ranking falls or worse, disappears completely, it’s easy to go there.
While that’s natural, there’s usually a fairly easy to find reason for this decline, and as a local site owner, it’s your job to put on your Sherlock Holmes costume and determine what the matter is. Of course, this becomes our job if we’re working with you, but let’s assume we’re not… because chances are we’re not… yet.
Sometimes it’s a simple solution, and calls for a simple fix that can restore your lackluster rankings in days. In other cases it may be a bit more in-depth. Let’s have a look at a number of the reasons why your local rankings may take a hit, and what you are able to about it.
Several reasons your local rankings sometimes fall
- Not Following Google Places Quality Guidelines – Google is very good at giving you a guide of exactly what they expect of a site they would list in their local listings. You can find it here. Ignore these guidelines and you risk disappearing from the search results!
- Inaccurate or inconsistent NAP Information – If you have information that is outdated, incorrect or otherwise misleading, Google will rightly assume you don’t know what you’re doing. Strive to make sure that all your name, address and phone (NAP) information is accurate. There are several tools to help with this task.
- Duplicate content – A problem that sites with multiple locations face is that they like to use the same content for all their locations. Make it your business to appeal to that particular location as much as you can, so that Google doesn’t see your site as trying to rank the same page multiple times.
- No updating or recent activity – If you haven’t done any updating of your pages for a while, you could find yourself a victim of just not keeping up with your competition. Keep your content fresh and current, and make it your business (because it is!) to keep seeking citations and positive reviews to help you rank well.
If, after you or your web person, has investigated these issues and ou still come up short, call us. It doesn’t cost a thing to chat. And, if there’s one thing we love more than anything, it’s talking marketing.
