8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Analyzing Maps Competition

by PaulintheSticks
6 replies
Is there a way to analyze competitors maps listings to know how strong the competition is?

Thanks.
#analyzing #competition #maps
  • Profile picture of the author Bronwyn and Keith
    Hey Paul

    We just look at the market and go though the listings - as far as we are concerned if it's not fully optimized we are "In The Game".

    Plus now that organic and GP have had a quasi-merger it also makes important for your client to have a website.

    Hope that helps

    Regards

    Bronwyn and Keith
    Originally Posted by PaulintheSticks View Post

    Is there a way to analyze competitors maps listings to know how strong the competition is?

    Thanks.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2832196].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author David
      Originally Posted by bronke13 View Post

      Hey Paul

      We just look at the market and go though the listings - as far as we are concerned if it's not fully optimized we are "In The Game".

      Plus now that organic and GP have had a quasi-merger it also makes important for your client to have a website.

      Hope that helps

      Regards

      Bronwyn and Keith
      I'm with you on it being better for the client with regard to a local seo client's benefit of ranking in Google Places but....

      having a website has ZERO effect on improving the ranking of a Google Places listing.

      much to my chagrin I might add
      Signature

      David Bruce Jr of Frederick Web Promotions
      Lawyer Local SEO - |

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2835895].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Catalyst eMarketing
        Originally Posted by David View Post

        having a website has ZERO effect on improving the ranking of a Google Places listing.

        much to my chagrin I might add
        Actually the new localMerge algo appears to make organic SEO ranking one of the most important factors.

        As far as analyzing the competition. With the old 7 pack rankings I would just go through the top 5 or so to see how many citations they had.

        Now I ALSO use Scroogle Scraper. It will show you how sites rank with the OLD organic search ranking. You'll see that for the most part the new localMerge ranking order exactly mirrors scroogle. Exceptions being if the organic listing does not have a Place or if the core data is different enough that G can't match the Place and the site.

        Actually let me re-phrase that last paragraph. When the new merged algo 1st came out I was seeing an EXACT mirror like I said in the paragraph above (with a variety of exclusions). As the new algo settles in I'm seeing more of a true merge where the Places optimization seems to maybe be having a little more impact on the ranking order.
        Signature

        Linda Buquet :: Google+ Local Specialist and Google Top Contributor
        ADVANCED Google+ Local Training :: Also offering White Label Local SEO
        Latest Google Local News, Tips & Tricks

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2836294].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Cringer
    An interesting way to look at your question is to see what the local search volume is for a particular search term (e.g. car service boston ~ 5400 according to GEKT) and then see how many Google Places results appear for that search term, in this case its 7.

    But what if you could find another related keyword search term that had a similar search volume but only produced two map listings? To me it would make more sense to optimise your listing to appear in the two box listing (possibly then making it into a three box listing) and get the lions share of the local monthly search volume for that keyword, rather than competing with the 7 box results.
    Signature
    Access to my entire team for less than the cost of a Virtual Assistant and have unlimited requests including Cold Calling each day![/B] Click Here to find out more
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2833020].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author rdraiss
    Here's a tool My company uses that help find competing citations

    Local Citation Finder | Whitespark SEO Tools
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2834150].message }}

Trending Topics