Google places listing HELP

So, when you say it won't show up, what happens when you click the link to view the places page from his Places dashboard?

Have you not filed a support request with Google?

One common issue is to edit the profile but change nothing - just click submit at the bottom, wait a few minutes, and then try to find it again.

Is the listing under review, pending, deleted, or any other status but ACTIVE?

What have you been doing for 6 months? I just can't understand this part.

There's always room to improve. What's his competition look like? Does your guy have any reviews? Are the reviews fake? (be honest). Does the competition have a ton of reviews?

Is there a 7-pack on the front page? 3-pack? Is he in any of the organic searches? Is his website optimized?

Do any of the images have copyrighted stuff in them?

I could literally ask you questions all day so we need a bit more detail here.

Yes a little more information would be great.

Is their website optimize to help with the places listing? Is the address included on the website? You should have all 5 videos uploaded instead of just 3. Are those videos optimized with your keywords? Did you list them in all the big directories (Bing, Yahoo, Yelp, YP, Superpages, HotFrog, CitySearch etc..)?

1. No testimonials yet - I wanted to wait because there is NO result right now.

2. Thats right I tried panaramnio and it didnt work I ended up uploading to GP I forgot.

3. YES I can find the listing but I have to add his name to the search.

4. YES 6 months Ive waited

5. The reason I feel its not showing up (even though I can get it from the dashboard AND I can find it by adding his name to the Chiropractor search is because when I search for "Chiropractor twin Falls" I then select MAPS and I get A-J and its not there, even if I scroll thru all 6 pages.

This is a small town the competition isnt fierce at all. Something is holding the listing up.

I just cant figure out what.

Its there but google refuses to rank it AT ALL

Google has been implementing much more heavily a geo-radius for listings. If you're listing is outside of what Google says is the "center" of the city, then it may never rank.

We've done consulting withe a few top minds in the Google Places arena and this has become a recent issue since the last 3-5 months.

What I'd do is check where all the other listings on the first page are ranked. If your client is way outside that circle of businesses, then they'll have a pretty hard time ranking for their keyword.

Now, this isn't for all second tier keywords, just the main keyword. We've been able to get longer tail keywords ranking, but for main keyword +city, Google isn't allowing it to rank.

He's #13 for "Chiropractor twin Falls" - I do need to work on that but was hoping for it to at least rank first.

His google places title is - Holland Chiropractic and Rehab

Rus - Should I use Chiropractor Twin Falls" as the title ?

Voasi - YES hes off the center a bit, but others near him rank. Not well but at least they rank.

Its not unfortunately. I guess all I can do is finish up the videos and work on his site rankings. Ya ?

Hey Russ is your Zen course current and maybe helpful in my situation??

I've had some success with Google Places as of late and I hope you don't mind me sharing some observations. Hope this is a help to you. Greg

1. ChiropractorTwinFallsdotcom is available. Yes, it would be additional work on your part, but long term, it could be beneficial to your client to have the website built out on this domain name.

2. Google allows up to 10 images. You currently have seven. Before you load any more graphics, remember that it's important to name your images. Name each as one of ten keywords you'd like for the Google Places Listing to rank for. Or if it's only five keywords that you're looking to rank for, name them two at a time for those specific keywords.

3. Would recommend removing the pictures that are there and uploading a graphic (first of the ten) that's the client's logo. Again, take the time to name each, but also, when you right click on an image in your computer, click on "Properties" and take the time to embed relevant text on the "Details" tab under Title, Subject, Ratings, Tags and Comments.

4. Your categorie(s) for this listing according to Google is " Chiropractor,Chiropractors Dc, " just as you see it formatted without any spacing. Not sure what that second one is, but would ensure that Chiropractor is number one and then, since there are no other standard options, list the numbers 2-5 options as Family Chiropractic, Chiropractic Center, Pain Management and Wellness Center.

5. If you've chosen "Cities Covered", select the option above it instead with a radius of not more than 20 miles.

6. This is a small thing, but on insiderpagesdotcom, make sure your phone number is formatted the same as in the Google Places Listing; (208) 737 instead of 208-737.

7. Add photos and a review to the listing on citysearchdotcom.

8. Review the other directory sites that competitors are on where they're receiving reviews and make sure your client is listed there as well also with optimized text, graphics and video where allowed.

9. And speaking of reviews, this is where your client is coming up short. There's nothing wrong with a business owner asking a couple of clients to leave them reviews. If they have a few clients willing to do so, make sure that they're not all reviews on Google Places, but instead are a mix of GP and the various directories.

10. Add two additional videos. The three you have are nicely done. The only thing I would add would be the Google Places URL as the last item just after your overview on each video. Also, I've had the most success listing videos for my clients under the "People & Blogs" category.

11. You have one link on the first page of the website. Create another one in italic with the text "Twin Falls Chiropractor" linking out to an authority site, for example...http://en.wikipediadotorg/wiki/Chiropractic. Link a third, preferably in the title or subtitle to an internal "Post". And link another, this time in bold to another authority site. Would suggest WebMDdotcom.

12. You have the keyword phrase Chiropractor Twin Falls (with variations) listed 15 times on page one of the site. I see that you have SEOPressor installed, but even so, I would recommend cutting it to ten based on the word count.

13. I didn't see any social media links other than the one's used by visitors to share the link. If your client has a Facebook and LinkedIn page, you'll want to link these to the website as well.

Most people are still referring to the website as the nerve center for all of the activity and content that rounds out a solid online marketing campaign. When you begin to alter that thought process and consider the Google Places Listing as the true nerve center based on the weight that Google gives these GPLs, you start to realize that a different approach is needed.

With that in mind, the steps as outlined above are just a few of the steps I've taken to ensure a solid First Page Google Places Listing for every single client that I currently have. All of them! Over the last year, the "Website" has transitioned from the primary to a secondary component that's simply built out to ensure a solid Google Places Listing. I still provide all the flash and glitz and color that the client wants, but that's only after the site has been optimized and is doing it's part to ensure they get more business via a solid first page GPL.

Hit me up as you move forward if you'd like to discuss further. Best of luck to you. Let me know when you get this one up to page one. G

[QUOTE=contentment1st;5667499]I've had some success with Google Places as of late and I hope you don't mind me sharing some observations. Hope this is a help to you. Greg

Hi Greg,

All I can say is wow.

I have never seen such a detailed reply which is full of amazing helpful info.

No wonder you are having, to quote "some success", if you are willing to put this amount of work in to help your clients get to No 1.

Also,thanks for sharing the information.

Take good care of those that you love.

Robbie T

Is it fair to say that with a virtual address, ranking in google places is hard to achieve?

LoyalRoyal,

Let me just say this concerning the issue of Addresses as it relates to Google Places.

"The Right Address" can have a positive impact on your positioning.

Let me show you what I mean by that. Here is a link to the Google Places Listings for restaurants in Spartanburg, SC...



Some quick background. The Beacon is an institution in Spartanburg, SC. Everyone knows about it and the brand is huge locally. Wade's is the same way. Both are long term established businesses. The Beacon ranks in the number one spot despite not being Claimed and even though Wade's ranks highly it also does so with little to no optimization. But here's the thing...

Lime Leaf Thai Cuisine ranks in the Number 2 position and fluctuates between 1, 2 and 3 and has done so since the beginning of 2011 and that was before they had even one Review.

In the spring of 2011, I tore into everything they had as far as online content in order to figure out how a fairly new restaurant with an unclaimed (at the time) Google Places Listing with no optimization and no reviews could rank consistently with the two bedrock restaurants located there. I looked at it from every possible angle and then it hit me.

Check out their address...

101 East Main St. Spartanburg, SC

It's common knowledge in the area that the intersection of East Main and Church St. has always been the unofficial midpoint for the city, where events and festivals are held, where everything else kind of mushrooms out, and...right where Lime Leaf is located!

That day I began operating under the assumption that Google factored the location of a business relative to the actual midpoint of the city into their equation even more so than I had originally thought. With only that one example, it was only a hunch at the time, but it made practical sense. Fast forward to today and it's a key component of my strategy, but it's only one key component out of (at last count) 186 specific things that we do to get these rankings.

As I mentioned above, at this point, ALL of my clients rank on Page One in the Google Places Listings. That's not bragging or boasting; it's just to point out to you how obsessed I've become with ensuring my clients rank well there. It is the lynchpin to online success for service related companies when done correctly.

Just because all of my clients are on Page One for Google Places, that doesn't mean it happens overnight. All of those 186 specific things have to work in conjunction with each other in order for that to occur. Some of the steps are time consuming; others take only a minute or two.

And know that Google Places can be schizophrenic at times. I've read and heard the stories about clients losing their listing or the listing reverting back to a prior version. I've had that happen to a client as well. I guess we have no choice but to assume, for now, that this Comes With The Territory, but it's the best "Territory" available for local businesses that I know of... So back to the issue of ADDRESS.

I've had at least two clients in the past several months that prior to signing anything with them, I told them up front that they'd have to secure a secondary address.

One client in City #1 had an address based in City #1, but it was 12.9 miles from the midpoint for that city and he was positioned in Google Places on Page 8. The other client was based in City #2 and wanted to rank there, but his physical address was in "North" City #2. His business was on Page 5.

Both clients followed my lead. I provided a well researched midpoint at the corner of X & Y for both of them in their respective cities and told them that they needed to secure secondary addresses as close to that midpoint as possible. They did so and both had solid addresses within days of the request.

Don't ask me to tell you how; just know that I put it in their court. They know their city better than I do and they were both told that not taking the issue seriously by securing a rock solid address could cause them some problems down the road.

Anyway, we optimized (all 186 steps) the first client's Google Places Listing and in the process, we changed his old address to the new one and within 72 hrs., his business was showing up on Page 1 in the D spot. (I've made address changes in the past where Google sent out a new postcard simply because of the address change.) In this case, that didn't happen. Go figure.

The other client, we ended up keeping his original Google Places Listing in North City #2 and optimizing it for that City. We then created a new one for the City he really wanted to rank for. We put it together with all of the various steps, including the new address, hit submit and waited for the postcard. The card arrived fairly quickly at the new address that he secured close to the midpoint and a gentleman called me with my client's five digit code. I put it in and hit submit, and within a week my Client was in the B position on Page One.

This is just my experience and a couple of examples. Since in both cases, the sites were both optimized at the same time as the address change, I can't say for certain how much impact the Address had on the rankings, but I can tell you with certainty that it does influence where you are positioned. If you've been fighting hard to get a client to Page One with little to no success, I would suggest you take a strong look at the current Address. Some may find the issue of securing secondary addresses to be "out of bounds". Not me.

My job is to get my clients more customers. That's it, no ifs ands or buts. I do what I have to in order for that to occur. A Page One ranking in Google Places has had the biggest impact vs. anything else that I've done for my clients. If that means an Address Adjustment, then so be it. But that's just me.

I know that's a long answer to a short question, but I hope this helped you. Greg