Where does the page rank of google+ local listings come from?

14 replies
  • SEO
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This may seem like a stupid question but I'm just trying to learn as much as I can about local SEO.

I know that page rank doesn't matter in terms of ranking, but I still notice that many of the well ranking listings have a solid page rank (like 3-4 for my niche which is "mold remediation nj" and some other LSI keywords).

I'm curious about WHERE this rank comes from on these lisitngs. Is this merely from citations and reviews? Or is there something else going on that I'm missing?

BTW, how long do you think it will take to rank my listing in google?
I've built 21 citations over the last month, got 2 reviews on my google listing, and 3 reviews on other popular directories. My competitors don't seem to have that many (probably around 10-15 total between google and other directories). The thing that is bothering me is most of the listings seem at least 1 year old.

I'm trying to do it slow... but am wondering if I can rush the process a bit? Someone wrote somewhere that "review velocity" matters in terms of ranking, so does that mean I should speed up reviews? I just don't want to wait 1 year for my listing to rank.

Thanks guys! - Red

ps. I'm doing a lot of SEO on/off my site too.
#google #listings #local #page #rank
  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    PR comes from links. Nowhere else.

    As for the citations you are getting and how long it will take you to rank... 21 is a start I guess. I can do that in a day though. How long it will take you to rank? Really is just a guess without analyzing competitors, seeing your work, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    See thats not what I'm understanding.

    When I set up my citations/profiles on other sites, the pages don't have any rank.
    So where is this rank even coming from? People backlink their google+ page?

    Or am I getting citations in bad places?

    I'm just picking places from this list and getting citations:
    http://getlisted.org/resources/local...providers.aspx

    Do I have to start backlinking my linkdin page/facebook/twitter/yahoo local/yellow pages etc?
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      If you mean page rank, SERPs, and not PR, it comes from
      a variety of things.

      First, you need to be listed. Okay, obvious. But your location
      and keywords are important. Location, location, location.
      Even if you don't appear in SERPs, you want to show on
      google maps.

      You get there by being listed in a variety of places, yellow pages,
      yelp, etc., not just google places.

      For google local/places whatever they call it now, filling out
      the form is the most important aspect. Don't fudge or fake
      anything. It will only hurt you.

      Next, you want ratings and lots of them. Again, these come from
      a variety of places that google gleans info from.

      There really is no SEO for google places like SEO for a webpage.
      You don't even need a website.

      At first I thought that link you gave would be junk, but after
      further review, they seem to list only the ones that matter.

      However, you can't spam them all. Pick one or two, maybe three,
      and start getting "reviews." Yeah, you know what I mean.

      But the way you do your google listing is the most important piece.
      After all, if you have a real location, you are indeed the only one
      at that particular location.

      Paul
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      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Yep I put a lot of time not only into my google listing but other listings as well, which is why it takes me so long to set them all up.

    I think what I was confused about is that seoquake is showing the page rank of the website, and not the actual listing. Like looking at the pic below, is that the PR for the website or the google+ listing?




    edit: My bad. I'm an idiot. Its the PR for the site not the listing. I was just getting confused because SEOquake doesn't show its toolbar when you go to google+ listings. But it shows the same rank when you go to the site so that much mean the rank is for the site and not the listing.

    I also noticed that my competitors just seem to have about 8-10 more reviews than me on other sites like merchant circle and yelp. So I'll keep getting reviews and maybe I'll be up there with them soon. =]
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    • Profile picture of the author miroskala
      Hi Red,

      sorry to be a bit late to this thread... I was just thinking if you could share your results after getting more reviews since your last post in January... The reason why I am asking is that I've always had in my brain that the quality and number of citations for G+ listing and of course quality of G+ profile is more important than number of reviews...

      I am in this right now as well, optimizing a listing for my client, just still a bit confused about what uncle Google really wants :confused:

      Thanks

      Miro
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Hey Miro!

    Everything is actually going great with my listing right now. But I can't tell you 100% for sure what had the best effect on it.

    I continued building citations on the listing using this guy 2 times:

    Local_expert will create 33 local citations manually in top usa websites for your business to boost your google + page ranking for $5, only on fiverr.com

    Then I used this gig twice as well:

    Googleplaces will optimize your google+ local page by creating 15 maps referring to your g+ local listing, with report, to help with your g+ local seo for $5, only on fiverr.com

    What I did was alternate on a biweekly basis.

    I used gig 1 after the first couple weeks. Then gig 2 after another couple weeks, then back to gig 1, then gig 2 again.

    In the meantime, I also built about 25 of my own citations.

    So right now I think I have around 70-80 built.
    Then 30 map citations.

    On top of all of this, I have been outsourcing reviews. I have almost 10 on my google listing, and 5 from other sites. So its around 15 total now.

    I've done a lot of testing as far as outsourcing reviews, I've used 1 company ($25/month), and have actually used some fiver gigs as well. The company is great at getting reviews to stick on other sites (other than google, for some reason they suck with getting google reviews to stick), then fiver works really well for getting google reviews to stick. But you have to pick and choose gigs wisely. Never blast your listing. And I find it helps if you consistently use new gigs every couple of reviews. I never order more than 1-2 reviews at a time, I space them out, and always make sure they have great reviews when looking for a new person.

    So far I can't tell you for sure what has helped the most. My reviews are more consistent than my citations, so its hard to tell how much the reviews actually helped. But I can tell you that after everytime a citation order was finished, a week or 2 later I'd see a nice boost in traffic. So that leads me to believe that citations do count for a lot. However, I still think its VERY important to have reviews on places like yellow pages, yelp, insider pages, yahoo local. Even if it doesn't help rank your google places so much, it certaintly helps you get traffic. We've gotten calls directly from yelp/yellow pages/yahoo (none from insider pages yet) but those calls came directly from those listings, not google. Then we've also gotten a decent # of calls from our google listing. Our highest day so far as been 4 in 1 day. Although typically we get around 4 calls a week it seems.

    Total cost for everything was around $100 so far. Maybe a bit more. And was definitely worth it.

    Let me know if you have any more questions.
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    • Profile picture of the author miroskala
      Wow Red

      Thanks for your detailed story... Will you mind adding me to your Skype contacts and chat in about an hour or so (I have to leave for a while now)? My skype is web.skala

      Miro
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      • Profile picture of the author dublinwp
        Redshifted: Can you please tell the company that you outsource online reviews to? Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    No problem.

    I don't mind but if you have any questions in the mean time, feel free to ask.

    I have to leave myself in a couple of hours to help my mom give her dog a shot, but I should be around in 1 hour. Encase I'm not, just pm me later or ask more specific questions in this thread.

    Either way I'll try my best!
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    • Profile picture of the author miroskala
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

      No problem.

      I don't mind but if you have any questions in the mean time, feel free to ask.

      I have to leave myself in a couple of hours to help my mom give her dog a shot, but I should be around in 1 hour. Encase I'm not, just pm me later or ask more specific questions in this thread.

      Either way I'll try my best!
      Thanks a lot... I am back btw, it didn't took as long as I thought...

      When you have time, just chat me on skype pls, I can't PM yet

      Miro
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Glowingreviews.co.

    But don't use them for google reviews. For some reason they can't get them to stick on my account. And they even give you a warning which I chose to annoy. But as far as building up your other citations pages, they work great.

    Just find good sellers on fiver for google reviews, there are actually about 6 different people I've used on fiver and all of the gigs worked great. There is some guy called "youtubeviews" another guy called "stickyreviews" then a bunch more who work well. If you see any negative reviews that mention ANY issues with reviews sticking from a certain gig, pass it up. Don't take the risk. And don't use any gigs that post more than 2 google reviews at a time. Although I see people get away with it everyday, its not smart especially if a listing is new.

    Most important thing. When it comes to reviews, I waste A LOT of time writing 1 review. Generally takes me about 30-45 mins, and I would NOT let anyone else write your reviews. If they offer it, don't take them up on it. Just provide them your own reviews either from clients or ones you took the time to write.

    You really have to get in the mind of someone else when doing your own, their personality, their gender, different ways of talking, etc. Best thing I can recommend is be SPECIFIC. Like "it took xxx company 9 hours to do 3 different xxxx in my home". Use numbers, use specific details, thats what real people do. To make the process go better, just study companies who have reviews on yelp, that are similar to yours. Find the most natural ones you can, then just reword them.

    Finally, ALWAYS get at least 1 not so good review in there. This was something I put off for a long time, but it will help conversions. Not to mention there are ways to write "bad reviews" in a way that actually makes you sound good. If its a cleaning company, you can do something like, "this company gave us a free bed bug testing kit after they were done with their work. And they really should have warned us to do the test during the day, because my husband did it at night and we wound up throwing our mattress away and were force to sleep on the couch". See that sounds bad, but in reality makes the customer look like an idiot, and makes the company look good for giving away free stuff. =]
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    • Profile picture of the author miroskala
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post


      Most important thing. When it comes to reviews, I waste A LOT of time writing 1 review. Generally takes me about 30-45 mins, and I would NOT let anyone else write your reviews. If they offer it, don't take them up on it. Just provide them your own reviews either from clients or ones you took the time to write.

      You really have to get in the mind of someone else when doing your own, their personality, their gender, different ways of talking, etc. Best thing I can recommend is be SPECIFIC. Like "it took xxx company 9 hours to do 3 different xxxx in my home". Use numbers, use specific details, thats what real people do. To make the process go better, just study companies who have reviews on yelp, that are similar to yours. Find the most natural ones you can, then just reword them.

      Finally, ALWAYS get at least 1 not so good review in there. This was something I put off for a long time, but it will help conversions. Not to mention there are ways to write "bad reviews" in a way that actually makes you sound good. If its a cleaning company, you can do something like, "this company gave us a free bed bug testing kit after they were done with their work. And they really should have warned us to do the test during the day, because my husband did it at night and we wound up throwing our mattress away and were force to sleep on the couch". See that sounds bad, but in reality makes the customer look like an idiot, and makes the company look good for giving away free stuff. =]

      Another great tip... Sorry, not tip, more like strategy
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  • Profile picture of the author Natasha2003
    Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

    This may seem like a stupid question but I'm just trying to learn as much as I can about local SEO.

    I know that page rank doesn't matter in terms of ranking, but I still notice that many of the well ranking listings have a solid page rank (like 3-4 for my niche which is "mold remediation nj" and some other LSI keywords).

    I'm curious about WHERE this rank comes from on these lisitngs. Is this merely from citations and reviews? Or is there something else going on that I'm missing?

    BTW, how long do you think it will take to rank my listing in google?
    I've built 21 citations over the last month, got 2 reviews on my google listing, and 3 reviews on other popular directories. My competitors don't seem to have that many (probably around 10-15 total between google and other directories). The thing that is bothering me is most of the listings seem at least 1 year old.

    I'm trying to do it slow... but am wondering if I can rush the process a bit? Someone wrote somewhere that "review velocity" matters in terms of ranking, so does that mean I should speed up reviews? I just don't want to wait 1 year for my listing to rank.

    Thanks guys! - Red

    ps. I'm doing a lot of SEO on/off my site too.
    there both a necessity to use such as google maps/places and get listed on the local business center. Now I do know that reviews are important and more reviews equal higher ranking and that's why they say to encourage your customers to write a review for your business as this helps you to use google local business to its advantage
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    • Profile picture of the author FakeItTilYouMakeIt
      Banned
      I find the company's real customers are the best source for authentic Google reviews. Any service company should make follow-up calls a habit, think "How'd we do?" if the follow-up call to the client is a glowing review then I advise my clients to send a special follow up email as well. This gives you a chance to thank the customer for their business, let them know about any other related services they might be interested in AND slip a link to your Google places page, inviting them to review you. This has been a very effective way to get more authentic reviews from folks that probably have Google accounts (who doesn't?) so it looks very natural. And by only sending the link as a footnote in a followup email to clients that you already know are happy with the service you cut the risk of getting reported for "soliciting" reviews waaaay down. One of my clients is generating 8 to 10 good authentic reviews a month this way.

      Also if the company receives leads from sources like Thumbtack or Angie's list those kinds of sites also allow you to collect reviews from the clients you gain from them, you can message happy clients with a direct link to the review page. Just a thought.
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