Is it better to rank 7 box or #2 organic?

(I told myself I wouldn't answer this cause I knew I'd go into a rant, but I figured its important to talk about since these questions tend to go ignored most of the time)

I'm in a similar situation, with similar types of keywords and similar searches.

I can say for a fact, a website ranking #1 gets far more traffic than a google listing ranked #1. I've been playing around with this for months now. For my niche, its not a 7 box but a 6 box that rotates in and out. When that box isn't there, our site is #1 and we get lots of calls and emails. When the box rotates in, we become #7 and traffic always goes down.

I've noticed that when the box rotates in, if I put my google plus link back on my site, a few days later our site will disappear from page 1 (organically) but then it will popup locally in the 6 box at #1. So then we get traffic again but its far less traffic than if our site was there. But its still more traffic than being down in #7 underneath the box. Then when the box rotates out after 2 weeks, our site pops up organically at #1. At that point I take the link off my homepage again. It may sound crazy, but I don't rank #1 for just 1 local keyword. Its multiple keywords, and the local box rotation is timed differently for each keyword.

So I'm always making a few small changes to my homepage, on a weekly basis, to keep MOST of our main keywords #1 whether the box has rotated in or out.

And if this sounds confusing IT IS. Because sometimes it goes bad, and I unintentionally **** up my rankings. Sometimes it goes well, and I get the best of both worlds.

But to answer your question, where you're at is position 9. And you'll definitely get more traffic being in the local box AS LONG as you have more reviews than your competitors. Because people will scroll down below you if your competitor has more reviews than you. I always keep more reviews than my competitors, and my site has strong SEO so I'm always #1 when the box pops up.

WITH ALL THIS SAID, you may be confused. But so is the nature of google and the rotation of its local listings.

So I am not employing a new, much more sensible technique.

The technique is simple -

You make an additional website so you have 2.

I'm keeping them both the same brand, but each with a slightly different domain name.

Site 1 will always have a link for google places / plus on its homepage. So anytime the box rotates in, that site is #1.

Site 2 will NOT have a local google listing at all. So anytime the box rotates out, that website will bump up to #1. So I'm branding the same business, in #1 of the local box, and #1 organically.

In the end, this is the best solution. Because now you have people seeing the same brand twice, you have 2 sites for each keyword, and regardless of how the box rotates randomly for different keywords, you always have one site #1 in google.

I put this solution into effect about 6 weeks ago. And my new site is already on page 2 of google. In another month it should be in the top 3 organicallly. Then eventually it will settle in #1.

Now you're talking about 1 keyword, but like I said, I rank #1 for multiple keywords (when the box isn't showing for any of them). When the box shows up, its different for each keyword. Sometimes its 3 listings, sometimes its 6, sometimes it stays for 2 weeks, sometimes it stays for 2 days.

So to deal with the volatile nature of these rotations, for multiple keywords, the best solution like I said is 2 sites. One site that is optimized to merge with your local listing. One site that will NEVER merge with your listing.

So NO MATTER WHAT, you will always have your site #1.

I didn't mean to write such a lengthy reply, but this IS an annoying problem and I've been dealing with it for months. Before I started realizing what was going on, I'd have my clicks go from 20-30 a day, to under 10. Impressions would go from 1000+ a day, to 250. And my traffic was ALWAYS at its lowest, when the box was IN rotation, and my local listing was #1 as opposed to my site. As more time went by, the rotations got more and more volatile, and thats when I decided I need 2 sites, 1 optimized to merge with local listings, and 1 that will never merge with the listings.

It also gives me more real estate on page 1.

Also keep in mind, if you're not geotargeting with lots of long tail, geotarged backpages, you are losing A LOT of traffic. About 50% of all the traffic my sites get is long tail. At any given moment, on any site, I can have between 30-50 pages on page 1 in all sorts of various positions.

Then I also do geotargeted YT videos.

If I were to break it down I'd say roughly -

30% comes from our most competitive 4 to 5 keywords.
50% from our geotargeted website pages.
20% from our geotargeted YT videos.

Then we also get residual traffic from other local listings.

We've been going like this for more than a year, without once spending a dime on PPC. And this week I've decided to start PPC since our customer aquistion cost has dropped to $3.83 a CALL (these are for keywords that cost anywhere between $30-60 a CLICK if doing PPC). It can cost about $19 to sell a job (from organic traffic). And since we now have a real solid foundation, its a great time to start "burning" money on PPC testing.

I told myself I'd NEVER do PPC untill we got our CAC as low as possible, and with 2 sites now for each niche, geotargeted youtube channels, our profit margins will continue to increase. So I will start "burning" PPC ads on nothing but cheap, long tail phrases. All the broad keywords and phrases (which cost more money and have lower conversions) I'm going to ignore. I'll leave that for my competition who has no idea wtf they're doing.

IMHO, this is the RIGHT way to run a business. You build out as many organic funnels as possible, you use as many avenues as possible, and once profit margins rocket, it gives your extra money to spend on PPC and scale a business the PROPER way.

I see too many small business owners who are deathly afraid of SEO. So they spend $2,000-$5,000/month on PPC, and their profit margins suck. They become desperate, vulnerable, and start making some really risky decisions (ie service magic). They live paycheck to paycheck and lose the ability to scale their company.... or go bankrupt. Because PPC is NO foundation for a small business.


-SB

I've noticed in the last 30 days that google is now showing Organic listing and Google Plus, so ultimately you can have the same url showing twice on the 1st page.

Is anybody else seeing this?

Not sure if I'm late.