Hanan Lifshitz of Palore outlines a fantastic case study of a New Orleans chiropractor who has dominated the local search results with the help of some good old-fashioned Local SEO from Will Scott.
7 Comments
7 Comments
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Comments
What is so fantastic about this case study?! Hasn’t anybody noticed that this chiropractor has no less than three top-ten listings (positions B, C and F today)?! This could be a case of Google Maps/Local Search spam (is that worth to be sphunn?), cleverly abusing a flaw in the Google Local algorithm where one can get two listings at the same address using different telephone numbers. This could also be a recently created LBC listing that hasn’t been consolidated with the other listings yet. And just perhaps Google likes Dr. Gordon Dubois’ photo. Hanan Lifshitz hasn’t given any analysis as to the reason(-s) why this website has received a one-box listing in the Google Local Search results.David Mihm, I admire your work. Your post about the local search ranking factors is truly sublime (and so are your other posts), but this is seriously disappointing! I would love to read the analysis of this case study, either from you (David Mihm) or Will Scott. Kind regards and keep up the good work!
ReinierNL: I read your comments. actually check out the placement of the subject site both in organic and maps. Not only does the subject site have the one box placement but the site has the first two rankings in organic search. In fact that is a great combination-dominance in maps and organic and dominance of the search page. Its a two part process, not just an effort in Google Maps.Having similarly accomplished that for some other businesses and other markets I can say with authority it works very well; it is dominance. One way to check that is to run a ppc campaign for the [exact term] Cripes, run it very cheaply, so that your ads are at the bottom of the page. At the very least you will see all the searches for that phrase. Then check your analytics to see how often the site gets hit for organic phrases, check the dashboard in the LBC and see how many visitors go directly to the more information provided in the LBC.Add it up. My experience is that when you hit the combination of onebox and top two organic rankings for a phrase you do DOMINATE. You get this incredibly high percentage of hits to the site as a percentage of all searches on the term.What more could one ask for?One could do deep research. Are the other competitors (chiropractors) in New Orleans aggressively using search engines to market their services. Did they claim their listings in the LBC. Why aren’t they showing for the term. Is the term competitive or not. Where does it list in terms of activity for the variety of search terms for chiropracters in New Orleans.Frankly, again, my experience--when you have that dominance on the search page with that combination of maps and organic (and if you like #1 prominance in ppc) you simply take in the vast majority of the traffic for that phrase. Its a killer.The other thing I’ve found is that the percentage of "conversions" (probably contacts in this case) goes through the roof when this combo on the search page occurs.Well done, Will...and thanks for the article, Hanan. Until one sees the results and compares it to results when you don’t have this combination of dominance it is very hard to compare.
ReinierNL, thanks for taking the time to comment on this. First of all, I only see ONE local search result (an authoritative onebox) when I search for "New Orleans Chiropractic","New Orleans Chiropractor", and "New Orleans Chiropractors." So I presume the additional listings you are talking about are on maps.google.com?The additional listings that I can actually see have not been claimed by Will OR Dr. DuBois.Rather than ABUSING Google Maps, I would venture to say that if Will claimed and consolidated these listings on behalf of his client, he would actually dominate his SERPs MORE than he does right now. This is a flaw in Google Maps but not one created by Will; the incorrect listings are probably getting pulled from poor/un-updated historical data sources.The reason I think this is noteworthy of a Sphinn is that it presents simply and concisely the amazing ability of Local SEO to dominate SERP real estate for SMBs. The visuals Hanan uses are stunning. It is/was my hope that this article would convince more SMBs to consider hiring an SEO shop with their advertising dollars (see my comment on Greg Sterling’s post earlier today) rather than national PPC aggregation companies.
Ahh.. Quite nice when Google does exactly what you want. If only all our customers could get such exclusivity!What we’re seeing here is the result of an exact name match combined with ambiguity on the geomodifier. The "New Orleans" token is not deemed as a specific location landmark. This used to occur more frequently in Google; but as they’ve expanded in understanding more geographical identifiers, the 3 and 10 packs will take over.For example: "chiropractor new orleans" still shows the single exact name match.However: "chirporactor new orleans LA" removes the geomodifier ambiguity and then shows local "chiropractors" in the traditional 10 pack.As a natural growth of information continues; I would expect in time, that this nice single result will go away."Sorry, this exclusive position may only last a limited time!" ;) David Rodecker Founder & CTO, RelevantAds “getting local business online"
Dave and David, thanks! I can always count on you guys to offer good guidance.Reinier, I appreciate your enthusiasm and input and I wish I was smart enough to have planned the multiple 10 packs too, but as David points out it was unintentional and it WOULD be a good idea for us to claim them. I’ll have my team do that shortly.And David R., As the following indicates, no one searches with New Orleans LA as the location modifier:flickr image of Google Adwords Keyword ToolAnd as I said over in the Search Engine Land comments:There are plenty of examples where an exact domain name match doesn’t drive this behavior.For example:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=san+francisco+chiropractor (.net, not on map - down the page)http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=newport+beach+plastic+surgery (.com, #1 organic and in the map, but not dominant)So, regardless whether it’s maps, organic, paid or whatever comes next any position may only last a limited time :)And I want to thank everybody for their thoughts on this. It makes me want to deconstruct the cause even more so we can continue to replicate it for all of our clients!Will Scott
@earlpearl: How dominant should a website be in both the organic and local search listings in order to get a one-box listing?@David Mihm: You’re right; Dr. Gordon Dubois’ website appears once in the local search results and four (!) times in Google Maps. Oddily, all Google Maps listings are for the same website. I agree that this website will dominate both the local and organic search results if Will were to improve the GLBC listings.@David Rodecker: What do you mean with "geomodifier ambiguity"? Would that be the same as e.g. "hotel new york", where "new" can be considered both an adjective and part of the location "new york"?@Will Scott: It is not a matter of claiming the other listing; you simply need to update the details in the GLBC listing and request them to be updated on the referring websites, get listed in one of those local directories you have in the US and A, add the two appropriate categories (as suggested by Google), add a Google Map and throw in a KML-file. It will probably be sufficient to only add the two appropriate categories to get the top position in Google Maps, since there is no fierce competition. About the two examples your provided: none use the appropriate categories and both face some stiff competition.
The case study in question does not provide any analysis whatsoever!