There's a long list of reasons why one of your Google business profile pages might be high on the local map while another is a red herring. My goal in this post is simple: to help you narrow down the list of possible causes, This way you can make your weakest point more visible and generous. This will probably require you to try something you haven't tried or considered before, or at least know what to expect.
Of course, there will always be differences between your company's locations. Just as discrepancies are natural in the real world, they are unavoidable in search results. One of your operations will always do better than the other – or better than many others – in one or more ways. It's always relative and the ground beneath your feet is constantly changing. So I'm not suggesting that you can eliminate all differences in visibility from one location to the next. I'm sure I won't comment on the profitability of one over the other.
However, you still want to know why one of your company's locations is doing well The much worse than others. Don’t expect a “Eureka!” moment. More likely, you'll work on a few things – what you think are the most plausible problems – and then check back much later and find that the Lean site has thickened.
So why does a calf get all of its udder? Consider these 22 options:
1. Have you checked all your instruments? That is, have you checked different pages and search terms in Google Search Console (under “Performance”), looked at your rankings in the Anonymous Ad Preview Tool, added tracking URLs to your Google business profile pages, and compared their results? This one location could be doing well after all.
2. Is the weaker-performing location well (or better) in the ranking? some Search terms? No vision and blurry vision are two very different problems.
3. Is the underperforming site in an area that is much less populated? Your location is typically less important if you're in an industry or niche where you don't have a competitor on every street corner, where competitors are more spread out. However, when local competition is very high, Google Maps results (and even organic results) tend to be more location-dependent. In this case the Terroir can have a huge impact on the visibility and traffic (and business) of one of your locations. The crowded market will have its own problems.
5. Have you recently moved to a new address and updated your GBP page accordingly? If this is the case, the visibility of one or more of your locations may be affected for a few weeks or perhaps even a few months, especially if it is a business in the catchment area. Downtime can be less if you work diligently on the important citations and eliminate some of the site-related factors (more on that later).
6. Did you “hide” the address of the underperforming GBP site and specify a service area instead? As I have observed and emphasized before it was a widespread observation, GBP sites that display their addresses often rank better. Not always, but sometimes.
7. Is one location very close to the other? I noticed that Google is trying to mix the results geographically. Each SERP is also more likely to show a mix of many companies rather than multiple locations The same thing Business. In other words, sometimes Google simply chooses the location that is a little more noticeable.
8. Are there overlapping “service” areas on the GBP pages? For businesses in the catchment area, this doesn't necessarily help with rankings and can occasionally cause problems in a variety of ways. If you include your street address, I don't recommend including your catchment area(s) on your GBP page.
9. Is a location surrounded by multiple competitors spamming Google Maps? The pain and suffering in one place can have a simple reason: someone did you dirty.
11. Does the new location use a different landing page URL for its GBP page? Let's say your stronger site uses the homepage as a GBP landing page and the weaker site uses a site-specific landing page. That could be the whole problem.
12. If both sites use site-specific landing pages for their GBP pages, does the stronger site have much more comprehensive content about their services, products or service area? Google needs something to sink its teeth into.
13. If the locations have different Google business profile names, is the name of the better performing location more relevant to the search terms you are targeting? You may have branded your locations differently (so as not to confuse customers), or you may have rebranded and decided not to change the name of the older GBP site in case it helped your rankings or becomes. Let’s say one location is called “Acme Plumbing & Heating” and the other location is called “Acme Services.” Which do you think has the slight edge? Likewise with cities or other place names; this may help you get points on the board for specific search terms.
14. Are there any differences between the categories you have selected for the GBP pages? But you've probably already thought about checking.
15. Haven't you worked on the quotes yet? If your stronger site is at least listed in the base directories, while the weaker site is just a GBP page dangling in the wind with no citations to back it up, you may only need to invest a few hours of effort.
16. Does the underdog location have a comparable influx of customer reviews? In terms of quality, quality and timeliness of reviews, especially on Google Maps. In my experience, despite the great benefits of reviews, it is generally not an important ranking factor. However, if most other factors are roughly equal, Google will likely favor the location that scores higher in reviews.
17. Does your website show the address of the underperforming site? If so, is it as prominent as the address of the more powerful location? Unless you have serious privacy concerns, your website should display the address of each of your locations. If you don't do this, it's slightly more likely that a competitor will block your page, that Google will automatically update your address, or that various pages on your site won't make it into the organic results of this or that city.
18. Does the lower performing site have a GBP landing page with a poorer title tag? A sleek, cost-effective title tag helps no one but your competitors. Make the underperforming site's landing page title tag similar to the title tag of the prison yard-holding site.
19. Is the stronger location highlighted significantly more on your homepage? Maybe the home page pulls your higher-performing location into Google Maps results, organic results, or both. Often it is like that. Each location should get a paragraph about it on the homepage, a link (or links) to its “Location” page on your website, and perhaps even more airtime (e.g. photos or videos). My general rule is: everything that is important to you should appear somewhere on the homepage. It can and must bring all your priorities together.
21. Does the better performing location landing page URL have better backlinks? That's one of the reasons why I tend I recommend using the homepage as your GBP landing page URL: every backlink you get to the homepage can benefit all locations at once, so you don't have to play favorites or wring your hands over which location gets it should receive a magnificent new link.
22. Have you let your changes sit for a while? Once you've clarified some of the checklist items above or made other changes that you hope will change things, let them sit for at least a few weeks. It will take time for the slower location to catch up. You may be on the right track now.
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Do you have a particularly squeaky wheel on your car?
What have you tried for this one location and how has it worked out so far?
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