Tips for local search.

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Yasser Mohamed: Hello everyone! ; Merry Christmas! I was just wondering if anyone has tips for local search now that Pigeon has been rolled out here in Australia and other places like Canada & the UK? ; I used to be number 1 in the local search for lots of keywords in lots of locations but now I am only listed in my local area (although still ranking high in organic search so not all bad). ; My click rate via my local listing has dropped by 68% in 2 weeks!!
   ; #localseo #pigeonupdate  ;
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  Tim Capper: Its been a real bitch. I have a client thats 16K down from local traffic.
  
  You cant do anything to appear back within the geo location that you may have appeared in previously, if there are other pages closer to the central location.
  
  What i have noticed is that queries that did not provide local 7 pack are now.
  
  So for example in my case that I am looking at :
  
  Hotels Ipswich
  
  No longer shows the local page ( they are about 1 mile outside cbd locality )
  
  But what is now appearing, but not before ( 7 pack )
  
  Luxury Hotels Ipswich
  Boutique Hotels Ipswich
  4 star Hotels Ipswich
  
  So, I think we need to concentrate on the differentials, but like you said, you do rank pretty well for local terms.
  
  I dont think we will get the main locality back, but we may have other areas opening up.
  
  Keeping my eye on this and if any studies come out, I'll be posting them.
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  Yasser Mohamed: Thanks +Tim Capper it really sucks that they did this now - usually my busiest time! ; What I have really noticed is that the quality of customers has dropped - because I have a lot of Google reviews and the stars highlighted these on local - people read my reviews and then decided they wanted me and didn't worry so much about price. ; Now I am relying more on my organic listing, the customers are not reading my local reviews so it is all about the price with no appreciation for the service. It is very frustrating - yesterday I noticed one major ; search term has dropped down to a 3 pack and the 3 busineses listed are all the same - just listed in 3 neighbouring suburbs - how is that a fair representation?!! ; I will look out for any further info! In the meantime I check out other search terms that now have local listings and work more local content into my website.
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  Yasser Mohamed: +Tim Capper as I am mainly a service area (some customers drop off rugs for cleaning so I originally listed as a fixed address business) would it be better for me to change my address on my business listing to a service area business and just list the suburb as the main city "Melbourne" rather than display my full address? It seems to me that that is what a lot of my competitors have done - one even has their address listed as Melbourne GPO!!
• 
  bharat thakare: Are you physically located at the locations where you were ranking well? If not, then it is quite natural for you to see the drop. Pigeon algo brings the intelligence of web search algorithm in local rankings. Though it does hurt to loose rankings, there isn't much that can be done unless you have a physical presence in those locations.
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  Yasser Mohamed: I do - I am a service area business therefore I service a large area! Now it seems I can only rank where my office is located not where I actually work and service customers! ; I see a lot of my competitors making multiple accounts for their business with different (probably false) addresses and they are ranking in many different areas. ; I believe this is against Google guidelines. The new reduced local search radius does not work for service/mobile based businesses! Now many carpet cleaners are starting to list their address as "Melbourne" (the main search city term) whether they are located there or not, just so they can rank.