Client´s location is on an area that IT IS part of the city where the client is, yet, it is NOT part of Google Maps delimitation for that city.

[Hec93]

Hi everyone. Hope you guys are doing great. This is my issue: I am working with a business that has a physical shop at a location/area that it is part of the big main city, yet, when you search for that city name on Google, the area where the shop is it does not form part of what Google understands the city limits are. My client GBP profile is practically invisible and yet, not to brag, but they are the absolute best at their craft on their area. I cannot move to a SAB since the shop is a revenue stream for them so, not the best move. This is a fully optimized GBP with more that 3k genuine reviews and yet, we are being outranked on the maps by some businesses that frankly are a complete joke. We have tried basically everything, our last option is to create a landing page for the specific zip code where this client is and make that landing the landing page for the GBP profile. The problem with this last strategy is that the vol for that zip code is very low, specially compared with the main city.

If anybody has faced something like this before or if someone has any ideas on what I could do, i would really appreciate it! Thank you!!!

 

[JS Girard]

It's kind of a mixed bag and I think it depends on how the postal system is set up in the area. Two cases:

1. It's like the us and there are areas outside city limits that use the city name in their address
2. It's like Quebec and the vast majority of addresses are located within formal city limits.

In the first case, it appears that location completely trumps address and short of physically moving locations within city limit there is literally nothing that can be done. At least I have not seen reports coming from the US of tricks.

In the second case, however, the exact formulation of the address trumps location. I've experienced this both with address within city limits that displayed an incorrect city (due to mergers or, improperly created addresses by google using county-equivalents instead of cities...) and I've once personally tweaked an address via user suggestions to change the city so a client inside an enclaved city could rank in the larger city.

"Fixing" the address is not necessarily a workable idea though...

 

[Hec93]

Hey JS, thank you taking the time to read all that and try to come up with a possible solution. I am not sure I understood correctly what you meant with your possible scenarios, like, the explanation behind it but I do understand that Google Maps limits for certain areas might as well not be how that area is really represented on other "official" maps of certain cities.

I am very much afraid that there is nothing I could do to change the course of this and help my client to appear in front of a larger population instead of the crappy listings that often appear when doing the search for their most important KW. Yet, I am still open to any solutions you or other people can think of, I am honestly out of ideas other than sketchy black hat techniques, which I am not a fan of in the first place anyway.

 

[JS Girard]

Hey JS, thank you taking the time to read all that and try to come up with a possible solution. I am not sure I understood correctly what you meant with your possible scenarios, like, the explanation behind it but I do understand that Google Maps limits for certain areas might as well not be how that area is really represented on other "official" maps of certain cities.

I am very much afraid that there is nothing I could do to change the course of this and help my client to appear in front of a larger population instead of the crappy listings that often appear when doing the search for their most important KW. Yet, I am still open to any solutions you or other people can think of, I am honestly out of ideas other than sketchy black hat techniques, which I am not a fan of in the first place anyway.

Without knowing the exact details of the situation, I can't be more specific, but this article explains the American situation very clearly. I have an article in French that discusses the Quebec examples.

 

[Tony Wang]

@Hec93 Unfortunately, where Google draws the lines is the only important thing to Google. The post office, official maps, etc, don't matter. We have lots of scenarios in the US that are similar, your street address may be in one city, but it lies a bit outside the lines that Google draws.

If there is truly enough search volume and potential business from KW+City, it might be worth moving the business. It's not always feasible, but if it drives enough profit, it's worth thinking about.

 

[ElizabethRule]

@Tony Wang and @JS Girard are correct, if your client's physical address falls outside of the borders of the city you are trying to rank in, and the competition is within those borders, that is likely the reason they are outranking you. Creating a zip code specific location page is very unlikely to help. Is it possible to lease an office within the city they serve? If you can do that and adhere to Google guidelines with the office space, you can change the address and likely improve rankings.

The other option is to double down on organic search and optimize the website to show in the top results for your "money" keywords. If you cannot win in maps due to your location, organic results are the next best bet as you can optimize pages for location specific keywords.