Cleaning up citations from a retail store that moved online only
-
Hey Mozzers!
We're working with a client that has closed it's home theater store and moved online. Both the online store and the retail location operated under the same name, but we've now launched a new site and rebranded the name and look.
When I search the old business name, it shows the Google local business as permanently deleted, and also shows deleted Yelp profile and other directory listings. The first organic result is the new site, which catches the footer that reads a trademark of (old business name).
How can I clean up the citations for the previous business? Also, I'd like to have more control over the old business SERP page. My idea was to create a press release addressing the new business change in name and branding. Any other ideas?
Lastly, the new business name SERP is completely bare. The second organic result is the new site, but the remaining listings are confusing and unrelated. The press release should help here. Other than that, should I build out new directories for the ecommerce site? Maybe start building profiles and participating in related forums to show traction in SERPs?
Thanks for your help!
-
Sorry I misread your issue. Since you are online only I would not claim any local listings. I would clean up and remove all those citations if possible though.
-
In my experience I've only ever used business directories to build local SEO campaigns. I wasn't sure that the directories applied to ecommerce sites without a physical location. So you'd suggest moving forward correcting all the outdated listings to the new name, and use our warehouse for new address?
-
Hi Localwork,
I agree with Jordan—utilizing Moz's local search tools will be your business asset through this transition from a storefront to the online market. This is one of the best tools to update citation information across multiple directories. However, even with this method is can take 4 - 8 weeks for the online directories to make any adjustments to the information.
I would also like to point out that it can be more difficult to get a company that is only online to rank well in the organic SERPs. Why? Well, without an address tying you to a particular location, you will be ranking for more general keywords instead of "product + city + st" keywords. In order to help improve the rankings for your new website, I would focus the first few months on increasing the domain authority on the new website.
In a May 2013 video right before Penguin 2.0 rolled out, Matt Cutts put it pretty well:“We’re doing a better job of detecting when someone is sort of an authority in a specific space—you know, it could be medical, it could be travel, whatever—and trying to make sure that those rank a little more highly if you’re some sort of authority or a site that according to the algorithms we think might be a little bit more appropriate for users.”
Here are today’s SEO success secrets for improving your domain authority:
- Valuable content
- Outbound linking
- Blogging
- Social media
An easy way to get started with outbound linking would be to (like you mentioned) create AND OPTIMIZE a listing for your business on a variety of online directories. This is help provide links back to your website and is a great place to start.
Hope this helps with the new venture online! Good luck.
-
You can clean up your local citations by using Moz's local search. You can see which citations are off and make adjustments as needed. As far as Google local business and Bing listing if the address didn't change I would claim that local listing if you haven't or contact Google and explain the issue and they should help update the listing.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Considering Moving to New Domain and SEO
Hello, One of our sites has been using a domain since 2005 and is shown below. The domain is terrible for multiple reasons, hyphens and doesn't even reflect our actual company name. Not to mention its embarrassing when telling a customer to email us at support @ pro "dash, yes the hyphen" gift.... I wanted to change it long ago but feared it would hurt my SEO rankings. After taking Bruce Clay's training class back in 2004, we managed to rank top 10 for most targeted keywords. My ranking have slowly dropped over time due to neglect and decaying IBL's. We still rank for a few targeted keywords but it was just August of 2017 we were still top 10 but something happened and we dropped out of the top 100 right before our holiday season. We had to run Adwords and BingAds to supplement traffic this holiday season. So I am wondering before I restart my SEO efforts should I move the domain now before trying to build new content, IBL's, etc? I was always under the impression Google used domain trust a major factor which wasnt only IBL but also domain age. Our preferred domain I purchased from another owner and it has ZERO links to it. It was basically a parked domain with the "domain for sale" stuff. I am a little nervous about moving it over because Google didnt even have it in its index. I put up a coming soon page and hosted it on my server, same C Block, and requested a crawl from my webmaster console. I added some text to the new domain index page and it appears Google is showing results for our old domain! At first I thought it was duplicate content but its not Google obviously has deciphered current site is my old domain and is displaying the title and meta data from the old domain. I have never seen this before. Google cache shows the current domain the new domain url. A few questions: Will my site get sandboxed after 301 redirecting and going webmaster console move features etc? Does this reset the trust factors? I have read examples in my research where some people say it only took a few weeks and everything was back to normal and others that have said it took years. Any experience or insight is greatly appreciated. I am currently relearning SEO and going over the SEO tutorial articles provided on moz. Thanks again! New Domain - matches our company name, no hyphens, better branding http://www.giftbasketpros.com/ Google index https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.giftbasketpros.com Current Domain, since 2005, has ranked well for years until this summer http://www.pro-gift-baskets.com/
Branding | | DMAC441 -
Google displays the wrong store hours. Can anyone help lead me to the fix?
When doing the following search on Google "Ticket King Milwaukee hours" we see the wrong hours displayed at the top of the page. Just to the left of our places page, you will see "Tuesday hours 8:30-1:00 pm." That 1 pm closing comes up for every weekday, even though we are open until 6 pm weekdays, and 3 pm on Saturdays. I have checked the hours listed on our G+ page, our "Places for Business" page, our "about us" page on our website, and can't find where they are getting this incorrect data. I even went out and checked most of the "List your business" sites that I have registered with.
Branding | | Ticket_King
I have submitted this to Google, but have not heard back. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can fix this, or at least find out where this bad data is coming from? I did find a company blog post from 2010 that listed our ours in a somewhat confusing way, but it was still correct. (I have since fixed that old post.)0 -
How to leverage celebrity interactions for online marketing?
Recently one of my clients has become involved with a group of A-List celebrities, and we expect to have some very good photos and meetings happening. I know this might be more of traditional PR concern, but I am wondering (aside from the obvious "post it to FB/Twitter/Tumbler") how to best leverage this for online marketing. If we have photos or videos, we can make writeups, etc. Can someone give me some suggestions?
Branding | | storemachine0 -
Moving to new domain - Social and Branding Questions?
Hi, We are moving to a new domain because our rankings drastically dropped and we want to "start over". For example - If my company is called Joes Computers and the domain was JoesComputers.com and the new domain which will hold our e-commerce website will be completely different for example - BestComputers.com - which do I brand? Which do I put as suffix in all titles?
Branding | | BeytzNet
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Best Computers
or
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Joes Computers Which name do I take for social profiles? Company or Domain?
(We currently have for the company since it was the same). Please note that our company name is already a little bit known... and therefore inside the website it will be labeled in Logos etc. We would also state "Best Computers by Joes Computers" (as if it is a sub brand or daughter company). Thanks,0 -
'The Guardian' Is Moving to a New Domain
'The Guardian' Is Moving to a New Domain according to this article on Mashable - http://mashable.com/2013/05/24/the-guardian-dot-com/ Interested to see all the thoughts from SEOs to see how you would suggest they could implement this correctly, without dropping traffic / rankings etc...
Branding | | Webrevolve0 -
Online retailer has old product listing
A large online retailer in Europe used to sell a product that we sell in the US. They have not sold the product for more than a year but have not removed the item from their product listings. The price is marked down and the description says the product has been discontinued. They sell a very large number of items and have a high DA and this product listing ranks high in Google SERP. As you can imagine, this causes significant problems for us. Potential customers are given the wrong price and are also being told that the product has been discontinued. I have sent numerous requests to the retailer asking them to delete the product from their database with no success. Is it possible to send a notice to Google requesting that this product page be de-indexed? Any other suggestions? Best,
Branding | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Getting citations from different cities for a travelling band
Hi mozzers! i play in a band that is based in Austin, TX but travels to all cities across texas. I've been told i need to have citations in place to help my organic rankings in the cities across Texas that i perform in. 1. What are the best ways to get citations to rank locally in each city for my band? i have a page set up on my website for each city that we perform in. Do i set up accounts on local business directories in each city that i perform in with a link to that city page on my site? I have performers that i hire in each city and can use their address for the local address on each business listing but my business phone number would be the same for all cities. I don't want this to look black hat to google by filling out business listings for many different cities with the same phone humber but my customers are in fact in all these major cities almost more than in my home town. 2. Since i can only fill out a google places page for my home city, what other ways can i get citations to help my organic rankings in all the cities that i perform in? Thanks in advance for everyone's input! Ron
Branding | | Ron100 -
Link local online newspaper ad to newspaper's spash page or my site?
We just started advertising on the web version of our local newspaper. They suggest our ads go to a "splash page" they created for us on their site. The page haslinks , images and text taken from each of our main categories,. Plus links and feeds from our twitter and facebook pages. And a google map. This page shows a page authority 1 with 0 links. Is there any reason to link our ad to a page like this rather than going direct to our website page? Thank you Handcrafter
Branding | | stephenfishman0