Competitor outranking me on google with their yelp, facebook and youtube pages
-
I'm working to rank for a local search term (my city wedding photographers). I'm frustrated that my competitor is outranking me not with their website (they are no. #9 and I'm #6) but with their Yelp account (#1) Facebook Account (#5) and Youtube account (#7 - not outranking me, but right below me).
I'm going to continue working on my SEO to hopefully get higher up, but even then, they are basically dominating page 1 with their links. It gets worse on page 2. They are showing up 5 times for youtube/vimeo videos, and 1 time with a spammy landing page with no images, full of keyword anchored links to their main site.
What gives? Since when are social media profiles outranking local sites on google organic searches?
Could it be that our keyword is just so low competition that google has allowed all this stuff to rank so highly?
-
Hi Spencer. That article is great and explains this issue perfectly. so Barnacle SEO, huh?
Yeah, I do see that his domain authority is larger as is his likes/yelp reviews. I'm in my second year. The competitor i believe is in the 15th or so.
At this point, I'm going to optimize my social media profiles and link them to my site.
Ideally this will help balance that first page more. My primary effort will be to move to the first spot on the page.
Thank a bunch!
-
This is a strategy called "Barnacle SEO." Essentially you optimize and build links to high end business profiles like yelp because they are more likely to rank due to their high domain authority.
Here's the most recent post I could find on it: http://searchengineland.com/barnacle-seo-making-big-comeback-local-187253
The competitor you're talking about has a higher domain authority which already gives him a decent head start, but it's good that you're still outranking his website. What I see that's definitely helping him is that he optimized his listings for the city you're trying to rank in. He has more reviews than you and he has tons more facebook likes. He also has his Yelp linked to from his facebook and he links back to his yelp profile from his website.
Also, to answer your last question, part of the reason these are ranking is definitely because their is fairly low competition in the space.
-
Ultimately, this might be what I need to do. Get a series of my own links on the first page, as opposed to only my homepage. I do have some youtube videos, and by properly key wording them, they have climbed the ranks, but honestly, I don't want them to be people's first contact with me. I think its so much more productive to have links to my site.
Now they you mention it, it might just be that the competitor's social media profiles are ranking high due to their size. Their yelp has 8 reviews and fb page over 7400+ likes.
-
Thanks Darren. Over the last few months, I've done alot of that and I've managed to climb to first page fairly quickly. I'm currently on first page and ranking higher than my competitor's website. What gets me is that all their social media is also ranking extremely high. I would imagine google giving priority to actual websites, not to a bunch of social media profiles. I don't wish to rank for my own social media profiles particularly, as I want google traffic to point towards my site (and not my youtube account).
-
Don't forget to do some link building of your own - on your own site. Wedding photographers have a great content ready to go; not to mention a willing audience of bloggers/websites to post it. Find some recent pictures and submit them to the wedding blogs. Have your client do an 'engagement shot' for new couple. Those photos will make it up on the couple's wedding websites - ask for a link back. Do some PR around your local media to get on the 'Best of' lists.
-
First, if they have the exact match on the keyword (which is sounds like they might) and they have a good site and seo, it may be vary hard to take the fist spots. You can always get a couple of your own on the first page. (I have one keyword with 5 places on the first page for an exact match).
Lets Focus:
How many reviews does the Yelp have?
Here is a Strategy for Yelp
You can use open site explorer to see where they have links to their Yelp Account. Get those links to your Yelp account. How is their Yelp description written? What keywords do they use. Use a similarly keyword targeted description, keywords etc. Social bookmark your Yelp page with the keyword in the description and title.
Here is a strategy for Facebook:
How many likes does Facebook have? If they have way more fans than you and they post a lot it could be tough. If you have more fans than them make sure you have your keyword in the description of your page. Post more posts using your keyword if you can and not make it sound weird. Social bookmark a good piece of content written about your keyword that you post to Facebook.
Youtube:
Make a good youtube video, slide show type if you need, that is keyword targeted. Write a 300 word description with keywords, your site url possibly your Facebook url. Social bookmark it with your keywords in the title and description, this will increase views naturally and provide links. Wait a week after the social bookmarks have aged. Use Open Site Explorer to mine those links too.
They may be doing some sneaky stuff too like buying Facebook fans or Youtube views if their pages are junky and they rank. That stuff can be risky if done in high amounts.
Hope that gives you something to work with.
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
-
Google Is Linking to Wrong Local Page - How To Change?
Hi All Thanks in advance for any support. I've setup two "local" pages to target the next door town for one of my clients. One page targets "t shirt printing" and one page targets "embroidered workwear" However when I search for "embroidered workwear town in question" google connects the search to my t-shirt printing page and not the embroidered workwear page. Would it be possible to advise on what I need to do for the correct page to be linked to the search term? Here is a link to the search term in question **https://tinyurl.com/vvgr5r5 ** and the page that we would like to appear in the results, not our tshirt printing page https://tinyurl.com/s77md9o Thanks in advance for any help
Local Listings | | ruislip180 -
Google is indexing pages but they do not list on a brand search
One of my websites does not display sitelinks when using a branded search on mobile. Desktop , it is fine. Moz tells me I have no crawl issues. What could be reason for sitelinks not showing on mobile? Any thoughts?
Local Listings | | Web_Prosper_SEO0 -
Issue in "Suggest an Edit" feature of Google My Business
"Suggest an Edit" feature of Google My Business is allowing the competitors to change your business details, that too without your prior permission! I have put together a piece on the issue we faced and you can review the same here: https://www.kvrwebtech.com/blog/issue-in-suggest-an-edit-in-google-my-business-is-it-a-bug-or-a-major-pitfall/ What are your thoughts on the same and what should be the right solution?
Local Listings | | varun18001 -
Google Places - Remove Completely vs. Permanently Closed?
This is a bit confusing to explain so bear with me please. We have a client that used to have an old law practice with a partner. The site and backlinks were very large and it had a lot of domain authority. It also had a very large citation profile and history. The two lawyers have since split, but there remains multiple Google Places listings out there for the old partnership. We have fixed the one showing the old business practice name, but not the one that he setup for his personal name. One of the biggest hassles is that the old location he setup has his attorney name in the actual listing. The issue is that we cannot close the old listing (we tried this), as it comes up permanently closed when you Google his name. If you search for his new Law Firm, the correct business listing that we have set up will show. The new listing also includes his name and has over 50 five star reviews. We hoped that the large amount of legitimate reviews would get rid of or at least suppress the old listing, but it is not happening. So I am a bit confused as to what to do. If we close the old listing Google shows the red "permanently closed" listing when you Google his name. We cannot update the old listing information to show his new address as then it will compete with the new listing that we setup that shows all the positive reviews. The old listing was not created by us, and the new one was. The new one shows when you search for his Law Firm name in Google, but not for his personal name i.e "NAME HERE ATTORNEY" or "HIS NAME and LOCATION" Interested to hear your thoughts. The only way I can think to fix this is to contact Google directly and see if there is a way to permanently delete the listing from Google maps, but I am not aware that this is possible.
Local Listings | | David-Kley0 -
Top Local Organic Rankings, But Nowhere to be found on Google Snack Pack
I've been working with a local gym for a while now. We successfully got the gym to beat out all its competitor and now it consistently ranks in the 3rd or 4th result for all major local industry keywords. For example "gym in [city]". The only thing above us is Yelp and other directory sites. The problem I am running into is we do well organically, but when it comes to Google Snack Pack we aren't in the top three or even 10. You have to go deep into the next pages of the map to find our business. I did find that we use to be categorized as health club in Google My Business, but I changed that three months ago. Some more additional info, the site when I got the account moved to a different url. So many directories and sites that linked to us in the past link to the old url. The old url is 301 redirected to our current url. I haven't found much info about this topic and am looking for any experience or insight?
Local Listings | | JasonKhoo0 -
Google Local Listing Ranking/Traffic Metrics in the Google Search Console?
A client of mine asked me if it was possible to see local listing data (ranking/traffic stats) in the Google Search Console for a URL. I figured the Google Search Console only shows organic metrics not 3-pack/local listing performance. However I could be mistaken. Does the Google Search Console report this?
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Why I'm I ranking so low on Google Maps
About 3 months I started a website (www.guyetteroofing.com) for my roofing business in Montgomery, Alabama. The site is still a work in progress, however, because the competition doesn't really market via internet it was fairly easy to rank on Google Maps. Within 1 month the business was letter "A" in Google Maps. About 3 three weeks ago my ranking was dropped considerably, not showing up at all in letters A through G. The business is still indexed in Google Maps, but only represented by a small red dot. My website is still ranking pretty high for "roofers in Montgomery", but my position on Google Maps has all but disappeared. I have no idea what I've done to be rank so low on Google Maps but still have a solid position on regular Google Search. I've checked my citations and my NAPs, there are a few inconsistencies but nothing major. How can I rank so far below my competition if I have twice as many citations, an actual website, and a Google Plus page?
Local Listings | | billyguyette0 -
Google won't index my site?
Hi, I've just signed up and am new to SEO. I placed my site live around mid December 2013. Initially I got 2 pages indexed but now not even they show up for site:www.traditional-cleaning.co.uk. According the Moz analytics I have 3 pages with duplicate content which are: http://traditional-cleaning.co.uk/http://traditional-cleaning.co.uk/index.htmhttp://traditional-cleaning.co.ukProblem is I have no idea how to fix this, don't know whether Google isn't indexing my site because of this and generally am a bit stuck! Can anyone have a quick look at my site and give me a push in the right direction?
Local Listings | | EdwardoUK0