4 Local SEO Myths That Just Won’t Die

Certain local SEO misconceptions refuse to budge. No matter what you do, these absurd myths keep cropping up.

Local SEO is in huge demand and for good reason. It’s easier to rank for regional keywords and more worthwhile and lucrative for businesses who are targeting a specific region or county based on their own physical location. The immense interest in the topic, unfortunately, leaves the door open for misconceptions to form and circulate. These range from assigning false importance to certain information to the role Google My Business support staff plays in local SEO rankings.

Although we’re not sure why these myths keep making a comeback time and again, we do know that it’s important for online businesses—of any organizational size—to learn the reality of local SEO.

In this post, we discuss the top 4 local SEO myths and explain exactly why they simply Will. Not. Work.

Myth #1—A Unique NAP Listing Will Influence The Ranking Factor

NAP is short for name, address, phone number.

There is a myth that the suite number of your office address mentioned in the Contact web page is going to make a difference in your website’s ranking because Google values it heavily in the search rankings.

Somehow they are convinced that this will make their office address gain more online visibility. So they include the suite number in their office address in the hopes of standing out from the competition.

Google uses suite numbers as nothing more than a visual aid. In fact, it often completely ignores suite numbers in addresses.

This means that if you’re adding suite numbers so that customers will have an easier time finding your location, that’s great. However, if you’re doing it for a ranking boost, you’re just wasting your time.

Myth #2—Your Ranking Is Penalized If You Don’t Follow Every Google Guideline

There are one of two things that can happen if you fail to follow a Google My Business guideline.

A) You get a soft suspension

B) You get a hard suspension

• Soft suspension: This means that you cannot use Google My Business to manage your local business. This creates a huge issue as you are no longer able to respond to customer reviews, use Google Posts, or receive any notifications regarding your listing.
• Hard suspension: This has a more severe impact on your business as Google effectively eradicates your entire local business from its listing. This includes reviews, images, maps, and more. Since the listing has been taken down completely, there’s no way for your online business to rank in any of the local search pages.

However, what Google doesn’t do is use an algorithmic method to diminish the ranking of your business listing. Doing so would violate their own guidelines.

Myth #3—Your Ranking Is Impacted By Your Service Area

Business owners can display a visual indicator of the distance they will travel to service their customers. They do this by adding their service area for listings in the Google My Business dashboard.

They believe that doing so influences their Google rankings.

It does not.

Even if you service 10+ cities, there will be no effect on your search engine ranking for those particular cities. The main factor which determines local rankings is which city your business is based in. This information is given in the address location on your web page.

Myth#4—Google My Business’s Support Team Can Fix Ranking Issues

There is an extensive support team at Google My Business. They interact with clients on popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as well as via email, phone, chat, and their online forum.

Since it’s incredibly easy to access their service, companies usually get in touch with them when they face an issue involving Google My Business features.

When we say issues with features, we mean features and not ranking problems. Keep in mind that the on-call support staff at Google My Business isn’t comprised of SEO experts. This means that they have very limited technical knowledge of the way that the algorithm works.

The team of people is not engineering staff who deal with the algorithm, but only the platform experts. There’s no use reaching out to them to help you resolve local SEO ranking issues.

Conclusion

Don’t fall for myths. Local SEO is a goldmine for businesses if done right. Hire professional who know fact from fiction to do the job. Search Berg is a leading local SEO service provider with a team of talented professionals hailing from various industries. If you want your local business to show up on the first page of Google, our services are all you need!

Our top-of-the-line SEO services guarantee a major increase in rankings in just 30 days. With a 100% money back guarantee, you don’t have anything to lose.

Our packages are competitively priced and start from $199 only. All packages include detailed, customizable local SEO strategies to ensure that your business achieves the number one spot on SERPs.

Give us a call at 855-444-4777 to see a drastic boost in your local SEO rankings!