New roof cleaning association

By no means am I anything close to an SEO expert but have always been told content is king. The very little that I know is a site draws in visitors from consumer web searches which in turn can direct the consumer to the listings or map. But I am no SEO guru.
Kim R.
Ohio pressure wash said:
On a directory site...wouldn't the listings be the content?
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randyr5150 said:
By no means am I anything close to an SEO expert but have always been told content is king. The very little that I know is a site draws in visitors from consumer web searches which in turn can direct the consumer to the listings or map. But I am no SEO guru.
Kim R.
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I'm sorry not the way those are set up. I mean it's possible if they are linked and blogs a bunch any content could get indexed. Google isn't finding those on there own.

I'm mean search them!!! That will tell you


Text me anytime for question 480-522-5227
 
Ron Musgraves said:
I'm sorry not the way those are set up. I mean it's possible if they are linked and blogs a bunch any content could get indexed. Google isn't finding those on there own.

I'm mean search them!!! That will tell you


Text me anytime for question 480-522-5227
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We are linked and there is a blog feature. Greencastle is handling the site, seo, etc.
 
randyr5150 said:
By no means am I anything close to an SEO expert but have always been told content is king. The very little that I know is a site draws in visitors from consumer web searches which in turn can direct the consumer to the listings or map. But I am no SEO guru.
Kim R.
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Conventional wisdom get's flipped on it's head when a website or directory is actually a wordpress blog (as it appears in this case from a quick look at the page source code) and the listings are "posts". To the google crawler, text is text and content is content, it doesn't care what the post, page or article title says. A wordpress directory with 100 listings would be seen by a crawler as a blog with 100 articles.

Google loves wordpress.
 
randyr5150 said:
Ck out the site, I think you may have the wrong link. PRCA is all about the consumer and education.
http://www.professionalroofcleanersassociation.com/
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PRCA may be a fine reputable Organization championing a worthy and noble cause...but that statement is not totally accurate. Consumer info and education is an aspect of it's purpose and goal. It is an association and as with any association or Org, it's purpose is to increase and promote the membership.

The Internet is the wild west. It's the last frontier. There are no rules stopping anyone from creating a website and dominating (or trying to) their industry. In the case of PRCA, the website's "consumer info and education" (from the about page) is clearly designed to steer them to a member...I'm okay with that, it's a free country.


I'm not for or against PRCA...I just wanted to address your statement.
 
TheCleaningDoc said:
That is not the point. The point is that your map is too hard for businesses to be found. The map listing on the deck staining site has actually shown up in local searches. The free part is that it costs you nothing.

Just trying to help you make it easier for consumers to actually find a member.
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One must be careful with displaying your address on a Map! The latest Google quality guidelines have clearly stated IF you go TO the customer, and do no business at home,you must not display your address.
I was helping a cleaning contractor, who did display his address. He WAS number one for his local search, but was thrown out because he did display his address.

It is hard to keep up with Google lately. They taught us what to do, yet penalize us when we do it!
To me, their message is clear, they want to sell us adwords.
 
Ah but displaying the city and state is not displaying your address. Displaying an address is not reason enough in itself to get "thrown out" and of course they want people to use adwords. I believe that you are grasping at straws for a reason it happened just like most of what you read on the web.
 
Apple Roof Cleaning said:
One must be careful with displaying your address on a Map! The latest Google quality guidelines have clearly stated IF you go TO the customer, and do no business at home,you must not display your address.
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First off, you are talking about "Google Places". They do have rules for their product. They don't have any say in what an individual puts on a map that he/she makes.

I can make a map, put it on a website and put my place mark as Buckingham Palace and Google can't say shit.

Even for Google Places, this is not accurate. Even if your business is run from home, it is considered your central office. It is where the equipment is stored and maintained, where the payments and bills are sent, where the tax bill comes and where your physical office is located.

Service contractors are not homeless people that live in their trailers.

Here are the current Google Places quality guidelines with regards to location, not a mention of where I do the work.



Business Location: Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location.

  • Do not create a listing or place your pin marker at a location where the business does not physically exist. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.
  • If you need to specify a mail box or suite number within your physical location, please list your physical address in Address Line 1, and put your mail box or suite number in Address Line 2.
  • Use the precise address for the business in place of broad city names or cross-streets.
  • Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts.
  • Businesses that operate in a service area, as opposed to a single location, should not create a listing for every city they service. Businesses that operate in a service area should create one listing for the central office or location and designate service areas. Learn how to add service areas to your listing.
  • If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option.
  • Businesses with multiple specializations, such as law firms and doctors, should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties. You may create one listing per practitioner, and one listing for the hospital or clinic at large.
  • Do not include information in address lines that does not pertain your business’s physical location (e.g. URLs, keywords).
 
Ohio pressure wash said:
First off, you are talking about "Google Places". They do have rules for their product. They don't have any say in what an individual puts on a map that he/she makes.

I can make a map, put it on a website and put my place mark as Buckingham Palace and Google can't say shit.

Even for Google Places, this is not accurate. Even if your business is run from home, it is considered your central office. It is where the equipment is stored and maintained, where the payments and bills are sent, where the tax bill comes and where your physical office is located.

Service contractors are not homeless people that live in their trailers.

Here are the current Google Places quality guidelines with regards to location, not a mention of where I do the work.



Business Location: Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location.

  • Do not create a listing or place your pin marker at a location where the business does not physically exist. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.
  • If you need to specify a mail box or suite number within your physical location, please list your physical address in Address Line 1, and put your mail box or suite number in Address Line 2.
  • Use the precise address for the business in place of broad city names or cross-streets.
  • Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts.
  • Businesses that operate in a service area, as opposed to a single location, should not create a listing for every city they service. Businesses that operate in a service area should create one listing for the central office or location and designate service areas. Learn how to add service areas to your listing.
  • If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option.
  • Businesses with multiple specializations, such as law firms and doctors, should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties. You may create one listing per practitioner, and one listing for the hospital or clinic at large.
  • Do not include information in address lines that does not pertain your business’s physical location (e.g. URLs, keywords).
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Yes, I was talking about Google Places.
But if you go TO the customer, and conduct NO business at your home, you may NOT display your address, or risk getting removed from Google! It is right there, in what you posted.

If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option.

On the Google Help Forum, this has been explained by Jen of Google. There is evidence that Google is calling to ask if you serve customers at your home business. IF you say No, and have your address displayed, you can be removed.
 
TheCleaningDoc said:
Ah but displaying the city and state is not displaying your address. Displaying an address is not reason enough in itself to get "thrown out" and of course they want people to use adwords. I believe that you are grasping at straws for a reason it happened just like most of what you read on the web.
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Well Pat, as you know, SEO is an inexact science. So, in a manner of speaking, we are all grasping at straws. What I am going to post came from a very reputable SEO Blog, and it has Mike Blumenthal to back it up, as well as several respected members/teachers of the SEO Community.
By the way, when I say hide you address, I mean your STREET Address. When I hid my street address, it still displayed Brandon Florida.
Check this out below ?

. From now on, Google wants this type of business to use the 'Hide Address' function in Google Places. If you operate a business like these ones or are handling the Local SEO for clients who do, you need to know about this change because failure to get with the program on this could result in your listing dropping out of sight. Here's the story:
[h=2]A Curious Little History[/h]
  • On February 24, 2012, Andrew Shotland of LocalSEOGuide.com received a phone call from a Google employee who asked him if served clients at his listed address. He answered that he had both local and national clientele. The call ended, and the next time Andrew Shotland looked, his A-listing had vanished from Google Maps.
  • Around this time, Google Places Help Forum Top Contributor, Linda Buquet, (Catalyst eMarketing) noticed that some posts were coming into the forum from business owners whose experience of a phone call followed by disappearance of their listing matched Andrew Shotland's, or who had simply had their listings disappear without any preceding phone call.
  • Andrew Shotland started pinging the Places Troubleshooter and received a prompt email from a Google employee quoting an extremely obscure passage in the Google Places Help Files:
What are my options when defining a service area?
Don’t receive customers at your location? Serve customers at their location? Select the “Do not show my business address on my Maps listing” option within your dashboard — if you don’t hide your address, your listing may be removed from Google Maps.
Not one Local SEO I know who has written about this incident had ever drilled down to a place in the files where this information lay buried. After receiving this email, Andrew set his address to hidden, and his listing popped right back.

  • Googler Vanessa Schneider began responding to Google Places Help Forum posts about some listing problems with the advice that certain business owners should hide their address.
  • On March 22nd the official Google Places Quality Guidelines were updated to include the following language:
If you don't receive customers at your location, you must select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option within your dashboard. If you don't hide your address, your listing may be removed from Google Maps.
Top Contributor Linda Buquet let me know that she was instrumental in requesting that this language be moved from the old help file out front to the actual guidelines.
The Upshot: If your business doesn't serve customers at your own location, you've got to edit your Google Place Page ASAP to hide the address.
[h=2]Why People May Panic Over This Guideline Change[/h]Back in early 2010, Mike Ramsey of NiftyMarketing.com published his results of an experiment with the then-new 'Hide Address' function in Places. He documented an immediate drop in rankings after choosing to hide his address. Others reported similar incidents, and it became standard knowledge in the Local SEO community that hiding your address was almost certain to result in invisibility. Business owners and SEOs who read about this at the time may now be concerned that Google's new policy will solicit the demise of their local rankings.
In November of that same year, Mike Blumenthal reported that the 'Hide Address' function no longer appeared to be negatively impacting the newer blended local/organic results, but that it still appeared to be affecting the 7-pack and Maps-based results.
Today, Mike Blumenthal left the following comment on my own company's blog:
"Before Venice, the hiding of your address punished your listing. Now that virtually all displays are blended and there is no longer a ranking disincentive, Google is attempting to clean up their approach to businesses based on whether a user should/could use Maps to find them."
The Upshot: It is now believed that choosing the Hide Address feature will not negatively impact any type of local-focused rankings. So don't panic!
[h=2]Clarifying Your Business Model, According To Google[/h]Thanks to Google Places Help Forum Top Contributor, Mike Blumenthal, I feel that I have arrived at a fairly clear understanding of how Google is now classifying different business models. I'd like to pass this information on in hopes that it will help you determine whether your business needs to hide its address on its Place Page.
Type A
Your business is brick-and-mortar and serves all customers at its location. Show your address.
Type B
Your business is home-based and serves some customers at your home and some on the road. Show your address and use the Service Radius tool.
Type C
Your business is home-based and does not serve any customers at your home. Hide your address.
I believe these are the parameters in a nutshell.
 
The map being discussed in this thread was a map on the website itself, not Google places. There is a big difference in how that works.
 
TheCleaningDoc said:
The map being discussed in this thread was a map on the website itself, not Google places. There is a big difference in how that works.
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Yes there is, and you can be thrown out for not following Google Guidelines on Google Places, as I have shown in the post below.
 
goo-ogle picking this up
Ron Musgraves said:
Prca

Anyone have the website?

This is a roof cleaning association set up by Bruce Sullivan from Iowa.

It's like the fourth roof cleaning association and sixth org for roof cleaners to hang there hat.

I seen the logo , it looks great.


Ron Musgraves text me for questions 480-522-5227 Pressure Washing Institute
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Things are going well, season is keeping things busy. Going well on your end Ron? Seen Larry won the Ipad,, Congrats Larry!!
 
randyr5150 said:
Yes I do work in the field running our Florida biz in the summer, pics of me working would be nice, but I am always the one taking them of jobs or my guys working. I will get a few over the next week but here is one with one of my favorite shirts! Look familiar? Crappy pic, Randy is not a photographer by any means
View attachment 21630
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Nice shirt
 
Ohio pressure wash said:
PRCA may be a fine reputable Organization championing a worthy and noble cause...but that statement is not totally accurate. Consumer info and education is an aspect of it's purpose and goal. It is an association and as with any association or Org, it's purpose is to increase and promote the membership.

The Internet is the wild west. It's the last frontier. There are no rules stopping anyone from creating a website and dominating (or trying to) their industry. In the case of PRCA, the website's "consumer info and education" (from the about page) is clearly designed to steer them to a member...I'm okay with that, it's a free country.


I'm not for or against PRCA...I just wanted to address your statement.
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I am the admin of PRCA, which has been in place since 2011, and it is about directing the potential consumers to the members so they can receive the service they are searching for. If you watched the video it explains the purpose of the site. You'll find under roof types explains about that roof type. But the main objective is to educate the home owner to " roof cleaning " and contacting a member service provider is secondary. Though I am in the process of updating the site and adding fresh content. It is not a .org, just a .com. There has been a number of referrals made from the site to roof cleaners. Only non-pressure roof cleaners can join. In the end just another avenue to help educate the home owner to roof cleaning. Nothing more or less. On average the site gets about 200 hits a week from all over the U.S. and Canada, though we don't have Canada members.
 
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