Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Local SEO address question - adding a suite number for shared address for office building
-
Hi, I have a client that has an address that is shared for a few different businesses in the holistic health field. My client is a chiropractor. There is an eye doctor, massage therapist and acupuncturist aslo sharing the same address. It's a subburban setting with two buildings all sharing one address.
In the interest of preventing any merged listings down the road, I recently added un unofficial suite number to his website and Google places business listing. I also did this for all of his online directory listings, and for Bing and Yahoo as well.
Did I do the right thing here?
It seems to be having a positive impact on his local SEO as far as I can tell. Or at least there has not been any negative impact in the last 6 months
Your thoughts?
-
Great. I'm glad my answer helped. Good luck!
Miriam
-
Thank you for your answer, it's exactly what I was expecting your to say. I'll take the advice.
-
Thanks Miriam, I don't really know what's involved in making this "legal." He'll get the mail there with or without the suite # so I don't foresee a problem with postcard re-verification. So I guess he's good to go. If he wants to get it "legal" I can recommend that. Thanks for confirming what I already thought
-
Hi MozMan2,
Nice to see you here today! Okay...so you went about this 50% right, in my opinion. What's missing is getting the client an actual registered suite number at which he receives mail.
Initially, this is important in the even that Google (and others local business indexes) give you a postcard-only option for verification of the listing. Sounds like you're past that point, but remember, the need to re-verify does sometimes reoccur if you have to make certain changes to a Place Page.
For the long haul, the issue is one of differentiation. The inherent danger in different businesses sharing an identical address is that Google will conflate the listings, merging them into a mess of mixed addresses, phone numbers, reviews and descriptions.
Ideally, what the chiropractor should do is convince each of the professionals in his building to get their own suite number to prevent this from happening to any or all of them.
If he can't get them to see the light about this, then he should at least protect himself by getting his own suite number. Depending on where he lives, he may need to go to the post office or some other local authority to get this thing legalized so that he's got a separate mail box to which the mailman delivers his mail at his suite address in the building.
So, again, your overall approach is correct, but the suite number should be legit to keep this on the level. And you should make sure the suite number is consistent across all mentions of his business on the web.
Hope this helps!
Miriam
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Can i use base64 images (URI) for better SEO performance - faster site loading?
Hi, Do you think the use of image data URI is SEO friendly? I got 20 JPG icons on each site, but use too many HTTP requests. So can i use base64 (URI) images for my small icons? Thank you for answer!
Image & Video Optimization | | Termex0 -
Vimeo Pro, video SEO and rich snippets
Hi All, we are producing product demonstration videos. One major aim with these videos is to help our rankings for these specific product pages and associated keywords... and to get rich snippets displayed on Google results pages against our listing. We have used schema.org markup in the product pages body code along with / next to the embed vimeo video code on the product page in order to hopefully get us rich snippet listing... we used schema.org markup as this seems to be the main current markup for rich snippets we have hosted the video via Vimeo Pro so that it is served quickly and not affected by speed of our hosting server or any possible bandwidth issues on our hosting server and ensure sthat the traffic comes to our site pages rather then Youtube or similar Vimeo Privacy settings for the video have been set so that we have not allowed it to be embed anywhere except for our own domain and the video is not displayed on Vimeo.com to ensure that the video is not duplicated anywhere else... so that this is unique content on our own site for maximum value for our domain We have used the "old code" from Vimeo Pro for embedding the video on our product page rather than the current iframe code as from what i understand Google cant follow very well and doesn't necessarily trust content displayed in iframes. Video and schema.org markup code used is on product page is: <div itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">video</a>" itemscope itemtype="<a class="attribute-value">http://schema.org/VideoObject</a>"> <p ><strong>Watch our <span itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">name</a>">Click 7 Lite Duo demonstrationspan>:strong>p> <meta itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">thumbnailURL</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/img/products/nextbase-click-7-lite-duo-thumb.jpg</a>" /> <meta itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">duration</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">T2M23S</a>" /> <span itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">description</a>">A product demonstration showing what's included in the box when you buy a Click 7 Lite Duospan>...:<br /> <p align="<a class="attribute-value">center</a>"> p> <p align="<a class="attribute-value">center</a>"><object width="<a class="attribute-value">500</a>" height="<a class="attribute-value">281</a>"><param name="<a class="attribute-value">allowfullscreen</a>" value="<a class="attribute-value">true</a>" /><param name="<a class="attribute-value">allowscriptaccess</a>" value="<a class="attribute-value">always</a>" /><param name="<a class="attribute-value">movie</a>" value="<a class="attribute-value">http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=67392721&force_embed=1&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0</a>" /><embed src="[http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=67392721&force_embed=1&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0](view-source:http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=67392721&force_embed=1&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0)" type="<a class="attribute-value">application/x-shockwave-flash</a>" allowfullscreen="<a class="attribute-value">true</a>" allowscriptaccess="<a class="attribute-value">always</a>" width="<a class="attribute-value">500</a>" height="<a class="attribute-value">281</a>">embed>object> p> div> Page this code is used on: http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/proddet.jsp?id=2016&cat=1 Could anyone confirm whether the above seems to be what we need to do / should be doing to get the most value from these videos for helping our web site rank better with Google / search engine results pages as well as getting rich snippets displayed? Lastly does the above code seem correct and include all the necessaries for rich snippets? Thanks for any pointers.
Image & Video Optimization | | jasef0 -
Local SEO: Ste vs. Suite vs. #
Hi, I used the spelled out "Suite" in my local NAP, but sometimes it's been shortened to Ste by citation websites. I'm trying to remain consistent here Should I use Ste H, Suite H, or #H? This is a good article on it: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local-citations/1605-suite-vs-ste-vs-your-citation-addresses-2.html but I'd still like your opinion.
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Practice Name vs. Dr. Name in Local Search
I wanted to get some opinions on an interesting situation for local search. Many doctors and dentists are found in one of two ways online: Their name and title, e.g. Dr. James A. Smith, MD Their practice name, e.g Smith Plastic Surgery, P.C Often sites like Healthgrades are providing data on the doctor him or herself, and the information can be tough to switch out. At the same time, there's a tendancy on the Dr's part to want to be listed as their practice name. Their site is often set up that way. How are you handling this kind of setup? Have you found a way to reliably associate (and format) a practice and doctor's name in a listing, in such a way that doesn't violate Google's quality guidelines? I know the drill for handling a doctor within a hospital, but this is a slightly different situation...
Image & Video Optimization | | BedeFahey0 -
If my keyword have Keyword Difficulty Score 50 to 60 , then what kind of link build for get rank?
hello, i have 21 sites , if my keyword have Keyword Difficulty Score 50 to 60 , then what kind of link build for get rank?
Image & Video Optimization | | Brayvez0 -
Local SEO: How to optimize for multiple cities on website
Hi, I couldn't find any reference to this, so if the answer is already here, I would appreciate a link to the answer. That said, my question is this: When a local business services a large geographic area, I wanted to know how to optimize for the multiple towns? I already have the main city in my title tags, but there are at least 40 areas that surround this town. Should I have a "Services Area" page, and place all the towns there, or should they all be in the footer? I saw this one guy - in the same niche who put all the towns in his meta keyword section - but I think that's incorrect, especially since Google doesn't look at that particular meta tag. Any help would be appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | jayestovall1 -
Looking for beta testers for new free video SEO/marketing tool
We're getting ready to release a free tool to the SEO community that we hope will help marketers better create and optimize/market great video content. Hint: the tool has features built in to help you analyze video rankings in universal search results. 🙂 We'd like to get feedback from a few beta users first, though. If you'd be willing to give us your honest feedback in return for getting to use the tool early (and getting to suggest features you'd like), please PM me. Thanks in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | AdamThompson0 -
Is there an easy way to see how competitive a local search term is?
Is there a quick and easy way to see how competitive local search terms are? I am looking at helping my clients show up on the local search results. Some times all I have to do is claim a listing and they move right to the top. Sometimes I claim a listing and nothing happens so I get links and I get reviews and it takes awhile. I want to be able to put an accurate price point on the service I am offering. I have looked at the search volume and it hasn't been the best indicator because some industries are more competitve than others. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | jimmyseo0