Local SEO-How to handle multiple business at same address

[caeevans]

I have a client who shares the same address and suite number with multiple business.

What should be done to optimize their website and citations for local SEO? Is this a huge issue? What should we do so our rankings aren't affected.

Will changes take a long time to take place?

Thanks

[caeevans]

Thanks Miriam!

And thanks for the link. I will definitely share the information with the client to back up what I am saying.

[caeevans]

Thanks for the clarification.

The office where my client is forwards the mail to the proper business as well, even with the duplicate suite #'s so we just needed a way to make it unique to Google.

Hopefully the affect of changing the suite # isn't too severe...

[JaredMumford]

FYI: the unique suite # was requested simply so that the address was 'unique' from google's perspective. assuming that google understands suite #'s. The mail was always forwarded to the proper business even with the duplicate suite # since this was a part of the virtual office service.

[MiriamEllis]

Good luck with the work ahead, Catherine. And keep these handy to refer to whenever necessary:

http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528

You might like to share those with the client, as well, so that what you are explaining to them about what needs to be done can be backed up with direct facts from the Google Places Quality Guidelines.

[caeevans]

Yes, all this Local stuff can get confusing! Whether you are new to it or have studied it for a while it seems. I'm just an intern assigned the daunting task to figure out a whole new strategy for our client. And I definitely don't know a whole ton about SEO so thanks so much for your help!

I guess I will suggest getting a unique suite number and using a local phone number. Yes the fall out may be not so bad to extreme, but it has to be done since they don't fit the criteria for local inclusion. But from Jared's example, it seems like it should work.

Thanks again guys!

[JaredMumford]

Thumbs up to Miriam who gives a lot of good advice here.  And definitely merging is the worst case scenario. Since this discussion is still going, and since it seems your client cant simply go get a real business address (and the overhead that comes with it)  Ill give a real case study as an example.

We had a client that was in a competitive niche, and provided a service (not a product). She had a virtual address, and by that I mean they paid a monthly fee to the location and as part of that fee the location would forward any inbound mail, and the client could also use meeting rooms, offices or boardrooms a certain amount of times per month. Other services were available such as phone answering etc...

When she became a client, the first thing we realized was that the client had the same suite number as all the other businesses that used the same 'virtual office' service. The clients previous SEO had already started citation work, but didnt warn them about merging or any other problems associated.

Anyway, so what we did was first request a different unique suite number from the service, which they provided at no extra cost. Then, we bought a local number and forwarded it to her home, which was a local transfer since she indeed was in that city but worked from home unless she needed to meet clients etc.

So now we had a unique local address with a unique local phone number. The last thing we had to do was simply mine for old citations and have them all changed.

This worked, and still does work, but we only did this after explaining to the client that it was not the best scenario for sustainability in local SEO. As per my first comment, at anytime Google could simply omit that address and all business that claim it as a brick and mortar address.

Best of luck !

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Catherine,

I would not heed this advice:

"I have also heard that if you have enough citations that give your business' address some credit and show that it's not spam, you may  not have an issue."

It's important to understand that no matter how many citations you get, you are at risk of their 'power' being split between you and any other business sharing the address, and simply confusing the bots further. It might be helpful to visualize being a bot here. If you see 50 references around the web to Jane's Hair Salon, 23 for Jenny's Yoga and 72 for Bill's Martial arts all stating that they are located at 123 Main street, who do you believe?

Therein lies the problem and it's not going to be a winning situation for any of the businesses mixed up in this.

Google has never handled the concept of shared addresses well. Unfortunately, in the real world, people do share addresses, but Google's system is not designed to cope with that, so either one abstains from participation in Google's local products, or finds a way to comply with them.

You mention getting a whole new address. Do you mean the client would move to a new building? That might be an option, but it's an awfully extreme one to go to (having to move your whole business). So the client getting a unique suite number is likely what he/she should do, but yes, you may encounter some fallout when you change the address. This could be minimal or severe. And, yes, they definitely need to be using their local area code phone number on any listing of the business, as well as in crawlable text in the NAP on their website.

I really sympathize with local business owners who are trying to understand Google's non-intuitive system. It's really easy to violate their rules and make mistakes. This is why it's critical to educate yourself as much as you possibly can about this constantly-changing system. And, if you are an SEO selling services and you are really new at Local SEO, I would suggest you advise your client to hire a Local SEO who can bring specialized knowledge on board. It's just too easy to create bad outcomes for the client if Local isn't your area of specialization...and it's even easy to end up with crazy results if you eat, breathe and live Local every day :)!

Your client is in a very bad situation. It may take some months of one-on-one care to get them out of this mess. Set their expectations correctly about this so that they understand the process is going to involve time and money.

Hope this helps!

[caeevans]

Thanks everyone for your responses!

I definitely think it's difficult to find a definite solution since the algorithms change all the time.

I have heard about the possibility of Google merging the businesses together and that is a concern. I have also heard that if you have enough citations that give your business' address some credit and show that it's not spam, you may  not have an issue. Again, you never know for sure.

I definitely understand the concerns about the different suite numbers since Google and other sites make you verify via post card. What if the mail arrives at the address but then is separated according to business so each business receives its own mail and is not just lumped in a pile with the others?

If I do get a new unique suite number, how will that affect our current SEO? Will google not like that we changed our address? And do I just need a unique suite number or should we get a whole new address completely?

Also, we do use a toll free number. I'm assuming we should change that no matter how we proceed with the address?

Thanks everyone for your help!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Catherine,

In order to qualify for local inclusion, avoid penalties and prevent merging, your client must be able to answer yes to the following 3 points.

1. Does the business have a unique, dedicated physical address (not a virtual address, P.O. Box or shared address)?

2. Does the business have a unique, dedicated local phone number in the city of location (not an 800 number, not a call tracking number, not a shared number)

3. Does the business have in-person transactions with its customers, either at its own location (like a restaurant) or at the customers' locations (like a plumber)?

If the business does not meet any one of these 3 criteria, it does not qualify for local inclusion. I don't know where your client is at on points 2 and 3, but if they can't say yes to point one, Local SEO will be nothing but problematic for them. Here's why:

If 2 or more businesses share an address, suite address or phone number (or even if their names are too similar), Google will frequently merge the business details of the listings. This means that Joe the Barber can end up with Jim the Plumber's business name, phone number or reviews showing up on his listing. Merging is one of the most difficult issues to deal with in Local, and one to be avoided at all costs.

Here is a Google help file on this issue: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175290

Your client's best hope is to:

1. Secure a unique suite number in the building at which he/she works and at which mail can be received.

2. Search for all citations of the business web-wide to correct any existent citations so that they include the new suite number.

Hope this helps!

[JaredMumford]

I agree with bjgomer13 in saying that ranking locally with shared addresses does still work. The only caveat is that Local is always changing, and its hard to know if this is something google will target - not because of clients like yours, but because of business that abuse it.  Just as they did with PO boxes earlier. As always, the advice you get is confusing because no one can 'predict' whats going to change, and this was a pretty shaky year for algo changes so everyone is being careful.

This response probably just confuses things more!

[BrianJGomez]

I have quite a bit of experience with this situation and I can tell you I have never had any issues getting a client to rank because of it. As long as your NAP is consistent across all the directories, you'll be fine. Obviously, the most ideal situation is a normal real address but that's not always possible for some businesses.

The only exception is I've noticed UPS Stores addresses seem to have a little more of an uphill battle than a business suite shared address but even with them, they eventually start ranking.

[caeevans]

Yeah the person I work for recently found out about the address situation our client was in after I had made citations for them.

We aren't trying to rank in different cities or areas, just don't want our local SEO efforts to be wasted.

The company still shows up when you search for the address and Google lists all the businesses at that address so at least it hasn't merged the pages yet.

Just trying to see if there is an "industry standard" of what to do in this situation. Been seeing a lot of different viewpoints so it can get a little confusing.

Thanks for your help though!

[JaredMumford]

This is a tough one. The worst thing to do is to start with citations and then find out they arent working, and then fix the issue and start all over again (now having two NAPs floating around.

Some businesses use virtual offices in an attempt to rank in different cities or areas. If this is the case with your client, it never hurts to contact that service and explain that you must have a unique suite number. Ive found in some cases they will be quite accommodating.

As for the effects - Ive performed local optimization for clients in this scenario and it still worked fine (and the other businesses using the same virtual office also were in the maps for their keywords), but with constant changes in Local, its risky (in my opinion) to continue without getting a unique address first.

Just my 2 cents!