Local SEO and PO Boxes
-
What is the best way to do local SEO when the business has a physical address, but the mailing address is through a PO Box. Can you still list your business on Google Maps, Google places, yahoo, bing etc... with the physical address?
-
Hi Nathan,
Dorothea is correct about P.O. boxes being forbidden in Google's local products. However, phone verification is not a solution, as Google will not offer this for every business - only some of them. If this is the case for your business, and you are not being offered a phone verification option, then postcard is the only way you can verify your business.
What is the exact situation with this business? Why can't mail be delivered to the brick and mortar location? I know there are some parts of the U.S. where the post office does not deliver mail to homes and businesses, but only to P.O. boxes. Is that the case with your location? If so, my best suggestion would be that you go through this troubleshooter and see if it leads you to Google's new verification issues phone number:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1399021&page=ts.cs
-
Use phone verification. Much faster and much easier.
-
I understand that, but how can you verify a physical address if you get mail at a PO box?
-
Using a PO Box address on Google+ Places is one of the big DON'Ts. Google is against using PO boxes and in most cases they can even figure out that the address you declared isn't the real one. When this happens your Google place page gets deleted. Submitting your business again won't be very easy...
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
-
Menu Structure & SEO
Hi I have been trying to decide whether we need to change our menu structure http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/ We have a lot of subcategories which are not in the menu structure and for SEO I wonder whether its best to have menu drop downs, so if a customer hovers over one category, it will display all the subcategories within this. I am concerned that sub categories we are trying to rank are many levels away from the homepage e.g If you want to find leather office chairs from the homepage, you have to go to the 'More categories' link, then choose seating > office seating > leather office seating. Users need to do a lot of navigating before seeing what we offer. I would prefer if a user could see these options in the menu when they hover over it. Does anyone think this would help SEO or just customer journey? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
SEO Indexing issues
Hi, We have been submitting sitemaps on a weekly basis for couple of months now and only 40% of the submitted pages are indexed each time. Whether on the design , content or technical side, the website doesn't violate google guidelines.Can someone help me find the issue? website: http://goo.gl/QN5CevThanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ZeFan0 -
Is Snip.ly bad for SEO?
Hi, I'm using the software snip.ly, which allows me to add call to action into content I publish through social media. It's really powerful but I'm wondering how it can affect my SEO? Snip.ly now appears into my link report and its spam score is only 2, which is good. However I'm afraid that in the long term, it can be bad: links are created manually by the webmarketer Topics of this website are infinite the ancor is the same Your thoughts?..
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2MSens0 -
Are backlinks the most important factor in SEO?
I have had an agency state that "Backlinks are the most important factor in SEO". That is how they are justifying their strategy of approaching bloggers. I believe there are a lot more factors than that including Target Market definition, Keyword identification an build content based on these factors. What's everyone's thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndySalmons0 -
Which part of SEO take the most time?
Which part of SEO do you think will take the most time? and Why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marknorman0 -
Blog home page and SEO
Why do most blog owners not put content that is unique to the home page above the fold before posts begin?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Local TLD Domain and languages.
Hello all, I have a local tld domain in spanish for .es. Now i want to translate the site content to english and german. What do you advice? 1.1 www.domainname.es/en/ and www.domainname.es/de/ 1.2 en.domainname.es and de.domainname.es Or buy a new .com domain and set it like this: 2.1. www.domainname.com and www.domainname.com/de (english will be main language) 2.2. en.domainname.com and de.domainname.com Or the last option ( the one i think it's better) Local TLDs 3.1 www.domainame.es , www.domainname.co.uk , and domainname.de In this last case , the domain name is KW + Brand , should i also translate the KW? For example: www.heladosolimpia.es , www.icecreamolimpia.co.uk Thanks for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Barbio0 -
Anyone Experimented With YouTube SEO?
Primarily questions I want to know definitive answers to: Do incoming links to a YouTube video affect Google's decision to show a YouTube video thumbnail in the results? If so, does YouTube rank the video higher due to incoming links? Does YouTube take any off-page factors into consideration when ranking a video? Does anyone else have any other helpful tips/thoughts/suggestions? Please don't answer this just to get points and give me fluff information. I'd really like to get some concrete data/info 🙂 Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alhallinan0