Google Places/Affiliate/Partner Site
-
Hello,
We are looking at the possibility of renting or leasing a small office but we're not quite at that point yet. We would like to take add Google Places/G+ by adding an address & phone number giving us more real estate for the small Brand we are trying to build. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what we could add?
Thanks in Advance!
-
I think Miriam nailed it.
Smart advice as well using a home address is not a bad idea at all. Think of all the fantastic companies that started it either in the garage Which Google would consider their home / place of business.
If you have a legitimate local listing your all set as you grow and acquire an office or whatever type of facility it is that you need to do business in you will have no problem with Google when making the change.
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Hi Little Bigman,
You've asked a good question. Let me refer you to Google's own guidelines regarding this scenario:
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.Your business location should be staffed during its stated hours.
- Exceptions to the above are self-serve businesses such as ATMs or video-rental kiosks. If adding these locations, you should include contact information for customers to get help.
- 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.
- Individual practitioners may be listed individually as long as those practitioners are public-facing within their parent organization. Common examples of such practitioners are doctors, dentists, lawyers, and real estate agents. The practitioner should be directly contactable at the verified location during stated hours. A practitioner should not have multiple listings to cover all of his or her specializations.
- Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may be listed separately. These departments must be publicly distinct as entities or groups within their parent organization, and ideally will have separate phone numbers and/or customer entrances.
- Businesses that operate in a service area should create one listing for the central office or location and designate service areas. If you wish to display your complete business address while setting your service area(s), your business location should be staffed and able to receive customers during its stated hours. Google will determine how best to display your business address based on your inputs as well as inputs from other sources. 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.
- Do not include information in address lines that does not pertain to your business’s physical location (e.g. URLs, keywords).
- Anytime the address for your business changes, you’ll have to verify again. You also won’t be able to update the business’s name until the verification process is complete.
So, basically, it's fine if you rent a small office, so long as it is staffed and accepts walk-in traffic during your listed business hours. Any other arrangement (with the exception of ATM machines!) is not allowed. Using virtual offices or P.O. boxes is strictly forbidden. Better to use your home address if you're just starting out and then go through the procedures for trying to have the address not displayed, if you have privacy concerns. Fortunately, this is one area in which Google's guidelines, above, are totally clear. Hope it helps to read them. You can access the complete guidelines here: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
- 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.Your business location should be staffed during its stated hours.
-
Google has access to property records they can figure things out pretty quickly I would not try to trick them.
According to Google you have to do face-to-face business at your Google local place of business.
No one has ever accused Google of being a stupid company and I would suggest following their guidelines. Which state that you cannot use a PO box for Google local
https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
how to create a listing and remember they will send you a postcard most likely.
https://support.google.com/places/answer/142906
If you are on the up and up and you want to start off right with Google local wait until you have legitimate place of business there.
Think about damage could be done if you are caught doing the wrong thing. I would wait until you meet the guidelines and then sign up for Moz local after creating a G plus local page
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
We Do currently have a PO Box but Im not sure it will work? If we do eventually rent a space how hard is it to change?
-
If you decide to go down the route of creating a fictitious address, you may find hard to get a real one approved if you get caught out. They are getting stricter. In the past you could use a mailbox if you didnt have a real place
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
-
I just found original business name for client - its not the same as GMB or any aggregate site. What to do?
the business filing with the Secretary of State is a name of an individual (e.g. Matthew Smith, M.D.). This is on reflected on Localeze and such. However, the business is operating under a name "Healthy Body and Minds Clinic", which is the Facebook, Google My Business, and website name and info. So, how is it best to get consistency in NAP with the two different business names being used? (Ideally, no change in State registration or filing for a DBA). Thanks much! One idea I have seen is to include both and separate them by a colon. As in "Healthy Body and Minds Clinic : Matthew Smith, M.D." I appreciate any suggestions or tips to help. Thanks.
Reviews and Ratings | | Marky_Mark0 -
Google Merchant XML don`t allow price variations, so I have two options
Hi guys I have a question about google merchant set up: Products on my website have a single URL with the material option. Each material has a different price for the same product. Ex: A Winter Coat, if it is leather the price is $100 if it is fabric is $80 if it is on Nylon $60.
Reviews and Ratings | | Tiedemann_Anselm
Google Merchant XML dont allow price variations, so I have two options1) Create only one entry for product and chose one price. When the user arrives on the page he can choose other material and prices. MXL ExProduct: Winter Coat, price 60, Product: www.store.com/winter-coat2) Create a single entry on the XML for each product/material variant. Ex:Product 1: Winter Coat Leather, price 100, www.store.com/winter-coat?q=leatherProduct 2: Winter Coat Fabric, price 80, www.store.com/winter-coat?q=fabric Product 3: Winter Coat Nylon, price 60, www.store.com/winter-coat?q=nylonWhich one its better for SEO? On option 2 Google can punish me for duplicate products?Thanks0 -
What types of businesses does Google display reviews in SERP for?
In just the last week, it seems like Google has removed reviews for businesses in our industry (staffing), which is unfortunate since we've been working hard for those reviews. The effect has been to be completely left off the local google business results. One week, we're at the top of the business reviews with our location prominently featured on the map and the next, we aren't even listed. It seems like there must be list of industries in which Google takes reviews into account (or if they do, then at least displays the reviews in the results). For us, up until last week, if you searched "temp agencies", these reviews were included in SERP. Now, nothing. Is this fairly normal behavior for Google?
Reviews and Ratings | | Parker8180 -
How to address reviews that show up in Google but come from a business's own website?
One of my clients has a competitor who has a fairly poor reputation based on reviews on Google and Yelp. But, this competitor allows people to review them on their own website, and their "4.8" rating based on 250+ "reviews" show up in search engine results. I assume they are using schema markup to encourage that. My question is whether there is anything we can do to report this to Google, or otherwise make sure the general public is not fooled by these reviews?
Reviews and Ratings | | irapasternack2 -
Why does Google return 1 star reviews in local listings as the "most helpful"?
I have a client who has recently received two 1 star reviews on Google local (unhappy customer and unhappy customers boyfriend). This is affecting an otherwise flourishing business as these two 1 star reviews are displayed prominently when you search for the brand in Google. They have since received more positive reviews, however Google insists on displaying, what they term, the "most helpful" reviews first. Why are these 1 star reviews deemed "most helpful"? In all honesty, they aren't even really that helpful, with the latter verging on slanderous. We are in the process of reporting this one as it personally attacks a member of staff, however, whilst we tentatively wait weeks for a response, I wondered if anyone has any idea on how G decides which reviews are "most helpful"? When there is no option for other users to rate these reviews as helpful (such as on play store).
Reviews and Ratings | | Silkstream0 -
Structured Data for mult-location site
Hi, I am developing a site for a service business with multiple location pages within a larger territory. There is only one physical address and phone number for each territory, and the same phone number is therefore relevant for each location page. The mark up requires that I put in the phone number and address for each page, but I think I've previously read that putting the same phone number on each page is a bad idea for my kind of sites (so I have just put it on the main territory page and contact us page). I was was wondering therefore if I should bother with mark up as its just going to be repeating exactly the same address, phone number data for www.site.com/location-A, www.site.com/location-B, /C, /D, /E, /F etc...? Any ideas much appreciated.
Reviews and Ratings | | Anward0 -
Duplicate Google Plus Business Listings
Hi everyone, We have a client with duplicate Google Plus pages for two of their locations. The ones that are showing in search results for the most part are the ones we control, but we'd still like to report or delete the duplicates (which we do not control from our existing accounts). I used to notice the option to report a page as duplicate but no longer see that...any advice? Thanks!
Reviews and Ratings | | SUCCESSagency0 -
URL Structure for a local listing site
Hi - We have a site that offers customers with wide range of local businesses information. We have URL structure for those these days like this - site.com/listings/plumbers/ca/sfo However here the "listings" doesn't add any value and are confusing for users who want to remember it, hence we decided to make it cleaner. The question here is, which one of the two should we do and why? site.com/plumbers/ca/sfo or site.com/ca/sfo/plumbers Any help on this matter would help.
Reviews and Ratings | | nunoz0