Can a Find Us Link suffice as the NAP in footer of site?
-
I understand the need for NAP in the website for citation sourcing / local ranking purposes, etc. Is it possible to use a linking anchor text such as "Find Us" that can link to the Contact Page of the site that does list the street address? Or should it link to the google places listing?
The client basically wants to "hide" the NAP, but keep the power of the local listing.
Can this be done? Any suggestions? Or an example of website that does this successfully?
-
Hi Again:)
As Donna has said, the lack of footer NAP could have a a negative SEO impact, but if this argument does not sway the customer, I would totally set it to one side and explain to the business owner that customers are entering their website on a variety of pages (not just the homepage) and having the complete contact information on every page of the site definitely increases the chances of phones ringing. Why make the customer click extra links and hunt around for a phone number or address? Give it to them right away! Making it as easy as possible for the customer should increase conversions and that is language any business owner can understand. -
Well unfortunately you will risk losing some ranking power if you decide to use just name and phone number. That's considered a partial (vs full) citation and is believed to carry less weight in Google's local ranking algorithm. (See well respected Local SEO company Whitespark's definition of the different types of citations.)
So it's a trade off - bulk vs ranking influence. The relative impact will depend largely on your competition. I guess you could always give it a try and measure results. There's no reason you couldn't just change it back if the impact is not to your liking.
-
Yes, I am saying exactly that. The NAP would be on the contact page. Then on the footer of each page they just want there name, tel #, and an anchor text. They just think the address looks to bulky for every page. I don't want to lose ranking power.
-
Good Morning!
I want to be sure I'm following what you are describing here. Are you saying that the NAP would exist on the Contact Us page but wouldn't appear elsewhere on the site, like in the footer or something along those lines? I'm not sure why you would link off your site to the Google+ Local page instead of having the NAP on the site. Google allows businesses with hidden addresses to be listed in their local product, but there may be some lessening of ranking power in these scenarios. Would you be able to provide a bit more info about what you mean by hiding the address on the website?
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
-
Local Site Linking to Corporate Site In Main Menu - Bad for SEO?
Hi, We have 'local' websites for different countries (UK, DE, FR, AP, US etc.) and a corporate website, the local websites are going to be linking back to the corporate website in the main menu (think about us, terms and conditions kind of pages). Any local products will have their own pages on the local website but global products will be linked back to the corporate website. We will be placing an indication the user will be going to another website next to those menu links that go to the corporate website. Is there any drawback to this for SEO? Should we use nofollow in the menu structure of regional websites for these links? Thanks for your help.
Local Website Optimization | | UNIT40 -
Best SEO Option for Multi-site Set-up
Hi Guys, We have a Business to Business Software Website. We are Global business but mainly operate in Ireland, UK and USA. I would like your input on best practice for domain set-up for best SEO results in local markets. Currently we have: example.com (no market specified) and now we are creating: example.com/ie (Ireland) example.com/uk (united kingdom) example.com/us (united states) My question is mainly based on the example.com/us website - should we create example.com/us for the US market OR just use example.com for the US the market? If the decision is example.com/us should we build links to the directory or the main .com website. To summarize there is two questions: 1. Advise on domain set-up 2. Which site to build links to if example.com/us is the decision. Thank you in advance, Glen.
Local Website Optimization | | DigitalCRO0 -
Applying NAP Local Schema Markup to a Virtual Location: spamming or not?
I have a client that has multiple virtual locations to show website visitors where they provide delivery services. These are individual pages that include unique phone numbers, zip codes, city & state. However there is no address (this is just a service area). We wanted to apply schematic markup to these landing pages. Our development team successfully applied schema to the phone, state, city, etc. However for just the address property they said VIRTUAL LOCATION. This checked out fine on the Google structured data testing tool. Our question is this; can just having VIRTUAL LOCATION for the address property be construed as spamming? This landing page is providing pertinent information for the end user. However since there is no brick and mortar address I'm trying to determine if having VIRTUAL LOCATION as the value could be frowned upon by Google. Any insight would be very helpful. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | RosemaryB1 -
Removed huge spammy location footer, looking to rebuild traffic the right way
Hello, On this site, I removed a huge spammy location footer with hundreds of cities, states, and dog training types. The traffic and rankings have gone down a lot, and I'd like a discussion on how to rebuild things the right way. There's some local adjustments to be made to the home page content, but other than that: My plans: 1. Analyze top 10 Google analytics keyword queries and work them into the content as best as possible, though I am debating whether the client should make new pages and how many. 2. I'm going to suggest he add a lot of content to the home page, perhaps a story about a dog training that he did in Wisconsin. I'll think about what else. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Optimizing dog walking site for search phrase "dog walkers nyc"
Background: We have a dog walking company that serves NYC. According to our AdWords campaign, most leads come from the search phrase: "dog walkers nyc." Question: If the goal is to get as much organic traffic as possible for the search phrase "dog walkers nyc," should we just optimize our http://barkbud.com/ domain for the search phrase "dog walkers nyc," OR should we also have a page like http://barkbud.com/dog-walkers-nyc/ optimized for the same phrase? Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | BarkBud0 -
How to approach SEO for a national umbrella site that has multiple chapters in different locations that are different URLS
We are currently working with a client who has one national site - let's call it CompanyName.net, and multiple, independent chapter sites listed under different URLs that are structured, for example, as CompanyNamechicago.org, and sometimes specific to neighborhoods, as in CompanyNamechicago.org/lakeview.org. The national site is .net, while all others are .orgs. These are not subdomains or subfolders, as far as we can tell. You can use a search function on the .net site to find a location near you and click to that specific local site. They are looking for help optimizing and increasing traffic to certain landing pages on the .net site...but similar landing pages also exist on a local level, which appear to be competing with the national site. (Example: there is a landing page on the national .net umbrella site for a "dog safety" campaign they are doing, but also that campaign has led to a landing page created independently on the local CompanyNameChicago.org website, which seems to get higher ranking due to a user looking for this info while located in Chicago. We are wondering if our hands are tied here since they appear to be competing for traffic with all their localized sites, or if there are best practices to handle a situation like this. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | timfrick0 -
How to target a site to only specific US states?
Hey Guys, Does anyone have experience or can point me to the right documentation about geo targeting possibilities for specific states in the US or specific areas in the world. Local SEO does not apply in my case, since my website is not a business nor have a physical address. My website offers information that is only relevant for specific states in the US, how can I leverage my I optimisation to gain more exposure in those specific states? I really appreciate any help. A
Local Website Optimization | | Mr.bfz0 -
International site, be visible on both .com and .co.uk?
Do you guys have any tips to increase the visibility in both Google.com and Google.co.uk? The site today, have good visibility in USA, but its poor in the UK... Information: The server is based in US. No region is set in the Google Webmaster Tools. Incoming links are from global regions, mostly US. Do we need to add a specific section for the UK (uk.site.com or site.com/uk/) and specify region in GWT to make sure Google handle this the right way? Its a lot of work, rewrite all the content for another section, which also is in english...
Local Website Optimization | | Vivamedia0