Google Places - What is the best Service Areas Strategy?

[vernonmack]

I've found a lot of useful info on this topic in these forums, but still can't seem to find the answer to my specific question.

Client has one physical location and services many areas.

I have seen various comments that claim setting a service area actually has a negative effect on rankings and the login makes sense to me, so we don't want to do that.

Using the actual physical address, seems to be what google would prefer, but the address is actually on the outskirts of the city and would mean that competitors that have addresses closer to the city center would show up before us.

Our current places listing has the actual address, but the previous SEO put the larger city, with the smaller city zip on the on the website.

City Center: San Diego, 92101

Actual: Street Address, El Cajon, 92020

On website: San Diego, 92020

It this large City + Actual zip code strategy any good?

Which of these 3 strategies should we use to standardize all of our listings?

*we will not be considering a location or mailbox per service are to use multiple listings at this time

[MiriamEllis]

Hello VernonMack,

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. I think the most important point to respond to in your post is this one. You write:

Using the actual physical address, seems to be what google would prefer, but the address is actually on the outskirts of the city and would mean that competitors that have addresses closer to the city center would show up before us.

It isn't so much a matter of Google's preference, but a matter of adhering to their guidelines which specifically state that you must use your real physical address. Unfortunately, this means that businesses likes yours on the borders of major cities do not have the strength to overpower the rankings of competitors actually located within the big cities. As you can imagine, this is a very common issue for all local businesses located just outside of metropolitan locations. Google will always view you as most relevant to the city in which you are located, so for your company, that will be El Cajon - not San Diego. I cannot recommend attempting to mash up the city and zip of the two different locales.

You can, of course, create content on your website about any work you do within San Diego, but should not expect this to take precedence over your actual physical location.

I truly sympathize with the wish to compete for the big search terms, but the usefulness of Google Places depends on accurate representation of data. For now, you are located in El Cajon and should correctly list yourself as such. If it becomes clear to you in future that you need to move locations into the city of San Diego, you will be doing what some other local business owners have done due to Google's handling of location. For some businesses, moving shop just isn't feasible, but for others, getting that inner city address is a must and a smart move.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

[nxmassa]

I can't say 100%, but it looks like El Cajon is still in San Diego County, which might mean it's close enough to still count. Again, you might want to get a second opinion, but I don't think it would be too much of a problem using your actual zip code with San Diego. For instance, where I am (Maryland) there are several small towns that people just incorporate into the bigger city while keeping their unique zip codes.

[vernonmack]

Thanks, Nick.  do you have any additional insight into the strategy that combine the large city with the actual city zip code?  The listings (NAP) are currently all over the place we will standardize them once we have chosen the best format.

[nxmassa]

This is a tricky one - you're more likely to come up for the smaller city if you're far from the city center, but it's not as likely to get as many searches.

I'd suggest using whatever address most commonly appears on the web. One thing Google really relies on is a consistent NAP - Name, Address and Phone Number. If your website says San Diego, and you have other local citations (directories, etc) that say San Diego, go with San Diego - that should help boost all your local rankings.