Citation building for service area businesses?
-
Hi Mozzers,
Just recently came up with a situation where a business has a service area, but no address that would be displayed.
Can you do citation building for a service area business like this, and if so, how? Would you just use the (otherwise hidden in Places) address?
Thanks!
-
Hi TechWyse,
You're very welcome, and I'm sorry you experienced a glitch in the reporting system. If it happens again, please comment on that fact on the thread in question.
-
A much belated thanks Miriam,
That's what I thought might be the case. So the citation is still the address, even though it's hidden. Thanks for the thorough response!
(As a side note, I didn't seem to get a notification that a reply was posted, thought I'd get one.)
-
Hi TechWyse,
I want to be sure I am understanding your question correctly. Are you saying that the business has no usable address whatsoever? Not even a home address? Please clarify.
It is totally possible to build citations for service area businesses (like carpet cleaners, landscapers, contractors, etc.), but they do need to have a physical address in order to participate. This work typically goes like this:
-
You create a Google Places Listing for the business and be sure to pick the 'hide address' function during creation. Google does not want service radius businesses to display their addresses on their Google Places/Google+ Local pages.
-
You can then build a variety of citations in other local business indexes. There are two approaches here. Even though Google doesn't want service radius businesses to show their address on Google's products, there is nothing to prevent you from listing that address on other listings, like Yelp, Merchant Circle, Best of the Web, etc. Alternatively, if the client does not want his street address to appear anywhere on these directories, he can stick to publishing his listing only at those directories which allow you to hide your address. Here is Phil Rozek's helpful list of such resources:
Important To Understand
It is perfectly fine, at this point, for service radius businesses to use their home address as their physical address, provided that the address is not being used by any other business. For example, if a husband had an accounting business and a wife had a pet grooming business, both operating out of the home, they could not both use the same address nor the same telephone number. So, both phone and address must be dedicated and unique to avoid problems.
Also, at this point, it is a violation of Google's guidelines to use anything other than a real physical address as a business location. No P.O. boxes, no virtual offices. Despite the fact that Google requires the hiding of the physical address in their system, the address is still entered in the back end dashboard and must be a real location.
Hope these pointers help, and if I've in any way misunderstood your client's business model, please feel free to provide further details.
-
-
Citations need to be for address specific, because they should all match up. So just area specific no, because if it was possible it would allow others to rank up for local terms in any city they would like around the world. So I highly suggest you get an address in some way. Maybe a friends address, a home address of your own, or something in that area you could possibly use as an address. It has to be a location that has never been used with Google local before though.
How did you signup with Google local or place page with no address?
Have a nice day.
MB
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
-
Schema for a local business with multiple locations
Hello I am trying to add schema to a website that has several locations. Is the best way to do this is by tagging the home page of the website as the business main location and then create a page for each location and then mark them up accordingly? Thank you for your help.
Image & Video Optimization | | edwardfrebow0 -
Local Citation NAP: Comma difference
Hello, Is there a difference between: 111 Streetname #L, City, CA, 84111 and then on facebook it's 111 Streetname #L City, CA 84111 on two different lines? Note on the first one, there is a comma after #L and on the two line facebook page citation, there's no comma after #L. Should I add a comma on facebook after the #L? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW1 -
Google+ local SEO question regarding attorney services
Should attorneys check the boxes for: 1. My business has service areas where I visit customers at their location and
Image & Video Optimization | | cgman
2. I serve customers at my business address (within x miles) This is for a law firm that sees clients in the office, as well as making accommodations to visit them at their location when they are unable to come to the office.0 -
Local SEO: Links with the citations so should I slow down?
Hello, There seems to be some nofollow and dofollow links building as I add structured citations. Is this a reason to slow down the building citation process if you want the links to count? Do they help organic SEO?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Local business ideas?
Hello, if you are good at SEO and want to launch businesses thanks to your ability to rank high on local searches, what are some good ideas? I'm more interested in the market sizes than the difficulties to rank. Another important factor is the ease to do the actual business. Because of that, I'm looking for ideas like "appartment renting San Diego" because you can create a classifieds ads website where people pay for their listings. Another good idea is "marriage photographer New York" because if you have the orders you just need to hire a few free lance photgrapher. "car dealearship London" wouldn't work on the other hand because opening a car dealerhip is too costly. Thanks a lot!
Image & Video Optimization | | EndeR-0 -
For Local SEO on a business with many locations, should the city be included in the business name?
For a franchised business with ~50 locations spread across the US, should the city be included in the business name when building citations? Fictional example: We have a staffing franchise called 'Hamilton Staffing'. They have 50 locations in the US. They are all called 'Hamilton Staffing'. We need to finalize the correct NAP information so we are consistent in building citations. For the name, should we just use 'Hamilton Staffing' for all of them? Or should we use 'Hamilton Staffing - Chicago' and the like for other locations? It looks like InfoUSA and Axciom are just using 'Hamilton Staffing', whereas Google is using 'Hamilton Staffing Chicago' and the like. Thoughts on this?
Image & Video Optimization | | brianspatterson0 -
Tips for local link building?
Hello Mozzers, Working on a site that has locations around the country and is targeting words like "city name+long tail keyword". They're fairly well optimized on-site, so we're working on recommending localized content but could use some advice for link building. Beyond Google places, what have you guys seen that works?
Image & Video Optimization | | RiseSEO0 -
Local SEO, identifying citations
Hello, How do I identify free local citations to target for bobweikel(dot)com I want to rank first for several local results such as nlp boise life coach boise personal coach boise and related terms. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0