Google+ Local Listing - No Physical Address
-
Hi everyone,
I have a client who won't be renewing his lease for where he conducts his business. Instead he will be working from home. That being said, he does not wish to have his personal address details showing within his local listing.
Is there any other way to still show for Google Local without a personal or business address? Is a PO box possible, other there any other alternatives?
Thanks in advance.
Leo
-
That's great to hear, Leo, and we are so glad to have you here!
-
Thanks Miriam for the additional resource.
I'm new to the community but seeing the level or responses I received I must say you all are fantastic and incredibly helpful.
Thanks again and all the best.
Leo
-
Hi Leo,
Tom has linked to a very important piece from Local Visibility System regarding directories that allow you to hide your address. The author, Phil Rozek, actually wrote a more recent follow-up piece to this, so do check this out here:
So, start with the article Tom linked to and then follow up with the one I've linked to, as it provides further citations sources that enable one to hide the address.
If the client does want to explore options other than his home as his location, then P.O. Boxes and Virtual offices must be avoided. Instead, he would need to rent a real office - perhaps from a company like Activspace.com, which gives you a real front door and phone hookup. But, honestly, countless businesses are run out of the home and Google gets this. Fortunately, many of the top directories support the hide-address feature, and while there are some directories your client won't be able to be listed in, putting him at something of a disadvantage in comparison to competitors who don't need to hide their address, there are still many place he can be listed.
Do be prepared, of course, to follow up this change of address with a great big citation cleanup campaign so that you can bring all mentions of his old address into compliance with his new location.
Good question! Glad you asked it!
-
Thanks for your thorough response Tom. Much appreciated.
-
Hi Dana,
Thank you that means a lot to me.
Your friend,
Thomas
-
Excellent answer Tom. I tuned in because I didn't know the answer to this one and yours was superb.
-
You must do fase to face business at the address
-
Hi Leo,
No google no longer use just a po box for google
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.
- 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, as opposed to a single location, should not create a listing for every city they service. Businesses that operate in a service area should create one listing for the central office or location and designate service areas. 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.
https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
http://searchengineland.com/investigating-google-places-hypocrisy-for-address-less-businesses-59998
Hop this was of help,
Tom
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
-
Google instantly suspends Google+ local listing of brand new company
I just tried to create a Google+ listing for a client. It's a brand new company. As soon as I submit the listing, I get an error message: "Google has suspended your page due to quality issues." There is no content on the listing, no website, etc. Just their NAP. All I can guess is their business address or phone number is on a blacklist due to some previous tenant/owner. Does Google keep a blacklist of addresses and/or phone numbers? Any other ideas?
Image & Video Optimization | | AdamThompson0 -
Questions about optimization for Google Images
Hello all, I've got a few quick questions about optimization for Google Image search. Would be great if someone could help me out with these. Is it possible to track and seperate visitors that reach my website through the images presented in the SERP's? Should we avoid changing high ranking pictures on important keywords? If we need to change the pictures what would the best strategy be? Replace the original filename and alt tag of the picture? Keep the orignal pictures but change the location of the pictures to a new post on our website? Thanks in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | buiserik0 -
Getting A Duplicate Listing Removed
I just found a duplicate listing for our business. It's under a different name and address but the phone number is the same. The duplicate listing needs to be deleted, BUT, here's the problem: no one verified the listing (it was our old firm). And now, to delete it, we have to verify it first, but we don't have access to the building to get the letter. Also, we can't ask the current tenants to give us the letter, because it's another law firm and they just aren't going to help us out. So, any ideas? Ruben
Image & Video Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Google maps places - 3rd party review site's link not showing up
An example: https://plus.google.com/103109773317419974914/about?gl=us&hl=en This doctors place shows up with reviews from yahoo.com, citysearch.com and local.com. Our business has reviews from yelp, citysearch.com and couple of other places. What am I missing and how I can make sure those links show up? Thanks RYWwZZk
Image & Video Optimization | | nashk0 -
Consolidating mulitple Google+ Local pages with one Google+ Page
Hello All, I have trawled the internet, but can seem to find the answer to this question: "How will Google integrate multiple Google+ Local pages with one Google+ Page?" A bit of background to this. I work for a company that started online, but has since moved into retail stores. We currently have 14 stores around the UK. Now each of these stores has a Google+ Local page which were automatically converted over from the old style Google Places pages. I have read that these pages should be integrated with our regular Google+ account. All of the examples I have read about seem to relate to offline businesses that have moved into online, rather than online business that have moved into physical retails stores. And these examples are just one store, one Googe+ Local listing & one Google+ business page. That seems simple enough... but what about multiple locations?! Do I just need to sit on my hands and see what happens? Or are there things I can be doing now? Cheers for any help! Rich
Image & Video Optimization | | JBGlobalSEO0 -
Finding Pages with Youtube Embedded Videos in Google SERP
I'm trying to figure out a process to find specific youtube embed videos using Google search. But a lot of sites are not being returned. For example, I know that the following video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MnylRaQC3w) is linked to and embedded on http://gizmodo.com/5898438/watch-how-fender-builds-its-iconic-stratocasters However, I can't figure out a set of search terms to find that in Google. Searching for (1MnylRaQC3w Gizmodo) doesn't return the right page in the results. I'd like to figure this out so I could see everywhere a certain youtube video has been embedded.
Image & Video Optimization | | nixforsix0 -
Is it possible to have an ogranic and places listing on the same SERP?
Have a bit of a quandary; I am working with a site that ranks fourth for their main term via a Google Places listing. However, I can't seem to find a traditional organic listing to save my life.The only way I can do it is to search from a mobile device, or expand the search results to 100 listings. When I do that, the site appears in the top 10 organic listings. That got me to wondering, is it possible this client's traditional organic listing is being cannabalized by their listing in Google Places?
Image & Video Optimization | | phantom1 -
How does google decide what city a blog belongs to?
I'm trying to build links from more local blogs at the moment and considering a huge list of blogs that are in my city, of which many do accept guest posts. I'm trying to discover a metric to thin this list down further. Is there any way of finding out if google considers a specific blog to be local to a certain area? What signals does google consider when it is making this analysis? Is it the content? or is it the "about the blog author" section? Thanks, Storwell
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0