How to optimize for local when client has a regus office?

[BBuck]

Anyone know how to optimize for local when client has a regus office? I heard it doesn't work so well because the offices are temporary and so many have used the same exact address over and over. True? Any way around it?

Thanks!!

[BBuck]

Monkey wrenches always welcome! Thanks! I'll look further...

[BBuck]

Thank you Marcus!  Great info! Just what I was looking for.

[BBuck]

Thank you, Peter!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi BBuck,

You've received some thoughtful replies here. I'm going to throw in a monkey wrench, however. Regus offices can, indeed, be problematic. I recommend you read through the threads pulled up in a Google And Your Business Forum search for the term 'regus' and you'll quickly see what I mean:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/regus

Here's a good example of what I'm referencing:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/regus/business/4WCI624GamE/xQtCLQw4HSMJ

And here's a good discussion of Regus offices, including the comments of a Google And Your Business Forum TC and a Google MapMaker RER:

http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local/1810-using-toll-free-main-any-chance-rank-2.html

I'd look into this further before going down this road. Hope this helps!

[crackingmedia]

That's a really helpful and comprehensive answer Marcus. Thank you for that!<thumbsup></thumbsup>

Peter

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey

As Peter mentioned, in principle, this is no different to any other kind of office address. In practice though, you may find some issues as there may be several other tenants who have had this address previously and subsequently there will be a whole list of different names, phone numbers (2/3 of the Nap), website addresses and other info associated with this address.

Also, the Regus building will likely have lots of other businesses in there at the same actual street address which may create further noise.

The general advice is simple.

• get registered with Google+ Local
• build citations at the important
• optimise the website with local in mind
• generally try to ensure the website is high quality
• Try to be active socially, publish content, build local links, encourage honest reviews etc

But, my approach here would also include a detailed audit of all business listings that exist for that address. Get everything in a spreadsheet and contact the sites one by one to either update or remove the listings. Also, to identify if there are any Google local listings that still exist for the old businesses so these can be updated and removed.

Google is probably your best tool here and a search using the elements you know such as office number (Post Code / Zip Code), address will be the first starting point.

"[Office Number]" "[Street Address]" "[Post Code]"

My business is in an office complex called the Custard Factory in Birmingham and the search above for us would look something like:

"112 Zellig Building" "Gibb Street" "B9 4AA"

This should give us a good starting point. From here we will likely find several other interesting pieces of information we can use to refine these searches:

• Business names
• Phones Number

It's not search based buy you may be able to ask the Regus folks for a list of all previous tenant names of this office and that could give you a good running start here.

Then, it's a process of more traditional searches for those businesses and any information relating to them.

"business name" AND "post code" -www.businesswebsite.co.uk

So, for our business address that would be something like

"Bowler Hat" AND "B9 4AA" -www.bowlerhat.co.uk

This will give you a list of results with the business name, post code and remove any listings for the clients website. You may have to play with this a little as the business may have name variations but this will be a good starting point for further investigation.

Citation based factors (Quality, Consistency & Volume) pay a large part in Local SEO and simply building new citations if there is lots of noise out there and some active local listings may not do what you want it to (Or I could just be really OCD about all this stuff).

I suggest a read through at least the foundational ranking factors here but this should give you plenty of scope to get started: 
http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors

Hope that helps!

Marcus

[crackingmedia]

Hi

I would think that renting a Regus office address is no different to renting office space in any serviced office location.

It will always take a bit of time to establish a new address/location and be able to SEO around it, but name, address, phone number (with the local code prefix) on the site page(s) is an definite requirement.

Provided your client is not going to be there for a short time then I would back that up by growing citations of their office so that all "signposts" so to speak point to their legitimate office location.

Rand Fishkin spoke on this subject in a Whiteboard Friday back in May. You can watch it here: <a title="http://moz.com/blog/discovering-local-citation-opportunities-whiteboard-friday">Discovering Local Citation Opportunities - Whiteboard Friday</a>

I hope that helps,
Peter