HELP my client wants to run two yoga companies from the same address

[catherine-279388]

My client has been very successful in local for yoga hertford.  Now she wants to do an additional site with five other yogies.  The name of the company is obviously different and as with her original company hertsyoga - the actual venues for the sessions are all over the place but principally at a local venue called the Castle which hires out a studio.

My question is what do I do to keep her Nap consistent.  She apparently has friendly neighbours who are happy for her to use their address (one door up), and apparently they wont move!  But I really don't think they will be happy for me to put their address on the site and in citations locally.

What should I do?

[MiriamEllis]

You are very welcome, Catherine.

[catherine-279388]

Thank you again:)

[MiriamEllis]

Thanks, Chris!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Catherine,

In my opinion, the very best thing you can do for this client is to tell her, "No way, don't do that!". If the client chooses to build a second yoga business at the same location with a new name/new website, she will be creating a citation consistency nightmare that will almost certainly lead to lost rankings for her original business. She may find herself dealing with merged listings or suspension of her account. If she chose to use a neighbor's address, that would be an obvious violation of the guidelines, so that's not an option either.

I've run into situations like this with incoming clients I'm consulting with. My job in such cases is to warn them that a plan like this is not in line with Google's vision of Local. Of course, a business owner should be able to make any moves she wants to with her company, but if what she does is going to create problems with Google, then she needs to realize that Google will not be a viable option for promoting her business. The hard fact is that, these days, few people can do business without Google's help, so creating business models that fall outside of their guidelines will seldom be a plan for success.

You will be doing this business owner a major favor by steering her away from this idea, I believe. If she wants to close her original business and start a new one with a new name with the 5 other Yogis, that's fine. Your job will be a major citation cleanup campaign. This is the only option I see open to her that will not result in a huge headache for this business owner. Hope this helps!

[Chris.Menke]

Catherine,

Moz's local expert, Miriam Ellis, gave the following answer to a similar question a while ago and it goes straight to the point.  If the client can't sincerely answer yes to the following questions then they would be putting their existing local listing in jeopardy of being penalized or merged with another listing.

1) Does the business have a unique, dedicated physical address (not a virtual address, P.O. Box or shared address)?

2) Does the business have a unique, dedicated local phone number in the city of location (not an 800 number, not a call tracking number, not a shared number)

3) Does the business have in-person transactions with its customers, either at its own location (like a restaurant) or at the customers' locations (like a plumber)?

If the business does not meet any one of these 3 criteria, it does not qualify for local inclusion. I don't know where your client is at on points 2 and 3, but if they can't say yes to point one, Local SEO will be nothing but problematic for them. Here's why:

If 2 or more businesses share an address, suite address or phone number (or even if their names are too similar), Google will frequently merge the business details of the listings. This means that Joe the Barber can end up with Jim the Plumber's business name, phone number or reviews showing up on his listing. Merging is one of the most difficult issues to deal with in Local, and one to be avoided at all costs.

Here is a Google help file on this issue: http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175290