Question about onsite NAP as it relates to Local Search
-
Hi Gang,
State requirements mandate that our law practice (Keller & Keller) properly display their distinct business entities on all advertising materials, including our website.
Specifically, our offices are set up in a way that makes Indiana's law office an LLP, New Mexico's an LLC, and Michigan's a PLLC.
All 3 offices/states are represented on a single domain, but I want to be careful about mixing the different registration titles (LLP, LLC, PLLC) throughout our site when we commonly refer to ourselves simply as Keller & Keller throughout the main pages and in our content. I worry it may negatively affect our local listings?
(One idea is to place a simple 'disclaimer' in the footer throughout our site that identifies the business entities, however, I'm still concerned this too might affect/confuse our local listings?)
All thoughts, advice, and theories are welcome!
Thanks, everyone! (And to my fellow Yanks, enjoy a safe Memorial Day weekend!)
W-
-
Good suggestions on this thread!
What I would be sure that you are doing is that if you have a unique landing page for each office, you are consistently using the acronym for that specific business on that page. So, in other words, your landing page for the office in NM should consistently refer to the business as Keller & Keller LLC. This does matter. Presumably, you will have linked from the NM Google+ Local page directly to this landing page and if Google sees Keller & Keller LLC in both sources, it will confirm the identity of the business for them and lower your chances of merging and duplicates. Hope this helps!
-
Wayne,
Kevin nailed it with the response and ideas about the simple Disclaimer at the footer to note it, then get into more details on the About page. How the businesses were registered in each state shouldn't affect your SEO strategy, especially if you have the businesses listed in Google or any other listing or local citation as "Keller & Keller". Use of NAP will provide enough for Google to do it's thing in creating relevance between the website, G+ pages and physical office location.
Cheers! - Patrick
-
Thanks, Kevin! I had envisioned a 1-2 sentence disclaimer, but I actually like your idea of putting an expanded blurb on an About Us page.
-
Compliance with the law here isn't going to have much of an impact at all on your SEO efforts. A disclaimer in the footer would do it, but you mentioned web site, not web page. Based on that, I would just include this information in an About Us page and let that be the end of it. On the other hand, if you think the registration titles are going to be relevant keywords that visitors would use to search and find you, then you might consider posting that disclaimer on each page.
Now if by disclaimer you mean a novel-long blurb of legalese at the footer, then no. Two or three lines should do it, but do make sure that there is enough relevant content on each page to mute that disclaimer. If it accounts for more than 25% of the text on your page, I'd either create more content or move that disclaimer to your About Us page.
Hope that helps.
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 is indexing pages but they do not list on a brand search
One of my websites does not display sitelinks when using a branded search on mobile. Desktop , it is fine. Moz tells me I have no crawl issues. What could be reason for sitelinks not showing on mobile? Any thoughts?
Local Listings | | Web_Prosper_SEO0 -
Best Approach for GMB/Local Optimization for Central Office with Multiple Locations
Hello, Our site is designed to place people in different locations or houses. We have six locations total; each one has its own name, physical address and landing page. We also have a central office for the brand with its own NAP. All addresses fall under the guidelines of Google My Business (i.e. people visit each location and our office...etc.). Unless it’s ideal, we most likely wouldn’t be running a full-scale local campaign for each location due to restrictions on resources and wouldn’t want to spread ourselves too thin. Our question is; would it be best to set up a GMB listing for each location including our central office, only use the central office or just the 6 locations? – We know multiple locations is not an issue for GMB but we weren’t sure if that’s the ideal way to approach it in this case. Essentially, would it be better to focus on our central office for GMB/local efforts and just make sure that our other location landing pages are the highest quality possible or better to use GMB for every location (including the main office) and over time start local work on all of the above. Also, if we do only use just the central office; should we be avoiding listing the other addresses on each landing page to avoid confusing Google as to where we are located? Any help or insight on how to approach this would be very much appreciated. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R1 -
Which Rank Trackers Include Local 3-pack Rankings?
Granted the Local 3-pack is heavily influenced by the distance between the user and the business, when you actually include the city name in the search, the local 3 pack result doesn't center the map at the city in the search and not the user's location so it is much more consistent despite the searcher's location. So my personal opinion is that it is worth tracking local 3-pack when you use a keyword such as "Home Inspection Seattle Wa" With that said, which rank tracking services includes the local 3-pack in their tracking results, other than of course Bright Local?
Local Listings | | JCCMoz0 -
Never Removed My Local Listings?
Hi Local SEO experts, A while back we created Google My Business listings for a few of our company locations. A couple of months ago we removed them, because we realized that G might not consider them company locations as they weren't constantly staffed. Only problem is that they started showing up again. Truthfully I don't mind, but I just want to make sure the business won't get penalized for it. They say "claim this business" on the local listing because it's not claimed by us anymore. Is this okay or can we get in trouble for it? If it's not okay, how do I go about removing them if I don't have access to it? Thanks for your time, Rachel
Local Listings | | Rachel_J0 -
Local SEO business name issue due to aggregator
So I work for a college and we have multiple locations. My tactic has been always to keep the name the same for all of them (no city name), and then change the address and phone number for each. But there is 1000s of college listings websites out there that aggregate college and school data from the same source: the US government. Now the way that they have most, if not all, multi-location colleges listed is: "college name-city name". I can see the value in that, but I guess I'm just wondering what to do since it obviously can't be changed. Should I revert all of our listings as "college name-city name" to match the 1000s of listings that have it that way? I've been under the impression that I should leave the city/town name out of the name, but I'm just wondering what you think best practices would be? Thanks
Local Listings | | TomBinga1125
Tom0 -
Local Rankings for Second Business Location in the SAME City
I have an issue regarding local rankings for multiple locations within the SAME city, and I'm hoping to start a productive discussion about the various options for helping a second location gain visibility in the local pack. Here's the context…My business is an electronic cigarette shop in New Orleans, called Crescent City Vape. Our first location (Uptown) opened up a year ago and ranks very well in the local-pack as well as organic results for target keywords, as well as brand terms. Our second location opened up 2 months ago, also in New Orleans (Lower Garden District), about 3 miles away from the first shop. This shop, however, is not visible locally or organically, unless we get extremely specific with a branded search query like "Crescent City Vape Lower Garden District" or "Crescent City Vape St. Charles Ave." It does not rank locally for "Crescent City Vape" or "Crescent City Vape New Orleans" We have one website: crescentcityvape.com -- and both shops have a location landing page on the main site: crescentcityvape.com/uptown
Local Listings | | djreich
crescentcityvape.com/lower-garden However, when we launched our local SEO work for the first shop, we used the homepage as the URL in Google+ Local, as well as all of our citations. When we launched the second shop, we used the location landing page as the URL for G+ and all of our citations. We also added a location modifier to the business name on G+ Local: Crescent City Vape - Lower Garden District Both shops have 5+ reviews on Google+ Local, and both shops have citation profiles that are better than any other competitor. I'm confident that the local SEO basics are covered…and this is evident from the solid local and organic rankings for the original shop. My concern isn't that the second shop is ranking worse than the first. I expected this. But I am very concerned that the second shop doesn't even rank for a branded search like "Crescent City Vape." You have to get unrealistically specific with local descriptors to see the G+ local result for the second shop. e.g. "Crescent City Vape Lower Garden District". Here are some of the options and questions I've been pondering. Would love anyone's thoughts on what's worth trying and what might be too risky…since obviously I do not want to sacrifice rankings for the original shop. Changing the G+ URL of the second shop to the homepage (rather than that local landing page). In this case, G+ pages for both locations would link to the homepage. Then updating Moz Local and other citations accordingly with the URL as the homepage. My concern is that this will end up hurting rankings for the original shop more than helping rankings for the second shop. Removing the location modifier from the second shop's Google+ Local business name. When you google "Starbucks" or "McDonalds" you get a local-pack that usually includes 3 of their locations in the pack, and none have location modifiers. I'm wondering if the modifier is sending the wrong signal, because right now, when you Google "Crescent City Vape" only the original location shows up with a local result. Changing the modifier for the second shop's Google+ Local business name to something like "Crescent City Vape: New Orleans E-Cigs". Some of our competitors have added keywords to their G+ names and it's been effective for them. I know this is not aligned with Google guidelines, and may be a risky play. We don't have anything to lose with the second location if we try this…However, is there any chance this would negatively affect our original shop's rankings (since it's the same domain)? If we went in this direction, should I update our citations accordingly? And build new ones with this new "name"? Does page authority of the business URL have an impact on G+ Local rankings? i.e. would building quality links to the local landing page have much of an impact? i.e. is that a productive use of time and resources, as opposed to promoting the homepage and other more important landing pages? Appreciate your thoughts and feedback! Hopefully this discussion will be helpful for other businesses trying to rank for more than one location in the same city. Thanks!0 -
Local SEO Benefit
Hi Our company is looking to increase our local SEO footprint and wondering what is the industry average for traffic increase to quantify investment. Can’t really find anything online. I understand this can be very subjective in relation to market size, competition, localization, etc but just trying to get a sense of opportunity if we cross our t’s and dot our i’s, what's the potential? Context: We’re a national brick and mortar with eComm. We’ve already done a lot of leg work in optimizing our NAP but very little citation building/claiming. Please provide resources for stats Thanks for any input. Cheers
Local Listings | | WMCA0 -
How do I get impressions with specific search queries on Google places?
My local Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/104228491449315888832/about?hl=en
Local Listings | | CommercePundit
Business name: Lily Ann Cabinets
Business location: 1630 Coining Drive, Toledo, Ohio, USA
Business telephone: (800) 551-1438
Business category: Cabinet Store
Website: http://www.lilyanncabinets.com I have claimed one business on Google places associated to Kitchen Cabinets. According to my opinion, We're no.1 kitchen cabinet seller in Toledo, Ohio location. And, I am quite excited to gather impressions with Kitchen Cabinets keywords when people search from Toledo, Ohio location. I have checked Google search result for Kitchen Cabinets keywords from Toledo, Ohio location. And, I am not able to see my website name in Google places search listing. You can find out attachment to know more about it. Can anyone guide me to get impressions with Kitchen Cabinets search query with Toledo, Ohio location? Kitchen-Cabinets-Google-Search.png?part=2&view=1&vt=ANaJVrFeEcjJlJHKq5yo0kuWtQJabJJDCi7YqGRINUizw8vf78eRwdqcP8byqWpWC02n28jEsXu7qU2SebzymrZ-NJB5Kam_qtZcC75iQIj_G6zr-Mzejyw0