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
-
Yahoo Local Business Listings Hijacked
We are a solar company with three locations. When claiming our business listings on Yahoo (Yext), we noticed that one of them had already been claimed. The name of our company and our phone number were changed to a lead generation company. Upon further inspection, this company has hijacked hundreds of listings throughout the state and the country. To see the extent of it, go here:
Local Listings | | SS.Digital
https://search.yahoo.com/local/s;_ylt=A0SO8odHUOZZdVUAYwBXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--;_ylc=X1MDMTM1MTE5NTExOARfcgMyBGdwcmlkA3loNXdiQlJqVE9HMm9MdXlUSklLdEEEbl9zdWdnAzEEb3JpZ2luA3NlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzAEcHFzdHIDBHBxc3RybAMEcXN0cmwDMjIEcXVlcnkDc29sYXIgY29ubmVjdG9yIGlydmluZQR0X3N0bXADMTUwODI4MTk4MA--?fr2=sb-top-search&p=solar+connector+irvine&fr=yfp-t- Or, just search in Yahoo's Local search section for "Solar Connector Irvine" or pretty much any city in California. On every hijacked listing, the company name is changed to "Solar Connector" and the phone number is changed to a unique local number, but all the other information is left the same. Now when people think they are calling our business, they get a shady lead gen company instead. I have submitted a request to Yext and have tried (and failed) to find a support phone number. This is a widespread, blatant fraud, and I would hope they would have interest in fixing it. Solar Connector (fake name) is associated with SolarAmerica.com, which is run by Clean Energy Experts, which was purchased by Sunrun (a publicly traded company). My specific question is, does anyone have any insight on the best method for getting help from Yahoo/Yext? Other than through their "help portal" on the website. I need to speak with a human being.1 -
Average Percentage of Clicks on Google (Adwords vs Local 3 Pack vs Organic)
Does anyone know the allocation, percentage-wise, of clicks that go to Adwords vs Local 3 Pack vs Organic on Google Search (average)?
Local Listings | | OhYeahSteve0 -
International customers for local business
Hi I have a vacation rental in France. My customers come from the UK/US, France, and Spain and as such i have three domains. www.domain.com (French) en.domain.com (English) es.domain.com (Spanish) I first set up a Google+ page which was tied to my French website and it's descriptive text and KW are in French. I subsequently set-up 2 more Google+ pages (English and Spanish, each with their respective domains and language specific KW) for the purpose of showing up in local searches in the UK and Spain, which is starting to working. I'm I going in the right direction? is this a crazy idea since they all have the same local address? Thank you for sharing insights regarding how to handle a local business with multilingual customers.
Local Listings | | pgcosson0 -
Google Local Search
I have a customer who is frustrated that Google local search seems to favor businesses that are closer to the center of the city. He wants to be on the local results area on the SERP with his (keyword + city, state). His website is optimized, Google+ is using the keywords, more reviews than his competition and his MOZ local rating is 88.. It seems the only problem is his business is on the edge of town(same zip code). Google fills the local search area with businesses that are "downtown". Is there a way to overcome this?
Local Listings | | seomn0 -
What to do if the domain name is very different from real business name for local listings
Hey guys, any advice is very welcome , I m´ ranking locally a website in the bay area for cabinets www.cabinetsbayarea.com we picked this domain name more for SEO purposes because it has the two most important keywords that we want to rank. My issue is that the real busniess name is HEMA DESIGN CENTER, so i dont know if we should change the name in the chamber of commerce to CABiNETS BAY AREA or list the business as HEMA DESIGN CENTER, with this website www.cabinetsbayarea.comr. We only mention the real name in the About Us. CABINETS BAY AREA it is more as a deparment of the real business name HEMA DESIGN CENTER What should i do? Thanks a lot, David
Local Listings | | conexion330 -
Moz Local in the UK and the Rest of the World
So I've just seen that Moz have rolled out their new Moz Local to help businesses in the USA... Has anyone any idea if this will be available in the UK, if so do we know when? Also, would love to know some feedback on anyone who has already started using this new feature
Local Listings | | bricktech0 -
Sponsored Listings Hurting Local SEO?
We use a service which sponsors listings on various popular directories. In turn, it changes our phone number so that I can qualify if the call is a lead or not and then charge us. Unfortunately, while this service helps exposure on those directories, the phone number as well as the website are different. How much of a problem is this for our local SEO? Other directories include Suerpages and Citysearch. -Brant
Local Listings | | BCB11210 -
Question about domains with 2 or 3 hyphens
I have a client who has 3 domains in the following format: keywordkeywordkeywordkeyword.co.uk keyword-keyword-keyword.co.uk keyword-keyword-keyword-london.co.uk And needs advice on the best one to use. The client is leaning towards the one with 3 hyphens because it has more keywords but I am a bit worried about using it at the risk of it looking too spammy because of the hyphens. So my question is will 3 hyphens as in the above example cause anything negative in terms of SEO? We will not be doing any black-hat seo tactics but even so will 3 hyphens cause any problems or is it safer to go with just two hyphens? And secondly the client asked if Google can understand different words or is it better to have hyphens so Google can understand that there are different words?
Local Listings | | impliweb0