Question about onsite NAP as it relates to Local Search

[Wayne76]

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-

[MiriamEllis]

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!

[WhiteboardCreations]

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

[Wayne76]

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.

[kwoolf]

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.