Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Citation building for multiple locations
-
Hey everyone,
I think i've got a good handle on citations, but had a question regarding multiple locations.
I'm going to be doing citation building for a local lawyer, and he's got 4 locations.
I'd like to build citations for each of his locations, but I was wondering if the business name needs to change?
Ie. If I am building citations for Town 2 and Town 3, should the business name be listed as "Company Name Town 1" for the first location, and "Company Name Town 2" for the second? Or is it fine to use the company name throughout all citations, and just change the location/phone number to the location based info?
I'm just worried about Google seeing differing info, but the same company name, and possibly penalizing me for it.
Thanks in advance!
-
Ah, great! The multiple physical locations part is key for the multiple listings. You should be good to go in listing each. Cheers!
-
Thanks for the response Ryan!
This client in particular has physical offices in each location, I should have specified that in the original question.
I'll definitely be taking some time to go through the guideline though.
Thanks!
-
Google's guideline is here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177 with the most applicable portion being in the address section:
-
Make sure that your page is created at your actual, real-world location.
-
Use the precise address for the business rather than broad city names or cross-streets. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.
-
If you need to specify a mailbox or suite number within your physical location, please list your physical address in Address Line 1, and put your mailbox or suite number in Address Line 2.
-
If your business rents a temporary, "virtual" office at a different address from your primary business, do not create a page for that location unless it is staffed during your normal business hours.
So his locations need to be staffed, open to the public, office based locations. If he's serving clients in 4 different cities, but only has one office in one city it's not the same thing as the requirements above. That would be, "Service-area businesses--business that serve customers at their locations--should have one page for the central office or location and designate a service area from that point. If you wish to display your complete business address while setting your service area(s), your business location should be staffed and able to receive customers during its stated hours. Google will determine how best to display your business address based on your business information as well as information from other sources. Learn more about service-area businesses."
The document as a whole is worth the read. Cheers!
-
-
Great, thanks for the clarification Donna!
i'll definitely go through the guidelines as well.
Thanks again
-
Hi RC,
No. The business / company does not need to and should not change. The business name should be listed as "Company Name" only. No location.
What you need to do to differentiate your different business locations is to ensure they each have a unique local number and dedicated page on your website.
Here are Google guidelines if you have not seen them already - https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en.
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
-
Adding Schema to multi-location Wordpress Website using Schema Pro
All, we're building a new version of our existing website using Wordpress and have both Yoast SEO Premium and Schema Pro installed. Our site has 70, a medical practice, has 70 different locations. Each one of our locations has a page tile like the following: "Los Angeles | ABC Dental". The first part of the site title is the town we're located in followed by our site name. Using Schema Pro, we're not sure about what to place into the "Name" field. You can see the direction from Schema Pro for local businesses here, https://wpschema.com/docs/add-schema-markup-for-a-local-business-page/ By default Schema Pro has the name field set to Site Title. However, using this on all 70 or our landing pages wouldn't provide the local aspect we want. It would just say ABC Dental. We changed this to use a new custom field where we could enter a more descriptive name. Using our page title example of "Los Angeles | ABC Dental", would we simply enter this into the name field of Schema Pro? If not, would we format this another way such as "ABC Dental Los Angeles" We could use some help in a strategy for Schema markup for multi-location businesses, in particular, the name field. All other information such as address, phone number, etc seems rather straight forward. Thank you for the assistance
Local Listings | | morciuoli0 -
Changing the business name in citations and GMB
In Australia, some businesses are Pty Ltd (Proprietary Limited) hence, their business name ends with xxx Pty Ltd. How accurate do we have to be when building citations or updating citations that Pty Ltd is included in the business name? We've got clients who have left out Pty Ltd in their previously built citations and we're wondering if it's worth the time to actually update them to include Pty Ltd. Also, does changing a business name affect its rankings? This is more than just "Pty Ltd", it's changing from XYZ to ABC. We've previously had to change a client's address on their GMB and this had a negative effect on the client's rankings. Will changing the business name have an adverse effect? Thank you in advance for your advices!
Local Listings | | Gavo1 -
No Location option in Incognito Search Settings
I was checking on a client ranking and went to Incognito in Chrome for the search. I went to search settings to set the location and thought I had done something wrong. I closed and went back to search settings and still no location setting. See attached. Interestingly, when I went to my signed in Chrome and set the location and then went to incognito and went to search settings, then location showed up for me. This also begs a question about why Google has this where you must be signed in to set a location in Incognito mode. Thanks for any input you have, Robert G1lS9EK.png cRRlULo.png
Local Listings | | RobertFisher0 -
Local Search and Schema.org - Do I need to tag up the "same as" Property to all my citations to help with local rankings?
Hi All, We have implemented Schema.og on our website and this also includes the local business schema for all of our branches.However I've read an article (see below ) which says we should also be doing "same as " property and linking this to ALL of our citations such as google plus page , yelp , bing places, city search etc etc as this will help with citations. I am wondering if anyone has done this ? - And if so , has this helped with local rankings etc - I don't really want to invest the extra costs to get this done if I can't find anywhere that says its made a difference - The article from whitespark - says - "when you create new citations for your business (or for your client’s), it’s a waiting game hoping that Google and the other search engines will find your new citations quickly and make the connection between those listings, the business, and the website. The “sameAs” property can help make that process much quicker _and _easier. Schema.org explains that the “sameAs” property is used along with the “URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's [or business’] identity.” By using the “sameAs” property in your NAP schema markup, you can tell search engines that the business you’ve marked up is the same one found at a certain citation URL Of course, Google+ isn’t the only important citation source. There’s also Bing Places, Facebook, Yelp, Citysearch and a few others. The nice thing about many schema.org properties is that you can use them multiple times in your markup." I am wondering what peoples thoughts were and whether they has implemented this and if so , did it help ? thanks Pete | [sameAs](http://schema.org/sameAs) | URL | URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity. E.g. the URL of the item's Wikipedia page, Freebase page, or official website. |
Local Listings | | PeteC121 -
Do Citation Count As Backlinks / Referring Domains
I listed clients listed on about 200+ local citation sites and was NAP complaint. However, when I run a backlink checker using MOZ, SEMRUSH, etc it only show 8 -12 and none of them are the citations. Anyone have any pointers?
Local Listings | | InfinityTechnologySolutions0 -
NPA. Adding two new locations. What phone numbers to use?
Hi everyone, Our client wants to add two new locations. Not sure what phone number to use.
Local Listings | | Ryan_V
We have main phone 800 number, with no adders associated, and local phone numbers for locations which we do SEO for. New two locations are not for SEO purposes. Client just want them to be listed on website and on major directories for now. Understanding NPA importance:
Should we use main 800 for both locations?
Should we get new phone numbers for each one? Thanks0 -
Description on Google+ & ALL Citations the same or?
Does it matter if the description is different on Google local and all the citation websites? Some websites allow a lot of description, some don't. So my question is it only the company name+address that needs to be the same across the board or the description has to be the same too?
Local Listings | | surfsup0 -
Bright Local - Citation Burst. Winner or Loser?
Bright Local have a package called "Citation Burst." This looks great but, we all know directory submissions can have an extremely negative impact. Has anyone used Bright Local for Citation Burst, please let me know? Thanks Gary
Local Listings | | GaryVictory1