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
-
Call forwarding phone number from a satellite location?
Should I be cautious about using a local number that is forwarded on to my main office? I have 2 "satellite" offices. 1 has an actual phone number and line that is active at the location, and the other has a "local" number that is forwarded. The location with the actual phone number and line that is active at the location is performing much better, and I am trying to isolate the cause. Ben
Local Listings | | BSessions0 -
Google my business : Multiple businesses operating from the same location.
After multiple phone calls with Google My Business help, I'm still completely stumped! I need to set up Google my business pages for 5 business', however, each of these companies work in the same office - so the location used on Google my business would be the same. I want to know if this is possible? Surely there's ways to do it, especially since the increase of hot-desking and shared offices! Thanks
Local Listings | | sophiecrosby970 -
Multiple language in site links on SERP
hi there guys! I have this client that sells roofing reparation. His site is in two languages. In this image here, the green square are the results in english and red square in french. The picture is from a english SERP. What would you guys do to make sure that the SERP shows the right language to users on Google? It is very important for us to have both language separated. Our region is bilingual so, it's a big problem! The original language of the site is in french and I don't have any problem with this version. But when i checked the english side, there is this problem... mixing language in the SERP is not very good for my ROI. Thanks guys! toiture2.png
Local Listings | | TonikSEO0 -
Location in business name for listings
A while back, I changed 26 of our business listings on Google so that the business name included the city, for example: "Business Name Sheffield", "Business Name York", "Business Name Doncaster". It looked consistent, it was easier to read in Google Maps when searching for Eden Mobility and even better - it may have been the cause of positive impacts in our local rankings. Using the Moz Local tool, I'm now looking at rolling out this change out throughout ALL of our business listings on the web, including Factual, Yelp etc etc... Does anybody have thoughts on this? At the back of my mind I can't help but think that I should be consistently using ONLY the business name throughout all of my online business listings. Will Google consider each of these locations as separate business entities? Here's something I found in Google's guidelines: Adding unnecessary information to your name (e.g. "Google Inc. – Mountain View Corporate Headquarters" instead of "Google") by including marketing taglines, shop codes, special characters, hours or closed/open status, phone numbers, website URLs, service/product information, location/address or directions or containment information (e.g. "Chase ATM in Duane Reade") is not permitted. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I've seen some big businesses such as ASDA doing the same thing I'm doing - but I'm undecided!
Local Listings | | LiamMcArthur0 -
Same location, same industry, same phone number, old name
Hey Moz! I was recently hired for some local SEO work and discovered this about my client. His business used to be called something else before he purchased it. He has the same phone number and same domain name, but there are Google My Business pages for both the old name and the new name, both of which have the same address, phone number, and domain name listed on them. I am not sure what the correct course of action is. Should I begin removing the old information? It seems as though there is no penalty in place but I don't want to build a campaign on a poor foundation. Is there a way to let Google know that this old page should not exist anymore? Any advice would by much appreciated!
Local Listings | | Trojan_SEO1 -
Why the location of my queries is wrong?
Hi there, I've got a question related to the location of the queries shown in GWT. My company operates just in Spain but according to GWT the majority of my queries comes from Sweden. Let's say 75% Sweden, 20% Spain, 5% rest of the countries. Of course I've set as Internatinal Targeting Spain as country, How could this be possible considering that spanish it is not the main language in Sweden. Can this be changed? Thank u 😉
Local Listings | | Midleton0 -
Duplicate Content From Citations?
Hi everyone, A number of citations ask for a business description, so I want to use one from our website. However, would this get flagged as duplicate content or some other problem? Do I need to write unique descriptions for every listing site? Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
How to remove a former business location from Google Places?
I've received a strange response from Google Places on local listings for a home builder. Google's rep suggested that we not list the new home sales center (a model home) since at some point it will change from being a business listing to a residential listing. That is just wrong. It will be a place of business for the next 3 years and then will flip to being a private residence. These days it is uncommon, but not that rare to turn over ownership from public to private or vice versa (A residence becoming a law or other commercial establishment. Or a whole office building becoming condos.) The issue is, when it does happen, how do we get Google and others to recognize that a business is no longer a business location? I've had trouble bringing down the address of former former model home sales centers on Google Places much to the chagrin of the residents.
Local Listings | | BlairKuhnen0