Local Business Registered at not a real Address
-
Hi,
I am working on local SEO for a client of mine and was interested to hear what will be recommended in this case:
My client registered his business in a NYC address, for his own business needs. Can I use this address as a second location for the business? There is a secretary taking care of ALL the businesses listed there, but is not a location that services customers. We don't service customers on site at any location because it's a pickup business to begin with, but we do have a fully functional office in NJ
Please don't dismiss this right away, it was registered in NYC and not in NJ and all our information on the web cites this address over our NJ one (obviously i'm working on promoting our NJ one, but that's nowhere to be found on the web).
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for all your help! You gave awesome and clear advice.
Good luck to you,
Rachel
-
Hi Rachel,
When a business is a service area business (like a plumber, locksmith, electrician, housekeeping service, etc.) it's totally fine to build content on the website about the cities they serve, even if they aren't physically located there. It's a best practice for these types of business models to have a page on their site for each major service city. Requirements are that each page be totally unique and of high quality. The thing you want to research here is landing page content. Here's an article of mine from 2014 on this. Some of the terms are outdated due to Google changes, but the basic ideas are the same:
https://www.google.com/search?q=moz+local+landing+pages+guide&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
This is a start, but it would be a great idea to research this topic further for other ideas about the types of content you might create. However, unless the business has postal queries, including the mailing addresses on the pages will not help and might just be confusing. Hope this helps!
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks so much for your detailed advice!
What about the website itself, should I not be mentioning the NYC location at all? For example, right now it's on the contact page with a large Google map.
Thanks,
Rachel
-
Hi Rachel,
Yes, that's pretty much what I was concerned about. Unless that's an office that's staffed during normal business hours, then having a GMB page for it would be a violation of Google's guidelines. It would be important to show those guidelines to the client and explain to them that Google not only has the ability to read signs on the fronts of buildings, but will likely remove the listing should they realize its just a postal address. Not only this, but the takedown of the NY listing could also negatively impact the NJ listing.
So, the very best thing you can do for this client is likely to be totally honest with him, show him the guidelines and explain that he is risking the good name of his company (in Google's eyes) by attempting to appear to be physically located in a place that he isn't. Most business owners care way too much about the future of their companies to do something like this, once they have the proper education. That's where we come in, to help clients make sound decisions based on our own education.
There are appropriate ways to market a business in locations where you don't have a physical office - ways that have no risk attached to them and that have been endorsed by Google - but having a GMB page for a mailing address isn't one them. Hope this helps and good luck to you in helping get your client a better, safer path!
-
Hi Miriam,
I'm not even sure myself, but when I search for that address, it shows a UPS store and a few other businesses registered on that address (different room numbers). I'm assuming its a mail location. My client did mention to me some sort of secretarial services, but I would have to clarify how in depth those services really are.
Thanks!
-
Hi Rachel,
Thank you so much for sharing more details about this. So, if there is no one at the NYC office, what is there at that address? Anything?
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks so much for your comprehensive response. The NYC location is the one that my client describes as his headquarters, but in reality there is no one there to service his customers. Even though he has a physical location in NJ there are no customers that ever come down to that fully staffed NJ office. All customers are serviced by phone and because it's a pick up service - their location anyhow, so it's definitely not misleading customers.
That being said, it sounds like I've got the answer. But really my question is more that his business has already been registered and promoted as a NYC location. I think my client feels it sounds more prominent and official to have a business office in Manhattan (pretty understandable). So far, Google has been acknowledging that location too. I only signed up on Moz Local for one location but would expand it to this NYC office if you feel it would be best.
To summarize my question:
Do you feel it is important to remove this location from our website and Google My Business and all web documentation and replace with just our physical NJ address? Or should we just keep it as two locations because so much is set up for this NYC location and build more citations for it?
Thanks for your help,
Rachel
-
Hi Rachel,
The best authority on confusing situations like this is always Google's own guidelines (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en) and then the business owner's best judgment as to where his/her business falls within the guidelines. It sounds to me like you are describing either a real office in NYC, or may possibly be describing something like a Regus office or some sort of shared phone answering service (in which an operator is answering calls for various businesses). I'm not 100% clear on which of these things describes the NYC location. Google doesn't care if a business doesn't see customers at an office (think of plumbers, electricians, etc.) but they do care if a business misrepresents a location as being dedicated to a business when, in fact, it's something like a shared/virtual space not actually dedicated to the business.
Would you be able to provide more detail on this, or do the guidelines answer your question as-is? I'm glad you've started this thread. It's an important topic.
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
-
Is having two websites with the same NAP equal to the local search visibility issues?
My company works in two directions: printing and website design / development. I have one website for both printing and website development but it doesn’t have “printing” in domain name (velvdesign.com) I would like to rank higher for printing related keywords. Do you think I should have two separate websites, one for printing (velvprinting.com), another for website design /development (velvdesign.com)? If yes, am I going to get into NAP’s issue because my company has only one location? I can get the second phone number to improve local search visibility. Thank you very much in advance for your time!
Local Listings | | VELV0 -
Google My Business - What is the best way to remove "Duplicate Address"? Help!
Google can be such a pain with managing listings - especially when you are an agency managing a client's listing! I am hoping someone can help with this... How do I permanently delete a “duplicate address?” In the Google My Business dashboard (classic view), under account summary – I click duplicate locations. From here, I can easily remove a duplicate location - that is not the issue. The issue is for duplicate addresses. For this, we only have the option to resolve address, which directs you to the business’ location details. Our options are then to: 1. Change the business NAP 2. Permanently close location 3. Remove the listing from your dashboard (removing it from dashboard doesn’t delete it from Google). We edited the business’ name, phone number, address and website – to try and make it a duplicate location, because if we are able to make it a duplicate location then we know we will have the option to **Remove Duplicate. **Nothing has changed though. We don't want to mark this as a permanently closed location because if somebody does come across the listing down the road it is going to be misleading. The business is not actually closed! Any insight would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
Local Listings | | bcallegary0 -
Accurate Rank Checking for Local SEO
Hi all, I am wondering if anyone out there has cracked the enigma of figuring out how to accurately find local rankings for multi-location businesses. I do understand that "accuracy" should be used loosely given the numerous factors that come into play for local such as distance from searcher and business location being located directly in the city of the search. So I definitely get that nothing will be entirely accurate but the programs I have used and the incognito browser approach just seems so far off. Moz tells me something different than the Google Adword Preview Tool which is different than SEMRush which is different than serps.com and so on. I have done the appending to search strings with near=city as well. I unfortunately do not trust any of them at this point. I would LOVE if my company flew me out to every single city we are in so I could do local searches but that is probably not going to happen 🙂 Any thoughts or recommendations for how I can get the most accurate local rank, even if it is an incredibly manual process? Is there an easy way for me to change my location anymore since Google stripped that option away awhile back? That was the ONLY time I felt I was getting somewhat accurate results. Thanks! -Ben
Local Listings | | Davey_Tree1 -
I need some help with my addresses, please.
I've only ever had a mailing address for my business, but I now have a new physical address which I use to meet clients at, and it's in a different city. There's no mailing address at the physical location though, so I'm keeping my mailing address at the post office where's it always been. What should I do about changing my address? Should I change it, or leave it alone? I could add it easily to my website, as a physical address and a separate mailing address. But what about my Google Maps listing, social sites, and citations? I rank at the top for my keywords in my original city, so I don't really want to lose that. Would it be a good idea to add a location/landing page to my website for the new city, to help me rank there? Hope that made some sense - thanks in advance.
Local Listings | | Coppell0 -
How valuable are citaitons/consistency (Moz Local) for a NON-local business?
Hi All! I'm doing some research for non-local SEO clients and finding that many of them have messy and extremely inconsistent listing profiles (via Moz Local checker). It seems to me that this would be a good thing to take care of, even for a non local site. Anyone have insights on whether or not this is something we should take care of? If so, any details on how or why it would or would not be a good idea? Thanks! Ricky
Local Listings | | SUCCESSagency0 -
Google my business
Hi, I have implemented the code [https://plus.google.com/+Thezenagency](<a href=)" rel="publisher"> on my website. I have also linked my google+ page which shows a tick with the words "verified local business" next to my logo and name. The problem is however i still do not have the box appear on the right hand side of a branded web search with my location, picture, reviews etc. Is there another step which needs to be completed? This was a couple of weeks ago it was done. Thanks in advance
Local Listings | | TheZenAgency0 -
Local seo citation tools
Hi I have been manually adding my details to local/national directories in order to help my ranking in my google places placing. It is a bit of a grind, and I am aware there are tools out there. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with any of them? I am UK based. Also I was ranking for "Liverpool Photographer" on google places for a couple of months and it brought in quite a bit of work, although I have since slipped back to about 15th, so out of the visible results. I am mainly a wedding photographer so my home page was optimised mainly for "liverpool wedding photographer" Although I hired an SEO company who changed the home page title to "liverpool photographer", I cannot remember if I was ranking on places for this keyword because of this change or I was already in the results before the changes were made. So my question is how Can I rank for "liverpool photographer" and "Liverpool wedding photographer" on a places result at the same time? I hope this makes sense. Best wishes. David.
Local Listings | | WallerD0 -
Does anyone use Moz Local + Yext? How valuable is this for local businesses?
For brands that have a budget to pay $600 / year for valuable backlink directories, would you recommend Moz Local + Yext? I would like to hear some feedback on marketers that use Yext. Thanks,
Local Listings | | ColeLusby
Cole0