Local Business Registered at not a real Address

[Rachel_J]

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).

[Rachel_J]

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for all your help! You gave awesome and clear advice.

Good luck to you,

Rachel

[MiriamEllis]

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 Some of the terms are outdated due to Google changes, but the basic ideas are the same: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!

[Rachel_J]

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

[MiriamEllis]

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!

[Rachel_J]

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!

[MiriamEllis]

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?

[Rachel_J]

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

[MiriamEllis]

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.