NAP - standard mailing address format
-
I have a client that is based in Dallas TX but has a physical location in Farmers Branch (technically inside Dallas according to the client). He wants me to make his address Dallas TX even though the standard mailing address should read Farmers Branch. Is this safe to do?
-
Hi Shauna,
This is a great question. I am understanding your scenario this way, but please correct me if I'm wrong:
-
Your client's house is in Dallas.
-
Your client's office is in Farmers Branch
-
Your client would rather be listed in Dallas than in Farmers Branch.
If this is incorrect, please let me know, but if correct, please read on.
Google does not consider Farmers Branch to be inside of Dallas, according to Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Dallas,+TX/@32.8601609,-96.9429002,11z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x864c19f77b45974b:0xb9ec9ba4f647678f
Farmers Branch is outside of the city borders. So, in Google's eyes, we know that Farmers Branch is considered a unique entity - not a part of Dallas. Given this, your client's safe options are based on his business model:
-
If this is a brick-and-mortar business, the client has no alternative but to list it in Farmers Branch on his website and citations.
-
If this is a service area business that customers don't come to (like a plumber) then your client has a choice of whether he'd like to base his operations out of his Dallas home or his Farmers Branch office. Google is okay with home-based businesses, provided that the phone number is dedicated to the business and is staffed during normal business hours by someone who answers the phone with the business name rather than just saying "hello" like a resident. There are very obvious benefits for the client of basing himself in Dallas instead of outside of Dallas, but this is only an option if nobody comes to the business in person. If people come to the business in person, you're back to option 1.
Any variation on the above two courses does put the business at risk, and so, as the SEO, it's our job to let the client know of the guideline-compliant options and of the risks of bending guidelines. Hope this helps!
-
-
Real Address is 123 HoHum Ln, Ste. 123, Farmer's Branch, 75244
Desired 123 HoHum Ln, Ste. 123, Dallas, 75244
If by safe you mean 100%, I would say no; but, probably 90 - 95% safe. The non Terms of Svc. issue will be ensuring you keep it as Dallas in every occurrence and citation sites will populate the name field by crawl OR by zip correlation - that means 75244 would be Farmers Branch and that could lead to a NAP that is different everywhere. So, if it were our client we would say we will do this and you must agree that any negative effect from this is not our responsibility.
Hope that helps,
-
Check out this: http://schema.org/LocalBusiness it might be able to help you out with finding out how they'd like to see certain information around local businesses.
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
-
Changing Business Address on Google Profile & Citations
Hello, I'm looking to change a business address to a new one on a Google business profile (still in the same area but on a different street). So, I'll need to update all citations and website with the new address - Is it recommended to update the citations & website first, and then change the address on the Google business profile, or vice-versa? Looking to do this as safely as possible without negatively impacting the rankings much. I'm seeing a lot of conflicting information on this. Thanks in advance.
Local SEO | | UpLinkSEO0 -
Do You Think the Distance Algorithm Has Less Weight for Local Service Related Businesses?
Hey guys, I wish Rand could answer this question, because I know he figured all of this out, or has at least thought about it at least once. Basically, I want to understand exactly how the local algorithms work. Do you think the Distance algorithm works differently for service related businesses that don't offer services directly to your car, or other moveable assets? (motorcycles, lawnmowers, small engines) For example, construction companies. We all know how boring their offices are. No one wants to go to one unless there has been a problem or to pay a bill, say at Trugreen or something. They don't sell products, and who wants to go to some construction company that will likely just be a receptionist and maybe a field manager on his lunch break with some field reps rotating in and out during the day getting new leads and entering sales? That's uncomfortable. Why not just call them? So, do you think Google's local algorithms know that and put less weight on businesses that fall into that category? Car shops, small engine repair, and say shoe repair shops are different because you have to bring them something to fix. Stores that sell products are different because you have to go shopping and pay them to take the products home. But remodeling companies, marketing agencies, etc. probably don't get a lot of foot traffic. (And it's because we know we can handle it on a phone call.)
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
What Should We Do to Fix Crawled but Not Indexed Pages for Multi-location Service Pages?
Hey guys! I work as a content creator for Zavza Seal, a contractor out of New York, and we're targeting 36+ cities in the Brooklyn and Queens areas with several services for home improvement. We got about 340 pages into our multi-location strategy targeting our target cities with each service we offer, when we noticed that 200+ of our pages were "Crawled but not indexed" in Google Search Console. Here's what I think we may have done wrong. Let me know what you think... We used the same page template for all pages. (we changed the content and sections, formatting, targeted keywords, and entire page strategy for areas with unique problems trying to keep the user experience as unique as possible to avoid duplicate content or looking like we didn't care about our visitors.) We used the same featured image for all pages. (I know this is bad and wouldn't have done it myself, but hey, I'm not the publisher.) We didn't use rel canonicals to tell search engines that these pages were special made for the areas. We didn't use alt tags until about halfway through. A lot of the urls don't use the target keyword exactly. The NAP info and Google Maps embed is in the footer, so we didn't use it on the pages. We didn't use any content about the history or the city or anything like that. (some pages we did use content about historic buildings, low water table, flood prone areas, etc if they were known for that) We were thinking of redoing the pages, starting from scratch and building unique experiences around each city, with testimonials, case studies, and content about problems that are common for property owners in the area, but I think they may be able to be fixed with a rel canonical, the city specific content added, and unique featured images on each page. What do you think is causing the problem? What would be the easiest way to fix it? I knew the pages had to be unique for each page, so I switched up the page strategy every 5-10 pages out of fear that duplicate content would start happening, because you can only say so much about for example, "basement crack repair". Please let me know your thoughts. Here is one of the pages that are indexed as an example: https://zavzaseal.com/cp-v1/premier-spray-foam-insulation-contractors-in-jamaica-ny/ Here is one like it that is crawled but not indexed: https://zavzaseal.com/cp-v1/premier-spray-foam-insulation-contractors-in-jamaica-ny/ I appreciate your time and concern. Have a great weekend!
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
How to improve SEO in two cities at once
Hi, we have a company, and the business has a Google My Business and business citations created. the manager, wants to be on first page of Google, in the organic results, for another city thats less than 10 miles away. the business does not have two stores, just one business premises, any idea how we can improve the local/organic SEO for the second city and get on the first page of Google there as well?
Local SEO | | sarahwalsh0 -
How to optimize landing pages for local search?
I'm trying to understand how to optimize landing pages to appear in local search. For example, if someone in Chicago searches for "plumber", Yelp has a page "Top 10 Plumbers in Chicago." They are generating these pages for numerous business types and cities. I can't see anything on the page or metadata that indicates a geographic location or business type. What optimizations are they doing to get Google to know that it's a page for a specific city and type of business?
Local SEO | | Tourizee0 -
Effective Real Estate SEO Strategies
I am looking to increase organic traffic to our Real Estate website, and am looking for any suggestions and or feedback as to strategies to implement in this area or even the must-have SEO pages every real-estate business should build. Interested in attracting sellers & buyers, but obviously would love more to attract sellers... The issue with that being you have to outrank the massive sites like Zillow and Realtor. Some ideas I have so far. Building out Neighbourhood pages to rank for people searching for 'Neighbourhood name' Any feedback on this one greatly appreciate. What's {city name} like? {Neighbourhood name} houses for sale What are good areas of {city name} Is {city name} a good place to live? What's {city name} like? What __ are in {city name} restaraunts hospitals beaches colleges How is {city names} weather Thanks guys!
Local SEO | | Dakota_G0 -
Should I use LocalBusiness schema on my home page or Contact Us page?
I know I should only use Organization schema on one page of my site, but I'm not sure if I should use it on the Home page or use LocalBusiness schema on the home page. I was thinking of adding LocalBusiness schema to home page, Organization schema to About Us page and Corporate Contact Schema to Contact us page. Thoughts? Is there a best practice? I can't seem to find much information on what's best to use where.
Local SEO | | RoxBrock1 -
How to have different facebook web address connect to the same page?
Hi i seen some huge website does that, even their facebook cover photos are different but they are all linking to the same page. one of the example is groupon. You can check their fan likes are the same across different web address such as Singapore and Malaysia. any idea guys?
Local SEO | | andrewwatson920