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
-
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 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_G1 -
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 -
Two websites, same business name, same NAP
Hi, A client of mine offers loft conversions and wants to make a go of it. So he has a website dedicated to loft conversions. He is also a joiner/carpenter and has another old website which offers general joinery work and insurance work. Both websites have the same business name and same address and phone number. There is only one Google place page for the loft conversions website. The loft conversions website is not ranking as well as we would like locally. Could it be due to the same NAP? What are the best options? Redirect the old website to the loft conversions one (he might not like that idea) Change the address and phone number on one website?(and all subsequent citations?) Would love some help on this!
Local SEO | | AL123al0 -
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 -
Two Companies Same Address
A client has two businesses running from the same address. Both businesses will operate out of Unit 1. Would it be safe to go for Unit 1 and Unit 1A. Will that distinction be enough for Google local and has anyone had any specific experience with this issue?
Local SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
Competitors at the same physical address
Hi, I have two particular clients who I built websites for and they work in the same industry as one another. To add to this, they both have the same geographical location. So, for example when you search Google for 'fencing contractors in [county]' they both appear underneath each other next to the map and have the same address. The problem is that client A doesn't rank as well as client B and client B seems to get outranked by its Yell listing. Both websites are similar in size and markup structure. The content although based on the same topic is written differently and isn't exactly sparse. Client A launched their website probably about 6 months before client B. I have a hunch that Google may be penalising client B, thinking that it is in fact the same business as client A due to their physical location or is somehow trying to copy client A. Does this hunch have much ground in the SEO world and if it is possible, what are my options to help remedy the situation? Unfortunately I've never had the situation where two competitors of each other are literally in adjacent offices! Ideas anyone?
Local SEO | | ahead40