Should I use a vanity address when creating local citations?

[CaddisInteractive]

My client is opening a new location of their business in the Dallas area and has listed the location on their website under Dallas, but their technical address is Farmers Branch. They have not started any citation building efforts, so I will be creating all citations from scratch. Should I create citations using the vanity address containing Dallas or list Farmers Branch as the city?

[MiriamEllis]

Happy Friday!

You're very welcome. Zip codes do sometimes apply to more than one area, it's true, but if the Google Map shows the business inside the borders of Farmers Branch rather than Dallas, stick with Farmers Branch. Hope this helps!

[CaddisInteractive]

Hey there,

Thanks for the input. I have one final question for you. My client's zip code (75244)  is actually valid for both Dallas and Farmers Branch. If you search the zip code by itself, Google actually returns a Dallas result. With this final detail in mind, would it still be wrong to create citations using Dallas?

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Eric!

So happy to have you participating in the community here. Just wanted to take a minute to explain that using a virtual office or any other non-physical location in citation building is actually not permitted by Google's guidelines. Website optimization can focus on any terms the owner would like, but when it comes to citation building, using physical locations only is set in stone. Hope this helps to know

[MiriamEllis]

Hi There!

Very important that you build all citations to reflect your real-world physical location and not your service area. So, this would mean that you stick with Farmers Branch. You can work on optimizing your website to reflect services you additionally offer in Dallas, Fort Wort or other locations, but when it comes to citations, it's always about physical location. Hope this helps and this would be a good time to do a read-through of Google Guidelines, just to be sure the efforts you'll be making to build citations won't cause problems but, rather, will reap maximum benefits

[GlobeRunner]

Generally speaking, the decision should be based on the location served--so if the company does business in the entire Dallas area then I would use Dallas. But, if it's only in Farmer's Branch, then typically you'd choose just that city.

Another decision would be whether or not this business is going to have (or currently has) more than one location in the area. So, if in the future they will have a Dallas location, a Farmer's Branch location, a Plano location, etc. then that could cause an issue in the future, as you'd need to fix it.

If the Farmer's Branch location serves the entire Dallas area, then you should probably go with Dallas.