Local Help! Google+ Accounts for New Brand & Service Sites
-
Hi Mozzers! I have a lot of knowledge in local search, G+ page setup/optimization, etc, etc... However, I'm about to begin a business based around "home services". The brand will be ABC Home Services as the umbrella. Then under it will be the individual services like "ABC Carpet Cleaning" "ABC Roofing", etc... Each service will have it's own website for optimization purposes and local search authority building as well as the services will be developed over the course of a couple years ie: carpet cleaning would go up 1st, then the next service and so on...
I have purchased all of the domains I want for the services to focus on. What do you recommend I do in terms of setting up Gmail accounts/G+ accounts? Individual service related Gmail accounts and have a main "ABC Home Services" Google account and then add in the service G+ pages over time?
I'm open to any questions, but trying to make this the most efficient for me and my team and also the best if can be for local optimization goals and criteria. Thank you! - Patrick
-
Hi Patrick,
It's true, you will be somewhat limited by that, but with the exception of citation building, you should still be able to make a good effort at content development, linkbuilding, etc. Sounds like you're working with a really neat, diverse company that could become the answer to so many local homeowner needs if the brand becomes locally famous. Wishing you good luck
-
Thank you for your valuable input, Laura and Miriam! I have read through all of the links Laura shared and then some more I found on doing other searches on the subject. From the jist of it, it's exactly what you hit on Miriam. I've got some more due diligence on this one and prep work to effectively communicate with my business partners on the most appropriate strategy.
My only challenge with having 1 website that encompasses all the services is that we are then limiting our link building, directory, citation and category output/selection, which drastically limits how we would be able to build any type of authority in one given service area to compete others who are more focused just on that service, ie: carpet cleaning or roofing. Not to mention, receiving valid, real reviews for a specific service.
This is going to be tricky, but an overall great exercise and case study!
- Patrick
-
Hi Patrick,
Very important questions!
Adding to Laura's caution on this ... if ABC Home Services is actually just a single company, then Google does not want multiple Google My Business listings created for each service it offers. Obviously, the business is offering quite a variety of things, but if it's really all just one company, then it's only eligible for a single Google My Business listing, regardless of the approach that is taken with the number of websites built. And, if it's just one company, building multiple websites with shared NAP on them would not be a safe approach. If this were my client, this is the rough strategy I would recommend:
-
Build a single website with awesome content on it for each of the services offered (roofing, carpet cleaning, etc.).
-
Build a single set of citations for the company
The only safe alternative to this would be to legally register the companies as completely separate with totally distinct names, do not have an umbrella website, have a unique website for each with no shared content, have a different physical location and different phone number for each business, and do not interlink the businesses in any way.
Any variation on this (such as a shared address) could bring Google scrutiny to the situation and carries a measure of risk as Google might determine that it's just one business attempting to appear like multiple companies. Google can usually handle multiple businesses at the same address, but if they are in some way related to one another, this can raise red flags.
Laura has also made mention of departments within businesses. This commonly applies to auto dealerships, hospitals, school campuses, etc. Google suggests that these business models should each have a unique front entrance to qualify for multiple GMB listings. I've not seen this model applied to a home improvement business, but it's something you could ask Google about.
Hope this helps. Very smart of you to fully research this before creating a marketing plan!
-
-
That's going to be tricky if these are service area businesses operating out of the same address. There was a recent discussion in the G+ Local Search Pros community about a similar issue. You run the risk of getting all of the listings suspended. If you have a brick and mortar location, you could set them up as different departments, but triple check the GMB guidelines before going that route.
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
-
Local SEO Issue or Penguin? Or both?
Hey folks I have a fairly complicated SEO issue we have been looking at for a few years now. There are two parts to this problem so would be interested to get the input of the community here and any experienced in Penguin and Local SEO issues. I am going to have to change the names to protect the innocent a bit here as some of the issue relates to a competitor and a shared address. History My client originally worked for company A which we will call Events R us. He then set up on his own at a new address and lets call his company Fantastic Events. EventsRus never had a good website or SEO Fantastic Events set up a great website and really focused on adding tons of relevant content for all the myriad event options available and subsequently did really well. This is a few years back and they were also doing some article marketing on sites like ezinearticles.com to build links (1). As time went on they did get a bit carried away with these low quality links and were buying $5 spun content articles and other low quality links. They ranked really well for a few key terms. There was a suspected local SEO issue as fantastic events used the same office as their fathers business called fantastic finance and the citations / phone number issues etc all had to be cleared up (2). Fantastic Events and Events R Us remained friends and over time Fantastic Events moved to the same farm address as Events R Us so they could offer a wider range of services based on the farm (and ran by fantastic events) and to some extent run away from the address confusion with the same office and very similar name to the other fantastic finance business. Events R Us wanted some of the Fantastic Events success and built a new website and largely copied the website of Fantastic Events - at times even lifting entire pages of content but certainly mirroring the structure of the site. Fantastic Events tussled with them for a few years over this and over time they updated the content but the structure and services and address all pretty much mirrored what was offered on the Fantastic Events site. (3) Two companies - same address (it's a farm so whilst there are different barns I believe Google can only get as far as the farm gate so same address to all intents and purposes. Same services give or take. Events R Us was the older company overall by several years and was at the farm address many years longer than Fantastic Events (4). Fantastic Events starts running a blog and adding regular, useful event orientated content. The first true team building blog out there as far as we could tell and traffic tripled over a six month period. Penguin hits and Fantastic Events loses a lot of traction - this gets worse with Penguin 2.0. Both the homepage and the evening events page lose visibility and traction. The owner gives up on the blog to a large degree. Subsequent clean up happens and is rigorous - all bad links are pretty much removed and the remaining elements are disavowed. (90% of it is actually gone by now). Penguin 3.0 comes and no recovery at all. Nothing. If anything it gets worse and the once strong blog is now losing traction. Events R Us starts to do really well in search for exactly the same terms that Fantastic Events used to do well for. In particular one page ranks for exactly the same keywords and in exactly the same position (#1) as what was believed to be the primary traffic driver on the Fantastic Events site. It is almost like they exchanged positions and Events R Us went from nowhere to a strong footing with some national and local keywords and Fantastic Events fell from grace. A new website is built. All content is refreshed and bought up to date. Some light investment back in the blog. Some light link building is done around digital PR and infographics. Some initial movement in the right direction but overall this did not move the dial. Certain pages on the site that used to rank are nowhere - looks very much like a page level / keyword level penguin penalty. These same pages rank great, often first on the competitor site (an exchange of positions to some extent). Advice from myself and other esteemed consultants was to clean up, build some good links and wait for Penguin 4.0 to remove that eventuality. Also that the address issue could be causing some local SEO issue where Google believes the two businesses are one and has somehow merged the two with some local SEO filter or some such (same business with multiple websites at same address). Penguin 4.0 comes along and no improvements. Events R us sit pretty. Feeling is that the local issue must play a part here now that Penguin should be eliminated due to the extensive link clean up etc and there must now be some action to resolve this address / local issue. Issues low quality links - but cleaned up 100% now. same business name and address as fathers business initially older business copied the structure and content of newer business moved to same address as older more established business with very similar content older business now seems to have taken all the exact keywords and positions the newer business used to occupy Penguin 4.0 and no resolution. Local SEO issue seemingly remains Summary So we are left in a difficult position. The business does not want to move. But if there is some filtering or merging going on here then how can we get around this? The client is likely collateral damage to an algorithmic component designed to stop single businesses having multiple websites. I know there are reports of this happening but I have never seen such a thing for an innocent business like this but the nature of the address (two separate barns on a gated farm) and the history and similarities between the businesses makes this difficult. Things are somewhat desperate though - a move has to be made now. Even if that is a physical one. The client has considered a virtual address to take that variable out the picture but I have advised caution. I am even cautious about a change in physical address. Google has a long memory. If such a move was made at considerable expense would it help or would the other business retain Is the best option a new start? New brand, address, website, services etc - cut all ties with the historic Fantastic Events brand and by association the Events R Us brand. This is not a recommendation I can quickly or easily make so would be really interested to hear the feedback on anyone who has come across such a multi faceted and complex issue before. This is a tough one. We know what we are doing on the local front. We know what we are doing on the Penguin front. We know how to build links and authority. We are doing this work of the clock to help a long term friend / client get back to where they really deserve to be. The history is not spotty clean but the good work and effort far outway a short spell building dodgy links several years ago now. As an SEO consultant I don't want to advise for the company to rebrand and move offices at considerable expense but whilst I have a theoretical understanding of the issue how can we prove it and be sure this is the best possible advice? Thanks folks - hope this at least makes for interesting reading. This is something of an edge case. A good business likely caught up in a filter designed to stop abuse. Cheers
Local Listings | | Marcus_Miller
Marcus1 -
Is the new local 3-pack the death of Google+ as factor?
So now we have the new 3-pack local results, which obviously cut the listings Google+ link from the results. What I find strange is that is now even when searching the business name alone, there is no sign of the associated Google+ page in the results. I still get other local third party listings like Facebook, Yellowpages, and Yelp – but no link anywhere for the Google+ page. I noticed this today when I wanted to verify something on a client’s page. There was nothing I could do search wise to bring up this business Google+ page. I finally got it by clicking the link through Moz local. After exploring this with some other clients, when I do get a Google+ page in the search results some have produced a 500 error when clicked on. If Google wasn’t killing off Google+, why would they completely omit the pages from their own search results? Another extremely strange thing, the majority of my clients are independent local businesses inside a large national company. Their Google+ listings have always been managed corporately using a bulk listing feed. We could never gain access to these pages and would always manage our listings to match that of the corp. controlled page. Well the last week of July they announced they were giving us the option to take control of the page. This happened with two different companies, MAJOR national competitors in the same industry, within a couple days of each other. They now treat it just like another version of social media, instead of a major factor within search. I find it hard to believe that something isn’t going on…
Local Listings | | masonrj0 -
Same Back Links To All 20 Pages On My Site?
Hi All I have researched 20 plumber blogs and citation sources all have page rank 1-8 and good trust and domain age. Would it be wise to have a backlink to each of my 20 web pages from these 20 different blogs? plumber blog a backlink to all 20 pages on my plumbing site plumbing blog a backlink to all 20 pages on my plumbing site how to fix leaky tap blog a backlink to all 20 pages on my plumbing site how to pick the best gas boiler blog a backlink to all my 20 pages on my plumbing site and so on as my website is united kingdom and serve UK only, should i not use USA blogs & citation sources as this might not help increase my organic rankings? thanks
Local Listings | | nickowain0 -
SEO strategy local service area business
Hello, I run a service area business that rents and delivers moving boxes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our service area spans 75 cities and many millions of people, and several major metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, but there are also numerous smaller cities that collectively represent a large number of monthly searches. I would like to rank well for the higher level search terms, like “moving boxes” and “moving supplies”, but also city-specific searches like “Moving Boxes San Francisco.” What’s unclear to me is the best strategy for organically ranking on the specific cities in our service area. As I see it, it seems there are several approaches. Is the best approach to either to: A.) Create clean “universal” web pages for pricing, products and landing pages and use blogs to build up content keywords for each of the cities B.) Create 10-15 city-specific web pages with the hope they'll each rank well (e.g. Moving San Jose, Moving in Cupertino) C.) Other? Thanks for your comments.
Local Listings | | bruteboxmoving0 -
Can We Outrank The Google Places Local Listing 7 pack in 2015?
Hello everyone, I would like to know if it's possible and if any of you had success outranking / ranking above the Google Local Listing 7 pack? I am in Canada and every time I search for something like (city+dentist) (toronto dentist) I do not see any organic result above the 7 pack. I searched for like 10 city and every searches the local listing are the first to show up and the organic result under it. So I did not see any organic result outranking the Google Places and I look at like 10 different city if not more. So I would like to know If i can rank above them for organic results with no Google places, with no physical address, local phone number and/or citations even if there is currently no organic result showing up above them ? What do you guys think ? Thank You
Local Listings | | majesticlub1 -
Is there any way to stop yahoo local from adding names to local listings?
I've been coming across many yahoo listings that have a "First Name, Last Name-Business Name" as the listing title including one that I came across that includes my name and my company's business. There's no reason why I should be listed on the listing. Yahoo, says that they pull data from other sources: Localeze ExpressUpdateUSA YP Yext But none of those sites have my name connected to them other than in the account information. Yahoo, doesn't seem to have a good way to fix their listings. I sent their customer support an email about it but I'm not expecting to get much out of it. Does anyone know of a good way to get around/fix this?
Local Listings | | spencerhjustice0 -
Report Google Plus Pages for Catergory Stuffing?
Doing some analysis for a clients and it have come to our attention that some of the competitors in this area have 16 to 18 categories, many duplicate and keyword stuffed. I tried to find a specific action to report this to Google, I am aware you can report spam for websites does this apply to the places pages as well? Can you just use the report abuse or report spam links? Anyone have any experience with this type of action with Google? Thanks.
Local Listings | | AFoust1 -
Are citations the way to go even if there is no Google Places listing
If there are no Google Places / Local listing for a keyword search term, for example... "web design vancouver", do building citations still help in enabling websites to move up the organic rankings?
Local Listings | | Gavo0