Local Listing Conundrum
-
Hello Mozzers, I have a client with a unique situation that I am hoping I can get some feedback on.
One of our service industry clients has a location that is claimed on all major sites (Google, Bing, etc., etc.) - so all is good there. They are experiencing an issue, however, because their check-in building is actually located at their conference center across the street, which has a different address. The issue is mainly that it is confusing and a pain point for customers as they get to the destination without realizing they need to actually be at the building across the street first for check-in.
The client is considering changing their primary address to the conference center address across the street, which was previously not a separate / claimed entity. They would still maintain the main business listing and just adjust the name. Their thought process is that Google would bring people to the conference center / check-in building first rather than to the main business building.
I personally have major concerns about making the switch. I feel like this would be potentially confusing to both users and search engines. And, the main business listing has already acquired a ton of reviews that we would be starting from scratch with.
My immediate recommendation would be to better communicate the check-in process to guests and not go through the change of address process, but I figured I would throw it out to the community for feedback.
Thoughts?
-
So glad it helped! Good luck to you!
-
Thanks so much for the clarification and recommendations, that is very helpful!
-
Hi Meisha,
Thanks so much for replying to my questions. That definitely helps me better visualize the client scenario. Okay, so bearing in mind that if this were my client I would advise them to physically change the location of the check-in from the conference center to the hotel, as this is clearly not a comfortable/natural layout for guests, if the company is unable to make this structural change, here's what they are up against:
-
If this business were in a different industry (not a hotel) there would be some wiggle room for them having 3 different GMB listings, as Google does permit multi-department listings. That works well for car dealerships (parts department, sales department, repairs department) and for hospitals (x-ray, emergency, billing). But for a hotel - no. Google is not going to have a category which represents hotel check-in, so despite this entity of the business having a separate entrance and phone number, I would not advise creating a 3rd GMB listing for the check-in. I don't believe it would fit in with Google's conception of a department and it could get the business into trouble.
-
So, since we don't want to do that, what we're left with is having the 2 GMB listings (one for the hotel and one for the conference center). But, we can't alter their names, as that would also violate Google's guidelines. Google can read street level signage, so unless the real-world name of the conference center is Green Tree Conference Center & Waldorf Hotel Check-In you cannot put those words in the business title of the GMB listing.
-
Because of this, what you are left with is listing the hotel and listing the conference center exactly as they appear in the real world, in terms of their names, addresses and phone numbers, with no additions. And that leaves guests being confused and discomfited.
-
So, if we can't move the check-in desk to the hotel, what the client is left with as options would include:
- Making it abundantly clear on the hotel site that check-in is across the street
- Instructing all phone staff who take reservations to verbally signal this to guests
- Including this also in any emails, print mail or other forms of confirmation guests receive when booking
- Hiring a staff member who manages the parking lot to greet guests as they arrive by car and personally instructs them to check in across the street.
- Anything else the business can think of to alert guests about the location of the check-in to lessen inconvenience to them.
What I'm describing here, based on my understanding of your client, would be the only safe options I can think of. Hope they help!
-
-
Thanks for your response.
To answer your questions:
1.) Hotel
2.) The hotel has several numbers so I imagine check-in does have a unique number
3.) I also do believe that check-in has a separate entrance than the other conference center facilities
4.) Check-in building is just the same address as the general conference center building
5.) The main / primary building hosts all of the rooms, hotel amenities, etc.
They were going to keep both addresses on the hotel website and specify check-in building versus hotel building. They were also going to change the name on the current / main Google local page to something more generic and then have the name for the new Google local page be hotel name +check-in or something similar, which I was not a huge fan of. I feel like having multiple local pages with the hotel name in the title could potentially cause issues, as will having multiple addresses on the website. I'm also sure that they cannot move the check-in across the street, for whatever reason, so that is an issue they will have to overcome.
Thoughts?
-
Hi Meisha,
Wow, that is a conundrum!
I'm going to start with some outside-the-box thinking here. If this were my client, I would tell them that (much like a grocery store floor plan) their current floor plan has highlighted a customer pain point. They are causing consumers frustration by making them go across the street to check in, which feels unnatural to the consumer. If it felt right, it wouldn't be a pain point. So, my first piece of marketing advice to this client would be to make a physical adaptation to put the check-in center in Building A, where consumers believe it should be. Problem solved. I realize this would be a hassle for the business, but when you consider that what they are currently risking now is getting off on the wrong foot with all of their customers at the very start of the 'relationship', what you have is negative sentiment>leads to negative reviews>leads to negative reputation>leads to negative impacts on revenue. That is not a path any business would want, so if at all possible, making a physical accommodation to the obvious needs of customers would be the smartest thing the client could do.
If it is totally impossible to move the check-in into building A, I have some questions:
-
What is the industry?
-
Does the check-in have its own phone number, or is the number shared with any other part of the business?
-
Does the check-in have its own entrance door, or is it shared by the conference center in building B?
-
Does the check-in have its own street address, or is it just the address of building B?
-
What, exactly, is in building A right now?
The answers to these (if you can share them) may help us puzzle out the second-best solution if the check-in can't be moved.
-
-
Great question!
You may want to consider providing two separate sets of NAP information for these two separate locations.
So you would have:
#1 - Business Name - Existing Address - Existing Phone Number
#2 - Business Name: Conference Center - Conference Center Address - Conference Center Phone Number
As long as you're able to go through the Google verification process with this conference center (receiving the postcard and phone call to verify that the NAP information for this new location is correct), you should be fine from a Local SEO perspective, and this should also improve user experience (since users will be directed to the proper location!)
I would also recommend listing these two addresses separately on the Contact Us page of your client's website, along with specific details about which location the user should plan to visit based on their needs.
Hope this helps!
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 Landing Page Optimization and Multiple GMB Listings
Hello, We’re building out a site for our business that has close to 100 office locations in different cities. Many of these are ‘partner brands’ that we have acquired under our brand. Similar to a franchise model. We want to be able to help users find offices near their location. Each office will have it’s own landing page with a physical address and contact information. We know we’ll have to build out unique copy and markup customized to the office/location. We’ve already read through https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages as well. We’re also considering ‘silos’ to build out pages for each location. To preserve authority and avoid cannibalization; our thought was having each location as sub-folders off of our domain (i.e. domain.com/locations/Partner#1/). The other option would be using a sub-domain (i.e. Partner.Domain.com/) which we noticed competitors doing and treating each sub-domain as their own independent site. Is all of the above the correct strategy? Any further suggestions? Should we fill out a separate GMB for each office and should they all use the same brand name? (in other words “BrandA” vs. “BrandA” - Brooklyn Office). In addition to GMB; would each location need local listings created (also all under the same name)? Any help or insight would be very much appreciated. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you in advance. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R0 -
Can having a google business listing harm a company selling services globally?
Hi, We are a SAAS platform offering cloud based solution for educators. We had a google business listing in India and recently added one for US as well. Our keywords rank significantly better in India than in US. Is it a good idea to remove these business listing? Also, what could be other factors that impact GEO SEO rankings for a online company like ours?
Local Listings | | WizIQMarketing0 -
Local Listing Submissions: Best Bang for Your Buck
I have a client that has ~30 office locations. Normally, if a business has 1-2 locations then I just submit through Moz Local. However, the marketing director won't approve a $1000+ annual local submissions package. My question: What strategy or service do you recommend that would allow me to submit these 30 locations to the best directories that I can without spending an excessive amount of budget and time? More specifically, if you had around 4 hours and ~$300 to spend on submitting 30 locations, how would you do it?
Local Listings | | capsquare0 -
Google Local Changes Randomly & Our Site Keeps Dropping Off Search
I work for a university where we have 2 law schools. We have our one school on the other side of the state that has been around for a very long time, and then a newer school that is right on our main campus that has been around for about 5 - 10 years now. The newer of the 2 schools is having so much trouble being able to claim the name of the school in google search. If you type in the name of the school the other school (the one that has been around longer) was coming up in the google local on the right of the screen and their web URL was never showing up in search. This is a huge problem because the accreditations of the 2 schools are different, and students are showing up at the wrong school for their interviews. Search will only show a domain name that used to be owned by the older school but now gives information for both of the schools. So it'll show up in search results, but only under that other domain and not their own domain that has their name in the domain name. This school has an updated google mybusiness listing, and a google+ page with the correct listing. I've added some schema data around the business address on their site and JSON for the google+ page, and have re-indexed their sitemap a few times after some changes have been made and we are using their name more in the site. This fixed everything for a short while and we were getting the appropriate google local listing and their site was appearing in search results above the site that advertised both schools. Now, after about 3 months, it has reverted. I had the older school showing up in the google local, and the site that advertises both schools is the ONLY domain appearing. I've re-indexed the site after finding out that Drupal's timestamps that they automatically add to sitemaps aren't optimized for how google reads it. This has gotten the local listing back, but I still have the wrong domain appearing, it is the one advertises both schools instead of the domain that has this school's information. I don't mind that the one advertising both shows up, but if a user is searching for that particular school I would really like to get that domain to appear first above the one advertising both schools and the older school. Right now the new school isn't even in search results except for being under the site that advertises both. I wasn't sure if this was something that Moz Local could help me fix by adding the listing across the web, or if there is something else on the sites I can be doing to help them solidify their name in google search/local. Also - is this subdomain that is advertising both of them hurting them or help them? I was thinking about taking that domain down to one page that acts as a direction source to the 2 domains rather than having a ton of information and keywords that take over the results for their name since that domain is older (and used to be associated with the old school only before the new school was built) Thank you for any advice on this issue as I'm still pretty new to SEO and to the university. Thanks again!
Local Listings | | amaray4030 -
Do You Know What's Triggering Your Local Packs?
Hey To All My Local Pals, Here 🙂 Recently, I watched a totally fascinating LocalU video in which Mike Blumenthal introduced a hypothesis that there may be a way to analyze what, specifically, is triggering a specific local pack. Now, Mike is stating that correlation is not causation in explaining this, but basically what he starts talking about at around 4:40 in the video is that what you are seeing rank well in the local packs may be demonstrably caused by what you see ranking organically beneath the pack, or may be caused by totally different signals. Mike says, _"If you're seeing the top 10 results are all IYP industry sites, and there's a pack showing, and the highest local site is 24 or something in organic, it's unlikely that that's what's triggering the pack. And so then you want to look at third-party triggers and see if that's what's actually triggering the pack." _ Obviously, all of us who do Local are familiar with the idea that a tremendous variety of elements contribute to pack rankings, but I am particularly intrigued by the idea of looking at the organic result beneath a pack and determining that there is little or no correlation between them, and this then driving one to look elsewhere for contributing factors. In a recent response to another thread here on Q&A, I discussed some common local pack ranking failure causes when organic rank is high. What I'd love to see is whether, if you look at some of your clients' desired packs, can you tell if organic signals are driving them, or can you see that it's not organic signals driving the pack, as Mike suggests. What, in those cases, does appear to be driving the packs? I'd be so interested in a discussion on this. What do you see? What do you think of Mike's suggestions?
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis9 -
How to keep local citation solicitations away
Is there a way to get a client good citations for local SEO without them being badgered by solicitations by the citation sites, or at least minimize it. I realize once a company is listed they are on the telemarketing radar, but in specific keeping companies like manta , yelp etc. I am finding when I list manually for my clients that they are receiving an onslaught of 'your listing doesn't count unless you upgrade' kind of calls from the companies who I verified with. Does this happen when you list with an automated listing system such as Moz Local or any of the competitors? Thanks.
Local Listings | | DVOH0 -
Best Local Citation Building Services
Hi, have any of you ever used a local citation building service? Are some better than others, any recommendations? Any bad experiences or companies to avoid? I'm fairly new to the process and it looks like there's a lot of snake oil salesmen in this vertical, so any and all insight you could give me would be great! Thank you in advance, I look forward to hearing feedback from all of you!
Local Listings | | maxcarnage0 -
Local Listing Question for Vet Office
We have done the off-page directory listings work for a veterinary office (submitting to the main data-aggregators, as well as sites such as CitySearch/Manta/Yelp) & now want to supplement those with submissions for each individual doctor. There are 8 doctors at their practice. The plan was to submit them to only 3 sites - the main data-aggregators of LocalEze, ExpressUpdateUSA & Factual. They only have one phone number (their main number) to use for listings. So can we submit the doctors all with the same number? Or is that a total waste of time b/c listings will end up being duplicated/merged down the road? What do you recommend that we do?
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120