Local SEO in business acquisition context
-
Hi everyone,
I have a client who just acquired 4 business. Basically, the 4 compagnies will stop existing and my client will integrate the production at his own adress under his compagny name. My issue here is that my client wants to know what is the best solution for his local results.
The 4 compagnies still have a website that present the new business name will a CTA redirecting to the new website. Their GMB account are still active.
I was about to delete the 4 GMB accounts so when a customer do a brand research, the organic result will show the old business website that will present the new business with a CTA on the website. My thinking is that since the old and the new compagny will compete on the same keyword since they are in the same industry, I don't want the old compagny to be in competition with the compagny of my clients.
Is there a better solution that could benefit the local SEO ?
Thanks y'all !
-
Thank you, ma'am!
-
Leave them as-is.
-
Joy, thank you so much for your generosity in coming to share your advice on this (Alexandre, it's Joy I reached out to for an expert opinion).
Just to be sure we've covered all bases, Joy, would you leave the details of the "moved" listings as-is, with the old names on them, or would you edit the business titles to reflect the new name of the brand that acquired them, before getting them moved?
-
I agree with Miriam on point #2 because by 301'ing the domains you'll also get the benefit from all their links.
In the past I have asked Google My Business to mark the old listings as "moved" to the new one. This will cause people searching for the old brand to see the new one. In order to accomplish this, you'll need to make sure the Google My Business listings are not verified. If the previous owners have them claimed in their account, you'll first need to get access to the listing so you can unverify them.
For more details, check out the article that just published this morning: https://moz.com/blog/duplicate-gmb-listings
-
Wow thanks a lot Miriam,
My best solution so far would be to close all four GMB listing in order to have only one listing. With this solution, i make sure that all the listings aren't competing on the same keyword since they are on the same market and that they do not provide any false information on the previous business.
Since the 4 previous websites are still active and only provide the homepage explaining that the compagny was bought by my client with a CTA that redirect to his website, i'm thinking about using these as a landing page that explain acquisition for the user that do a brand research.
I'm really looking forward to hear your thoughts on that.
Thank you so much,
-
Hi Alexandre,
Thanks for the reply. Okay, so Google My Business listings are tied solely to physical location. If the main business has just 1 physical location after the acquisition, it should only have 1 GMB listing. At first glance, I do not recommend that you update the other 4 GMB listings to feature the new brand name, because then they might end up being marked as "permanently closed" while associated with the new business name, which could signal to consumers that the main company has gone out of business. This should be avoided at all costs, as "permanently closed" labels on the listings could also harm the ranking chances of the main business.
There are some complicated nuances to this scenario.
-
I wonder who is controlling the 4 other listings. Have you been able to verify them into the main business' GMB dashboard, or are they verified in the GMB dashboards of each of the 4 other companies.
-
I wonder what happens when you do 301 redirects of the 4 old websites to the main one. This may associate the 4 closed companies with the 1 open one in Google's eyes, and I'm curious (because I don't know for sure) as to whether that association could potentially lead to automation of duplicate listings. Hopefully not, but it's something you'll want to rigorously check for - duplicates cropping up as a result of the merge. Pro tip: Moz Check Listing can help you see duplicates for free, but given the size of this acquisition, you are likely to need the full version of a software like Moz Local to be able to add in all of the variant names/addresses/phone numbers to surface the maximum number of duplicates that may potentially exist of exist in the future.
-
I'm mulling over whether the best thing here would be to close the listings or mark them as moved to the new location.
I'm actually going to see if a colleague of mine has a good opinion on this. The situation is complex.
-
-
1 physical location only
-
Hi Alexandre,
When you say that the 4 companies will cease to exist, does this also mean that their physical locations will close, or is your client opening 4 new offices in the former locations of the companies that have been acquired? Is there just 1 physical location post-acquisition, or 5 of them?
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
-
Rankings preferring English URL above local URL
We've recently had a redesign for our website and it has influenced our rankings a little bit. However, what I mainly noticed is that for some keywords in MOZ the English URL is looked at in terms of ranking, instead of the local URL. It used to be just the local URL ranking, even for keywords that are more English oriented, and I'm wondering if that might be hurting our rankings. And more importantly, why it's happening. An example of a page where it's happening is: https://www.bluebillywig.com/online-video-platform/
Local SEO | | Billywig0 -
Unsolved GMB Local SEO question
I am trying to diagnose how one particular competitor is smoking us in local rankings. I came across a text field “Service Details' within Google My Business Services. This allows me to put in a brief description of each service we offer. My thought is that this could be a good place for keywords. That said, the descriptions are not public facing (or to the best of my knowledge) so I am reluctant to do all the work for nothing. I am wondering if anyone has filled these out and if there were any noticeable results. Any insight is appreciated
Local SEO | | jorda0910 -
How to rank in Google against a business with the same name?
My client has a coworking space in London, but shares its name with a recruitment company also in London. When searching for my client's brand name, they don't appear anywhere on the first page as this recruitment company dominates. How can I rank prominently for my brand term if there is someone else in these top spots who isn't a direct competitor (in the typical sense)? Thank you!
Local SEO | | WhitewallGlasgow0 -
Another local fence company used (stole) one of my images
We have a local fence business in Oklahoma City and one of the other local fence companies took the liberty of using one of our images that I took myself on their website...creating a similar page even. They took the our image from this page: http://www.a-better-fence-construction.com/metal-fence-post.html And used it on their page (2x they used it!): http://fenceokc.com/2016/07/13/all-about-fence-posts/ They didn't even bother renaming the file "metal-fence-post.jpg"! I'm not experienced in what I should do? (I did a google image search and lots of websites are using it...but one contractor locally in OKC is using it and one in Dallas area is also using it.) I just wonder what other people are doing to prevent images being used or if your not worrying about it. Brad metal-fence-post.jpg
Local SEO | | SuperNovi0 -
Best approach for international multi country SEO
Hi all We're working with a client that is in the travel industry and they already have a relatively new site (setup in September 2014) which is on a .com domain We've completed a digital strategy for them and have identified 12 key markets within Europe, North America, South America and the Asia Pacific region. We have suggested an approach of setting up individual local websites for these countries and for countries in the same region sharing a common language (like USA & Canada) we're thinking to use a subdomain on the existing .com (eg. amaricas.clientdomain.com) Does this sound like a solid approach? thanks
Local SEO | | seobackbone0 -
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 -
Google My Business
HI everyone, I hope you can assist me. I am trying to set-up the Google graph that appears in the Google search results pages that appear to the right hand side of the screen. I have tried contacting Goolge but never receive a response from them, which I think is rather strange. If anyone knows how to action this please help. Regards,
Local SEO | | KJDMedia0 -
Citations for a non-local campaign?
Is it worth building citations if one is targeting a national campaign with NO local keywords? Even if they have some effect, are they really worth the time, effort and costs?
Local SEO | | Gavo0