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
-
Should local businesses focus exclusively on a local SEO strategy (and forget traditional SEO)?
Hello Friends! I work at a small, local company. We definitely want to rank high for local search , so we see the value of having a local SEO strategy. But does it make sense for us to also invest in a traditional SEO strategy? My understanding is that a traditional SEO strategy is focused on improving your site's visibility on a national or international scale. Does this make sense for my company if only local customers convert? If we had unlimited time and resources, I'd be all for a traditional SEO strategy. I understand that the more traffic, backlinks, etc. my site generates from producing relevant content, the higher my ranking. But my company has to be very strategic about where we spend our time since our resources are limited. So...How much can or does a traditional SEO strategy impact local search results? I'd hate to spend the time writing a beautiful SEO-optimized blog on dog grooming, for example, if that effort won't impact my SERP ranking when someone in my area searches for "dog grooming near me." I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Local SEO | | annav0520 -
How important is citations for an online business?
If you run an online business, just how important is citation building? Our client does not want to disclose her physical home address from where she operates and the campaign does not consist of any local keywords. Should we then focus on link building and growing the site's DA instead? As well as getting onpage elements optimised. Many thanks in advance for your input!
Local SEO | | Gavo0 -
Rank Locally and Globally (or at least Nationally)
I work with an interior design whom I've persuaded to purchase a virtual street address in the town she wanted to work in years ago. She has a Skokie, IL business address that has been claimed and confirmed across the internet. Now, she is growing and wants her new website to not only be optimized for the more affluent areas of Chicago but she also would like to gain Global notice, (I'd settle for National). My problems: She doesn't want to purchase a street address in Chicago because it is a pain to go get her mail. What do I do about all her directory listings and review sites that have her located in Skokie if I can persuade her to get a Chicago address? Do I leave the Skokie address and add more content targeting keyword phrases with Chicago? What should be my initial focus here? I feel it is a smaller target and less competition to go after Chicago but she wants to start spreading her wings and work all over the world. Help!!
Local SEO | | JanetJ0 -
Why do SMB owners want more calls as a result of SEO, but don't answer 62% of them?
Working mostly with SMBs for 8 years now, we have gradually developed the notion that small business owners are hard to reach by phone. Our Customer Service agents spend hours unsuccessfully trying to reach business owners. If a potential customer calls the business, they'll have to face the same outcome. This means missed opportunities for both parties. Needless to say, one of the most important KPIs in local SEO is the number of generated phone calls...but no one's there to answer. We wanted to dig deeper into the matter, so we did a small study with 85 businesses. Results show that: 37.8% of calls are answered by a person. 37.8% of calls are answered by an answering machine, where no actual conversation (nor conversion) is possible, so we treat these calls as unanswered. 24.3% of calls are unanswered. We also gathered a list of possible solutions to the problem, but what we really need to know is WHY do business owners neglect such an important part of their business? And what resolutions can you think of?
Local SEO | | 411Locals0 -
What happens with SEO when a site is served via CloudFlare CDN?
Hello, With regards to hosting, it is my understanding that one of the search engine ranking factors for a particular geographic location (city/country) is where a site is hosted physically geographically. For example, if a site was developed for New York users primarily AND it was hosted on a server physically located within New York (IP address) then it would rank better in New York ... that is, given all other SEO ranking factors were equal? Is this true? My worry is that once a site is served via CloudFlare via their 64 global cached locations, then do the search engines effectively lose all context as to its origin hosting and therefore hosting in New York (in the example above) would have no different effect than if the site was hosted on Mars (after the site had been cached, that is). Many thanks,
Local SEO | | uworlds
Mark 🙂0 -
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 -
Showing a preferred Google location in branded search for a multi-location business?
Background: A business has 5 brick and mortar locations, in 5 different states, with 5 separate Google+ profiles. The corporate headquarters are in Michigan. The Michigan Google+ Local profile is the one that should be most closely associated with the brand. Problem: We want the Michigan Google + Local page to show up for branded searches nationwide: right now, it only shows up on geolocated searches in Michigan. Of course, it totally makes sense that the other 4 Google+ local pages will appear for users searching with IP locations (or logged in locations) near those states. But for other states - is there a way to help Google understand or give preference to the main corporate location? What we're trying to prevent is someone in New York City searching for "company name", and then seeing a lesser location appear in SERPs associated with the brand, instead of our favored Michican location. Ideas so far: Continue to enhance out the Michigan location's Google+ page (check categories, photos, description, share content frequently, expand circles, get reviews, yada yada yada - we've already done much of this). _Maybe give this page more attention and content than other locations if we have to? _ Build links into Michigan Google+ page? Ensure general citations are up to date - use localeze/moz local etc. Website - We have a page for each location. While Michigan is featured, we also do promote our other offices as well - all kinda promoted equally on site in terms of metadata, content, etc. Any other brainstorming advice or out-of-the-box (oh no, did I just say "out-of-the-box"?) ideas to help Google associate the Michigan location as our "primary" one we want shown on more generic branded searches, even though of course the other 4 are impt too? Tricky...
Local SEO | | mirabile0 -
2 Word EMD's - Good of bad for SEO
Hello Again Moz Folks, I have a domain: www.edmontonweb.ca
Local SEO | | Web3Marketing87
It is currently on page 2 and I'm trying to figure out ways to improve its ranking. Because it is an EMD, I considered forwarding it to www.launchwebdesign.ca Considering there is existing Domain Authority on edmontonweb.ca, is this a good move?
Would forwarding the domain transfer DA to launchwebdesign.ca? Thanks, Anton0