Local SEO without a GBL

[a_toohill]

Hey everyone,

I'm working with a local catering company that does not have a physical address available for use.  Because of privacy concerns, the company is not open to using their home address.  The local competition in the targeted area is fairly strong and established already.  Does anyone have ideas on how I can work around this?

[MiriamEllis]

You bet, Andrew! Please keep the good questions coming

[a_toohill]

Thank-you Miriam.  I appreciate your response here.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Andrew,

As Brooks has highlighted, your client's catering business sounds like a service area business (SAB) and is therefore eligible for a Google My Business listing, provided the staff meets face-to-face with its customers. Your client will need to enter their address when creating the listing and then select the options Brooks as pointed out so that the street address won't be public on the live listing.

That being said, there are some nuances to this. Google did have a bug, in recent memory, during which they briefly showed the addresses of SABs. It was a temporary issue.

Given this, the conversation you need to have with the client surrounds whether their privacy concerns are so extreme that they don't want their street address ever to appear anywhere on the Internet however briefly, or, whether, like most home-based businesses, they just don't want customers showing up at their house thinking it's a walk-in business.

If the former, your hands are tied to doing a limited Local SEO campaign for them and you'll have to rely on Organic SEO, PPC, and Social to get the word out as best you can.

If the latter, then the SAB listing is the solution for this client. It's Google's policy not to show the addresses of these businesses, and you can restrict other citation building to the sites listed in the Phil Rozek article Brooks has linked to. You'll at least be able to do a good, pretty complete campaign for them in this scenario, though not quite as thorough as you can for an SAB that doesn't care whether their address is published on some platforms.

Hope this helps and that you'll have that conversation with the client to discover the source of their objections, whether that be a strong fear or a simple concern over inconvenience.

[brooksmanley]

While you have to have a physical address to create a listing, I do think it's possible to hide your address on Google My Business.

While editing Info > Address:

• Select 'Yes' to the prompt: I deliver goods and services to my customers at their location.
• Once you've done that, you will see a checkbox option for: I also serve customers at my business address. (Your address will be hidden from the public if this box isn't checked.) I believe if that is checked, your physical address will be hidden.

Additionally, I've found this article from Phil Rozek very helpful in identifying other local directories that allow you to hide your physical address, and help increase your local signals: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/22/private-local-citations-where-can-you-list-your-business-but-hide-your-address/

I hope that helps!