Best address to use on Google business listing for youth sports program
-
Hello, Moz Community!
I'm helping a friend with some local marketing for his youth sports program. He trains his kids at a community center and a public park where court times are managed by the city.
His address in his Google business listing is currently the community center, but that is shared with multiple businesses including the community center itself. I know he needs an address that is unique to his business, but he lives outside of the city in which his program is located.
Our goal is to boost exposure in the city in which his program is located.
Since 1) his business address is located outside of the city in which he conducts business and 2) the addresses at which he conducts his business is utilized by multiple businesses including the actual property owner, what options do I we have for an address that Google will recognize as valid and won't cause ranking issues?
If there is nothing we can do in the current situation, what are steps we can take to address this issue for his business?
Thanks a lot!
-
Hi Miriam,
Just wanted to update you that we were able to verify the listing! What we did was simply work with the community center to receive the verification postcard.
Our listing still shows "located in: community center" with the community center address and our business phone number, but I can no login, respond to reviews, etc.
Just incase you run into a similar question in the future!
Thanks again for your guidance.
-
Thank you again, Miriam! I'm gonna keep trying to get the postcard from the community center and see what happens.
-
Hi Tony,
Unfortunately, Google's guidelines often disappoint in that they don't seem to cover real-world realities. If you're aware of the guideline language and are communicating to your friend that straying from the guidelines could result in listing removal, then that's about all you can do. If a brand decides to stray from the guidelines, they should be aware of the risks. And finding other listings that area also straying from the guidelines will not convince Google if the listing gets removed.
You can learn more about the "located in" feature in this thread: https://localsearchforum.com/threads/new-feature-manually-add-located-in-to-a-gmb-listing.53221/ but this is typically meant to be used for something like a McDonald's located in a Walmart.
-
No worries, thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response!
I noticed that same language in the guidelines as well. At first, I didn't think it would be possible either but ultimately I can't imagine that all youth sports programs that don't own their own facility are ineligible for a Google business listing. That would make 99% of youth sports programs ineligible.
I also noticed that the program's business listing (see attached screenshot) contains 1) a link to the community center in which the program is run, 2) the community center's address, and 3) the program's unique business phone number. This leads me to believe that Google might be trying to account for this scenario. I Googled around but haven't been able to find any information on the purpose of the "located in" section in the listing so I'm left with my fingers crossed.
Do you have any thoughts on this?
We have requested the verification postcard be sent to the community center. We are hoping that we are able to confirm our listing after that mail has been received.
Thanks again!
-
great information and platform
-
Hi Tony,
My apologies for the delayed reply. I just saw your questions this morning.
The relevant area of the Guidelines for Representing Your Business on Google contains the following language under the section in ineligible listings:
- An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent.
It sounds like this is what you're describing, in terms of your friend having an ongoing class at a community center. Rather than the class having its own listing, Google's advice on this has historically been to try to get the eligible entity (the community center) to include mention of your class in their listing, rather than creating a listing yourself.
The only safe alternative for your friend would be if they want to become known, independent of the community center, as a separate licensed business. For example, if your friend wanted to establish themselves as a personal trainer, for hire, then they could create a listing for that using their own phone number and home address. With their address outside the city of location, you are right to guess that this means that they would most likely not appear for rankings within the community center's city, but this is the only path forward I can see for your friend in the local SERPS.
The organic SERPs are different, of course. Your friend could certainly build their own website to talk about their work and make an effort to get this ranking organically if the community center would give permission for their entity to be mentioned by a third party (your friend) on a third party website.
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 Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries Disappearing from Google Maps when Plurals used.
This is the second time I have posted this question and never got a satisfactory result. I have an SEO client in Tacoma Wa and when you type (Dispensaries Near Tacoma they are in the Top 3 snack pack and the Google maps shows 20 other similar businesses. However, when you search (Dispensary Near Tacoma) only 3 or 5 recreational marijuana shops show up and my client disappears. Someone earlier suggested it could be because of the categories selection, but that can't affect ALL the other shops and like I said it happens in other cities. for example Dispensary Near Olympia vs Dispensaries Near Olympia. I have the full write up and pictures and diagrams on my blog. Please HELP! This could affect your future clients also. https://isenselogic.com/local-business-disappearing-on-google-maps-when-plurals-used/
Local Listings | | isenselogic0 -
How do you fix a Google My Business Location Issue if the road doesn't yet exist on Google Maps?
My core question is just: How do you fix a Google My Business Location Issue if the road doesn't yet exist on Google Maps? Do I have any other options other than to just wait on Google to catch up with reality? Here's the background: I work for a hospital. We just opened a clinic on a street that is real and has a U.S. Postal Address, but Google Maps doesn't recognize it, and redirects people to a house . This is our postal address: 8343 S 168th Ave Omaha NE 68136-1677 If a patient enters the following into google maps, 8343 S 168th Ave, the location the map autofills the wrong zip code, and sends them to a home that is on S 168th Ave. (where in theory a home would exist if it had that home number). The road does exist in that portion of town. If a patient enters 8343 S 168th Ave, Omaha NE 68136, google maps takes you to the correct location, but it automatically changes Ave to St. The verified Google My Business listing also lists it as Street, even though on the back end I've put in the word Avenue, and it shows up in the right place. If however someone just searches by name "Chalco Clinic" the right Google My Business comes up. This is the Google My Business page I'm referring to: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Nebraska+Medicine+-+Chalco/@41.1754796,-96.1787153,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xf77aefb4e27f865!8m2!3d41.1754796!4d-96.1787153 And even though it says it's on a Street, on the back end of the claimed listing I've used "Avenue". In case it matters, this is the landing page for the location: https://www.nebraskamed.com/chalco
Local Listings | | Patrick_at_Nebraska_Medicine0 -
Structured data for business listings
If I have a page of 20 local business listings, do I need to provide structured data for each business listing? is that necessary and would it help with SEO? So if I have a page of Vancouver Brain Injury Lawyers, and list off 20 local law firms that focus on that type of injury, should I have structured data for each law firm that I list?
Local Listings | | EBKMarketing0 -
Does Google call your satellite offices and ask what's down the street?
Is this a real thing? Do they actually do this? Should I be concerned and train my receptionists to know their surroundings?
Local Listings | | marketingdepartment.ch6 -
Should citations include all your address? What is most important?
Hi I am looking to rank highly in local search for the city we are based in and I will be creating some citations so that we can rank for a city but have a problem. Our website lists us as being located in the Wirral which is a borough but Google + requires you to add a county for this line so could add either Merseyside or Cheshire. Should I leave this part of the citation out - i.e. Wirral or Merseyside. We are ranking well for the term Wirral and do not want to effect this. Could anyone advise me here so that we can start to rank better for the city Birkenhead? The Wirral is a peninsular as can be seen on Wilipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Borough_of_Wirral
Local Listings | | SEM_at_Lees0 -
What would Cause listing to fall off local search map spot?
Any reason a listing that was showing in Google between the 3 and 5 spot on local map search would suddenly disappear all together from the map position for a specific keyword?
Local Listings | | scott3150 -
Can we use different names in Google places for each location of a business?
I have a client who has several locations for their business. The company and the original location have one name - let's call it "National Clinic". Then, they have a series of urgent care clinics, named with the structure "National Clinic Urgent Care: Main St." and "National Clinic Urgent Care: Central Plaza". The When I'm creating my directory listings, for the urgent care locations, which option would you use for the name? a) National Clinic
Local Listings | | irapasternack
b) National Clinic Urgent Care
c) National Clinic Urgent Care: Main St.0 -
Help with Google Places, local listings & Google+ please!
Hi all, I work for enterprise app development & mobile consultancy, Mubaloo. I recently asked a question around getting better rankings for London-based search results. One answer was to set up a local listing for Mubaloo's London office. I thought I had done by setting up our London office up on Places for Business - is this the same as a local listing? In addition to this, I can't connect our existing Google+ page to our local Mubaloo Bristol & London listings as Google has created separate pages for each! Is anyone else having this issue? Can it be resolved?
Local Listings | | donaldsze0