We've experienced this issue in the past. Uninstalling the toolbar and reinstalling seemed to fix the problem for us. Otherwise, Kristina provided very detailed and helpful instructions that I am sure will help solve your problem!

Check out this support page from Google: https://support.google.com/business/answer/6187665

No matter what, duplicated locations for multiple accounts are a violation of Google My Business' quality guidelines. Simply put, this can negatively affect how you show up in search results. SO. You can choose to put that address on ONE of the accounts.

As for whether or not merging your accounts would be worth it, it may be best to speak with a professional at Google. They can hear the uniqueness of your situation and help you choose the best route for both pages. The contact page is a little tricky to find, so here's the link: https://support.google.com/business/contact/business_c2c_m?rd=2

Hope this helps!

There’s no problem with changing your phone number as long as you change it EVERYWHERE. NAP (name, address, phone number) is a very important part of SEO. Why? Well, search engines like Google take this data into account when determining which cities to show for geo-targeted searches. Some local SEO experts believe that Google and other top search engines cross-reference your NAP info across a variety of websites to ensure your business is legitimate. Long story short: make sure your phone number is consistent across the board. Hope that was helpful!

Hi there,

This is a great question.

Recently I've found that Google is placing high value on photos on a business's GMB profile. Because of this, I suggest that you do not use one set of interior photos for all of the locations. While I don't think you will necessarily get penalized, it's probably best to follow the guidelines Google has in place In case they do penalize you later down the road -- and then you would have to go back and make adjustments after the fact. Even if it takes some time, I would focus on getting photos of each individual location for their profile.

Hi Miss Thumann,

One thing to be careful of when creating a second blog site is competition against your existing site. If you plan on using pages on this new site with content that is similar to or identical to the existing site, then you will only be competing against yourself for rankings. So if you would like to create a second blog, then I would HIGHLY suggest targeting different key words then you used the first time around

The Moz website currently says "Until the new experience launches, we've closed the submission process for the old YouMoz Blog, and existing YouMoz posts will remain available at their current URLs." so stay tuned to be able to guest blog!

This is a great opportunity to test some of your ideas. It may be a good idea to create unique landing pages based on the most highly search keyword per region and target them on the corresponding geo-page. Read more about great ways to rank geo-targeted pages--and make them convert: https://moz.com/blog/scaling-geo-targeted-local-landing-pages-that-really-rank-and-convert-whiteboard-friday

However, it may be agood idea to optimize the homepage, about page, and service description pages for the products rather than the locations.And, since you're a national brand, it may be smart to try so PPC ads to geo-target your advertising and use those keywords accordingly.

Hi Richard!

We work with a lot of home service (HVAC, pest control, landscaping) companies and from our experience we've found that (like Tymen mentioned) dropdowns are ok as long as you don't make them keep dropping out further and further. It also depends on the amount of services you are trying to fit in the navigation.

Majority of our clients' websites' top level navigation would have - About | Landscape Maintenance | Landscape Design/Build | Portfolio | Contact - or something about those lines. Under "Landscape Maintenance" we might include Lawn Mowing, Irrigation Services, etc., in the drop down, but instead of continuing to add to the drop down, we would only link the top priority services from the drop down and list additional services with internal links from the main Landscape Maintenance page.

On our HVAC clients we might have "Heating" listed at the top most link in the navigation that has a drop down to Furnaces and Heat Pumps, and then we would include another drop down that includes links to the Installation, Maintenance, and Repair pages for both these services. I would only recommend doing double drop downs if your navigation doesn't include many services. For instance, if you have a bunch of services listed under Heating that ALL have an additional drop down, it could negatively impact user experience.

We try to pair down the main navigation to be as simple, but helpful/effective as possible, and include links to additional (less prominent) services from other landing pages instead of trying to jam pack everything in the top level navigation.

I hope this helps you figure out how to pair down the services!

Hi Mark!

When writing blogs for our clients I make the photo link to "none" UNLESS it is a brand logo or something of the like that can link to the brand/manufacturer's website. I find that this could negatively impact the user experience if they click the photo only to realize it brings them to a webpage that only shows the image.

The most important information when adding a photo is the ALT tag. This lets the crawlers know what the image is of.

If I were you, I would ensure all the photos being added have an image ALT tag but do not link to just the image file to ensure positive user experience.

Hope this helps!

Hi there!

I have to agree with Miriam. Because Google is constantly changing or getting rid of things they offer, I would be weary of building out all your online citations with a phone number that could eventually need to be updated—causing you a lot of headaches until you get this updated across the board.

I would look into setting up some type of call tracking. This will be an easier way for you to determine where users found your number, which location they're calling into, etc. If you're interested in learning a bit more about why we suggest call tracking, check out this blog we wrote about it.

Let me know if you have any other questions—happy to help!