Hey There!

Thanks so much for taking the time to contribute to this discussion. The geographic variations you mention sound normal to me, but the issue of the companies consistently ranking highly for no apparent reason is interesting. Are you saying the search is yielding a onebox (just one result) or a normal pack? Is the name of the business an exact or close match of the keyword phrase you're searching for? Is the business right in the middle of a cluster or similar businesses? Sounds like a good puzzle!

Hey Tom,

I see how this could be problematic. In general, Local SEOs will cite the guidelines Joey has, in which Google states they don't want this:

Location information, such as neighborhood, city, or street name, unless it is part of the real-world representation of the business.

So, short answer here is that you need to leave your name exactly as it appears in the real world on your websites and the citations that you can control (and, of course, your Google My Business listing). I wonder if it would be possible for you to reach out to the top 20 aggregators appearing for your core search and ask them to edit your listing name. If not, then the consolation here is that the playing field is level if competing colleges area all suffering the same fate with the aggregators. In other words, their percentage of NAP inconsistency would be the same as yours.

Anecdotally, what you're experiencing is also experienced by all multi-location businesses that list their locations on Facebook. Facebook won't let you have more than 1 FB Place with an identical name, so you have to be Joe's Diner Boston, Joe's Diner Chicago, Joe's Diner St. Paul, etc. Again, because their competitors are all in the same boat, it's something they don't really have to sweat.

100% NAP consistency isn't normally achievable. You want to be as consistent as you can, but don't stress about attaining absolute perfection, and my bet is that the inclusion of your city names on these aggregators is not hurting you very much, if at all. So, this would be a see-what-you-can-do-and-then-leave-it-at-that situation. Hope this helps! Interesting thread.

Hi Kristen,

Yeah, I just don't think Google+ really caught on the way Google might have hoped. But Posts could totally be interesting, if it becomes widely available.

Hi Michael!

By happy coincidence, I wrote a very BIG guide on this topic just recently here on the Moz Blog:

https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages

And this post talks about organizing the structure of your landing pages based on your business model. See the infographic at the top of:

https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-checklist

Hope these hit the spot !

Hi Michael!

There are 3 common approaches to your scenario which can be described as follows:

OPTION 1

This represents a very basic, good structure to be used when all service cities are deemed of equal importance:

• Build a unique landing page for each city served, optimized for each city + general info about your work in that city

• Build a unique landing page for each service, optimized for each service but not optimized for geo terms.

OPTION 2

Given Google's extreme bias toward physical location, this option can be used to maximize your optimization for your city of location, while still giving secondary focus to additional service cities where you lack a physical location:

• Build a unique landing page for each city served, optimized for each city + general info about your work in that city

• Build a unique landing page for each service, optimized for each service and also optimized for your city of location, strengthening the association between your services and your core city.

OPTION 3

This option should only be considered by companies with significant funding and exceptional creative resources that will ensure that all pages are unique and useful rather than duplicative, thin and harmful:

• Build a unique page for every possible keyword/geo combination. So:

Cloud Computing Sherman Oaks

Cloud Computing Van Nuys

Computer Repair Sherman Oaks

Computer Repair Van Nuys

etc.

*Again, this last approach should only be undertaken if you are positive the content you'll be developing has a definite purpose for users and that you won't end up weakening your website with a big menu of weak pages.

Options 1 & 2 tend to be the best bet for smaller companies with reasonable resources. Option 3 can work, but only where creative possibilities and big budget are available.

Hope this helps lay this out in a way that makes sense!

Hi Rosemary,

You are right to be concerned about promoting virtual locations. The only safe thing for them to do is to honestly state their real, physical locations and develop organic content around other cities they serve but lack locations in.

Happy Travels, Alan!

Google permits the development of what are called 'multi-practitioner listings'. In other words, a real estate firm with 2 partners is eligible for 3 listings (one of the business and one for each of the practitioners). My advice:

1. If you go with this approach, you would also build out a set of citations for each practitioner as well as those you build for the business. By citations, I mean other listings on platforms beyond Google My Business (Facebook, Yelp, Superpages, Localeze, Infogroup, etc.). You would typically link the business' listings to the homepage, and the practitioners' citations to their respective landing pages on the website, though you'd only want to do the latter once you have built an extremely good landing page for each of the two partners. Finally, wherever possible, choose different GMB categories for the two practitioners to try to skirt around Possum as best you can, so that your practitioners can avoid the heaviest effects of that filter.

2. Alternatively, you can decide not to build multi-practitioner listings and can simply build out the GMB listing for the brand and skip building citations for the partners. This is simpler, does not get tangled up in Possum (unless there are other real estate firms in your building). If you go this way, I would still recommend building content on the website representing the two partners, for the sake of users.

Does this make this a bit clearer?

Hey David!

That is confusing! Likely, you will have to go to Google on this one, but first:

1. Is your client the only lawyer at his new practice or are there multiple lawyers?

2. Can you gain access to the listing you are calling 'the old listing' to edit it?