Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Jason,

While I've not personally experienced this bug, I can imagine how frustrating it is! I think it's issues just like this one that have contributed to the popularity and rise of paid location data management services (like Moz Local, Whitespark, etc.). The days of spending hours banging one's head against a monitor over a single citation source are, fortunately, numbered, due to the emergence of these tools which resolve most (though not all) verification problems.

I wish I had a solution for you. You'll likely just have to keep phoning customer service until you can get someone to understand how irritating this bug is. Or, if you've run out of patience with the issue, consider the alternatives to manual management.

Intriguing title to this question!   You hooked me.

Important question: if your client has an online-only business, why does he have citations? Structured citations are normally restricted to local businesses that make in-person contact with consumers. Does your client interact face-to-face with his customers? If so, failure to correct citations is about the worst mistake he could be making in terms of reputation, rankings and revenue.

But, if your client's business model is virtual, he shouldn't really be creating local business listings and ought to get rid of them - especially any Google My Business listings as they would actually be a violation of Google's guidelines. However, if he has accrued non-structured mentions of his business (for example, social mentions, newspaper articles, blog posts, etc.) and they contain misinformation, the risk of neglecting this is that he is losing customers. If I'm correct in understanding that your client's business is virtual, I'd advise him to:

1. Get rid of all local business listings on the major local business data platforms

2. Make the effort to correct unstructured citations, unless he can afford to lose customers.

I'd give it the 'old college try' to make the client understand his profits are at being put at stake due to misinformation being published about his company and outline a sensible plan for addressing the issue (based on whether his business is truly local or virtual). Then, if the client wouldn't hear this, I'd let him go. In fact, I wouldn't serve a client who felt that bad data about his company could be neglected. I'd be foiled at every turn in trying to market his business and see progress. His attitude would be setting us both up for failure. Hope this helps, and good luck!

Hey Again Jason!

Just circling back to let you know that my tweet on this didn't receive any replies indicating that others have seen the blue dots. I even double checked with Joy Hawkins and she confirmed she hasn't seen this color variant. So, definitely sounds like a test. Good catch, and we'll see if it rolls out further.

Hi Foothills!

Good advice from Donna, and I highly recommend that you go through Joy Hawkins article http://www.joyannehawkins.com/the-proper-way-to-deal-with-duplicates-in-google-my-business/ with fine toothed comb before you make a move in any direction.

The article does a super job of explaining deletion, merging, etc. and links to another resource for understanding moving reviews from one entity to another. I believe it will be exactly what you're looking for!

I can see that, Donna. The race will be to the swift, for sure. Go small local businesses, go!!!

Good ones, Gyi! Thank you for contributing. Agree with everything on your list ... with the possible exception of (hopefully) less spam. This always seems to be at the bottom of Google's own list. Haha

Really enjoyed your points.

Hi Jeremy!

Would it not be organization/event Schema that would apply to your situation?

https://schema.org/Organization

That would be my best guess on this.

Good ones, Sean! Thanks for contributing to this. Especially like your prediction about 'near me' searches

I want to start this thread by thanking everyone in our community who has started and contributed to great threads this past year. You guys are an inspiration!

I want to offer up a few predictions for the Local SEO industry in 2017 and ask you to contribute your own:

1. Attribution will be big in 2017. Google will roll out a more thorough set of attributes in the GMB dashboard as we move forward through the new year.

2. We'll see further rollout out of paid packs in service industries in which Google can play the middle man role. Free-packs won't be gone by the end of the year, but there will be fewer of them.

3. Even SMB local businesses will have to start to tackle the ramifications of voice search.

4. Local SEO will continue to merge with traditional, offline marketing.

5. Local business websites will still matter, but Google will continue to do all it can to keep users within layers of its own local product, and some people will find this maze a bit bewildering.

6. Reviews will finally be recognized as an integral facet of citations, rather than as something separate from them.

Now, please, look into your own crystal ball and share your predictions with the community. What are your predictions for Local SEO in 2017? I'd love to know. And, while I'm at it, please let me wish each of you a busy and profitable new year in our exciting industry!

Hey There,

So, that horizontal display would be a 'carousel' of results, like Google rolled out a couple of years back. Bing rolled out their local carousel in 2014. Interestingly, the order of results in the carousel you've highlighted  does not in any way match Bing's local-finder-type results here. Nor am I seeing an immediate correlation between the carousel and what is appearing in the organic results.

What you've highlighted, in the larger scheme of things, is the lack of information our industry has published regarding Bing local ranking factors. Google has gotten all the love! The last article I can recall of this sort was written 4 years ago (http://searchengineland.com/10-basic-bing-local-optimization-tips-109158) and it's pretty basic stuff. It's hypothesized that Yelp reviews may especially help you on Bing, and I've also seen it posited that Facebook likes could be a factor. The major factors are likely similar to Google's, but they may be weighted differently and there may be unique Bing factors Google doesn't consider. And that's just the purely local factors I'm referencing ... as for how they are ordering their carousel results, I'm afraid I have no resources to which I can link you.

Basically, if there is a particular carousel you want to get into, you'd need to analyze the top 5-10 competitors in that pack to see what their strengths are. Is it Yelp reviews, links, on-page, citations, something else?

You've reminded me how much I would love to see our industry throw a little more attention Bing's way, in terms of Local, but Google has hogged more than its share of attention, and I plead as guilty to this as anyone else in Local. It would be really neat if someone with the time/resources would do a study to pin down what is driving the various types of local results in Bing.

And, if our community knows of something I've overlooked, please shout it out!

Ooh! Good catch. I don't recall seeing this before, Jason. I can't replicate it for your search or any others I'm trying. Are you seeing the blue marker for any other searches, or was it just that one? Likely a test .. and an interesting one. That blue stands out! I'm going to tweet your post and see if I get anyone tweeting back that they are seeing or have seen this. Thanks for sharing it here with the community!

P.S. Tweeted here: https://twitter.com/Miriam_Ellis_/status/809940080068612096 Let's see if we get any feedback.

Hi Frank!

Honored to know our Local SEO checklist provided a starting point for your work. That's great! So glad to be of help.

Hi Frank!

Your plan sounds good to me. Be sure the set of location landing pages is easily accessible either through a top level nav menu, or via an indexable store finder widget. And, of course, aim for the highest quality content on each of these page. Have you got something like this in place yet on each of the location landing pages: https://moz.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-creating-onsite-reviews-testimonials-pages

Getting your citation management going is critical (great to hear you'll be using Moz Local for this!). Don't overlook the importance of getting reviews. Google My Business reviews should be primary, and then focus on the other platforms your customers would commonly use to review businesses in each city in your industry.

And, finally, in 2017 (depending on the industry) you're going to want to delve into attribution within the Google My Business dashboard, if it's offered. Attribution, IMO, is about to get pretty big.

Hope this helps, and I do believe you've outlined a sensible plan. You might want to through our Local SEO Checklist to be sure you're firing on all cylinders: https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-checklist

Good luck!

Hi Kirupa,

I'm not sure I understand what you mean regarding 'wrong' information. If it's something you're seeing in your Moz Local dashboard, please definitely contact our Helpsters at help@moz.com.

Hi Tim,

In addition to that important link Dmitrii has shared, things to consider:

1. Be sure each location has its own local phone number

2. Be sure each location has its own landing page on the website, featuring that number

3. Be sure citations for each location clearly, consistently feature that number on the major platforms.

Differentiation of locations and consistency of data likely play a role in Google's trust.

Hi Gavo,

Sorry for my delayed reply. Had to take a few sick days off.

So, there are a few rather complex different aspects here. I'll try to hit everything:

1. If they are two legally distinct companies, then, yes, they can both have a GMB page. Be sure they've each got their own phone number and website.

2. You should not add fictitious suite numbers to businesses. If you get a legal suite number from the post office, that's okay, but Google's guidelines wants you to represent your business exactly as it appears in the real world. Anything else is a violation of the guidelines.

3. Now we start getting complicated. The truth is that Google doesn't even recognize suite numbers for most businesses, as recently highlighted by Joy Hawkins in her guest post here at Moz: https://moz.com/blog/7-citation-building-myths-plaguing-local-seo. So, there's that. Basically, if you have suite inconsistencies across your citations, it's not believed to be a big deal SEO-wise, though it can be very confusing for customers trying to find you (making it a big deal in a different way) All this being said, please refer back to point #2 - Google doesn't want fictitious location info in the address.

4. And, finally, the fact that the two businesses share an address and categories means that one or the other of them may be filtered out by Possum in the local packs/finders. So, ranking issues may be a pain in the neck here. Hat tip again to Joy here: read point number 2 in her SEL article about Possum: http://searchengineland.com/everything-need-know-googles-possum-algorithm-update-258900 When last I looked, having separate suite numbers did not enable businesses in the same building/same category scenario to escape Possum. So, it will be important to explain to the business owner that their results may play hide-and-seek due to this issue.

So, there you go: a real crash course in the complexities of the scenario you've described. Hope this helps illuminate some of the details.

Hi Bob,

I want to clarify that I'm not suggesting you write about a specific company (as in Green Tree Medical center has title tag problems). Rather, you want to look at major local industries to discover their most common failings/needs. For example, you might do an audit of dental offices in Boise, and discover that a problem that seems to be plaguing half of them is multi-practitioner duplicates. So, then you could begin addressing that audience, talking about how Boise dentists are losing reputation and revenue owing to this situation, as they fail to rank well. Then, you'd explain about how to fix this. And then, of course, you'd offer to be the go-to agency to undertake the work, as many of the dentists are unlikely to have the time to do so.

That's just a scenario off the top of my head. There may be industries in your town which particularly interest you, and that you'd enjoy serving. What I'm suggesting might be an approach to starting to make headway, proving your authority in your target markets.

Hi Kirupa,

No, indeed, if your company has 2 physical locations that serve the public, then you are entitled to 2 unique Google My Business listings and 2 full, unique sets of citations. Just be sure that each location has its own phone number, you should have no problems at all. Think of big franchises and the 100s or 1000s of locations they have - and each one is entitled to have citations built for it. No worries at all!

This might help:

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

Hi Justin,

Glad those resources helped, and your follow-up question is one I'd answer with 'it depends'. When a business' city of location is the major city (like, let's say San Francisco) then, yes, I would strongly optimize all main page elements with that city, because - hey - it's the BIG city! But, let's say the business is located in a small town outside that city (let's say Mill Valley) and there are larger cities the business serves (like San Francisco), then I might be a little more sparing in overemphasizing the small town. So, this is really a case-by-case thing. You should experiment with different forms of optimization if the physical city isn't the major city, and see how this affects conversions. Hope this helps!

Hi Gavo,

Quick questions: Do these 2 businesses share the same Google My Business categories and are these legally two unique businesses?

So glad to have helped!

Hey There,

Your city of physical location is your core city/core keyword, so yes, it would typically be a good strategy to use that geo term on your main pages (Home, About, Contact, etc.) and then develop city landing pages for the other cities in which you serve. This article should help:

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

And this one, too:

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

Hi Beachflower,

I want to be sure I'm understanding the finer details of this. What I think you are describing is that there is actually just one business: Corporate Data Recovery, but that they have built 4 different websites representing the main business + 3 different cities. Is that correct? (Please let me know if I've misunderstood).

But, if I'm understanding correctly, then, yes, this is a problem. As things presently stand, Corporate Data Recovery would be allowed to build just one Google My Business listing and 1 set of citations across the various platforms to represent it. It would not be allowed to build citations for the Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne websites that have been built.

If the business wants to keep running the 3 city websites in addition to the Corporate Data Recovery site, they should:

1. Remove all addresses and phone numbers from those city websites. They should each have their own, unique phone number and should not be citing the physical address of Corporate Data Recovery in any way.

2. Be sure those sites are not duplicating one another's content in any way

3. Be sure those sites are not using bad cross linking practices in an attempt to promote one another (see Rand's recent Whiteboard Friday on this: https://moz.com/blog/backlinks-maximize-benefits-avoid-problems-whiteboard-friday)

4. Be sure you are not building citations for these location-less city sites. If citations exist, close them.

To bring some further clarity to this, businesses sometimes create this scenario your client is in because they are trying to hone in on a particular geography/keyword via the creation of a mini-site for that phrase. While this can sometimes work at winning specific traffic, it's important to understand that these mini/multi sites do NOT represent local businesses. They represent keywords. Corporate Data Recovery is a local business with a physical address and phone number, but the Brisbane/Melbourne/Sydney sites are NOT local business websites: they are simply marketing materials, and therefore, ineligible for many of the tactics one would use to promote a local business.

The main danger here is that the multi-site approach will actually weaken the NAP (name, address phone) clarity of Corporate Data Recovery (the actual local business). So, if the client wishes to continue running those other sites, they should implement the 4 practices I've highlighted, above, to lessen risk of negative outcomes.

It's because of the complexity of scenarios like these that many Local SEOs will advise clients to build a single, powerful website for their brand, with content on it targeting each of their desired terms/markets. It's a great deal simpler to market a single website, with no concerns about NAP degradation, duplicate content, etc. That being said, there are some cases in which mutli-sites can be valuable, if the company knows how to manage and use them properly, resulting in benefit to the business, rather than harm.

Hope this helps!

Hi Varun,

While you can't disable the suggest an edit feature, you can report incorrect edits to the Google My Business forum:

https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-My-Business/ct-p/GMB

Be sure you give the complete details of the listing, the history of the edit that was made, and anything else you can think of that would help. Cross your fingers that a Top Contributor will take a look at your post and help you. Hope this helps!

Hi John,

What you are referring to I would roughly term as a 'place label' though your industry doesn't have dedicated icons, as do restaurants or medical centers. Here is Google's somewhat old page on these:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/6056435?hl=en&ref_topic=4854129

They state:

_The place labels shown on Google Maps are determined algorithmically based on a large number of factors. One factor these algorithms consider is the accuracy of the business information and the richness of the content associated with the business. _

What you're experiencing is not uncommon, and your best hope is in excelling at as many of the factors as possible in the many that Google may take into consideration. How strong are your citations, how clean, are there duplicates, etc. Hope this points you in the right direction.

Thanks, Michael!

While what I say here can't equal a professional audit, I'm going to take a quick look at your business and one of your keywords (limo service charleston sc).

Using our free Moz Check Listing tool, I see you've got quite a few inconsistencies on the major local business data platforms:

https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMkNoYXJsZXN0b24lMjUyMEJsYWNrJTI1MjBDYWIlMjUyMENvbXBhbnklMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjIyOTQwNyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMkNoYXJsZXN0b24lMjUyMEJsYWNrJTI1MjBDYWIlMjUyMENvbXBhbnklMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjIxNTI5JTI1MjBTYW0lMjUyMFJpdHRlbmJlcmclMjUyMEJsdmQlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjIyOTQwNyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjg0MzIxNjI2MjclMjUyMiUyNTVE

You have duplicate listings on Facebook and several other platforms. Your duplicate listing on Facebook is throwing up a little red flag for me. This is what I see:

Your correct NAP is:

Charleston Black Cab Company

1529 Sam Rittenberg Blvd, Ste 2B, Charleston, SC, 29407
(843) 216-2627
www.charlestonblackcabcompany.com

But I see a Facebook duplicate with:

Charleston Black Cab Company

7281 Cross County Rd, North Charleston, SC 29418 
(843) 216-2627
http://www.charlestonblackcabcompany.com/

Perhaps this is a second location, or you have moved, but in any case your name and phone number are being tied to two different addresses. If this is an old address, you need to close the duplicates and all old references to it. If it's a second location, it must not share a phone number with the Sam Rittenberg Blvd location.

I am also seeing a duplicate YP listing with this info:

Charleston Black Cab Company

1140 Barfield St, Daniel Island, SC 29492 
(843) 216-2627

So, same as above, whether this is a previous or active address.

Looks like you have some citation cleanup to do. If you are a Moz Local customer, our tool will certainly help with this important aspect of your active location data management. If you are not a customer, please study the results of the free tool closely and take manual actions to resolve inconsistent data and seek duplicate closure. *Please note that Moz Local is not finding your Google My Business listing because Google does not show us service area businesses with hidden addresses. It's correct that you've hidden your address on Google in compliance with their guidelines ... please make 100% certain that your address is correct in your GMB dashboard, though.

Now, I'm taking a look at Google's local results for 'limo service charleston sc', keeping in mind, of course, that what I see in my location will not be identical to what you or your customers see.

While not in the 3 pack, you are coming in at #6 in the local finder view:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Charleston+Black+Cab+Company&oq=Charleston+Black+Cab+Company&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3j69i61j69i60.665j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=limo+service+charleston+sc&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=32800332,-79976385,5062&tbm=lcl&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:2,lf_pqs:EAE

The good news is that I don't see geography locking you out of the results. In other words, there doesn't appear to be a centroid issue playing a role here ... you are located in approximately the same area as the 5 businesses outranking you. Good to see.

I notice there is no place marker on the map designating your business at the automatic zoom setting. Not sure why that is, but it does make me wonder how much Google trusts the data they have about your business. I notice this on a few of your competitors as well, but others do have the place marker, with their name written out on the map.

I notice that you have earned many, many more reviews than any of your competitors. On the one hand, that's awesome, on the other hand, we always have to ask the question (no offense meant here) of whether you are positive that the review earning process is sticking to the letter of Google's guidelines. You'll want to be certain that you haven't somehow offended the Google gods in any way.

A couple more things ... I'm looking at your website and see:

1. You're doing a good job trying to cover a variety of user groups that need limo rental, but some of the pages you've devoted to these are on the short side. Do you feel you've made the best possible effort, or is there more you could do?

2. I wonder about the business name. Most of your competitors have the word 'limo' in their name. I wonder if the fact that you are using the words 'black cab' instead of 'limo' is giving your competitors an advantage. Not a lot you can do about this, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

3. Have you made sure there are no errors being reported in Google Search Console? Likely you have, but just mentioning

Summing Up

The citation situation is paramount. Getting those cleaned up really matters. I can't see if you have Google duplicates because the business is an SAB, but a full citation audit and the use of automated tools + possible manual correction seems warranted here given how quickly Moz Check Listing surfaced 3 different addresses tied to the same phone number.

The review situation and more thoughts on the website come second.

These are at-a-glance thoughts. There is likely more to be looked at, but I hope this gives you a good start!

Hi Ricky,

Got it. On that page I've linked to, Google gives instructions for what to do if an Editorial Summary is wrong. Please, check that out.

That's a good link from Dmitrii, but this one is newer (from just last week): https://moz.com/community/q/google-my-business-two-businesses-same-location

Please, read through my answer on that, which sounds like it exactly describes your client's scenario. Then, if you have further questions, please ask them

Hi Varun,

Suggest An Edit is not a mistake on Google's part, as you mention in your blog post, but rather, a feature. Here are some links for further reading on this:

https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Basics-for-Business-Owners/Incorrect-edits-applied-by-Google/m-p/568892/highlight/true#M7992

https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Basics-for-Business-Owners/Can-you-remove-the-quot-Suggest-an-edit-quot-from-a-google/m-p/568400/highlight/true#M7930

Hope these help!

Hi Michael!

I'm sure our cool community will love to help you out in any way they can. We'll need some further details, though, to dig into your scenario. The link you are sharing is going to a login screen (so, not visible to the public). Can you share:

1. The name and address of your business?

2. The top 1-3 keyword phrases you're hoping to compete for?

3. A link to your website?

If you're able to share these details, I'm sure you'll receive good feedback from the community

So happy it helped, Nathan!

Hey Rickey!

What you are referring to is called an Editorial Summary. Originally, these came from Zagat, but at this point, Google's documentation simply mentions that "Writers compile these short descriptions, which give you a quick snapshot of a popular business." They may be based, in part, on 3rd party sources, and do not appear to be algorithmic. Google does not give any further specifics about the identity of these 'writers', but I think it's a fascinating and poorly documented facet of local business listings.

Are you seeing a bad editorial summary you're trying to correct, or were you just curious about this?

Hey Bob,

Suggestions: research the biggest employers in Boise and the industries they occupy. Is it medical, agricultural, tech, etc? Then, spend time looking at what the major players in that city are doing in terms of their SEO. Find errors in their marketing strategies and begin writing about how to correct them. Provide 90% free advice, with gentle hooks into your consulting offers to get the remaining 10% of advice by hiring you. Promote your content socially, follow major local players, interact with them. Hope this helps!

Hi Nathan,

If I'm understanding this right, your scenario is like a General Appliance Repair company that repairs all appliances, but has now separately branded just Washing Machine Repair as its own business. Both brands are actually just one company, operating from the same address. Is that right?

If it us, unfortunately, no, the business should not be trying to run two Google My Business listings. The General Appliance Repair company is forbidden by Google's guidelines from creating listings for each service it offers (as in 1 for washing machine repair, 1 for stove repair, 1 for dryer repair, 1 for water heater repair) regardless of the number of websites/brands it creates for these service categories. The guidelines read:

Do not create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts.

Likely outcomes should this business try to run 2 GMB listings as though it were 2 separate companies could include:

• Competitors or Local SEOs reporting the practice to Google or Google noticing it on their own

• Google taking down 1 of the 2 listings, and possible penalties

• Even if Google does not catch this now or even for years, Possum may simply cause the second listing to be hidden due to shared location/categories

So, the outlook isn't great for this scenario (please let me know if I've misunderstood details of the scenario).

This brings up the question - how can a business branch out in a Google guideline-compliant way? With these 4 things:

1. Don't build a separate brand of the same company - build a legally distinct second company, registered with government agencies. In other words: General Appliance Repair is one legally registered business and Washing Machines R Us is a second legally registered business.

2. Operate at a separate location

3. Have a separate phone number for each business

4. Have a separate website for each business, with no duplicate content and avoid cross-linking/cross-promotion

This approach is risk-free and completely guideline-compliant.

Hope this helps.

Hi Conalt,

Nearly all of Google's documentation regarding POIs is for developers making maps and, to be honest, I feel it has been 5 or so years since I've last even seen a good discussion regarding the term 'points of interest'. There should be more discussion of this, as clearly, this is still highly featured in searches like the one you cited. You might look here for more information: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topicsearchin/maps/points$20of$20interest

My guess is that what Google chooses to show in these types of searches is algorithmic, but what that algo may be, I have no resources to point out. So sorry, and if you're setting yourself the task of learning about this, it would be wonderful if you'd share what you learn with our community.

Hi John,

This is the first I've heard of this. Hmm, I wonder what changed. I would recommend bringing this up in Google's own forum to see if they have any feedback about what happened and why. Sorry not to have any advice on this one.

Hi John!

This is a good question. I highly, highly recommend watching Rand's Whiteboard Friday: https://moz.com/blog/google-may-analyze-evaluate-quality-content-whiteboard-friday

This does a better job than I can, in a few sentences, to explain how an individual page of your website relates to your overall brand. I think this is where your thoughts are going with this. Please, watch the video and come back with further questions.

In the meantime, what I'll say is that what you are actually trying to do is to build topical authority. So, if your business is a landscaping company serving the San Francisco Bay Area, all of those individual topical pages you are building to represent your service areas (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, etc.) go toward building your overall authority. And, too, of course you can build internal links from your location landing pages to your homepage, if appropriate, but that may not always be the case.

Hope the video helps!

Thanks for the kind mention of that article, Ma Veronica B.

Hey Marcus!

What good insights ... particularly about the 'fun' of coupons. I honestly think the coupon-collecting ladies I knew when I was young were making a sort of game of it, and maybe even feeling a bit smarter than the 'average Joe' who was paying full price when he could have done better for himself with a little effort.

And, yes indeed, every coupon is a brand exposure. I would love to hear more from our community, if any of you are having success running coupons (or even if you don't run a business, but are a coupon clipper and have something to share about what motivates you).

Thanks, again, Marcus, for the interesting observations!

Hi Rosemary,

That's not ringing an immediate bell. Can you define for me what you mean by real time Marketing Google results?

Howdy To Our Super Community!

When I was a kid, I was always fascinated by ladies who spent hours combing through newspapers and mailers, clipping coupons to put in a coupon drawer for future shopping excursions. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to in order to save a a few bucks, especially given that I grew up in an era that still boasted a pretty stable middle class, but, it turns out, those ladies of yore were really onto something.

A recent survey by Bazaarvoice and CMO Council found that coupons and discounts drive way more return/loyalty business amongst modern shoppers than any other factor, including recommendations from family and friends and paid advertising. Another survey by ROTH and Research Now discovered that 70% of millennial moms sought and downloaded mobile coupons while doing their shopping chores.

There are a couple of facets of these findings that should interest any e-commerce business or local retailer. We've learned from a variety of studies that it can cost up to 7x more to earn a new customer than to retain an existing one, making loyalty programs smart business. Meanwhile, publications like the Wall Street Journal have made it clear that, in the U.S., the middle class is no longer the majority. These two factors seem to lend themselves to an important discussion for our community here at Moz, and in the marketing world at large.

What is driving 70% of young mothers to use mobile coupons, as per the above study?

Is it tight budgets, the love of a deal, pride in outsmarting 'the system' with a little extra effort?

Is your company using coupons? Which ones have you seen convert most highly? Is there some element to them you've discovered to be a real winner?

Interestingly, price is repeatedly cited as a minor factor in customer complaints, and yet, I've personally seen discounts/sales drive business like mad in both e-commerce and retail settings. Just how powerful is the love a deal?

I would love it if you'd contribute your coupon/discount savvy to a discussion here, to help our community better latch onto this massively powerful influence. What are your thoughts and first-hand experiences?

Hi Marcus,

I haven't see a case like you described regarding getting caught in a duplication filter. Like I said, I'm really not an expert on penalties. In your shoes, with a client with this complex of a history, I would hire an expert. It could save the client months of trouble. I'm sure you really know your stuff, but even the best SEOs can overlook things. I'd want a second opinion from someone who looks at penalties and filters all day long to tell me if I'm missing something.

Hey Donald,

I have 4 questions:

Are these local businesses (i.e. do they serve clients in person vs. virtually?)

Are they branded separately? If so, how separately? Is it Jones Payroll and Davis Time & Attendance, or is it Jones Payroll and Jones Time & Attendance?

Do they occupy the same physical address?

Do they each have a unique phone number?

Hi Marcus!

Thanks for pinging me on Twitter. I'm not a penalty expert, so I'm going to start my advice with this recommendation: I highly, highly recommend that you hire a penalty expert to consult with you on this prior to advising your client to make a move in any direction. The sheer length of your client's story = a very tangled scenario that is going to need to be investigated from the ground up for resolution. Advice given while not looking at your actual client's properties could actually make the problem worse rather than better (arggghh!) and that is the last thing your client needs right now. So, I highly recommend investing in consulting with an expert. I would recommend you consider seeing if Joy Hawkins has availability. Her coverage of both Penguin and Possum is excellent. She knows her stuff and may be one of the few Local SEOs out there with the patience and skill to get to the root of your client's issues and map out a plan for cleaning them up.

So, with that being said, this is what I see:

1. It's extremely unfortunate that in your client's effort to avoid NAP confusion with their father's business, they ended up sharing a property with a same-industry competitor. That really raises a red flag for me, and when coupled with the fact that the competitor then copied their structure/strategy/content ... yes, it makes perfect sense that Google would be suspicious that this is really one business trying to brand itself as two. It has all the earmarks. Worrisome.

2. This thread at Linda Buquet's Local Search forum might interest you, http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-search/43121-have-you-seen-any-local-rankings-you-feel-were-affected-penguin-4-0-a.html Marie Haynes might also be another good person for you to contact.

Hope this helps!

Hi Gabe,

1. If they don't have separate phone numbers, then I personally would not advise building citations for them. Google wants the number you list for a location to connect as directly as possible to the specific location. Lacking this, I wouldn't build citations, but you might find varying opinions on this.

2. Yes, if you decide to build citations for each building, you are talking about building a complete, unique citation set for each locations. So 20 buildings would equal 20 citation sets.

3. In a correct scenario, properly created listings for multi-department businesses should not water anything down. However, your scenario may not qualify as 'correct', given lack of unique numbers.

4. Here's an example. This is USF: https://www.google.com/maps/place/University+of+San+Francisco/@37.7766466,-122.4528717,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8085874a311220bb:0x6a56ca6f837ff84e!8m2!3d37.7766466!4d-122.450683

And here is a unique building on this campus (note separate phone number): https://www.google.com/maps/place/Phelan+Hall/@37.7762416,-122.4497874,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x68467e565121581b?sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEjOWA7YDQAhVkilQKHbXTA0YQ_BIIeDAK

I haven't looked closely at how this university is doing things, but I was able to find that example in a couple of seconds. Hopefully, you can find others.

Adhering to the letter of Google's guidelines, any citation set you build should have a real world guideline-compliant name, direct phone number and accurate street address. Any variation from this can lead to problems. Hope this helps!

Yes, I believe you'll want to edit your existing Facebook Place, but be advised that this can be a bumpy ride. Read:

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/community/question/?id=170150370002945

https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10151344790651951

Hope these help!

Hey Gabe,

Because Google continues to dominate Local, we normally take our queues from them. Google's guidelines allow a unique listing for major departments of campus-style entities like colleges and medical centers. Google states:

• Individual practitioners and departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may have separate pages. See specific guidelines about individual practitioners and departments for more information.

Publicly-facing departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own page. The exact name of each department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments. Typically such departments have a separate customer entrance and should each have distinct categories. Their hours may sometimes differ from those of the main business.

• Acceptable (as distinct listings):
  • "Walmart Vision Center"
  • "Sears Auto Center"
  • "Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Dermatology"
• Not acceptable (as distinct listings):
  • The Apple products section of Best Buy
  • The hot food bar inside Whole Foods Market

For each department, the category that is the most representative of that department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments.

• The main business "Wells Fargo" has the category "Bank" whereas the department "Wells Fargo Advisors" has the category "Financial Consultant"
• The main business "South Bay Toyota" has the category "Toyota Dealer" whereas the "South Bay Toyota Service & Parts" has the category "Auto Repair Shop" (plus the category "Auto Parts Store")
• The main business "GetGo" has the category "Convenience Store" (plus the category "Sandwich Shop") whereas the department "GetGo Fuel" has the category "Gas Station", and the department "WetGo" has the category "Car Wash"

So, basically, for each set of citations you build for a major building on the campus, you need to have a unique name that adheres to the guidelines, and where possible, a unique category (can be hard with schools), I HIGHLY recommend also having:

• A unique phone number for any department you list

• A unique landing page on the college website for that department, linked to from the GMB listing and all other citations.

What you need to strive for is that if English Hall has its own citations, they are consistent across the web. Moz Local can really help you ascertain inconsistencies and duplicates. You want to have the NAP+W be as consistent as possible everywhere, shoring up Google's trust in the validity of the data they have about your business.

Hi Erik!

Coincidentally, I just had a piece published at Local Search Insider that describes how to handle business moves. I wrote this specifically for seasonal businesses that move every year, but the steps would apply to you, too:

http://www.lsainsider.com/its-so-easy-its-scary-how-halloween-businesses-can-avoid-losing-customers-to-seasonality/archives

Please, let me know if reading that answers your questions, and if you have others, please ask away!

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the additional details. Okay, so I now understand that you have 2 physical locations and sell/rent a menu of products.

You have 2 options.

Option 1

You create a unique, strong landing page for each of your locations. This post explains the types of content you'll want to include on these pages. These pages overview your complete service menu, but focus highly on addition information that relates specifically to that locale. You'll want testimonials/reviews (see this post) and other types of persuasive content that engender trust in what your company does in that target city.

Separately, you'll also create a set of pages for each of the services you offer. Describe each service in great detail on its own page. Link to these pages from the city landing pages and vice versa. You can mention locale on these pages, but the main focus should be on the items you rent/sell.

Be sure all of the above pages are easily accessible from a top level menu.

Continue to build out content on the site or attached blog over time.

Option 2

You create a unique page for every possible keyword combination. So, you'd have a Memphis Floor Scrubber Rental page and a Nashville Floor Scrubber Rental page, and so on.

You can take this approach, but only if you can avoid the pitfalls of redundancy/duplicate content. It's kind of old-school at this point to take this approach. Unless you can find a very strong reason to create all of the pages for the good of users, this method can be a bit of an overkill and can often result in a low quality site with a lot of thin or duplicate content instead of a high quality site with best-in-class pages.

So...

I typically prefer Option one for small-to-medium businesses, with maximum effort being put into making the smaller set of pages very high quality.

And don't forget to link all of your citations for the Nashville location to your Nashville page, and the same goes for Memphis.

Hope this helps