Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Rich,

I know those EMDs can be so tempting to use, particularly because Google still appears to have a bias towards keywords in the domain after all these years, but I'm going to attempt to explain here why you are likely hearing 'no-no' on this.

Your topic is such a good one, that I'm going to break this response down into 4 different parts, looking at this from 4 different viewpoints.

1. You're an electrician physically located in Jacksonville. You install lighting, you install wiring, you do residential work, you do commercial work. You offer half a dozen or more different services, but they all fall under the general heading of electrical work. Because you have a single office you're working out of, you are only allowed to build a single Google My Business listing, based on your Jacksonville location and using the categories Electrician and Electrical Engineer. You set this up as a service area business in your GMB dashboard, because you serve a variety of towns around your Jacksonville location. You are not allowed to create additional GMB listings for each of your services nor for cities where you don't have a physical location. So, in sum, you've got one GMB listing, properly categorized and listing one business name, one address, one phone number and one website. This is the sum of the information you are sending directly to Google about your business, via the GMB dashboard.

2. Now, we need to step into the shoes of a Googlebot to picture what happens from here, once you've created that GMB listing. We (the Googlebot) have this info about ABC Electrical at 123 Main St in Jacksonville, phone number (904) 365-7777 and URL www.abcelectrical.com. We head out to the web to cross-check this data we have with every other piece of data that seems to relate to this. We run into confusion very quickly because we start to encounter:

• The same physical street address on 6 different websites

• A shared phone number on 2 websites

• Some duplicated content on 4 websites

• A shared or similar business name on 3 sites

We thought the electrician told us his business was ABC Electrical at X address, X phone number and X website URL. So what is all this stuff? How does ABC Electrical relate to ABC Electrical Jacksonville Beach, or ABC Electrical Palm Beach, or Enterprise Electrical Jacksonville? We aren't totally sure and we don't think we 'trust' our data about this business which seems confusing. We'd rather rank a business highly when we're positive that it's relevant to the searcher, and we just don't feel sure how relevant ABC is, given how their data is all over the place. In fact, there's a chance ABC could be trying to game us, trying to appear as if it is 6 businesses instead of 1 and in 6 locations instead of 1. Hmm, we don't really like that at all.

3. Okay, so that was us being Googlebot. Kind of silly, I know, but I find it helps me to tell a story to myself like this to help me envision possible paths. Now, let's turn back into being you, the business owner. You have been in your industry for a long time, and have been building a brand called Empire Electric. You've had a single website you've been working to make the very best site on its topic in its geography. Likely, just doing this has represented a considerable investment of time and money. You've got a blog on this site, and it's challenging enough to find time every week to write something awesome on it, but you're doing it. You're making that time. You're dedicated to building that brand!

Now, suddenly, instead of concentrating all the spare time and budget you have on your one website, your one blog, you are considering splitting that up into 2, 3, 4, 5 different parts. Ask yourself seriously if you will have the time to develop totally unique, high quality content for each separate site, and to write not one blog post a week, but five, so that every site you run is equally good, equally the best of its kind in its city. Or, if not the time, the money to pay a really excellent copywriter and blogger to achieve all of this for you on an initial and then ongoing basis? Or, will trying to run all this and/or pay for all this just end up detracting from your original goal of making your company and main website the leader in its industry/geography? Will you end up with half a dozen poor quality websites instead of one powerhouse website?

4). Now, finally, let's be me - the Local SEO, or any of those other Local SEOs you've heard 'no-no' from on this. Why are you getting this response? It's because this is what we've seen with other businesses that went with a multi-site path instead of a single site one:

• NAP inconsistency across multiple websites, killing trust in the true data for the brand.

• Duplicate content

• Thin, weak content

• Neglected websites

• Owner burnout

• Efforts being spread too thin to have the effect we hoped for

• And, in extreme cases, filters, penalties and GMB takedowns!

So, that's what the no-no comes from. If you're hearing this, it's because this is what Local SEOs have seen so many times, they are worried that the same things will happen to you. To be totally honest, those you've heard this from likely feel doubtful that your business is going to be the exception that ensures that all guidelines are obeyed, no NAP is shared or convoluted, no content is thin, no content is duplicated,all sites are kept fresh and active at all times, and that there is absolutely ZERO footprint linking one website to another in any way. That is a really big list of requirements, and in fairness, it is actually possible to meet all of those requirements. It may be that you do have the time, the funding and the technical skills to meet every one of these requirements for a multi-site approach. If you do, then, yes, you could go this way.

But will it be worth it?

It's my personal opinion that it is almost always better to build the best darned authoritative website in your industry/geography, putting every bit of time and money into turning that site into a powerhouse for your brand, rather than spreading yourself thin over a bevy of websites. After all, at the end of the day, it's your brand that you want on the lips of your neighbors. You want them to know to call Empire Electric for all of the electrical needs. You don't want them to try to remember they saw some site called electricalservicesjacksonville.com. That's not a brand. It's just a bunch of keywords.

Moz is a good example we can look at. It offer a variety of products and services, all under the Moz roof. But, imagine if Moz instead had one site for this forum, another for Pro, another for Local, another for our blog, another for YouMoz, one for Seattle, another for our customers in Portland, and San Francisco, and Denver. Doesn't it make it easier for you, the community member, to know you just come to Moz for everything we offer? And wouldn't it be easier for your customers throughout Florida to know that they just come to Empire Electric for every service you offer in every city in which you serve?

Whew - long response, but it's scenarios like these that represent a major decision for a business like yours, and they deserve all the thought you can give them, taking into account how all paths might affect the future of your business. I'll just close by addressing the fact again that, yes, Google is still weighting EMDs in Local SEO. I see totally awful websites ranking because of keywords in their domains ... but I do not expect this to last. I predict that the continuous growth of Google's sophistication will one day result in a crackdown on these low quality sites. When that day comes, I'd certainly be glad I'd built a fortress at my single, branded domain and I'd sit back, and watch those EMD competitors who never deserved to rank well in the first place fall down the rankings. I'd be in pretty good shape

Hope this helps!

Hi Rachel,

Thank you so much for sharing more details about this. So, if there is no one at the NYC office, what is there at that address? Anything?

Hi There,

This past summer, Yahoo did spin off their small business division into Aabaco. Here's an article on this:

https://www.aabacosmallbusiness.com/learnmore

Yahoo's own links to creating a listing seem to all point here https://www.aabacosmallbusiness.com/local-listings but there just hasn't been much of an outcry over this because I think not many Local SEOs are promoting Yahoo as a must-list platform to their clients anymore. Max Minzer's awesome list says this about Yahoo (http://www.reengageconsulting.com/be-where-your-customers-are-with-local-business-listings/#yahoo

Listing Support:

Some support is available but don’t rely on it! General support and information provided.

• (408) 916-2149 – support if you create an incident number.
• @YSmallBizCare – Aabaco Small Biz Support Twitter account. Your best bet for free listing support.
• Customer Support – not much help here unless you’re a paying customer.
• Help for Aabaco Local Basic (free) – general information as well.

So, you might want to check those options out. Interesting to note he thinks the Twitter account is the best bet for support!

Yahoo used to be one the most prominent directories for local businesses, but these days, many Local SEOs agree that it may not be worth fussing with anymore.

Hey Nico,

Hate to say it, but this sounds like a serious mess. If there are multiple websites sharing partial or complete NAP and phone numbers being held hostage by third parties, I think:

1. You need a formal audit from a heavy-hitting Local SEO agency to find all of the problems.

2. Even with that, unless you have the authority and green light to launch a massive cleanup, involving all doctors and the practice, your hands may be tied here.

This is one of those really difficult situations one sometimes wades into without realizing the depth of the pool. What you are describing sounds like a very large project, but a good agency can tackle large projects methodically, one step at a time. What is the real concern here is the mention of legal problems and phone numbers being held hostage. There's not going to be a simple solution for this, and it may be that the company needs to work out its internal matters before any SEO team can help them

So glad it helped, Steven!

Hey Joe,

I won't call this a definitive answer in any way, but, in short, no - I don't believe Local SEO harms national SEO if both are being done with enough strength. I can say, for certain, that I have seen clients with both local shops and e-commerce departments rank well both in the local packs for their physical location and nationally for their products. Neither effort should preclude the other, in my view, and I'm inclined to think there are other factors influencing why your clients is being outranked nationally, but again, I can't say that for certain. I hope you will get more feedback on this, Joe, but wanted to share my own experience with this. It seems to be that if both the local and traditional SEO are strong enough and clean enough, it's quite possible to rank well locally and organically at the same time.

Hi There,

I'm so sorry, but I've never marketed a business in the UK or Ireland. If you don't receive a response from a UK marketer in the community, I recommend taking your question to Google's own Google My Business forum:

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

You are certain to get an answer there.

Hi Rachel,

The best authority on confusing situations like this is always Google's own guidelines (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en) and then the business owner's best judgment as to where his/her business falls within the guidelines. It sounds to me like you are describing either a real office in NYC, or may possibly be describing something like a Regus office or some sort of shared phone answering service (in which an operator is answering calls for various businesses). I'm not 100% clear on which of these things describes the NYC location. Google doesn't care if a business doesn't see customers at an office (think of plumbers, electricians, etc.) but they do care if a business misrepresents a location as being dedicated to a business when, in fact, it's something like a shared/virtual space not actually dedicated to the business.

Would you be able to provide more detail on this, or do the guidelines answer your question as-is? I'm glad you've started this thread. It's an important topic.

Hi Nico,

In addition to the good advice from Phillip, I recommend looking carefully at the following:

1. No shared phone numbers.

2. A unique page on the website for each doctor, to which each GMB listing links. Main practice can link to homepage.

3. Try not to share categories between the listings. Give the practice the most important category and find others for the individual practitioners.

Hi Swendt!

In most cases, yes, you'll want to update the existing GMB listing with the new data. But just to be sure you're covering all bases, do check out this great recent article from Search Engine Land:

http://searchengineland.com/business-owners-guide-moving-office-234671

Hope this helps!

P.S. Just a heads up that you may need to postcard-verify again with Google when you move. Not always, but sometimes.

Hi Faye,

It sounds like you are working hard to do good things for the business, but it could be that, if you're seeing this client floundering many pages deep in the SERPs, there could be other negative issues at play. Nothing can replace a formal audit in a case like this, but here are some suggestions:

1. Go through this post, bit by bit:

https://moz.com/blog/ultimate-local-seo-audit

2. This one from me is a year old, and due to changes in Google, some of the methodology and terminology is outdated, but the problem concepts remain accurate:

https://moz.com/blog/troubleshooting-local-ranking-failures

3. Pay very, very close attention to duplicates. In the dental arena, practitioner duplicates are a very common problem. I recommend you read anything Linda Buquet has written about dental duplicates at her localsearchforum.com. You might also consider starting a thread there, as well as your one here, in hopes that she will turn her expert eyes on your case. Linda has more experience in Local SEO for dentists than any other pro I know.

I hope these will be a start.

Hi Tomer!

I'd advise creating all of your listings under the same account so that you can manage them all from a single Google My Business dashboard.

Hi Chad!

One thing to be aware of  is that Facebook and Google have totally opposite requirements for multi-location businesses.

Google wants you to use only the real-world business name on all of the listings.

By contrast, Facebook won't let you create more than one listing with the same name on it. In other words, you can't have 5 Facebook Places for Bill's Repair Shop. You have to have Bill's Repair Shop Chicago, Bill's Repair Shop Boston, Bill's Repair Shop Denver, etc.

It's kind of a difficult scenario, because then your Facebook Places won't match your Google My Business data (nor your other citations if you go with the real-world business name on them). On the other hand, your competitors are all in the same boat with this one, so the negative impact of it is pretty much moot.

Hope this helps!

My pleasure, and I hope it was helpful. Regarding developing separate landing pages, that's a decision you'll need to make, of course, but as you've raised a concern about Google not properly showing both locations, what I'm explaining to you is something that could possibly help with this. It's totally fine that the cities are close to one another. That's common for many businesses. But if you want each office you have to be treated as separate and equal, unique landing pages and unique citation sets will be the common best practice advice you'll see for this scenario.

Hi There!

Thanks for the screenshots - they illustrate your question very clearly. Because I'm not located in Canada, I have to add your city name to my query rather then setting my location. When I search for 'Car Medics Elginburg', I am getting both of your locations, as in your August screenshot.

As to why you are no longer seeing this searching from where you are, it's important to understand that it's always totally up to Google whether they want to display one location or both. Some ideas:

1. It could be that they are only showing you the location physically closest to your mobile or desktop device. Have you tried taking your cell phone closer to the second location and doing the search from there to see if it is then showing as a single result, or as part of a double result?

2. Looks like you're not sharing phone numbers, so that's a good thing.

3. Looks like both businesses could earn some more reviews to make them a bit more powerful.

4. Here's something odd. From the Maps results, I'm clicking on the website link for your Perth Rd. location and am being taken here:

http://www.carmedics.ca/

This looks like a homepage, and rather than having Elginburg as the core city term you're optimizing for, it's talking about Kingston. Additionally, in looking up at your masthead, there appears to be NAP discrepancy going on. Your Google My Business data is:

1985 Perth Road
Glenburnie, ON K0H 1S0

vs. what is on your website:

1985 Perth Rd, Elginburg,ON K0H 1M0, Canada

So, is this business located in Kingston, Elginburg or Glenburnie? Clearly there is a discrepancy here of some kind that could be contributing to a lack of trust on Google's part in the data they have about your business.

5. Now I'm clicking on the website link for the Rigney location, which is also taking me to:

http://www.carmedics.ca/

It is not a best practice to have both GMB listings link to the same page on your website. You should have a unique landing page for each location and link your GMB listings to these instead of the homepage. These landing pages should be optimized only for their own NAP - without mixing in other geo-terms. They should feature strong, unique content and be linked to from a high level menu and elsewhere within the website.

In Sum -

You have NAP inconsistency going on for the Perth Rd. Location, and it's very confusing that both listings are clicking to a page talking about Kingston. More effort needs to be made to sort these locations out from one another and to be sure that NAP is consistently listed for each location everywhere it appears on the website, on GMB and on all citations.

Now, whether this will resolve the issue you are experiencing with only one location appearing is another matter. It's very important that you do the above work, but it still could be a user-as-centroid phenomenon you're experiencing on either desktop or mobile devices as you've got 2 locations in 2 different cities. Google may simply be choosing to show you the location nearest you, and I think it would be smart to test this physically with phones, bearing in mind that no 2 customers are guaranteed to see the same results. Their results will also be governed by their own physical location at the time of search, and other forms of personalization. Test both with phones with no geo-terms added to the search query and test with geo-terms added. See what you get.

What I've mentioned here is a start to troubleshooting. There could be other factors involved, but I really hope these quick thoughts help!

Oops! Looks like there's a typo in your thread title. I'm positive you meant customers 'can't' leave reviews

Please pop over to this thread, where you'll find some good links on this topic:

https://moz.com/community/q/with-new-google-layout-are-the-google-direct-review-links-ending-in-hl-en-review-1-not-working

Hey Robert, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, your Local guy is right ... no one is sure what the deal is with this. It's appearing with some settings and not with others, so it seems kind of like a test, but it could equally well be some kind of glitch. Kind of a pain, huh! Linda's post is the best I know of, too, covering this issue. I really hope location search remains accessible in some form, as obviously, we use it just about every day!

Hey Bob,

Okay, I won't tell you to sell but remember, you're a business person, and there's nothing wrong with selling a service that's genuinely of high quality. You can be proud of what you have to sell if you know it's really going to help your customers!

But, a blog that just plugs your services isn't likely to be of much interest to read, so I'm with you on that, for sure! I have a couple of thoughts on this:

1. First, let me show you something. One of my favorite bloggers in the Local SEO space is a fellow named Phil Rozek. He has become a favorite of mine because of the regularity with which he covers very important industry topics. He's thorough, generous and dedicated to sharing what he knows. And, though his blog isn't updated daily, it's updated frequently enough for me to find it worthwhile to check it out every few days in case there's something new there. Now, with that background in mind, check out this recent post of his governing a pain point all Local SEOs and local business owners are experiencing right now surrounding Google based reviews: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2015/11/18/asking-customers-for-google-reviews-in-the-new-google-plus-what-are-your-options/

I recommend that you read through the post, actively evaluating it for friendliness, generosity and authority. I think you'll come away with the feeling that this is a fellow who not only knows what he's talking about, but that he understands the needs of his readership and is sharing everything he can think of to help them. Now, there's one other thing I want you to notice as you read through that post. It's this statement:

"I’ll probably have to update my battle-tested instructions for the 4th or 5th time since 2011, at which point you can order a slick one-page PDF that makes a frustrating process simple as possible for customers."

So, there's a little bit of a potential sale going on in the post, but it is totally inoffensive, in my view, because Phil's blog is about 99% free tutorials and about 1% mentioning that you might want to invest in something he's offering. Given the way he is continuously demonstrating his authority, letting you know he's going to make something you can buy feels more like doing you a favor rather than pitching a hard sell, doesn't it? Buying something Phil has created could save an agency or company a lot of sweat and time.

So, I suggest you thumb through Phil's blog over the past year or so and see how he's demonstrating a spirit of giving while also positioning himself as someone any local business owner would be very fortunate to consult with. Imagine if you could do that for your own business.

2. My other thought is that you have a special opportunity if you are dedicated to focusing only on Boise as your market. In addition to penning those Phil-type tutorial posts you'll be looking at, above, your blog can become a showcase of your participation within your local business community. There will be opportunities you can either latch onto or create from scratch to put you in one-on-one contact with local business owners. Think workshops, conferences, seminars, classes at Park & Rec or senior centers, visiting high schools or community colleges, church group events, etc. If you have business knowledge to share to help your neighbors market what they do, then showcasing your participation in events on your blog will be simultaneously marketing what you do. Event by event, you will be building Boise-based blog content as you are also getting your name out there in the business community as a resource for your services. You'll be giving Google a reason to pull up your posts in Boise-based-or-related searches while also giving the plumber you built a site for a reason to tell his friend the dentist about what you did for him.

So, these are the 2 things I'm thinking of off the top of my head, and I hope that you'll get lots more feedback from the community.

Hey There,

I doubt that the URL structure is the cause of the internal landing pages not ranking for your queries. I agree with Zoe's comments about the way you are linking internally to these pages counting, and beyond this, it's going to be the strength of the individual pages that counts most.

The most common issue I see with multi-location/multi-service businesses is that they build pages for their various keyword combos, but the pages are weak on content, or worse, duplicative of one another. If you are confident that you are publishing the best page in your industry/geography for each service topic, and there are no thin or duplicate issues going on, then the next thing to look at would be the third party links pointing to these pages, giving Google cause to believe they deserve to rank higher than your home page or competitors' page for given queries.

Barring any technical issues preventing these pages to be indexed and trusted by Google, it's likely to boil down to a combination of site architecture, page quality, links and age. Nothing too groundbreaking here, but general advice.

Hi Jess,

Can you provide further detail regarding what your relationship is to Carr Workplace? What is your business? Did you set up a listing via Google My Business for it? How does your business operate? The more detail you can provide, the better answers you should receive from the community.

My pleasure, Chad, and I like Southern expressions So glad if my thoughts were helpful and wishing your business such good luck in the work ahead!

Good luck, Pete!

Hey Chad,

You've very welcome. Here's a first impression/gut reaction, and I'll be to-the-point here, while mentioning that I consider it a brave act to put up a page for public review

1. Design is visually nifty, feels professional

2. Content is thin.

3. Content in main paragraph has some grammatical oddities, particularly this sentence

"Not surprisingly, Dallas is loaded with office furniture stores, among which it’s our aim to set the bar for overall customer satisfaction."

I'd work at getting that sentence into better shape.

4. I do not understand what the links to restaurants and coffee shops, etc., have to do with this page. Are these your customers? If so, say so. If not, what was the idea with this?

5. I'm not in love with this H tag: AN EFFORT AT SETTING THE BAR. It sounds like an effort ... like a pain for someone, you know? And it's not particularly clear what it means. I'd work on that wording.

6. I like this statement very much: DALLAS OFFICE SPACE IS EXPENSIVE. LET US PUT YOURS TO WORK FOR YOU. That's a good point that should resonate with business owners. Do you feel the graphic there, as it's presented, would make customers feel the numbers shown are your pricing? Or are you trying to explain that this is average pricing but you can offer a better deal? If you can offer a better deal, absolutely say so!

7. Is something missing from the 'Getting To Know Dallas' section?

8. What I really, really want to see on this page is a section of testimonials, highly promoted. Video would be great, but text would be great, too.

9. And, my last thought is ... will all of these sections be the same on the 25 pages? Which areas will you be editing from page to page? So important that each page is unique.

Hope this helps! It's just a really quick look, Chad. I think you've made a good start, but I do see opportunity for improvement.

Hi Ruben,

One of our staff members wondered if setting advanced Google search parameters in the Moz Bar and combining that with a GPS emulator might get you further along in the process. There are such apps for mobile devices, but I'm not sure of one for desktop. I will say, I'm more used to approaching this from a citation angle, where you are looking for the top ranked sites for specific terms in hopes of hopping aboard there, but I think what you're describing is somewhat similar. I hope these thoughts are helpful.

I like and agree with your above conclusions and ideas, Pete. And it won't hurt to do a limited experiment with a few pages, and just see how it goes. Something else to consider - if you don't want to get back to the point where the site is feeling watered down, you might consider video marketing, instead, for some of those keyword combos. How affordable and reasonable that is would be based on your particular resources Wishing you good luck!

P.S. I just noticed my link was funny in the original reply. Meant to link directly to: https://moz.com/blog/ultimate-local-seo-audit. So sorry - I hope that wasn't confusing.

Hi Ruben,
Hmm, nothing is coming to mind on this, I'm sorry. You're probably familiar with EZlocal's radius tool that will turn up cities and zips within a radius you set (http://ezlocal.com/tools/map-radius/) which might help if you end up needing to do this manually. Using that tool, you could get a list of all applicable zip codes or city names within X miles of a client's location, and then do manual searches and document your findings, but as a tool that auto-generates result via a radius tool, I'm not recalling anything I've seen like that. I will ask other staff members if they know of something like this and, if I hear of something, I'll return to update this thread. It's a good question you've asked!

Hi Eric!

Here are some resources that should get you off to a good start:

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

https://moz.com/learn/local

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

As you're in a small town, your chances are very good of competing with the right efforts. I would advise focusing first on content, citations, reviews and links. Then, consider video, social and offline networking. That's very broad advice, of course, but it's a general outline of how it's likely to be best to approach strengthening your business, building your brand and then looking for things you can do that your competitors haven't yet done, or which you can do better.

Hope this helps!

Hi There!

I noticed that one of the categories you chose for this thread was Local, so I thought I'd also add a link to a good post here by Casey Meraz, to dig into the Local side of your audit: https://moz.com/blog/ultimate-local-seo-audit

Hope it helps!

Linda - thank you for catching my mistake! I should have typed 'was' not 'is' in speaking about Google's behavior with hidden addresses from a historical standpoint. My error! I've corrected it.

Hi David!

Great tip from Linda regarding the description. She has documented this previously and knows her stuff Thank you for letting us know which business this was for, as well.

Okay, so ... clearly, you have a staffed, physical office and, ideally, should be able to mark your business as also serving customers at your location. The only thing that could possibly go wrong with this is if Google does not believe that your industry should have addresses displayed. Google has behaved somewhat uniquely over the years in regards to SEO/web design firms. For a long time, the only way to get these to display in packs was to add an 'in' to your query ... like 'SEO company in Denver'. Finally, a year or two ago, they changed their policy on this and started showing normal local results for this industry.

What we can surmise from this is that Google has been especially sensitive regarding spamming in this industry and, possibly, that they view most SEO/design firms as virtual rather than brick-and-mortar. So, you can mark your business as serving customers at the location, but ultimately, it will be up to Google to decide whether they want to display your address or not.

And that brings me to a question I'd like to ask Linda, based on her experience with her forum: Linda have you ever seen a case in which Google went beyond simply hiding the address for a business that legitimately deserved to have it displayed (like David's company) and simultaneously punished the business, rankings wise? I've not seen this - but I thought I'd ask if you had. Love having you pop by!

Hey Pete,

I can see how this is confusing, and honestly, the amount of time it would take to come up with a totally ideal strategy here is likely more than you will be able to attain in a forum discussion like this one. However, there are 2 typical approaches in your scenario.

Approach 1:

You have a page for each service (which is what I think you are calling 'categories') and a page for each city you serve. This is the simplest method, relying on having a totally awesome page for each service and each city. The site tends to be smaller with this approach, but it can work if the pages are good enough, have enough internal and 3rd party links, age, use, etc.

Approach 2:

In this approach, you build a page for every possible service/city keyword combo. Most of the time, what I see when businesses take this approach is that they end up with a great number of low quality pages, and duplicate content often becomes a part of the scene. The only time I would recommend this approach would be if there is a) truly unique content to offer one each page, b) adequate funding to ensure excellent copywriting, and c) a reason this will be more helpful to the users that Approach 1.

If you're using a location finder for your customers, be sure the links can also be accessed some other way (like in a menu or sitemap). And be sure no steps have been taken to attempt to represent service locations as physical ones. This could include putting up weird or false NAP on website pages, or building citations for non-physical locations.

So, those are the basic approaches, and after you've figured out which strategy you're using, I would recommend doing a formal Local SEO audit to see if you can dig up an explanation for your missing local pack rankings. https://www.google.com/search?q=ultimate+local+seo+audit&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

I really hope you'll get more feedback from the community, but I do think the complexity of your website and your dilemma is likely going to require a deep dig, which may be beyond the scope of what community members can offer.

Hi Rachel!

That was a pretty long reply, but if it helped, well worth the time. Best of luck in your efforts!

Hi Aleks,

Are you in the US or am I remembering you are in Norway? If in the US, almost no customers will be seeing your Google+ Local page at this point (see: https://moz.com/blog/where-did-google-local-go-the-google-places-api-change-made-simple). If you're ranking well locally, then what your customers are likely seeing is a Maps-Based Knowledge Panel for branded searches or a Local Finder Knowledge Panel from the 3 packs. What are you seeing?

Hey David,

Could you specify which recent update you mean? It might help the community pinpoint this better. Here's what I can tell you:

1. Google was actually typically believed to favor physical addresses over SABs. This has been the feeling, historically, so if you do serve people at your address, definitely specify this.

2. Your explanation of no longer appearing in the local packs is raising some flags, for sure. Are you not able to find your listing anywhere in the local finder view? Not sure what this is, please see: https://moz.com/blog/where-did-google-local-go-the-google-places-api-change-made-simple.

Things to investigate would be duplicates (http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-duplicates-merges/38281-critical-google-local-dupe-research-tips-new-tool-new-trick.html), guideline violations (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en) and active competitors who have simply surpassed you.

In your shoes, I would absolutely be doing a full audit (https://moz.com/blog/ultimate-local-seo-audit). Disappearing from the local results entirely is almost a sure sign of a serious problem. I hate to give bad news like that, but fortunately, you've noticed something isn't right and can start investigating ASAP. Wishing you good luck on this!

Hey J.P.I hope you'll get lots of community feedback on this one. I don't have any hands-on experience with the business side of Hotel Finder, but here are some suggestions:

1. Read this: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2015/09/google-hotel-ads-makes-it-easier-for.html

2. And this: http://insideout.com/blog/2015/08/30/google-hotel-finder-changes-bed-breakfast-inns/

3. And if you are willing to 'do anything,' consider talking to these folks: http://acorn-is.com/. They are known in the Local industry for specializing in the hospitality arena, and though I don't have any personal experience with them, I have heard good things about their work and expertise from numerous sources. The name I associate with that business is Lisa Kolb, and she's the one I'd be talking to in your situation.

Hope this helps!

I really like the business book idea, too! Nice one, Kevin.

Hi Rachel,

I know it can be tough, and scenarios like yours have grey areas.

Here is the straight and narrow on this:

• You build GMB listings for your two offices, but not for the truck drivers houses.

• Unless people are actually walking into those offices off the street during stated business hours, yours is a service area business and should be checking the boxes for this, rather than for serving customer at the physical location.

• You can set a service radius for each of the 2 locations, yes, but I advise going easy with this and not setting too large of one.

• You develop a landing page on your website for each of the cities you serve and, hopefully, earn some links to these pages as well as linking to them in a visible way internally

• You build all your other citations for the 2 locations, but not for the truck driver's houses.

• Be sure each physical office has its own unique local phone number so that they don't get mixed up

• Be sure to earn reviews for both locations

With the above path, you should be free of worry that you are violating any guidelines and can simply focus on building up your branding to be all it can be.

Now, here's the grey area and not so straight and narrow:

You could ostensibly argue that each of your truckers is, in fact, working from an office in his house and answering the phone "ABC Trucking" each time it rings. I can see that, and, I can also see the horse sense in wanting customers to know that a truck driver is right near them, if the service is one in which time is of the essence.

The problem is, what sometimes makes good horse sense doesn't always make good Google sense. We know for a fact that Google has the capability not only of looking at streetview-level images of any address, but that they also read signage on buildings. This is where the stress of worry may come into going with anything other than the straight and narrow.

Imagine you are Google. You receive a report from XYZ Trucking that ABC Plumbing is outranking them in 10 different cities, when all they really have there is a house. "It's not a real office!" XYZ plumbing complains. At this point, Google has the capability of checking up on this using their own tools, and if what they decide is that ABC's business with just 2 real offices is trying to make themselves look like they have 12 offices, it's unlikely that you are going to even have a chance to argue the horse-sense point of view. Rather, you could wake up one morning to find those 10 listings gone and the 2 for your legitimate offices falling in rankings. It's not an experience I'd wish on anybody!

Some business owners take risks. Google isn't the best at policing their own data sometimes, and people can get away with things for years, but in this case, you are the SEO on the job, and the stability of your client's visibility tops any hopes of temporary gains.

If this were my client, I'd explain all of the above to him and then explain how we are going with the straight-and-narrow, for the long-term health of his business and reputation.

Long answer - whew - but I find it helps to tell myself a story when weighting possible outcomes. Finally, regarding your question about putting the truckers' home addresses on the website, I'm not seeing a good reason for this as I'm guessing they don't want the public showing up at their homes, and there is a chance that the presence of all this non-physical-location NAP could get mixed up with the NAP for the 2 physical offices you'll be doing your best to build up.

Hope this helps, and I think you've asked some very important questions, here!

Hi Rachel,

Glad you asked this! At this point, no, I would not give the same advice as 3 years ago. Though I saw the above advice working back then, it's not advice I would currently give.

I don't recommend creating a network of truck drivers' houses for the purpose of citation building. Home-based businesses are fine, for a single location, but a network like this could raise red flags. If you can't staff a physical office in a city, I do not advise building a Google My Business account for it. So, you'll need to stick with getting GMB on-board for whatever your staffed, physical location is and then working on content (rather than citations) for your service cities.

Times have changed

Hi There!

Just to double check, I'd go through this: https://moz.com/blog/ultimate-local-seo-audit though it sounds like you've done a lot of the basic research.

I would then comb through this to see if anything is missing local-wise from your strategy: https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors

Finally, I would be absolutely sure there's not duplicate content. I've encountered a great deal of this looking at dental sites in the US. It seems many of them take their product and service descriptions from manufacturers, so it's something for which to be on the lookout. And, of course, be sure that the content on the site is not only unique, but is of high quality (not thin, error-ridden, etc.)

Hope this is a start!

Hi Andrew,

Good topic! I don't believe the scenario you are describing would actually fall under Google's guidelines for practitioners. Rather what you are describing sounds more like Google's rules for on-going classes at a location, if we view you performing a test at someone's facility as being like a class. So, this would not qualify for a listing, and to further compound this, Google does not want call centers listed as phone numbers. So, in a nutshell, I would not move forward with this idea.

The links from the .edu, however, could prove nice if done in a modest, user-friendly way.

Hope this helps!

Hey Josh,

Understood, and I think the basic feedback on this would be buy it if you have a plan for what to do with it, and you're sure that your plan won't be detrimental to what you've accomplished with the main site (like sharing NAP, which would be detrimental). I think that's pretty much what both Tom and I are saying.

Hey Ruben,

What I would consider these types of sites to be would be industry-oriented citations. And you definitely want those. Do you want to pay for citations there? It depends on how they perform. Pay for links ... no! Earn links ... yes, probably. You might like to check out this recent video over at LocalU that is talking about the value of links:

http://localu.org/blog/video-deep-dive-on-links-and-local-marketing/

I think it presents a really no-nonsense approach to judging the value of links for local businesses.

Hey Josh,

It's kind of a Rule #1 thing - don't put your NAP on more than 1 website (unless we're talking about building citations and earning links, of course!). So, yes, if you want to run multiple sites for what is actually the same business, you'll need to brand them separately and not use any part of the NAP on them. You'd need to think of them as having some other purpose, like educational content or something. In which case, I'd personally prefer to build that out on my own main domain to strengthen my core brand, but I have heard of other taking this multi-site approach, so long as it's treated as a totally different animal.

So glad this helped!

Hey Clint!

Very nice of you to say I see where you are coming from, and like your idea about trying to get a different, positive thread on the same forum to rank higher than the bad discussion. That's very smart, given that Google may only give 1 or 2 spots to the forum in results for a query. Really good thinking! At the same time, though, ignoring the fact that the bad press already exists might be a bit like covering my eyes that I have a really bad review. In my experience, unless the review (or the thread) is totally insane, it represents a chance for me to respond positively and, hopefully, turn bad impressions of the business into good ones.

Hi Josh,

I would only suggest building out the nice sites if they are run completely independently of the main company website and do not share any of the NAP (name, address, phone). What you do not want is Google getting confused between the various businesses if they are sharing a name, address or phone number. So, if you simply want these to be independent entities, with no duplicated NAP or content, there might be some value.

Hey Ryan,

Has the business owner tried to respond and make amends on the high ranking forum? This would be my first choice, even if it's a bad situation, like forum spamming that angered the community or something like that. I'd try to make amends there first. Any hope of that?

My pleasure, Ryan, and good luck with the work ahead!

Hey there ... check out Whitespark's list of acceptable abbreviations: https://www.whitespark.ca/acceptable-google-maps-nap-abbreviations-and-variations

I think it will help with your question.

My pleasure, Azael. That is problem faced by pretty much all small business owners - finding the time to run their business and manage their marketing. This is why many companies budget, if they can, to hire experts to help with the marketing, but other business owners prefer to take the hands-on approach of doing it all themselves or doing it all in-house ... and in the end, that can sometimes be the strongest strategy, because the business owner ends up being educated in totally new ways about his business. Good luck with the work ahead!