For Local SEO on a business with many locations, should the city be included in the business name?
-
For a franchised business with ~50 locations spread across the US, should the city be included in the business name when building citations?
Fictional example: We have a staffing franchise called 'Hamilton Staffing'. They have 50 locations in the US. They are all called 'Hamilton Staffing'.
We need to finalize the correct NAP information so we are consistent in building citations. For the name, should we just use 'Hamilton Staffing' for all of them? Or should we use 'Hamilton Staffing - Chicago' and the like for other locations?
It looks like InfoUSA and Axciom are just using 'Hamilton Staffing', whereas Google is using 'Hamilton Staffing Chicago' and the like.
Thoughts on this?
-
Hey Brian,
This is something I've been mulling over for the better part of two years. I am assuming you've made a decision on this already, and I was curious to see what you ended up doing?
We currently have 10 franchises, and continue to grow. We will have four offices in the Seattle MSP (currently all in different suburbs). I have always been concerned about how it would work with two offices in the city, but I felt being able to use an exact NAP for each office individually was important. After reading Dana's response, I'm now inclined to use the non-localized names for all offices.
Which way did you go, and how is that working out for you? Any other advice or lessons learned along the way?
Cheers,
Logan -
Hi Brian,
If you are seeing Hamilton Staffing - Chicago as the business name on the Google+ Local page of this business, I have to guess that someone made a mistake in setting up the listing. Google's Places Quality Guidelines read:
Do not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords or a description of your business in the business name field.
So, McDonald's is always McDonald's, not McDonald's-Chicago, in other words. So, what I'm saying is that what you're seeing in the SERPs is likely a violation of the guidelines (not good news). Business title fields should contain only the business name with no additions and should rely on the address part of the listing to differentiate one locale from another. And all citations and company website optimization should follow this rule, too.
-
Thanks Dana! That is very helpful and good food for thought. Due to the nature of this business, there wouldn't ever be more than one location within a major metropolitan area, but I understand where you are going there.
It is a good point to look at other major brands that have likely thought about this same thing.
-
Hi Brian,
I would say it depends totally on your business plans and how much you want to/expect to grow. My point being, that going through all the trouble to add the city name to the business name, may end up being a problem when, for example, you end up with 6 different locations in Chicago.
If you know, due to the nature of your business, that there will only ever be one franchise located in each major metropolitan area, then perhaps adding the city name would be okay. However, think about the future long term. If it's possible that you are going to end up with even two locations in one city, then you're going to have a lot of follow up work to do after the fact (sorting out citations in the same city).
I would follow the lead of major franchises like The Olive Garden and stick to your brand name, but carefully optimize each city listing with specific and accurate information.
I hope that helps! (just my two cents)
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is getting views to an infographic through Imgur beneficial to SEO?
I'm considering posting infographics to Imgur in addition to hosting them on my site in an effort to leverage Reddit a bit more this year. My concern is that, if all goes well, we'll get a ton of views through Reddit to Imgur, maybe a couple clickthroughs to the site, and links to (probably) the Imgur page. I don't see that Imgur gives your profile a followed link, so how would any of this help SEO. I assume it would, because respected guys like John Dougherty espouse the benefits of Reddit, but I can't see how and I need to justify the effort to my department head.
Image & Video Optimization | | MattHolden1 -
Local seo strategy for local gardening business ideas?
Hi all, I am just setting up a local organic garden maintenance business in my home town. I have set up the website, got social media accounts active (FB, Twitter and G+), set up google local listing (currently 5th in the local maps thingy), I have done loads of citations (many more than my competitors, but not a ridiculous amount), I've got 4 customer reviews on google so far, checked my DA against my competitors (mine 1, my comps 8-9), checked my comps links (less than 10) and been writing a blog on my website every couple of days. I realise the one thing I have against me is that my domain is just less than a month old. How long until google builds a bit of trust in it to see it come up in the serps? Also, I would love some ideas of what else I can be doing in the mean time. The idea here is to get the site rocking on all cylinders before the gardening season starts again in March. Do-able?
Image & Video Optimization | | HappyOx0 -
Schema for a local business with multiple locations
Hello I am trying to add schema to a website that has several locations. Is the best way to do this is by tagging the home page of the website as the business main location and then create a page for each location and then mark them up accordingly? Thank you for your help.
Image & Video Optimization | | edwardfrebow0 -
Ranking Differences for Google+ Local vs. Places Listings
I'm seeing some odd behavior with Google+ Local and Google Places listings for clients. I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing it... Here's the situation: We've recently bought on 4 new clients that all have duplicate listing issues, and, weirdly, all have both places and a Google+ local created listings. For three of those four, the Google+ local listing is outranking the Places account for a brand name search (e.g. Dr. John Doe). Weirdly, in one instance, the Google+ local account that is outranking the Places page is named in a less accurate fashion. e.g searching for "Dr. John Doe" the rankings look like this... A) John Doe Plastic Surgery, P.C. - Dr. John Doe B) Dr. John Doe, MD Anyone else seeing this sort of behavior? How are you creating local listings for clients these days - via the places dashboard, or Google+ Local?
Image & Video Optimization | | BedeFahey0 -
New site, SEO well considered, no traffic :/ What next?
Hi There! We've built whatphone.com.au with SEO at the top of the list but things are not going as expected. Yes, there's still a lot of work to do, but I was hoping to get some guidance on what to do next to make sure we keep the right focus. This is what we've done to date: Added lots of unique and relevant content, particularly to our blog (and will continue to do so on a weekly basis) Ensured internal linking is strong Optimised each product page around product name (and relevant internal links pointing to it) Ensured the code is clean (ok, we are not a 100% but in a good place) URL structure, metadata, page titles, file names and alt tags following best practice Named the company and registered our domain around one of main keywords we are currently targeting "what phone" What we're working on: Link building Site speed Social signals Rich media (videos, more images) Not a bad effort right? No love from an organic traffic perspective 😕 Ok, the site / domain is no older than 2 months old, it's a very competitive industry, and no inbound links yet, but come on! Questions: Are there any benefits of engaging external providers to help with link building? I'm talking about outsourcing from elancer or similar.. Or is this playing with fire? Have we missed something obvious here? Any help will be greatly appreciated! PS: we currently have some issues with our pricing tables, but will fixed as soon as possible..
Image & Video Optimization | | whatphone0 -
Can this make one's local listing vanish from Google local search?
Hi All, Does anyone know if selecting "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under "service areas and location settings" in Google Places can cause a business's listing to disappear from Google local search? My interior designer client has a bricks-and-mortar location, was ranking at about #20 for "interior designer" in Portland, and now has dropped from local search. I had "No, all customers come to the business location" selected previously. In the past week, before the vanishing, I made these changes: 1. changed the service area to "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations", 2. removed "Portland" from the description in Google Places, and 3. submitted maybe two dozen directory listings to high DA sites (using Whitespark as the tool for determining where to post). Thanks everyone! Zack
Image & Video Optimization | | HammerandHand0 -
Best way to use popular YouTube channel for SEO purposes
Hi all, We have a YouTube channel containing about 25 videos we created professionally a few years ago. They are all product features and are hosted on our site for applicable products (a very small percentage of our overall number of products). This channel was largely forgotten about for a few years. It has now reached over 160k views. What's the best way to utilize these videos for SEO benefits? Any techniques anyone has to maximize our ever increasing number of views? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | bradkrussell0 -
Meaning Behind Google Local Search Results Icons?
I can't seem to easily find this answer anywhere (even in the Google Places FAQ page), so thought I'd stop digging around and simply ask it here: What are the meanings behind the icons to the right of the link and to the left of the "place page" link in Google's local search results? I see a checkmark/question mark in a circle, then a bar chart with various levels filled in, then a dollar sign in a circle, then a magnifying glass. 1. What are these telling me, as a searcher? 2. What are they telling the owner of the business? Thank you for your help; I just can't seem to find a reference for this...
Image & Video Optimization | | keethgee0