Home-Based Business

[DonnaDuncan]

Can a single business list multiple locations that are home-based? Will Google find this acceptable?

More details. The business is a service based business that operates in two states. The owner has one approved Google My Business listing for her main location - her home in DE. She also has employees and stores supplies at her in-law's home in PA. Separate phone numbers are used for each business location.

We have tried to create a Google My Business listing for the PA location and it has been rejected for quality reasons. We've asked clarification and received none. Is this worth pursing further or does it violate Google guidelines?

[MiriamEllis]

So happy to have you in the community, Donna

[DonnaDuncan]

As always Miriam, SO helpful! Thanks.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Donna,

Thanks for taking the time to answer. You have checked off all of the obvious reasons that I can think of for rejection. It sounds like the business is doing everything as one would advise and the fact that these locations are in 2 different states cannot lead us to suspect that Google is sensing a spamming of the SAME service area. My best suggestion here would be to phone Google and see if they can offer you any further explanation. If that doesn't work, you might want to hire somebody like Joy Hawkins at Imprezzio as she is a real detective when it comes to odd problems like this, and she is also either a TC or an RER and might have access to more information about this than the average Local SEO. I think this thread has helped clear away common problems, leaving us with the conclusion that there might be something about this scenario that is uncommon.

BTW, thanks for the kind mention, Robert!

[DonnaDuncan]

Let me answer your questions.

1. It's a pet waste removal business.
2. There are separate addresses, phone numbers, and service areas spanning two different geographies.
3. Google My Business and + profiles are customized to each location and point to separate, locally-optimized pages on the website. They're tagged as service area businesses with real addresses (not PO Boxes) hidden.
4. Phone calls are answered professionally. "Thanks for calling Business Name".
5. Customers are served at their location. They do not come to the business.
6. Citations exist for each location - between 60 and 85. We're about to initiate an effort to acquire more.

Thank you all for taking the time to contribute to this discussion. It's appreciated. I wish there was an obvious answer but, as Robert rightly points out, Local is complicated. I guess the quality issue isn't obvious.

[DonnaDuncan]

Agree. And it's not just Google.

[DonnaDuncan]

Very interesting - not applicable in this case but I think your point was more about the complexity of local SEO and unwritten rules in general. Thanks Miriam.

[DonnaDuncan]

Couldn't agree more!

[RobertFisher]

Donna,

Miriam is truly an expert in Local SEO. Listen and learn from her and you will be given the best advice. She really helps a ton of people through Moz and one or two other forums.

Best

[MiriamEllis]

Donna - the reason I'm asking so many questions is because of things like this:

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2016/04/04/the-most-obscure-rule-in-google-my-business-a-nasty-surprise/

Thought I would add Hope it helps!

[EGOL]

Google should look very favorably on home-based businesses.  Didn't they start in a friend's garage?  They didn't even own it.

Some home-based businesses bring in millions of visitors per month to their websites and make buckets and buckets of money.

These propeller heads need to dump that big brand attitude.  It isn't your location that's important, it's more about your velocity and trajectory.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Donna,

This is a very good question. Google does not have an official guideline on this, but I would make a best guess that a string of homes being promoted as business locations could be something they would look for as a red flag. Now, given that this is just one other location, I'm not 100% confident that this is the cause of the rejection of the PA listing, but it might be. Some thoughts surrounding this:

-Are customers coming to the home in PA to do business?

-Are employees going from the home in PA to customers locations to serve them? If so, are they serving a completely different service area than the DE business? And, when trying to create the GMB listing, did they hide the address and set a service area or did they try to have a visible address?

-Who answers the phone at the PA location? Do they say, "Good Morning! Company Name. How can I help you?" or do they say, "Hello?" like a resident rather than a business? Could Google have called the business and gotten the latter greeting rather than the former?

-Does the PA location list a distinct phone number from the DE one, or did the owner try to list the DE phone for the PA business?

End of the day, there isn't a guideline on this, but there might be some details to the case that could lead to possibly being able to convince Google that the PA location deserves a listing. Might be. A rejection can be hard to overcome.

[GlobeRunner]

Unfortunately most likely you won't get an official response from Google on this. It may come down to the type of business it is, and maybe even the website that you link to. If you were to have a website and list both locations (or both areas that you serve), such as domain.accountant/city1 and domain.accountant/city2 and each local listing links to the appropriate page, you may have a better chance of getting your business listed.

Also, rather than focus specifically on Google, you may want to focus on getting more local citations and listings for both locations. That may help you in the future, you may want to hold off on the Google listing until you have more links and listings elsewhere.

[RobertFisher]

Example:
Cleaning business in Delaware and employees in PA as well. One of employees operates out of home and has business phone there and keeps the supplies there.

From this I don't see a problem, but to diagnose the "quality" issue we need more info. If you do not make contact with customers during stated hours, if you are an ecommerce operation in the minds of Google, etc. would all be issues and there are more. If you are using just the phone number but trying to use a PO box or the main address it is problematic. Are you a service area business and you are trying to set things up where address shows when you should not be, etc.

Local is not as simple as it could be so more info would help.

Hopefully, this gives you at least a starting place.

Robert