Citation building for multiple locations
-
Hey everyone,
I think i've got a good handle on citations, but had a question regarding multiple locations.
I'm going to be doing citation building for a local lawyer, and he's got 4 locations.
I'd like to build citations for each of his locations, but I was wondering if the business name needs to change?
Ie. If I am building citations for Town 2 and Town 3, should the business name be listed as "Company Name Town 1" for the first location, and "Company Name Town 2" for the second? Or is it fine to use the company name throughout all citations, and just change the location/phone number to the location based info?
I'm just worried about Google seeing differing info, but the same company name, and possibly penalizing me for it.
Thanks in advance!
-
Ah, great! The multiple physical locations part is key for the multiple listings. You should be good to go in listing each. Cheers!
-
Thanks for the response Ryan!
This client in particular has physical offices in each location, I should have specified that in the original question.
I'll definitely be taking some time to go through the guideline though.
Thanks!
-
Google's guideline is here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177 with the most applicable portion being in the address section:
-
Make sure that your page is created at your actual, real-world location.
-
Use the precise address for the business rather than broad city names or cross-streets. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.
-
If you need to specify a mailbox or suite number within your physical location, please list your physical address in Address Line 1, and put your mailbox or suite number in Address Line 2.
-
If your business rents a temporary, "virtual" office at a different address from your primary business, do not create a page for that location unless it is staffed during your normal business hours.
So his locations need to be staffed, open to the public, office based locations. If he's serving clients in 4 different cities, but only has one office in one city it's not the same thing as the requirements above. That would be, "Service-area businesses--business that serve customers at their locations--should have one page for the central office or location and designate a service area from that point. If you wish to display your complete business address while setting your service area(s), your business location should be staffed and able to receive customers during its stated hours. Google will determine how best to display your business address based on your business information as well as information from other sources. Learn more about service-area businesses."
The document as a whole is worth the read. Cheers!
-
-
Great, thanks for the clarification Donna!
i'll definitely go through the guidelines as well.
Thanks again
-
Hi RC,
No. The business / company does not need to and should not change. The business name should be listed as "Company Name" only. No location.
What you need to do to differentiate your different business locations is to ensure they each have a unique local number and dedicated page on your website.
Here are Google guidelines if you have not seen them already - https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en.
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
-
Concern about Citations when business Addresses change!
This may be a beginner level question, but I am concerned about spending money on citations in case I have to move offices at any point in the next 6 to 12 months. Would I have to update my address on all the citations? If so, is there an easy way to do this cost effectively? Or do I leave the old address as it is and create new citations with the new address? What is better or cheaper to do? What is better for SEO? Thank you.
Local Listings | | RyanUK0 -
Should citations include all your address? What is most important?
Hi I am looking to rank highly in local search for the city we are based in and I will be creating some citations so that we can rank for a city but have a problem. Our website lists us as being located in the Wirral which is a borough but Google + requires you to add a county for this line so could add either Merseyside or Cheshire. Should I leave this part of the citation out - i.e. Wirral or Merseyside. We are ranking well for the term Wirral and do not want to effect this. Could anyone advise me here so that we can start to rank better for the city Birkenhead? The Wirral is a peninsular as can be seen on Wilipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Borough_of_Wirral
Local Listings | | SEM_at_Lees0 -
Ranking opportunity if we omit county in citations
I am looking to rank highly in local search for Birkenhead but have not currently filled in the county on Google + so Moz local is not picking the county up. I am wondering whether I should continue and keep the county off there as there is a potential problem: on our website we are listed as being based in the Wirral and we are also based in a county called Merseyside so have two different possible citations. We are ranking well for the term Wirral and do not want to effect this. I am thinking of building citations without Wirral or Merseyside and was wondering if anyone can advise? The address that I have in the citation would be - business name, building number, Birkenhead then Wirral or Merseyside and post code. I am currently using business name, building number, Birkenhead and post code and we want to rank highly for Birkenhead. Could anyone advise me here? The Wirral is a peninsular as can be seen on Wilipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Borough_of_Wirral
Local Listings | | SEM_at_Lees0 -
Anyone know how to filter by location-neutral results?
Google dropped the ability to filter your search results by location, and it's now using your precise location to give results. Here's an article from Search Engine Land that covers the removal of location setting: http://searchengineland.com/google-drops-change-location-search-filter-from-search-results-237247 Anyone know a work around for getting location-neutral results? Before I was using "Location: United States" to find unbiased results, but that's not an option any more.
Local Listings | | Gorilla760 -
Local Citations Name
Hi Everyone, I am creating local citations for a company, let's call it "Gray Marketing". That is their legal business name and has been this way for about 23 years. Recently (over the past year) they have been going by the name "Gray Marketing and SEO". They had a new logo made that appears on their companies website and location. When creating local citations. The four primary aggregators (Axicom, Localeze, Infogroup, Factual) have the legal business name. My question is, should I change it to the new name or leave it as the legal business name? Side note: I am not able to change the legal business name on Axicom. Any advise would be awesome, thanks. -Michael
Local Listings | | Mike.NW0 -
Local seo citation tools
Hi I have been manually adding my details to local/national directories in order to help my ranking in my google places placing. It is a bit of a grind, and I am aware there are tools out there. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with any of them? I am UK based. Also I was ranking for "Liverpool Photographer" on google places for a couple of months and it brought in quite a bit of work, although I have since slipped back to about 15th, so out of the visible results. I am mainly a wedding photographer so my home page was optimised mainly for "liverpool wedding photographer" Although I hired an SEO company who changed the home page title to "liverpool photographer", I cannot remember if I was ranking on places for this keyword because of this change or I was already in the results before the changes were made. So my question is how Can I rank for "liverpool photographer" and "Liverpool wedding photographer" on a places result at the same time? I hope this makes sense. Best wishes. David.
Local Listings | | WallerD0 -
Best Local Citation Building Services
Hi, have any of you ever used a local citation building service? Are some better than others, any recommendations? Any bad experiences or companies to avoid? I'm fairly new to the process and it looks like there's a lot of snake oil salesmen in this vertical, so any and all insight you could give me would be great! Thank you in advance, I look forward to hearing feedback from all of you!
Local Listings | | maxcarnage0 -
Bright Local - Citation Burst. Winner or Loser?
Bright Local have a package called "Citation Burst." This looks great but, we all know directory submissions can have an extremely negative impact. Has anyone used Bright Local for Citation Burst, please let me know? Thanks Gary
Local Listings | | GaryVictory1