Question about onsite NAP as it relates to Local Search
-
Hi Gang,
State requirements mandate that our law practice (Keller & Keller) properly display their distinct business entities on all advertising materials, including our website.
Specifically, our offices are set up in a way that makes Indiana's law office an LLP, New Mexico's an LLC, and Michigan's a PLLC.
All 3 offices/states are represented on a single domain, but I want to be careful about mixing the different registration titles (LLP, LLC, PLLC) throughout our site when we commonly refer to ourselves simply as Keller & Keller throughout the main pages and in our content. I worry it may negatively affect our local listings?
(One idea is to place a simple 'disclaimer' in the footer throughout our site that identifies the business entities, however, I'm still concerned this too might affect/confuse our local listings?)
All thoughts, advice, and theories are welcome!
Thanks, everyone! (And to my fellow Yanks, enjoy a safe Memorial Day weekend!)
W-
-
Good suggestions on this thread!
What I would be sure that you are doing is that if you have a unique landing page for each office, you are consistently using the acronym for that specific business on that page. So, in other words, your landing page for the office in NM should consistently refer to the business as Keller & Keller LLC. This does matter. Presumably, you will have linked from the NM Google+ Local page directly to this landing page and if Google sees Keller & Keller LLC in both sources, it will confirm the identity of the business for them and lower your chances of merging and duplicates. Hope this helps!
-
Wayne,
Kevin nailed it with the response and ideas about the simple Disclaimer at the footer to note it, then get into more details on the About page. How the businesses were registered in each state shouldn't affect your SEO strategy, especially if you have the businesses listed in Google or any other listing or local citation as "Keller & Keller". Use of NAP will provide enough for Google to do it's thing in creating relevance between the website, G+ pages and physical office location.
Cheers! - Patrick
-
Thanks, Kevin! I had envisioned a 1-2 sentence disclaimer, but I actually like your idea of putting an expanded blurb on an About Us page.
-
Compliance with the law here isn't going to have much of an impact at all on your SEO efforts. A disclaimer in the footer would do it, but you mentioned web site, not web page. Based on that, I would just include this information in an About Us page and let that be the end of it. On the other hand, if you think the registration titles are going to be relevant keywords that visitors would use to search and find you, then you might consider posting that disclaimer on each page.
Now if by disclaimer you mean a novel-long blurb of legalese at the footer, then no. Two or three lines should do it, but do make sure that there is enough relevant content on each page to mute that disclaimer. If it accounts for more than 25% of the text on your page, I'd either create more content or move that disclaimer to your About Us page.
Hope that helps.
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
-
Google Local Changes Randomly & Our Site Keeps Dropping Off Search
I work for a university where we have 2 law schools. We have our one school on the other side of the state that has been around for a very long time, and then a newer school that is right on our main campus that has been around for about 5 - 10 years now. The newer of the 2 schools is having so much trouble being able to claim the name of the school in google search. If you type in the name of the school the other school (the one that has been around longer) was coming up in the google local on the right of the screen and their web URL was never showing up in search. This is a huge problem because the accreditations of the 2 schools are different, and students are showing up at the wrong school for their interviews. Search will only show a domain name that used to be owned by the older school but now gives information for both of the schools. So it'll show up in search results, but only under that other domain and not their own domain that has their name in the domain name. This school has an updated google mybusiness listing, and a google+ page with the correct listing. I've added some schema data around the business address on their site and JSON for the google+ page, and have re-indexed their sitemap a few times after some changes have been made and we are using their name more in the site. This fixed everything for a short while and we were getting the appropriate google local listing and their site was appearing in search results above the site that advertised both schools. Now, after about 3 months, it has reverted. I had the older school showing up in the google local, and the site that advertises both schools is the ONLY domain appearing. I've re-indexed the site after finding out that Drupal's timestamps that they automatically add to sitemaps aren't optimized for how google reads it. This has gotten the local listing back, but I still have the wrong domain appearing, it is the one advertises both schools instead of the domain that has this school's information. I don't mind that the one advertising both shows up, but if a user is searching for that particular school I would really like to get that domain to appear first above the one advertising both schools and the older school. Right now the new school isn't even in search results except for being under the site that advertises both. I wasn't sure if this was something that Moz Local could help me fix by adding the listing across the web, or if there is something else on the sites I can be doing to help them solidify their name in google search/local. Also - is this subdomain that is advertising both of them hurting them or help them? I was thinking about taking that domain down to one page that acts as a direction source to the 2 domains rather than having a ton of information and keywords that take over the results for their name since that domain is older (and used to be associated with the old school only before the new school was built) Thank you for any advice on this issue as I'm still pretty new to SEO and to the university. Thanks again!
Local Listings | | amaray4030 -
How do I treat multiple buildings on the same college campus on Google for local SEO?
Should I delete them? Simply give them a different address like "City, State, Zip"? I see the benefit of having key buildings on campus in Google Maps, but I don't want those to affect my accuracy score and, thus, my local rankings for SEO.
Local Listings | | GabeGibitz1 -
NAP question and Google local.
Hello, My client has successfully grown one of their event venues locally (lets call it venue A) and on the back of that bought two more venues (B & C). Then created an umbrella company to manage all three. He now wants to market the umbrella company and so redirected the original successful venue domain (A) to the new umbrella company domain. The umbrella company is located at the same address as the original venue A. So it shares the same address, phone number, website as venue A but a different name. All this done before me. He has a Google local page for the original venue - venue A- and changed the domain on it to the new one. He also has Google local pages for the other two venue locations. But doesn't have a Google local page for the umbrella company. Now he finds rankings are down. Looking around I can see that his citations are all based on the original successful venue name A - but he has changed the website URL on many of the citations to the new domain.So a bit of a mess as we have a mixture of addresses, same phone number for all 4 , different business names for all 4, same website for all 4. If all the venues plus the umbrella company are in the same city, but have different names and addresses but the same phone number (for bookings) and web address, are they allowed a Google local page each? I suggest just having a Google local page for the umbrella company and remove the others as they are not actually separate businesses although they do have different addresses. But unsure if this is correct or necessary. Not sure how to progress with this one and any help appreciated?
Local Listings | | AL123al0 -
Local Citations
So we are working on our citations. Now the issue is (not really an issue, but it is definitely very annoying) is that we have multiple locations. I get that you need to then have multiple listings. Where I get baffled is that I have read that you will then need to have more than 1 google + account for the different addresses. That seems like a lot of work to keep two google + accounts updated. Is this a must for SEO purposes?
Local Listings | | blackrino0 -
Yahoo Local Basic Listing Verifications Failing
Hey everyone, Over the last few weeks Yahoo Local's Basic Listings have been failing left and right for me. When working to verify a business listing, I have been trying the phone, snail mail and email verifications specifically, and am 100% sure I've been inputting the correct code, yet no matter how many attempts I make, I get the following error: http://i.imgur.com/pJ7ggBx.jpg This is for multiple accounts, not just a single instance. Seems Yahoo's just got an unfixed, prevalent bug. I've reached out to their Support for information, but they have been unresponsive. Anyone else running into this issue?
Local Listings | | copyjack0 -
Unable to verify my google local listing page by phone verification.
Hi, I have created the Google local listing page for my business site. I want to verify it using the phone verification but there is only a option - "verify by postcard". Is there no option to verify it using a phone number? Help needed.
Local Listings | | SangeetaC0 -
How To Rank Individual Pages Locally?
Hello, A fellow business owner recommend that I signup for Moz to ask questions about local SEO. I just have a few questions, but please excuse my ignorance since SEO isn't something I'm very familiar with. My company has locations in 3 different cities in the state of Arkansas. I've noticed that when I type in certain keywords on Google such as "web design", I see a lot of organic listings from web design companies in my local area - but if I were to search from another city, different listings show up that are related to that city. I have 3 different pages on my company's website for each of our locations that gives a little bit of information about them - such as the general manager, storefront photos, and the employee of the month. What can I do to get each of the pages to rank higher on Google in their respective cities? I've heard a lot of different things mentioned such as having the name, address, and phone number listed. Including Google Maps on the page with our location. And some other stuff such as including stuff such as a "KML file" and a "schema markup". If anyone can give me a list of definitive suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.
Local Listings | | CyberAlien1 -
How do I get impressions with specific search queries on Google places?
My local Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/104228491449315888832/about?hl=en
Local Listings | | CommercePundit
Business name: Lily Ann Cabinets
Business location: 1630 Coining Drive, Toledo, Ohio, USA
Business telephone: (800) 551-1438
Business category: Cabinet Store
Website: http://www.lilyanncabinets.com I have claimed one business on Google places associated to Kitchen Cabinets. According to my opinion, We're no.1 kitchen cabinet seller in Toledo, Ohio location. And, I am quite excited to gather impressions with Kitchen Cabinets keywords when people search from Toledo, Ohio location. I have checked Google search result for Kitchen Cabinets keywords from Toledo, Ohio location. And, I am not able to see my website name in Google places search listing. You can find out attachment to know more about it. Can anyone guide me to get impressions with Kitchen Cabinets search query with Toledo, Ohio location? Kitchen-Cabinets-Google-Search.png?part=2&view=1&vt=ANaJVrFeEcjJlJHKq5yo0kuWtQJabJJDCi7YqGRINUizw8vf78eRwdqcP8byqWpWC02n28jEsXu7qU2SebzymrZ-NJB5Kam_qtZcC75iQIj_G6zr-Mzejyw0