Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
Google My Business -Choosing Multiple Categories
Hi friends, I'm trying to work out what would the practice be for a business who is operating in different categories in terms of displaying those categories in Google My Business account. We have a client who is supplying both catering and cleaning products (both categories are core). In this case, listing those two categories in GMB would be alright or should I expect a negative impact on results related to both categories as we have chosen multiple categories? Any advice would be appreciated greatly!
Local Listings | | bbop331 -
Google Business Listing with no physical office location
Hey, everyone! As a business owner who works from home and doesn't have a physical office location. Is setting up a Google business listing without location going to hurt my local search ranking? Should I get a virtual office so I have a physical location? Thank you!! 😃
Local Listings | | ichorstudios0 -
Google My Business - two locations but same name and phone
Hello, I manage SEO for an orthopaedic practice and I'm wondering what to do about their GMB listings. They have two locations, but I'm starting to think we shouldn't have separate GMB pages for the two locations because of the advice about other GMB questions I've been reading on this forum. I read a helpful response that said you must ensure the following if you want to create separate GMB listings: Unique name Unique address (even if only a suite / office number) Unique phone number Clearly different categories on Google My Business I can only ensure one of those - unique address. The business has the same name, phone number, and categories at both addresses. What should I do about this? I would think it's important to list both addresses so that patients can be guided to the appropriate location, but is there a way to do that with just one GMB listing? Thank you, Susannah
Local Listings | | SusannahK.Noel0 -
How to change your location for local search results?
Hi Everybody Back in december 2015 I came across this article https://gofishdigital.com/google-results-change-location/ explaining how to change location for local search results using the google emulation tool by setting up new coordinates. This was also picked up by mikeblumenthals' blog as being one of the best way of doing this. I tried it at the time and it worked very well. I tried using it last week and again this week but my location no longer seems to update. I have tried it on fifferent computers located in different locations and still it doesn't work. Does anyone know if this feature is no longer available and if not what else they'd recommend to verify local search results. Thanks
Local Listings | | coolhandluc0 -
No Location option in Incognito Search Settings
I was checking on a client ranking and went to Incognito in Chrome for the search. I went to search settings to set the location and thought I had done something wrong. I closed and went back to search settings and still no location setting. See attached. Interestingly, when I went to my signed in Chrome and set the location and then went to incognito and went to search settings, then location showed up for me. This also begs a question about why Google has this where you must be signed in to set a location in Incognito mode. Thanks for any input you have, Robert G1lS9EK.png cRRlULo.png
Local Listings | | RobertFisher0 -
Local citations from business directories in other countries
Hi all, I normally work for clients in my home county (The Netherlands) and with local citation building I focus on Dutch websites or well know .com websites in the Netherlands. My rule of thumb kinda was, if it’s not known in the Netherlands it isn’t worth getting mentioned there. Since The Netherlands are pretty small and I think Google ain’t perfect I was wondering if it makes sense to list a Dutch business on any .com business listings that are internationally big, but aren’t well known in the Netherlands. Two reasons that got me thinking this direction: A big well known Dutch company offers a service such as Moz local and did integrate their service with several international business listing websites that I never heard off, since these business directories focus themselves on other parts of the world. Google ain’t perfect and I think they got more budget to identify trustworthy business directories with an international focus or a focus on America then with a focus on The Netherlands. So I’m wondering if it makes any sense to list a Dutch business on let’s say the top 20 international business directories (although these directories don’t have any brand recognition in The Netherlands).
Local Listings | | Bob_van_Biezen0 -
Description on Google+ & ALL Citations the same or?
Does it matter if the description is different on Google local and all the citation websites? Some websites allow a lot of description, some don't. So my question is it only the company name+address that needs to be the same across the board or the description has to be the same too?
Local Listings | | surfsup0 -
Are citations the way to go even if there is no Google Places listing
If there are no Google Places / Local listing for a keyword search term, for example... "web design vancouver", do building citations still help in enabling websites to move up the organic rankings?
Local Listings | | Gavo0