Google My Business URL Choice
-
Hi guys, we have a national chain hardware store hardware store as a client. We built them a new website, and now they want us to do local SEO to help them rank better. We are debating for GMB whether to promote our new website URL or use the location page on the national hardware site. Most similar stores seem to promote the location page on the national site, but the client just spent money on having us build them a new website. What gives our client the best chance of ranking better?
-
Good topic, and I believe what John is describing is a franchise in which there is a national website for the brand, but that individual locations of that franchise are owned by individual owners. Is that right, John?
If so, the problem with franchises is that they frequently don't give location owners much or any control over what is on their landing page of the corporate site, so in some cases, the franchise owner might want his own website so that he can work toward building the brand locally more than the franchise is going to do on his behalf. Is this the right decision? It really depends. Honestly, if it's something like a pizza franchise where menus, sales and everything else is the same across the board, I don't see a compelling reason to operate a unique local website. But, if there is a high degree of differentiation between what's being sold or done at different locations, and the business owner doesn't have any control over what appears on the corporate site, then there could be a case for the separate site. How is it with the hardware store? Is everything the same in its Chicago location as in its Denver location, or is something really different happening at the two locations .... different products, different specials, different classes, something else? That's what needs to be determined.
-
We have a location finder which drills down into a page per location which then has cross links to the products lines which that location provide.
The page title for each location is something like<name of="" company=""><city town=""><geographical area=""></geographical></city></name>
<main service="" product="">if not too long!
If in your database you could have a description section for a unique piece of content per branch better still, perhaps location information or specialties for the location.
I would however echo the message about one website for the company and only split off into a second site for specialist products or brands. Even then I would use one website if I could get away with it as content is king and lots of good content will get noticed more.
</main>
-
Sorry if I am not understanding correctly, but are you saying that you have built a separate website for one store even though it has a location page on the national website? Is there any specific reason to having a separate website? Usually I would advise against having a separate website for just one store as your issue is the most common reason why.
I assume the national website will have much more authority so there are a few things you could do here. My first bit of advice would be to keep it consistent. If they want to rank in local, your best bet is to update all citations to use the new micro site. I would also use the link of the micro site on the GMB page. I would also advise you get a link on the national site to the micro site and use the national site more as a citation. I hope this makes sense.
-
This really comes down to a question of page and domain strength. Just like regular organic results, their placement in the local pack is going to depend on a number of relevancy/geo signals in conjunction with the usual trust factors.
If the new website is going to have a full campaign attached to it and specifically targeting that store's location then I'd suggest using this one. If the national site is going to be the stronger one, perhaps the SEO time is better spent focussing on that site rather than splitting it across two.
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
-
Where does the small description on a business listing come from in google maps?
Hi All, Simple question, but I'm struggling to find the answer, so I hope someone is able to help. The business I run is Oakdene Forest Park; Google Maps URL: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Oakdene™+Forest+Park/@50.8114372,-1.8598721,18z/data=!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x4873980ce90e4ef7:0x755579d631c25b33!2sOakdene™+Forest+Park!8m2!3d50.8114796!4d-1.8582842!3m4!1s0x4873980ce90e4ef7:0x755579d631c25b33!8m2!3d50.8114796!4d-1.8582842?hl=en Under the business name, it has a small description and for the life of me I don't know where Google is getting it from because a part of it is wrong. It looks like this: Oakdene™ Forest Park Rural Resort with Entertainment & a Spa I would like to remove the term 'Rural Resort' but where do I find it?? Thanks in advance for your help.
Local Listings | | Shorefield_Holidays0 -
Best Listings for Service Area Business?
Hi Moz community! I'm wondering the best places to get a local service area business listed online? I'm working with a client who installs synthetic grass around Vancouver, but could apply to any local SAB ... I found this resource from Local Visibility Systems but it's almost 5 years old at this point ... http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/08/13/can-you-rank-well-in-local-google-without-revealing-your-street-address-anywhere/ I started setting up an Apple Maps Connect account but it doesn't seem like they support the concept. Is there a way to hide an address in Apple Maps Connect? Is it worth submitting at all? Does anyone have a comprehensive list of modern directories that matter for local SEO that support SABs? Thanks very much everyone! - Paul
Local Listings | | paulz9991 -
Does business name capitalisation count when making sure you have the same NAP across all directories ?
We've got a UK company with a company name like the following "ABC cars" (3 letter capitalised name followed by a word). With the Thompson local directory (one of the top 10 uk directories for local NAPs (and listed as a direct partner in Moz Local)) they dont allow you to have multiple capitalised letters in a company name. As far as i can see there are a few options to get around this : A B C Cars Abc Cars abc Cars (or abc cars) But none of them are ideal, as they dont match the actual name as listed on all of sites 100% in terms capitalisation. Which one of the above (or other) would be the best solution ? Does capitalisation count when people say your NAP must match ?
Local Listings | | mike8780 -
Business Name Change and Local Listings
Hi, I'm working with a local bakery. We're going to change the name, rebuilt the site and branding, change to a new domain. My question is: Is it better to do all the local listings now, then go and update the name and website when we launch, or is it better to wait until the new site launches? Also, we're merging the catering brand into the new brand, what should I do with the old profiles from the catering business? There are 7 good reviews on various platforms (Facebook, Yelp, Google) Thanks!
Local Listings | | MichaelGregory0 -
How to handle Local SEO when two businesses merge
Hi, I have a landscaping client who is buying another company and merging the two companies together. I trying to figure what the best way to handle this type of situation is. Here are the specifics. Company A I've been working with him for a number of years, he has a really robust site with good content and with really good rankings. I've done a ton of citations, he's in good shape. His company has decent name recognition. Company B My client is buying Company B. Their site is really poor, no SEO done on site and no directory listing work. The company has great name recognition in the community and gets most clients through word of mouth. My client has decided to take Company B's name because its a more well known company. He is going to merge the companies, because he doesn't want to have 2 companies from a management standpoint. He plans to keep both physical locations open. So here are my questions. Do I keep both sites live for a period of time and put a message notifying people that "Company A is now Company B Name"? OR Do I transfer all the good content from Company A's site to Company B's site and do a 301 redirect of the URL. How should I handle the data aggregators and directory listings? I'm trying to keep all the great natural traffic that Company A gets to its site, start to build traffic around company B's location while following all of Google's policies. I could just start over and in the long-term they'd be fine, but I really love to find a strategy to avoid my client taking a big hit in organic traffic. Thanks in advance Mozzers!
Local Listings | | JohnWeb121 -
How do I find associations between two businesses?
Google seems to have associated two business that share the same location (with added suite numbers) and I'm not sure how to break the association. The puzzling thing I discovered the other day is when I do a brand search in Google maps it populates this other business as seen here: (https://www.google.com/maps/search/tatt-away/@27.184467,-81.4366649,8z/data=!3m1!4b1) We have multiple locations in Florida I know this other business and it's hosted on the same VPS as well. My question is how to I find the correlation and break it?
Local Listings | | Tatt-Away0 -
Questions about On-site Location Content for Service Area Businesses
Hello all, I've got a couple tough questions about how to go about creating locations pages for my business, and I'm wondering if you can give me some much needed direction. I'm about to launch a professional house cleaning business which will serve Philadelphia and a couple surrounding counties. I plan on aggressively expanding to other large cities, and while I plan on building a Philly locations page, I'm unsure of how to rank organically for all the individual towns/municipalities in the surrounding counties in the middle without having a physical business location there. Should I even hope to rank for these smaller towns? Would a page where the county is in the h1 tag, and say the top 10 largest towns in that county listed underneath in h2 tags help me reach searchers in those top 10 largest towns? How about paying ~$100 for a physical street address in each county and submitting that NAP to local directories of the larger towns, as well as getting a Google My Business page and using the service radius option? Is there some other strategy that I'm missing? I'm just at a loss for how to compete without AdWords for the people searching in the smaller towns when my competition is businesses with NAP/citations and their main page dedicated solely to that smaller town. Google seems to have made it even harder with Pigeon coming out recently. I serve those areas just as readily as my competition, yet the customer will predominantly see them SOLELY due to the fact that most of my competition are incapable of serving or choose not to serve wide areas. I understand that these businesses are dedicating a lot of resources to those small towns, but it does seem a sad fact that it doesn't mean they're any higher quality of a company than mine, yet they get a leg up. ANY advice or direction would be greatly appreciated, and would come with a huge internet bear hug.
Local Listings | | PTHerrington0 -
Completely lost Google Local rankings for main keywords
Hi there, Our website, petmedicalcenter.com, used to rank very well in Google in the local section - usually within the top 3 spots for 8 or so keywords. Then last fall our rankings started to diminish. We would rank really well for a few days and then would be no where to be found in the local section - this cycle kept going for a few months. Now, within the last few weeks our website is nowhere to be found in local for our usual keywords. After a few years of success with SEO, I know the landscape is really starting to change. My problem is that I don't even know where to start to try and get us back on to the top spots. I know this question is rather broad, but I am really at a loss here. Any help is greatly appreciated!! http://www.petmedicalcenter.com Main Keywords: veterinarian las vegas, vets in las vegas, veterinarians las vegas, las vegas veterinarians, vet las vegas Thank you for your help! Brant
Local Listings | | BCB11210