Children's club Google My Business conundrum
-
Hi there
I have been contacted by a small business to help them with their <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> effort.
The business is a children's club offering drama classes, music classes etc...Looking at their online visibility shows they don't even have a Google my business profile which is where i was going to start however, they operate from a local school after hours. The local school already has a GMB profile, obviously with the same address and postcode.
Is it possible to set up a GMB for the children's club anyway?
Many thanks
-
You're welcome, Neil. Glad to have you here!
-
Thanks very much Miriam
-
Hi Neil,
Good question, and unfortunately, the answer is no. The children's club wouldn't be eligible for a GMB listing, according to Google's guidelines, which state:
Ineligible businesses
The following businesses aren’t eligible for a business listing:
- Businesses that are under construction or that have not yet opened to the public.
- Rental or for-sale properties, such as vacation homes, model homes or vacant apartments. Sales or leasing offices, however, are eligible for verification.
- An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent.
The description of the club you've provided would fall under that guidelines of an ongoing class at a location that isn't owned by the club. The club can ask the school to mention its existence in the school's description of its own GMB listing, but doing so is actually kind of pointless because Google doesn't publicly display the description.
So, lacking an address of its own that it has the authority to represent, the club's business model isn't truly local. And, should the club attempt to build citations, this could actually interfere with whatever Local SEO efforts the school is trying to make. So, complete local outreach is going to be limited here for your client, and they may need to rely more on organic optimization, PPC and social.
Hope this 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 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 maps SEO
We rank #1 for our main keyword and location, however, the top 3 google maps listing doesn't include us. We have more reviews than any of our local competitors (they have around 1/2, we have 25 all 5*) & we only seem to appear as an ad on maps listings. What can we do to resolve this?
Local Listings | | RayflexGroup0 -
Local SEO: How to get local business showing up in Google Local
Hello, We moved to a small town in Council, ID. It's interesting. None of the businesses around here are showing up in Google Local - map, phone number, hours, etc. Nothing. It's all Yelp and stuff. Is there some sort of collective local SEO that has to be done to get Council, ID on the map? It's kind of strange that no businesses show up. I want to help local businesses, but I don't know if Google will even register them. We can get a group of local businesses together if we have to. Let me know what we can do. Thanks.
Local Listings | | BobGW0 -
Google Places - Remove Completely vs. Permanently Closed?
This is a bit confusing to explain so bear with me please. We have a client that used to have an old law practice with a partner. The site and backlinks were very large and it had a lot of domain authority. It also had a very large citation profile and history. The two lawyers have since split, but there remains multiple Google Places listings out there for the old partnership. We have fixed the one showing the old business practice name, but not the one that he setup for his personal name. One of the biggest hassles is that the old location he setup has his attorney name in the actual listing. The issue is that we cannot close the old listing (we tried this), as it comes up permanently closed when you Google his name. If you search for his new Law Firm, the correct business listing that we have set up will show. The new listing also includes his name and has over 50 five star reviews. We hoped that the large amount of legitimate reviews would get rid of or at least suppress the old listing, but it is not happening. So I am a bit confused as to what to do. If we close the old listing Google shows the red "permanently closed" listing when you Google his name. We cannot update the old listing information to show his new address as then it will compete with the new listing that we setup that shows all the positive reviews. The old listing was not created by us, and the new one was. The new one shows when you search for his Law Firm name in Google, but not for his personal name i.e "NAME HERE ATTORNEY" or "HIS NAME and LOCATION" Interested to hear your thoughts. The only way I can think to fix this is to contact Google directly and see if there is a way to permanently delete the listing from Google maps, but I am not aware that this is possible.
Local Listings | | David-Kley0 -
Local Business Audit Help.....
Hello Every one, I recently got a big project for cleaning up some old listings (around 120 locations), witch means to claim and delete them, as you guys know most of the directory's don't give the option to delete the listing after you claim that. I am trying to figure out the approach for something like that.......considering time consuming and efficiency! any help will be appreciated!! Cheers
Local Listings | | steve2150 -
Local sites to make sure I'm listed in - which ones?
I'd love to know what sites this community deems most important when looking at whether my business & site are listed there. I know the obvious - Google Places, Yahoo Maps, Bing Local, Yelp. Foursquare. What others do you consider to be "mission critical" to the general market? Thanks!
Local Listings | | wcksmith10 -
Google+ Company Verification Help
I am in a huge Google+ pickle. Backstory: Client's past marketing manager set up a Google+ Company Page with their old work email as the username - that marketing manager is now gone Client also moved into a new unit within their building, therefor keeping the same address but a different suite # Client's President (my point of contact) created a new (unverified) Google+ Company Page for the new address & suite # If I verify the correct Google+ Company Page, does this overwrite the old one with the incorrect suite #? Or will I still need to dig up their old company page login to transfer ownership? Also, does anyone have any helpful beginner articles on setting up Google+ Company Pages for businesses with multiple locations? Thanks!
Local Listings | | BopDesign0 -
Change in Google local ranking
So we have a WA construction client that we're working on doing some local SEO stuff. This month all the keywords that we're tracking but one is on the first page. It's easy to say "yay, we're so damn good at what we do", but it seems like there must have been a shift in the way google is ranking local results. Anyone else experiencing this??
Local Listings | | SoleGraphics0