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Hey Dougie! So far, you've received a lot of great suggestions for tools. I'm going to make one additional really down-to-Earth suggestion about this topic. Survey your staff (any member of your team who communicates directly with your customers) to find out exactly what words they hear/see your customers using when asking about your products and services. This is an important task for 2 reasons: Corporate lingo and consumer lingo are not always the same. You may call that thing a Craftmatic Adjustable Lazyboy Model 23-T4D. I may call it a recliner. Be sure you're using the customers' language, including synonyms, in your optimization, writing and marketing. Regional language difference matter. If you sell pop but I drink soda or cola, we're missing each other. Pull your staff findings into a keyword focus spreadsheet to expand the way you write and speak about your products. Hope this helps!

Oh, my, I'm totally laughing at myself right now. I read your business name off your initial screenshot as 'OLD' rather than 'QLD' so I was searching for the wrong name. Hahah! I was seriously wondering what 'old drone photography' was! Okay, so yes, this is a GMB listing: https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Queensland+Drone+Photography/@-27.4678042,152.8889523,11z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1sqld+drone+photography!3m4!1s0x6b914dad2b40df69:0x6c4ea8347f585873!8m2!3d-27.5639479!4d152.882636 Looks like you've got some work cut out for you earning reviews, Tony, and the Google trust that goes along with them. Let me link you here to our Local SEO Checklist so that you can methodically go through any problems that might be holding your business back in Google's eyes, as well as helping you create a strong strategy for locally marketing your company. Hope this helps!

Hi John, So, what you are talking about is called Containment Information. Google says: Containment information indicating that your business is located inside another business (whether or not the businesses are part of the same organization). Not acceptable: "Chase ATM (in Duane Reade)", "Apple Store at Stanford Shopping Center", "Benefit Brow Bar - Bloomingdales", "Sam’s Club Tire & Battery (part of Sam’s Club)", "Geek Squad (inside Best Buy)" Acceptable: "Chase ATM", "Apple Store", "Benefit Brow Bar", "Sam’s Club Tire & Battery", "Geek Squad" See the full guidelines here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en Regarding your URLs, I would go with domain.com/city-street Regarding keywords, this is tough because you are talking about so many locations. Typical advice looks like this ...but only if you have the resources to build a good, high quality page for each of the 1700 locations. If you do, I'd focus on service + city + regional terms and synonyms on the pages. I might suggest, given the size of this client, that you hire a good Local SEO to consult with you, to whom you can show the actual business in confidence. The goal would be to have them confirm GMB eligibility, actually looking at your client. There can be nuances to that our community might miss, not looking at the actual business model. Investment in an hour or two of consulting with a top notch Local SEO would seem a wise investment to me, given the very big scope of the project. We have a list of trusted Local SEOs here: https://moz.com/learn/local/trusted-providers Hope this helps!

Totally agree with this from our experience - always, always, always use a single site if possible but if they are radically different businesses then it can work but there are annoyances on route.

Hi Cole, I'm not sure that adding schema to businesses that are not yours would directly benefit you, though it might benefit the stores in question. Can you explain what your goal is with this?

Thanks!

Glad to help, Neil!

Got it! There are 2 options I can see here, and like I said, I'd be very inclined to do some consulting with Linda Buquet in your shoes, if she were available, and show her the complete details of the scenario. From the limited details I have on this, I see 2 options for you: Do a total citation audit first to make a record of all listings located at suite B and formerly occupied by the retiree. Then, if one of your 3 dentists will be occupying suite B, you would be editing the name (and I'm assuming phone) of these to reflect the new dentist. The main problem with this would be reviews ... it's likely that they would reference the retiree and that could be problematic. Read this thread and the links it contains regarding Dr/Dentist duplicates: https://moz.com/community/q/dental-practice-google-and-dentist-personal-google You may need to minimize the old listings and create new ones. I have to confess, the situation with the firm occupying two suites is throwing me a bit. I've never personally dealt with a business that was organized that way, and it's unusual enough for me that I'd be inclined to seek professional consulting, particular given Google's very irregular handling of listings for doctors and dentists. At the very least, I hope my reply points you in a good direction for further research into how your practice should handle this.

Good luck!

Hey Steve, I think what you might be looking for would be a heatmap study like this one: https://moz.com/blog/the-new-snack-pack-where-users-clicking-how-you-can-win You might be able to find others. Hope that helps!

Recommended reading on this topic: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/11/25/guide-to-using-call-tracking-for-local-search/

I have included the URL to a tool called "Ad Preview" by Google. It allows you to preview the SERP and put in these input parameters - Location, Language and Device. If you want to simulate different areas, you just put in a different location. Putting in the location "United States" should give you the most reliable data for your queries. You will be able to see the snack-pack in the SERP and it will be simulated for the location you gave. https://adwords.google.com/apt/anon/AdPreview

Recommended reading on call tracking: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/11/25/guide-to-using-call-tracking-for-local-search/

In theory, the listings changes you are suggesting should all work. But, Google My Business does not always work they way they say they are supposed to, especially when significant changes like this are made. In some cases, we've made a change of a name or address for a business, and after the correct info was in place for a few days or weeks, it reverted back to the old info. One way to help avoid this is to make sure that you update all the business listings, not just Google. If Google sees the change you made being made across all directories, they are much less likely to revert anything. As long as the listing is verified before you make any changes, you should not run into issues there. And assuming you'll be listing this business on your website, and updating all listings to point to your website, your site will benefit.

Glad I helped you clarify, Gal.

Happy to have you be part of this community, Travis!

Thank you both for comment on my question. I currently use Bright Local which I find very easy to use and not too costly. A lot of Scoot links, just look like cloned directories.

For a local shop that has their Google My Business set to indicate they serve customers at their location (as opposed to a delivery radius or areas served), Google will base the businesses shown in a search on either the Location the user specifies or will base them on what they know about the given businesses of the area in relation to the query plus any geolocation information of the user in question. So there isn't exactly a radius bubble that you would need to fall into for those specific kinds of situations. Now, for an industry like landscaping, cleaning companies, food delivery, emergency auto repair, tow trucks, etc. They can set a radius they serve within or they can set specific areas. So a locksmith might set a handful of postal codes as the regions they will drive to in order to fix your locks. While a Pizza Delivery Service might choose to set a radius of 25km for their service area because they might not be able to reliably deliver outside that. All of these things can be set up in their Google My Business account. I know from personal experience that Google will show me things easily 100 miles away from my location if there is nothing in between that fits my search. https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en

Hi Miriam. Yes I have now. Thank you so much

Happy to be of help PS thank you Miriam