Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi J, Did you see Miriam's response to both of your questions? Just checking... Christy

Thanks for the feedback everyone! All very helpful and appreciated.

Hey Gannon, Good questions! Quick answers: Yes, you should be using the business name exactly as it appears in the real world. So, no extra capitals. Think about a huge chain like Whole Foods. Google has no problem understanding that Whole Foods located in Dallas is not Whole Foods located in Boston. As Dmitri has said, it's your address/phone that separate the businesses. So, do be sure the phone numbers are separate. Additionally, be sure you have a separate page on the website for each branch and be sure that all other citations are consistently pointing to the respective landing page for the correct location instead of to the homepage or some other page on the site. With this strategy, your client should be just fine.

Hey John, I hope you will get a reply from someone with hands-on experience with directory development, which I don't have, but here's what I think: Obviously, Yahoo has been using Yelp reviews for some time (http://www.webpronews.com/yelp-reviews-no-longer-appearing-in-yahoo-local-results-2015-08) so there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea. On the other hand, yes, you'd be republishing someone else's content on your own site. So, I can see the cause for concern. That being said, yes, it could be that a different engine like Google is going to recognize that as coming from big Yelp and it might not be a problem, but I wouldn't bank on this if it were my company. Finally, the strategy seems a bit iffy to me, to use Yelp's content if you are trying to build a directory that competes with Yelp for your niche. I think the ideal here for your platform would be to build its own value. After all, you have no control over how a third party vets reviews, filters them, trusts them, etc. Yelp's take on this isn't your take and you may have totally different requirements for assessing the value of UGC. Again, hope you'll get some further replies on this, but I wanted to at least get the conversation going. I hope folks will disagree with me if they have a totally different take on this. John's question is a very good one!

Hey Joe, I'd be careful of this, myself. Google is very specific about not wanting redirecting phone numbers. The guidelines state: Website & Phone Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location. Use a local phone number instead of central, call center helpline number whenever possible. Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or "refer" users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business, including pages created on social media sites.

Hey There VERBInteractive! Just wanted to add a little proviso here to the advice you've been so nice to share with Peter. Adding a suite number should only be considered if a business legitimately has a suite number in the real business world, at which they receive postal mail. I believe this is what you meant, but in the past, Local SEOs have experimented with adding fictitious suite numbers in cases like Peter's. These days, no one I know is recommending this practice anymore. If the suite is real, do use it, but if fictitious, don't. Just wanted to clarify

Not a problem Mark. Best of luck!

Hi Rosemary, Glad you've asked. Google has just become quite specific about this practice. Here are their guidelines: Website & Phone Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location. Use a local phone number instead of central, call center helpline number whenever possible. Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or "refer" users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business, including pages created on social media sites So, in short, no. You should not link to the client's Facebook Place from their Google+ Local page. Studying the guidelines can be super helpful in researching the answers to client questions like these: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en Google is sometimes totally clear about a policy, like the above. Other scenarios have grey areas. This one is, fortunately, easy to answer:)

Hi Rosemary, Thanks for the clarification. For a pharmacy chain (or any other franchise) here is what would typically be appropriate: You have a single website.This website has some basic pages like home, about, specials, contact and what have you. In addition to this, you build a unique page of high quality for each of your locations. I don't recommend subdomains. I recommend subfolders. So, this would look like: thepharmacy.com/sugar-land for your store in Sugar Land Texas, and thepharmacy.com/dallas, for your store in Dallas. If you have more than one location in a city like Dallas, your URLs might look like thepharmacy.com/dallas-deep-ellum and thepharmacy.com/dallas-highland-park. Put the complete contact info (NAP) at the top of each page and then create strong content to make the pages interesting, helpful and unique. From your Sugar Land citations, across the web, be sure you are linking to the landing page you've created on the site for Sugar Land, ditto for Dallas citations, etc. This would be considered a standard methodology for any multi-location business. How you then showcase these pages on the website needs to be dictated by the number of locations you have. You want them to be easy to find. You might check out a chain like REI.com. Look at how they are surfacing locations for their users and how they are making their pages unique. They do a good job! Hope this helps!

Hi Darren, Yes as I stated in my response above I already have this! I am looking for a list of aggregators of local business data for the UK and the best way to find local authoritative websites that I could build backlinks with.

Hey Henya, I think having the local number does matter.. In this way, google relate way better with your local business as it considers that your business does belong from that location. Same goes with the users. Umar

My pleasure, Brian! Good luck with your business!

Hey Christopher, Unfortunately, Google doesn't have a function for setting seasonal dates/hours. Here's a recent thread from the Google forum, including a response from a Top Contributor: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/business/V4cjaNYIS6w;context-place=topicsearchin/business/seasonal|sort:date Here's another: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/business/U1Vo5-afRDo;context-place=topicsearchin/business/seasonal|sort:date It's my memory that Google once forbid the inclusion of seasonal businesses in their local product, but this language no longer exists in their guidelines. If you report the business as closed, then you will likely lose rankings ... just not a great situation. Is there no staff at the location at all during the off-season? Not even to take phone calls?

Hi J.P., Not that I can personally recommend, no, but I do hear other people speaking well of Bright Local as well if you want to pay per citation. However, I don't know if they do niche specific directories, as Whitespark does. P.S. This is Miriam writing, by the way, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance at the moment.

Thats very useful and good to know. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge! Ben

Thanks! Glad to hear my thought process was correct.

Thanks Miriam!

One more question. Exploring GWT, I got an automatic message from them explaining a few key points to improve the search presence. At the point one of the list, is mention to add all the versions of my website (www, non-www and https). See file attach. So I guess I should add all the version ... open?id=0B-X4U__h0foNNmxwaTZTTW5pQW8

Hey Michael! Very good and creative tips from Moosa and Umar about trying to track this down, so I'll just respond to the part of your question dealing with what to tell clients. 100% consistency may not be a realistic goal for any business, precisely because of a scenario like yours in which old or bad data ends up on a directory you just can get connected up with. In such cases, judging the overall importance of the directory in question becomes key. If the directory is ranking in the top few pages for your client's name, then incorrect NAP there warrants making every possible effort toward resolution. But, if it's an obscure result, make normal efforts and then let it go at that if you can't find any way to correct it. Document your work for clients and pre-set expectations that you are shooting for high consistency, but not perfect consistency. Some of the smartest citation building experts I know have told me that 100% consistency is not only frequently impossible, but not even actually essential. Hope this helps!

Hi Derek, You're totally fine using Schema any place you have your complete NAP. For the rest of your questions, I think you're going to absolutely love this Phil Rozek post, which digs deep into which elements to use: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2014/06/30/how-to-pick-or-improvise-the-right-schema-org-markup-for-your-local-business/ Hope that hits the spot!