Client bought out shop but used existing phone number

[cwtaylor]

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We have a client in Nashville who opened his first location on Spring St., then later bought out PAC Auto to open a second location on Dickerson St. Lately, we noticed that the Dickerson location wasn't ranking. I found that the previous business owner at Pac Auto had already built up a good web presence and that sigh our client was using their old number.

Basic NAP violation, ok, got it. But what to do next?

I decided to update PACs citations with The Car People's business name and website. Where I was unable to edit or where listings were already claimed, I just reported PAC auto as closed.

But yesterday I noticed not only was the Dickerson location still not ranking, but the Spring street location had indeed dropped several places too! (edit: I'm referring to local search results here as we don't own the site)

What kind of beast have I stirred?!

What kind of signals am I sending to Google that are devaluing the Spring st. location? Will things get worse before they get better? What can I do to make some progress on one without hurting the other?

Is it worth trying to get the previous business owners logins (not likey)? Talk to The Car People about getting a new number (not impossible)? Is it worth trying to get the site in order to build separate landing pages for each location?

Thanks in advance!

[ZDAdmin]

You're probably not looking at a quick fix any way you slice it but here's what I would do:

1. Create a new Google Plus Local page for the Dickerson address.
2. Claim/Create as many listings as possible for the Dickerson address
3. Create a landing page on the client's site for both addresses
4. Link each Google Plus Local page to the location specific landing page you created

I think you do those four things, you'll be fine.

[cwtaylor]

@ZDAdmin

Great feedback--thanks! On your suggestion I think we're going to push for their website.

Are you suggesting closing the existing Google+ page for Dickerson and verifying a new page, or was I just not clear about having already opened one? And for conversations sake would you have done something differently to start? For example, having them change their phone number?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Nick,

Whoa - yes, this is messy. You are right about that. The business should have gotten a brand new phone number and I'd suggest that they do so and edit all existent citations to reflect the new number. If your client's company is The Car People at both locations, and their competitor is PAC, (I think this is what you're saying) you should not have attempted to edit or claim PACs citations, beyond reporting them as closed. You should have built new citations for the new business. My guess is that Google is now confused about which business is located on this street as it is seeing not only 2 business names hooked into it, but an identical phone number. Basically, it sounds like a citation confusion catastrophe

I'm not sure what you mean by:

"Is it worth trying to get the site in order to build separate landing pages for each location?"

Which site? Do you mean buy out the competitors' website? Something else? Your client should be in control of their own website, and have a separate landing page for each location on this website.

Whether what is going on with the one location is affecting the older location, I can't say. It is possible for Google to be mistrusting of an overall profile if something wonky is going on with part of it, but there is also a big shakeup going on in the Local results that could be the cause of what you're seeing with the older location.

You may need to get a professional audit of the situation, Nick. There's a good chance I'm not understanding certain nuances of the situation (such as whether both companies are named The Car People or whether one is PAC, and what you mean about 'getting the website'). Sounds like you've got a really tough client who did not go about things in an optimal way, and it's my best guess that a high level Local SEO would need to do a sort of case history to get all of the details sorted out on something like this. Tough one!

[cwtaylor]

@Miriam

First off, thanks for your careful analysis, and to answer your questions

1. The Car People have the same name at both locations. PAC Auto (closed) was the previous shop at the Dickerson location.

2. We do the off-site stuff and our competitor does the on-site SEO (don't ask), so creating landing pages means a little push-back. So by "getting the site" I mean that if they won't take our recommendation to add landing pages (not to mention additional issues with NAP in html markup) then we'll push for a sale.

Otherwise we'll talk about a new number and start building again from the ground up.

Too bad about my goof on modifying PAC Auto's citations. Guess I'll go back and close those now.

Tough indeed. Time to call in the dream team.

space-jam.jpg

[BrianJGomez]

I thought you claimed the old competitor page and tried to input your client's info for their Google+ page.

If that's not the case and you've already set up a Google+ page, there's nothing that needs to be done in my opinion.

I'm not sure that I would have had them change their number prior to reading this story, so as much as I would like to say yes and sound smart, I would have probably played it the same way. Especially when you think of the benefits of old customers of the competitor calling your client looking for the same services.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Nick,

I would say you need to accomplish:

a) Getting the company to get a new phone number

b) Getting the developers to put a landing page for each location on the site

c) Building new citation for the new location, not piggy-backing onto citations for the old company. After all, despite the fact that The Car People occupy a building that was previously occupied by another business, there is no relationship between the two (or, at least, there shouldn't have been, if not for that decision to keep the other company's phone number)

d) Tell the client that some of the decisions that have been made are going to make it essential to have a lot of patience here while you try to create a data cluster out there on the web that Google can trust. Right now, it's unlikely that they have this. It's going to have be created over time with a lot of care.