Local SEO Brand Name Question

[GSO]

I have a franchisee client where the standard practice is to list their brand name as (ex: "[Brand] of San Diego, CA") on their website. I don't think that's the legal business name of the company, just how corporate chooses to organize the franchisees. The client often uses this name in the offline world so it seems to fall within Google's guidelines for creating a listing on Google My Business.

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en&ref_topic=4540086

I've heard conflicting answers from Google Places reps on whether to use brand + location or just brand. I've also seen articles that state if your business name is greater than 40 characters it can often be shortened if directories choose to pull your business data from a different source and that would make the listing name inconsistent. I'd like the added benefit of keeping the location in but I know large franchises like Subway don't bother adding location though. Anyone have any experience with this?

[WilliamKammer]

My suggestion is to not add the geos. It's all well and good that the offline world might refer to it with the geo and you might not technically be going against guidelines, but it's still not something you want to risk getting flagged for, or have reps change without your knowledge, screwing up your citations. Then you'll find yourself on with the phone reps all the time trying to tell them how your situation is an exception.

[GSO]

Great points William, thanks for the response!

[Greg_Gifford]

You say at the top that corporate likes to use brand name + location on the website... but then it seems like you're talking about directory listings...

As long as you're consistent with the business name on all citations, you should be OK... if all of your citations say "Bubba's Widgets", but then on the website it says "Bubba's Widgets - Dallas", then you're still ok...

We work with tons of car dealers who have a long dealership name, but then when they mention the biz name throughout the site, they use a shorter "lingo" version of the name... never causes any problems.

If you're talking directories, that's an entirely different situation, and can get hairy... Even though Google now allows a single modifier to be added to the end of a biz name, you're still safer just using the actual business name in all your citations. Just explain to corporate that you cannot risk getting flagged, and that the directories are strict about what you can put in for a business name.

[GSO]

Yeah I was referring to directories. I figured just brand name would be the safer option but I was curious if other SEOs out there had success/difficulties using the modifier. I appreciate the response, thanks!