Local Search Verified Location Ideas

[94501]

Hi,

I have a client who has offices that are physically located in one town, but offers its services to a much wider area, like a hundred mile radius.

You can see where this is going.

In local organic search, they need to establish a verified business location in other towns. My understanding is that virtual offices, even though you can receive mail there and can have offices there, are not an acceptable solution to this problem. Maybe I'm wrong about that though.

Any ideas, short of opening up permanent full-time offices in other cities for getting around this?

With all due respect, if your answer is only an opinion on the importance of playing by the rules and background on the rationale behind Google's Guidelines, etc, please don't bother posting. I'm looking for actual possible alternatives.

Thanks!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael,

I totally get it that you'd love to find a solution for a client like this, and also that you won't find a 'play by the rules' type of reply helpful from the community, given that this is what you've doubtless encountered a number of times as the answer to the question you are asking. So, I won't suggest playing by the rules, but rather just want to stress the importance I've always felt about my role as an educator to local business clients. It's not fun being the bearer of bad news (you're unlikely to rank in the local pack if you lack a physical location in city X and Google could drop the hammer if you put up listings for virtual offices), but if I don't set the client's expectations properly about how local search works, I'm actually doing him a disservice.

Unfortunately, over the years, I've had so many business owners come to me from scenarios in which their previous marketers gave them false expectations and didn't educate them about the limits of Local, and those relationships with their former consultants did not end well. Money was wasted, penalties were incurred, people grumbled about lawsuits... not good stuff. And I've had to decide whether I could get these disenchanted business owners onto a good path again or let them go by as hopelessly blacklisted.

So what can we do when Google limits us in this way, particularly in this historically frustrating scenario of applying a physical location bias to business models to which this shouldn't apply? You get it and I get it and consumers get it that it makes zero difference to us if the plumber we call is in our town or the town 10 minutes away, but Google continues to treat SABs with a lack of genuine consideration, lumping them in with brick-and-mortar businesses and letting the chips fall where they may. So what can we do?

We can educate the client and tell them we're going to go after organic rankings for those service cities, because that's just the way this works. That's the way it works for us, it's the way it works for our client and for his competitors, and unless we want to risk a really negative outcome for our own brand and our client's brand, we're stuck with this. But, at the end of the day, our job matters because we have provided the education and come up with a strategy for gaining maximum visibility for the client within the limits of the situation. To me, that's why what I do matters. I educate, even when it's saying things people would rather not hear

[94501]

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for taking the time to write. In your last paragraph, first sentence, did you mean to say "we're going to go after organic rankings" or we're not going to... ? I assume not, but just want to make sure.

[JoyHawkins]

A great option for service area businesses to rank well organically in other towns is to utilize a service like NearbyNow.  They create real content that isn't just you're typical keyword-stuffed service area pages and they rank really well if you utilize the tool properly.

Also now that ads are in the 3-pack everywhere on mobile, I'm suggesting that to clients as well.

You were correct in your assumption on virtual offices - they are not allowed: http://www.sterlingsky.ca/google-updates-gmb-guidelines-virtual-offices-not-allowed-sabs/

[94501]

Hi Joy,

Thanks for the insight. Following your answer here, I read your excellent post on "Getting on the Map: The Intro to Local SEO for SABs" at https://moz.com/blog/intro-local-seo-service-area-businesses

Excellent advice.

So, I guess you're saying in the blog post (or correct me if I'm wrong) is that a good alternative approach for an SAB trying to rank further from the brick & mortar office (that still won't get one a local pack listing but might work further down the page) is to do a page on jobs in that town, have some pictures, describe the work, maybe reviews/star ratings/schema markup (via Nearby Now or other), optimize it for town+service, like "Dallas Tree Trimming," add some internal and external links and go for it that way. Is that correct?

That was a really long sentence. Thanks!

[JoyHawkins]

Exactly!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael,

No, no typo on my end. For SABs like your client, your best available strategy is to go after organic rankings for his service cities, since you can't typically go after local ones because of Google's bias. A typical local marketing plan for a service area business involves creating a set of really excellent landing pages on the website for each of his main service cities, differentiating them with unique and useful content. You might check out:

https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages

These pages take time and resources to develop well, and their goal is to gain organic visibility for local queries.

And, finally, there is PPC - paying for Adwords to show up for specific cities. If being visible for a specific city is vital for an SAB, a combination of city landing pages + PPC can bring in the leads the business is seeking.

Hope this helps!

[94501]

Thanks for the help, Miriam! I really appreciate it.

[94501]

Thank you, Joy! You are amazingly well-informed!

[MiriamEllis]

You are very welcome, Michael. So glad to have you here, asking good questions!