Two websites, one company, one physical address - how to make the best of it in terms of local visibility?

[VELV]

Hello!

I have one company which will be operating in two markets, printing and website design / development. I’m planning on building two websites, each for every market. But I’m a bit confused about how to optimize these websites locally. My thought is to use my physical address for one website (build citations, get listed in directories, etc. ) and PO Box for another. Do you think there is a better idea?

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[RossKernez]

You can create specific landing pages and target states, city or counties.

For example, if you want to rank in California for web design you should create something like this.

website.com/service/web-design/los-angeles

website.com/service/web-design/san-francisco

website.com/service/web-design/san-diego

Then you would try to rank each for " Web design company in Los Angeles"

I hope this helps

[MiriamEllis]

Hi VELV,

Thanks for bringing your question to the forum. Local SEO is largely based on the physical location of the business, not its menu of services. As you describe it, you have a single company at a single location, with a varied menu of services. This might be comparable to an HVAC company which both installs air conditioners and repairs hot water heaters. It's a single company, doing multiple things. The HVAC company, and your business model of a single business with a varied menu, at a single location, is eligible for just one Google My Business listing, and if you choose to move ahead with the model you've described, your business will be "optimizable" in all the various ways one would typically market a single local business.

The alternative to this would be to legally register your single companies as two distinct businesses, with unique tax IDs, unique phone numbers, business names, and completely distinct Google My Business categories. Envisioning your printing company as completely separate from your website design company is an option, but it has potential problems.

The first problem would be that co-located businesses can sometimes be filtered out of Google's high level mapped search results, particularly if they are in a shared category. This is why I'm emphasizing that you would need no crossover between categories. Even with distinct categories, there is some chance you might experience some filtering. More concerning, though, would be the possibility that Google might decide that your two businesses are actually one business attempting to appear like two, in which case they might suppress or remove one of your listings. Your best defense against that would be going to all the necessary lengths to legally register the second business, and keeping its phone number, website URL, and other assets separate, and not linking between the two businesses in any way.

It's a choice you need to make about how you want to envision and present your enterprise. The easiest route will be as a single business with a menu of services. You can select categories for both services on the GMB listing, and build out great content for both on your website. But if you want to move ahead as the owner of two separate businesses, you'll be best served by taking the necessary steps to register and run the two brands, perhaps with the eventual goal of a separate physical location for each business. In that case, the concern about co-location and filtering goes away!

Hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any further questions. Good luck to you!

[VELV]

Miriam, thank you so much for your time and your insightful answer! Do you think that having VELV Design & Printing as a registered company and two websites, VELV Design and VELV Printing will put me in the danger of filtering? Given that printing is going to be an online business with a PO Box and a different phone number and that I'll make sure not to link these two businesses in any way ever?

I've found that it's way easier and faster to optimize when you have fewer services and more clarity on your website. That is the reason behind this plan.

[MiriamEllis]

You're welcome. If you want to go with the separate website and phone number for the online printing business, and you do not attempt to create a Google listing or other local listings for it, then no, I would not be concerned about local search engine results filtering. That would only happen if you tried to submit a listing for both businesses.

The only thing to look out for would be if someone (Google or a member of the public) accidentally created a listing for the online printing business. I wouldn't be too worried about it, but if you are ever having ranking issues for the real-world website design business, remember that we had this conversation about filtering and be sure no listing has accidentally ended up in Google's local index for the printing business.

I do think getting a P.O. box is a good idea for the print business, if you need to accept mail, because then you won't have to put the street address of the design business on the print business' website. Just to mention ... Google does not accept P.O. boxes as legit addresses for creating a local business listing, but if you have no intention of locally marketing the print business, this point is rather moot.

Hope this helps!

[VELV]

This helps a lot! Thank you again for your advice, I appreciate it very much!