Best address to use on Google business listing for youth sports program

[Tony_GP]

Hello, Moz Community!

I'm helping a friend with some local marketing for his youth sports program. He trains his kids at a community center and a public park where court times are managed by the city.

His address in his Google business listing is currently the community center, but that is shared with multiple businesses including the community center itself. I know he needs an address that is unique to his business, but he lives outside of the city in which his program is located.

Our goal is to boost exposure in the city in which his program is located.

Since 1) his business address is located outside of the city in which he conducts business and 2) the addresses at which he conducts his business is utilized by multiple businesses including the actual property owner, what options do I we have for an address that Google will recognize as valid and won't cause ranking issues?

If there is nothing we can do in the current situation, what are steps we can take to address this issue for his business?

Thanks a lot!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Tony,

My apologies for the delayed reply. I just saw your questions this morning.

The relevant area of the Guidelines for Representing Your Business on Google contains the following language under the section in ineligible listings:

• An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent.

It sounds like this is what you're describing, in terms of your friend having an ongoing class at a community center. Rather than the class having its own listing, Google's advice on this has historically been to try to get the eligible entity (the community center) to include mention of your class in their listing, rather than creating a listing yourself.

The only safe alternative for your friend would be if they want to become known, independent of the community center, as a separate licensed business. For example, if your friend wanted to establish themselves as a personal trainer, for hire, then they could create a listing for that using their own phone number and home address. With their address outside the city of location, you are right to guess that this means that they would most likely not appear for rankings within the community center's city, but this is the only path forward I can see for your friend in the local SERPS.

The organic SERPs are different, of course. Your friend could certainly build their own website to talk about their work and make an effort to get this ranking organically if the community center would give permission for their entity to be mentioned by a third party (your friend) on a third party website.

[Dekhneto]

great information and platform

[Tony_GP]

No worries, thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response!

I noticed that same language in the guidelines as well. At first, I didn't think it would be possible either but ultimately I can't imagine that all youth sports programs that don't own their own facility are ineligible for a Google business listing. That would make 99% of youth sports programs ineligible.

I also noticed that the program's business listing (see attached screenshot) contains 1) a link to the community center in which the program is run, 2) the community center's address, and 3) the program's unique business phone number. This leads me to believe that Google might be trying to account for this scenario. I Googled around but haven't been able to find any information on the purpose of the "located in" section in the listing so I'm left with my fingers crossed.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

We have requested the verification postcard be sent to the community center. We are hoping that we are able to confirm our listing after that mail has been received.

Thanks again!

R9XHLIs

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Tony,

Unfortunately, Google's guidelines often disappoint in that they don't seem to cover real-world realities. If you're aware of the guideline language and are communicating to your friend that straying from the guidelines could result in listing removal, then that's about all you can do.  If a brand decides to stray from the guidelines, they should be aware of the risks. And finding other listings that area also straying from the guidelines will not convince Google if the listing gets removed.

You can learn more about the "located in" feature in this thread: https://localsearchforum.com/threads/new-feature-manually-add-located-in-to-a-gmb-listing.53221/ but this is typically meant to be used for something like a McDonald's located in a Walmart.

[Tony_GP]

Thank you again, Miriam! I'm gonna keep trying to get the postcard from the community center and see what happens.

[Tony_GP]

Hi Miriam,

Just wanted to update you that we were able to verify the listing! What we did was simply work with the community center to receive the verification postcard.

Our listing still shows "located in: community center" with the community center address and our business phone number, but I can no login, respond to reviews, etc.

Just incase you run into a similar question in the future!

Thanks again for your guidance.