Children's club Google My Business conundrum

[coolhandluc]

Hi there

I have been contacted by a small business to help them with their <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> effort. 
The business is a children's club offering drama classes, music classes etc...

Looking at their online visibility shows they don't even have a Google my business profile which is where i was going to start however, they operate from a local school after hours. The local school already has a GMB profile, obviously with the same address and postcode.

Is it possible to set up a GMB for the children's club anyway?

Many thanks

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Neil,

Good question, and unfortunately, the answer is no. The children's club wouldn't be eligible for a GMB listing, according to Google's guidelines, which state:

Ineligible businesses

The following businesses aren’t eligible for a business listing:

• Businesses that are under construction or that have not yet opened to the public.
• Rental or for-sale properties, such as vacation homes, model homes or vacant apartments. Sales or leasing offices, however, are eligible for verification.
• An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent.

The description of the club you've provided would fall under that guidelines of an ongoing class at a location that isn't owned by the club. The club can ask the school to mention its existence in the school's description of its own GMB listing, but doing so is actually kind of pointless because Google doesn't publicly display the description.

So, lacking an address of its own that it has the authority to represent, the club's business model isn't truly local. And, should the club attempt to build citations, this could actually interfere with whatever Local SEO efforts the school is trying to make. So, complete local outreach is going to be limited here for your client, and they may need to rely more on organic optimization, PPC and social.

Hope this helps!

[coolhandluc]

Thanks very much Miriam

[MiriamEllis]

You're welcome, Neil. Glad to have you here!