Local Listing Question

[JohnWeb12]

We will be starting local SEO efforts on a medical practice that has 4 locations & 15 doctors each location (so 60 listings total). I will submit each doctor & each location to InfoGroup, LocalEze, Axciom & Factual. Also, I will only submit each location (not doctors) to Google. The problem I'm seeing is the fact that each listing would have the same exact phone number - it all goes to one main routing center. What kind of problems could come of this? Do we need a separate phone numbers for each of the four locations (at the very least)?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi JohnWeb12,

Sounds like an exciting project! So, here's the deal. The guidelines you are dealing with are these:

• _Individual practitioners may be listed individually as long as those practitioners are public-facing within their parent organization. Common examples of such practitioners are doctors, dentists, lawyers, and real estate agents. The practitioner should be directly contactable at the verified location during stated hours. A practitioner should not have multiple listings to cover all of his or her specializations. _
• _Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may be listed separately. These departments must be publicly distinct as entities or groups within their parent organization, and ideally will have separate phone numbers and/or customer entrances.__See: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en_

• The separate 4 locations MUST have unique phone numbers, because they are going to be associated with unique physical addresses.

• With the practitioners, this is a subject surrounded by grey area. I highly recommend that you read the discussion on Mike Blumenthal's post in which there are many interesting points raised surrounding this very topic in the comments:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/02/14/google-local-quality-guideline-update-allows-for-multiple-departments/

I recommend you read the entire thread to pick up on some of the nuances surrounding the doctors having an identical phone number and the concerns about merging. Mike's advice on this:

"I think having the same phone number is OK by the rules but unfortunately the algo may merge the listings. I have some that are the same that have stayed intact and others that have merged."

My feeling is that each of the 4 offices should have a unique phone number, and that the guidelines do not require that each doctor have his own within the practice, but that there is some risk of merging if they don't. The guidelines are not 100% clear on this, as is the case with many points of order surrounding Google+ Local. I hope the post I've linked to will help you consider the ins-and-outs of this topic!

[DarinPirkey]

Miriam, you are a rockstar!  I just want to add my two cents.

Most citation sources find your listing by phone number so putting more then one phone number per location will generally be rejected or merged by those sources.  I strongly agree that each of your locations should have a separate number.  Your NAP (name, address phone number) consistency is also a ranking factor.  (Here is Miriam's post about local seo ranking factors http://moz.com/blog/top-20-local-search-ranking-factors-an-illustrated-guide)

If you are building citations for each of your doctors, I recommend separate numbers for them too (but it's not required).  I use a company called ifbyphone.com.  They have a basic service plan at $49 per month and $2/month per phone number plus minutes.  You have them forward to one number if you want but it's a good way to get around the issue.  That's about $200/month plus minutes but you can use these numbers for multiple things like marketing too (ie AdWords, Billboards, Radio Commercials, etc)

That being said, Google Maps said

• "Some doctors may share the same office address with other doctors. If the listings have different doctor names, they are not duplicates, even if they have the same phone number. The same goes for lawyers, insurance agents, etc."  https://support.google.com/mapmaker/answer/1731387?hl=en

The reason I recommend different numbers is for third party citation sources.   If you can justify the $200 per month expense, I would highly recommend using separate numbers for each doctor.  You'll be able to build strong rankings that way.  I always worry about Google changing it's policy in this area so I think that separate numbers is a better idea.