Local Citation with multiple offices

[EJmoz]

We have 5 different offices and each has its own google+ page and yell page. At first they were ranking poorly and the wrong offices were coming up for searches in that town so we change the name to :
BusinessName (Location1)
BusinessName (Location2)

Etc. those listing all starting to rank top for searches in Location1 and Location2. We have now been told that it is bad for our overall SEO to have the business name appearing differently in different listings and this led me to look at Moz Local. My question is should I remove the (Location1) from the Google+ business listing so that all our offices have the same name (but obviously different addresses) even though it appears to have a negative impact on rankings?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

If your business locations have separate NAP information, then you will need to do a listing for each location. Moz Local has great bulk upload capabilities so you will be in great hands there.

If all businesses have the same name, make sure that all of those names are correct with different addresses and contact information - this is extremely important as Google and other search engines use this information to verify your business for search. You don't need to delete anything, just update the information in your Google+ page, and also make sure each location has a Google+ Business page - complete with their information and a link to the company website (if they don't have their own site). Make sure that the main Google+ page is verified as well. You may be able to verify all of those pages but that might take some research.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[EJmoz]

Thanks. Unfortunately I just tried to sign up to Moz Local but it is US only (I am UK based) so it wouldn't let me :(.

Each of our offices has its own google+ page as I couldn't see any way of adding all the offices to 1 page. The business has one name, the name is the same at all offices "Business Name" but each office does have a different address and phone number. Are you saying that it is better for all my google+ pages to be called "BusinessName" rather than "BusinessName (London)" and "BusinessName (Manchester)"?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Take a look at Whitespark - or you can take a look at BrightLocal's list and vet out those that benefit your business most.

If you have addresses for your business dedicated directly to those cities, you should be fine and not needing to add in (city name). Search engines and crawlers are smart enough to pick up on the address and locality of your Google+ and other citations to return them in proper searches.

Let me know if you need any more help!

[EJmoz]

Thank you that is very helpful. I have gone through and upated almost all of the listings but I am having real trouble with Facebook and wonder if you can help.

We have one Facebook page which is linked to our head office address. One Moz Local it says that our other 4 offices do not have facebook pages. Is there no way of adding offices to facebook or do I literally have to create a new facebook page for every office? This seems silly and a bit annoying as we only really want one single facebook page for our company rather than one for each office, but if this is the only way to do it then will the SEO benefit of having a facebook page outweigh the hassle of managing 5 and the confusion it will cause customers?

Thanks

[MiriamEllis]

Nice feedback here. The one thing you've asked about that I don't believe I've seen addressed is your question regarding having geographic modifiers in your business name. You are correct - Google does not want these, unless they are part of your legal business name or DBA.

This was a bit of a goofy situation. Originally, Google's guidelines expressly forbid the use of anything but the legal business name or DBA in the business title. Then, in the fall of 2013, they suddenly changed their policy on this, permitting business owners to add descriptors. So, at that point, lots of business owners jumped on this and added city names and other descriptors. A little over a year later, Google reversed their policy, returning to their original stance on this in which they do not want city names, state names, etc. in the business title unless they are part of the real-world business name.

You can read the guidelines here, under Name: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en