Best City to Use for NAP Listing

[Angie Captiva]

Hey Everyone,

I'm new to the Local Search Forum, but have been following Linda and many others in the local search industry for the past 2 years now!

I had a question I was hoping someone could shed some light on. I have a client who is located in Fenton, MO (which is part of St. Louis county). How would you set up their core NAP? They target St. Louis, and they are part of St. Louis county, but when you Google "63026", the search engine recognizes that zip as Fenton, MO.

Per the guidelines,Google says to use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location in place of broad city names or cross-streets. I actually live in Fenton as well and all the mail that gets delivered to my home is marked as "Fenton, MO" so I recommended that the client set up their NAP with Fenton. They are hesitant though because they want to come up in Maps for St. Louis.

What do you think?

 

[Laustin1878]

Use the official mailing address of the business. You can follow other techniques to gain some traction for the target cities but falsely listing the city will get you into trouble before long. If you use St. Louis as the city instead of Fenton, does Google find it? I saw a similar issue where the business was located in a certain town but when I tried to add that town and zip code, the zip code changed to a nearby town. I later found out that the listing was accurate but the company tried to target the certain town. It also showed an error that the location was not supported.

Something I used and never was able to detect a penalty for was using the Address Line 2 for the county. Your mileage may vary. Accurate NAP info is the core of a successful local marketing campaign.

Google has smartened up and is on to companies trying to manipulate the system. I'd hate to be the one responsible for someone's marketing campaign and tell them to do something against Google's TOS and see them get banned. It sounds like you know what is right and I would stick with that.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Def only use the city their address is actually in. Even if they change city in the city field they won't rank outside the search radius which is NOT city center but where the cluster of businesses in that city is.

 

[mblumenthal]

I would agree with the previous poster. Use the real address.

Google isn't stupid. Google knows full well where a given business is located and the common names for that location.

The issue of whether they show up for a given search in the adjacent city remain the same whether a business tries to "fool" google or not.....

 

[johncrenshaw]

Have you checked the address with the USPS website? Localeze used to check against that (although I'm not sure they still do) so you'd be out of luck with them if you didn't use the USPS approved address.

We have several "cities" here in Cincinnati that are actually just townships and USPS allows either the city or township in the mailing address.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Actually I've recently heard map experts say do not necessarily use postal address. They say Google does not map MAILING addresses but physical addresses on a map.

So in training I suggest checking USPS as one part of the research but I would not reply on it alone.

If conflict or multiple correct options or if unsure I would check in both maps and map maker to see what GOOGLE thinks is correct.

But as I say in training be very careful and really do thorough research before making any address change in dash.

 

[johncrenshaw]

Yeah good point Linda. I definitely wouldn't rely only on USPS. We usually start with USPS, but also check that Google can find the address in maps (sometimes it'll show a different city when you search which suggests it might like that one better), we'll usually check a few GPS devices and see what Localeze likes as well.

If there are discrepancies it can be tough. You definitely want to make sure you have that right from the start.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Ya it's rare to get a business that has 2 potentially correct cities or streets but when you do it can be a bear to figure out what's the best to use.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@johncrenshaw

I'm sure you've already done this or plan on doing it, but I'd really recommend checking the address on ExpressUpdate.com right off the bat. Sometimes you'll be listed in the correct city everywhere else but not there. If ExpressUpdate has the address wrong, that'll be a very sharp burr in your saddle.

 

[Angie Captiva]

Great idea for checks and balances! Thank you for your input, it's very much appreciated!