Google+ business page targeting multiple cities/landing pages novice question

[jerry]

These questions will probably seem way basic for you guys, but please bare in mind i'm bit lost to say the least on targeting multiple cities/landing pages.

Assume a client has office in four different locations (A, B, C, D) A is the headquarters rest all are branch office

1) Can i create/verify four different Google+ business page for each location selecting different category page, like for location A as (company/organization) and B, C, D as (local business) category page? Does it violate any rule? Will it affect rankings?

2) If i create multiple cities/metro landing pages where there is no physical address for client, i can still create Google+ business page but should not verify, right? correct me if i'm wrong?

3) What kind of link building you guys are doing for targeting multiple city landing page?

I would appreciate any helpful advice. Thanks so much for your time..

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Jerry

1. If you want a Google+ page for each location, it should be a ?Local Business? page. I guess you could also create the other types of Google+ page for each location, but it won?t help rankings and won?t really help you in any way, and will only gum things up and make it more confusing to manage your other pages.

2. If you?re talking about creating a ?Local Business? Google+ page ? as opposed to a Google Places page ? for cities where you don?t have a physical location, I?m not 100%. I don?t think you can. But I definitely wouldn?t suggest it ? for the reasons I mentioned in point #1, and because those Google+ pages won?t show up in the ?7-pack? and almost certainly not in the organic rankings. It?s a waste to create any sort of Google+ pages for areas where you don?t have a physical location. Your best bet is just to use unique, city-specific pages (and PPC, ideally) to reach those cities.

3. I don?t do any link building for the relatively few clients of mine who need to make ?city pages.?

 

[jerry]

Thanks for the response Phil. Curious to know about citation/NAP consistency for business with multiple location. I checked Attaboy example mentioned in the post, they have following names in Google places (different names though) for each location

AttaBoy Plumbing Co.
Attaboy Plumbing Co
AttaBoy Plumbing Co.
Atta Boy Plumbing Co
AttaBoy Plumbing Company
AttaBoy Plumbing Co.

1) So, if the official/registered business name is Example, Inc. should i create unique company name for A, B, C, D in Google places dashboard for verification? or same company name will do for all four locations Google Place verification?

2) Can i create citations in all top directories for all four locations (if they allow multiple listing for same business name)?
i.e. in Manta, super Pages, Yelp..... create four separate listings for A, B, C, D with different physical address but same business name, will search engines consider it as duplicate/inconsistent NAP for same business name? Will it affect ranking?


Any suggestion/advice is appreciated. Multiple location/local seo is driving me crazy, i'm sure that there's lot to learn. I hope you guys don't mind people (that's me) who ask lot of questions!

 

[Phil Rozek]

You got it, Jerry.

Great questions. Some feedback:

1. You should use the same company name for multiple locations. Whatever the official name of the business is should be what you use for the various locations of that business. (The one Attaboy listing with ?Company? rather than ?Co.? in the name is probably just a fluke; it?s fine to leave as-is, and it?s fine to change over to ?Company.?)

2. Yes, you can and should create citations for each location. I say ?should? because a business isn?t likely to rank well if it doesn?t have a extensive and consistent line-up of citations that Google can refer to and conclude ?Ah, so we do have the correct info on this business.? So yeah, what you describe is exactly what you should do, and yes, it does affect rankings?in a good way. By the way, there?s no way to submit citations in-bulk. So if you have 4 locations, you?re creating (say) a Yelp listing for location A, and then repeating for location B, and so on. That?s why citations are the ?grunt? part of local SEO.