How to Effectively Name a Biz Corporate Headquarters vs Branch

[Mike Wilton]

So I have a client who has a number of branches across the state, but they also have various corporate offices throughout the state as well. In some instances there are both a branch and a corporate office in the same city.

The problem they are having is that since the name of the company is basically the same, some people are calling the corporate office instead of the branch when they need service.

Is there an effective means of handing this? Would Google frown upon putting "Corporate Office" in the business name? Anyone have any thoughts, or dealt with this before?

 

[Scott Rawlins]

Not really sure of the ramifications yet, but since Google is allowing 1 descriptor word, how about "Corporate Name - Location"? Or something else that works for you to differentiate the offices. I have not heard from others about their results or how it effects citations if they did change it.

Read this thread about the Guideline Change

 

[Broland]

Yea what Rawly said would probably be a decent solution. As long as you append an identifier to the business name and and don't prepend anything to it, you shouldn't run into any problems with identifying NAP data.

Also adding info in places like the description sections of listings with 'sales office: (phone)' and 'corporate office: (phone)' could help. Or just a secondary labeled number to help direct calls, although you want to be careful not to get data mixed up between locations so perhaps even links between them: For our sales office click here.

With the set up you described they will likely always have some customer confusion on what number to call, so having a good quick answering and call routing system/method in place would probably be important for them. At least they are calling the right business and not the competitors.