Question about multi-location service area businesses

[barry]

Hi All,

I'm starting to work on digital marketing for a moving company with multiple locations (in multiple cities/states). What are the best practices for local SEO, both on-site and in GMB?

- On-site, we should have a unique page for each city, right?
- In Google My Business, how many listings should we have? Should we have one listing and just enter all of the locations we "deliver" to from that listing? Or should we have a unique GMB listing for each location, and point each of those listings to its corresponding page on our website?

Thanks,

Barry

 

[Eric Rohrback]

First and foremost, read through the guidelines extensively - https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

Onsite - yes, it would be best to have a page for each city as long as the content is unique. There are a variety of ways to do it, so get creative with those landing pages.

GMB - 1 page for the primary location only. Don't create pages for each city they serve if they only have one office. You'll most likely need to hide the address if customers aren't able to visit that location.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

And just to add to what Eric said, if they do actually have multiple physical office locations, they can create a GMB page for each of them. Just make sure to read and absorb the guidelines that Eric referenced. I recommend printing them off and taping them to a wall that you look at every day. Make sure you have extra printer ink as Google adds and subtracts content from the guidelines fairly regularly

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Eric and Colan, great advice!

Barry I moved this to our Multi-Location Issues forum, where you will find tons of other posts, answering many questions you may not even have thought of yet.

Also see the Service Area Business forum for important info that relates to this client too.

Feel free to holler if you get stuck. We're here to help!

 

[barry]

Thanks everyone.

So just to confirm - I should have one GMB listing, and list all of the cities that we serve from within that listing?

Here's a question that I have about that: Let's say someone in NY searches for a moving company, and since we service NY, we get listed in the local pack. Would the "website" link in the local pack direct users to the NY page on my site? How would Google know to do that if I don't have a NY GMB listing which points to the NY page on the site?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Yes, if you only have one physical location, then you would create one GMB listing and set a service area and list the cities you service.

As for the website listed on the GMB page, Google won't change that based on what city you are showing up for in the local pack. You likely will only rank in the local pack in the physical city the business is located in.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I would anticipate a ton of your competitors are probably breaking the guidelines and creating multiple pages. The moving industry is really spammy. You should probably make part of your service reporting all the fake listings. Your client probably could use it

 

[barry]

Thanks Joy,

So you mean that creating a page for each city that we serve is actually considered to be spammy?

If so, its a good thing I asked, because I thought that was the best practice

Just to sum up, it seems that the way to go is to create one GMB page for where their office is actually located, and enter all of their service areas from within that one page - right?

Thanks everyone!

 

[Linda Buquet]

So you mean that creating a page for each city that we serve is actually considered to be spammy?

If so, its a good thing I asked, because I thought that was the best practice

Just to sum up, it seems that the way to go is to create one GMB page for where their office is actually located, and enter all of their service areas from within that one page - right?

Not just spammy Barry, but a major violation that could get their entire account suspended, including the one viable listing.

FYI does not matter how wide a service area you set or how many cities you add to it. They will still usually only rank in the city they are located in. So setting wider service area does not help you rank in other cities.

Don't enter cities, best to enter 20 mile radius, they won't rank any further than that.

The only way to attempt to rank elsewhere is with city pages on the site and try to rank in organic.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Here is the specific guideline:



Service-area businesses--business that serve customers at their locations--should have one page for the central office or location and designate a service area from that point. If you wish to display your complete business address while setting your service area(s), your business location should be staffed and able to receive customers during its stated hours. Google will determine how best to display your business address based on your business information as well as information from other sources.

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en (under the Address section)