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i'm going to have to apologize for the length of this question in advance. This forum has been an invaluable resource for me, but I think I've finally hit the roadblock in my research where my situation is so uncommon that i may be entering uncharted territory. The complexity of my situation is compounded by multiple factors here, so please bear with me as i provide the necessary background info to give context. Ready to go down the rabbit hole? Here we go...
My client runs a small chain of 5 mattress stores spread out across a major metropolitan region. For the most part they are all operating under the same company brand (names will be slightly changed) we'll call the company 'The Mattress Shop'. There is one domain for the company brand, with each store having their own unique url/landing page differentiated by location, (ie mattress-shop.com/hollywood, mattress-shop.com/van-nuys, etc) with the exception of two locations.
About a year into opening their first store, an opportunity came to acquire an established local mom and pops mattress store that was looking to close up shop or sell the business, which for the sake of this example we'll call 'Linda's Mattresses and More'. An agreement was made, and Linda sold the business, the phone number and the right to continue using her name to my client, who then renamed the location to Linda's Mattress Shop, effectively combining both brands into one. Shortly thereafter, they moved to a new space across the street.
My client at the time had no knowledge of local SEO or any conception of NAP consistency. Up to this point, the phone number now became associated with 2 different businesses with very similar names (Linda's Mattresses and More vs Linda's Mattress Shop) at 2 different, yet very similar addresses (11234 Nth St vs across the street at 11256 Nth St) . This had been in place for about 4 years now until earlier this year, the retail space next door to Linda's Mattress Shop became vacant, so in an effort to expand, client took over the lease, and tore down one of the walls and effectively combined the two spaces into one store. The newly added side became the new entrance to the store, so a new address became associated with the business.
This is around the time that i first came on board to assist the company with their online presence. It wasn't until i ran Moz's listing checker did i realize what i had just gotten myself into. Some directories still had them listed across the street, some were current, but now I was introducing a third NAP to be associated with this business. I figured that with enough due diligence and some elbow grease, we could eventually get it where it needs to be. After about 4 months now, i've got it to about 86% consistent according to Moz. Finally i was approaching the finish line! or so i thought...
Last year, their most recent store they opened was an offshoot brand, 'The Organic Mattress Shop' This store was opened in a highly competitive location, with about 5 other mattress stores in their immediate vicinity. The store did fairly well, but when compared with the other locations in the company, it performed the poorest. So last week, the decision was made to close the Organic Mattress Shop, and relocate to the newly acquired space at Linda's Mattress Shop. Not wanting to lose the decent amount of traffic the Organic store was generating both in store and online, client gave me instruction to update all of our listings and have the Organic Mattress Shop listed with the Linda's Mattress Shop's newly acquired address, and revert Linda's Mattress Stop's address to it's prior address.
Now obviously i shot the idea down and informed him of the potentially disastrous result that could come out of doing this. I suggested that instead, we should move the Organic Mattress Shop to the previous Linda's Mattress Shop address, while leaving Linda's current address intact. But even this option leaves an uneasy feeling in my gut... is this even a good idea? are there any other risk factors that need to be considered? What is the likelihood of these two locations being treated as duplicates or getting merged by google? The Organic Mattress Shop will have it's own phone number, which will auto forward all calls to the existing phone number at Linda's Mattress Shop.
I'm finding that the biggest hindrance/roadblock that has really been a thorn in my side is all of the directory listings that link to a Yext upsell when trying to claim or edit these listings manually. It's really infuriating that these companies just let Yext come along and practically extort their users into signing up with their overpriced services. Ughh...anyways i digress.
If you've made it this far, and are still reading this long winded, verbose post, thank you for hearing me out, i hope it makes some sense.Any insight or information you might share would be truly appreciated, I realize that my situation might be beyond the scope of what this forum is intended to provide, so any referrals to any specialists or someone I can personally consult with on this matter would also be appreciated. Thanks!
My client runs a small chain of 5 mattress stores spread out across a major metropolitan region. For the most part they are all operating under the same company brand (names will be slightly changed) we'll call the company 'The Mattress Shop'. There is one domain for the company brand, with each store having their own unique url/landing page differentiated by location, (ie mattress-shop.com/hollywood, mattress-shop.com/van-nuys, etc) with the exception of two locations.
About a year into opening their first store, an opportunity came to acquire an established local mom and pops mattress store that was looking to close up shop or sell the business, which for the sake of this example we'll call 'Linda's Mattresses and More'. An agreement was made, and Linda sold the business, the phone number and the right to continue using her name to my client, who then renamed the location to Linda's Mattress Shop, effectively combining both brands into one. Shortly thereafter, they moved to a new space across the street.
My client at the time had no knowledge of local SEO or any conception of NAP consistency. Up to this point, the phone number now became associated with 2 different businesses with very similar names (Linda's Mattresses and More vs Linda's Mattress Shop) at 2 different, yet very similar addresses (11234 Nth St vs across the street at 11256 Nth St) . This had been in place for about 4 years now until earlier this year, the retail space next door to Linda's Mattress Shop became vacant, so in an effort to expand, client took over the lease, and tore down one of the walls and effectively combined the two spaces into one store. The newly added side became the new entrance to the store, so a new address became associated with the business.
This is around the time that i first came on board to assist the company with their online presence. It wasn't until i ran Moz's listing checker did i realize what i had just gotten myself into. Some directories still had them listed across the street, some were current, but now I was introducing a third NAP to be associated with this business. I figured that with enough due diligence and some elbow grease, we could eventually get it where it needs to be. After about 4 months now, i've got it to about 86% consistent according to Moz. Finally i was approaching the finish line! or so i thought...
Last year, their most recent store they opened was an offshoot brand, 'The Organic Mattress Shop' This store was opened in a highly competitive location, with about 5 other mattress stores in their immediate vicinity. The store did fairly well, but when compared with the other locations in the company, it performed the poorest. So last week, the decision was made to close the Organic Mattress Shop, and relocate to the newly acquired space at Linda's Mattress Shop. Not wanting to lose the decent amount of traffic the Organic store was generating both in store and online, client gave me instruction to update all of our listings and have the Organic Mattress Shop listed with the Linda's Mattress Shop's newly acquired address, and revert Linda's Mattress Stop's address to it's prior address.
Now obviously i shot the idea down and informed him of the potentially disastrous result that could come out of doing this. I suggested that instead, we should move the Organic Mattress Shop to the previous Linda's Mattress Shop address, while leaving Linda's current address intact. But even this option leaves an uneasy feeling in my gut... is this even a good idea? are there any other risk factors that need to be considered? What is the likelihood of these two locations being treated as duplicates or getting merged by google? The Organic Mattress Shop will have it's own phone number, which will auto forward all calls to the existing phone number at Linda's Mattress Shop.
I'm finding that the biggest hindrance/roadblock that has really been a thorn in my side is all of the directory listings that link to a Yext upsell when trying to claim or edit these listings manually. It's really infuriating that these companies just let Yext come along and practically extort their users into signing up with their overpriced services. Ughh...anyways i digress.
If you've made it this far, and are still reading this long winded, verbose post, thank you for hearing me out, i hope it makes some sense.Any insight or information you might share would be truly appreciated, I realize that my situation might be beyond the scope of what this forum is intended to provide, so any referrals to any specialists or someone I can personally consult with on this matter would also be appreciated. Thanks!
