Second Location Help

[michaelkingdom]

Hello everyone - first post - thanks.

My business falls geographically outside of the radius of what Google defines as Sarasota, Florida. This has made appearing in maps to be impossible, alsthough I am the highest rated professional in the greater region.

I am thinking of getting a second location within the centroid. I have read that Google frowns upon malboxes, PO boxes & virtual offices so I will not go that route.

My question is if I get a staffed brick & mortar office downtown, a different phone number (and address obviously) will this cause confusion for Google with my original location?

Ideally, I'd like two distinct GMB identities. If that is not possible, I'd like to set this up so that I don't cause issues for my first location.

If the business name is the same but phone & address are different and the URL is the same will this be problematic?

 

[James Watt]

Nope, if you get a second staffed location with a different address and phone number, you'll be good to go! There will be some considerations about how to handle the website though. Generally the advice is to separate out NAP and have local landing pages, with your primary location having it's NAP listed on all the pages aside from the location specific pages, and having the GMB profile for the main location link to the home page, and the others link to location specific landing pages. Since you're only going to have two locations though, I know people have had success just having both NAP and schema etc. everywhere, though I'd probably still err on the side of separating. You can always start a new thread asking about about two location NAP organization on-page if you're curious what everyone else does and no one else starts talking about it below.

Also, since naming conventions is an area that business owners frequently mess up, figure I'll paste this here, even though it sounds like you already know they're going to have the same name. Never hurts to say a little extra:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

Location information, such as neighborhood, city, or street name, unless it is part of the real-world representation of the business. Your name must not include street address or direction information.
Not acceptable: "Starbucks Downtown", "Macy’s Union Square", "Holiday Inn (I-93 at Exit 2)", "U.S. Bank ATM - 7th & Pike - Parking Garage Lobby near Elevator"
Acceptable: "Starbucks", "Macy’s", "Holiday Inn Salem", "U.S. Bank ATM", "University of California Berkeley"

One other point... you might have already seen this, but I'll post it here anyway:
When You Rank High Organically But Not Locally (Case Study)

Are you not showing in the maps just for your keywords + Sarasota, or are you also not showing for your keywords in general when a customer is searching from within Sarasota? Before you take the steps of investing in a whole other location purely to make ranking easier, you'd probably be well served by spending a few hundred dollars to bring in one of the pros here for an hourly consult, just to make sure your marketing team isn't missing something important. Worst case scenario, you just confirm what your people are already telling you.

 

[michaelkingdom]

I would really like to speak with someone to review my project. I'm happy to hire a professional to review my plans.

If anyone would like to get in contact, please email me.

Thanks, Michael

 

[Laustin1878]

Nope, if you get a second staffed location with a different address and phone number, you'll be good to go! There will be some considerations about how to handle the website though. Generally the advice is to separate out NAP and have local landing pages, with your primary location having it's NAP listed on all the pages aside from the location specific pages, and having the GMB profile for the main location link to the home page, and the others link to location specific landing pages. Since you're only going to have two locations though, I know people have had success just having both NAP and schema etc. everywhere, though I'd probably still err on the side of separating.

Just curious, would you happen to have a good example of a small business or website that executes multiple locations well?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Michael,

I would probably suggest removing your email from that post so you don't get spammed by bots on the internet that crawl stuff and look for emails. If you are interested in getting a consultation feel free to PM me.

Also to answer Laustin's question, here's one of my clients that ranks really well with multiple locations: Handyman Services FL | 800-931-1106 | Florida Handyman

 

[Laustin1878]

Thanks Joy. Ironically enough, I immediately thought of this place but couldnt remember if it was a mutli-location business. I will check them out.

 

[Tim Colling]

Thanks, Joy. What a great site to learn from!

One thing to check on: I could not get anything to happen when I clicked on the red "Schedule Appointment" CTA button in the upper right hand corner. Just thought you'd want to have someone check on that.