Seeking Help with Local SEO for Overlapping Zip Code

[Ezekiel58]

I am having issues with local SEO for my business, we are located in North Bethesda, MD 20852. My business operates in the North Bethesda area, but I’ve noticed that the 20852 zip code is associated with both Rockville (city) and North Bethesda (neighborhood). I feel like this overlap has been causing some confusion for local search engines. There is another company less than a mile away from me that has the same zip code and lists Rockville as the city in their Google Business Profile. I reviewed their website and social media profiles, and while they are nothing extraordinary, they rank well in local searches. However, they rank up well enough. I’ve reviewed resources like this one, which confirms that 20852 covers Rockville as the city and North Bethesda as a neighborhood. However, despite my efforts to optimize for local keywords (e.g., “kitchen remodeling in North Bethesda”), my business is not ranking well for searches in Bethesda, North Bethesda, Rockville, and nearby areas.

I also noticed that business owners who listed their GBP from North Bethesda having the same issue. The store right next to me is lists Rockville as the city in their GBP, and it seems like they do not face that issue.

I plan to change me city from North Bethesda to Rockville. Any advise about that?

 

[Stefan Somborac]

@Ezekiel58 - Say your business address is 123 Main St., North Bethesda, MD 20852.

Perform two searches:
123 Main St., North Bethesda, MD 20852
123 Main St., Rockville, MD 20852

I suspect that Maps will resolve to the same city name for both queries. If so, that's the city Google recognizes for that street address and that's the city you should use on your profile.

In other words, what city does Google associate with 123 Main St., MD 20852?

(Curious to know what you find!)

 

[Ezekiel58]

@Ezekiel58 - Say your business address is 123 Main St., North Bethesda, MD 20852.

Perform two searches:
123 Main St., North Bethesda, MD 20852
123 Main St., Rockville, MD 20852

I suspect that Maps will resolve to the same city name for both queries. If so, that's the city Google recognizes for that street address and that's the city you should use on your profile.

In other words, what city does Google associate with 123 Main St., MD 20852?

(Curious to know what you find!)

Hi Stefan,

Thanks for your time.

I performed two searches as you asked and both searches shows me different address which is 123 Main St., Kensington, MD 20895. But I can still see my business listed under ''Most popular places at this address''

I also tried to perform this search for the store right next to me. The search result is Rockville, MD 20852.

 

[JS Girard]

I think it's hard to give you advice since you're not telling us whether you're trying to rank for Rockville or north bethesda keywords...

 

[Ezekiel58]

@JS Girard I am trying to rank for Rockville but it is possible to rank for both cities with ''Kitchen remodeling'' keyword since there are many businesses have that situation. However, my main concern is the map overlap instead of keyword ranking. I suspect that the map overlap cause my business to stay invisible. There are two more business located in North Bethesda, I believe the same issue applies to them. Please feel free to share if you have any idea about it. I can also share my location name and details if you'd like.

 

[Ezekiel58]

@Ezekiel58 - Say your business address is 123 Main St., North Bethesda, MD 20852.

Perform two searches:
123 Main St., North Bethesda, MD 20852
123 Main St., Rockville, MD 20852

I suspect that Maps will resolve to the same city name for both queries. If so, that's the city Google recognizes for that street address and that's the city you should use on your profile.

In other words, what city does Google associate with 123 Main St., MD 20852?

(Curious to know what you find!)

Stefan, also I am located in a plaza named Nicholson Plaza. I checked its address on google. I am attaching a screenshot below. Do you think that will also cause this problem? It seems that the address changed a couple times.

 

[Simonduques]

I am having issues with local SEO for my business, we are located in North Bethesda, MD 20852. My business operates in the North Bethesda area, but I’ve noticed that the 20852 zip code is associated with both Rockville (city) and North Bethesda (neighborhood). I feel like this overlap has been causing some confusion for local search engines. There is another company less than a mile away from me that has the same zip code and lists Rockville as the city in their Google Business Profile. I reviewed their website and social media profiles, and while they are nothing extraordinary, they rank well in local searches. However, they rank up well enough. I’ve reviewed resources like this one, which confirms that 20852 covers Rockville as the city and North Bethesda as a neighborhood. However, despite my efforts to optimize for local keywords (e.g., “kitchen remodeling in North Bethesda”), my business is not ranking well for searches in Bethesda, North Bethesda, Rockville, and nearby areas.

I also noticed that business owners who listed their GBP from North Bethesda having the same issue. The store right next to me is lists Rockville as the city in their GBP, and it seems like they do not face that issue.

I plan to change me city from North Bethesda to Rockville. Any advise about that?

Have you tried updating your Google Business Profile to list “Rockville” as the city and including “North Bethesda” in your business description or service area? This can help capture both search terms without confusing local SEO.

 

[JS Girard]

Okay, My experience with cases where the official address and the target service area don't match used to be different depending on where you are.

In Quebec, the city in your address can and will overwrite the fact that your GBP is located inside or outside the actual target area. If you're outside limits and you modify your address to say the target city, you will start ranking there. Not necessarily top-3 instantly, but it clearly does get around a filter that blocks a lot of GBPs located outside the google-defined city limits (if they exist: they are commonly missing or far more restricted than actual city limits). The opposite occurs too if your address has the wrong city: we've run into this for addresses that list the county instead of the city and that made it impossible to rank in the municipality.

In the US, what I was seeing reported consistently (here at Sterling Sky, for example) was that if you were outside city limits as defined by Google, but your actual, USPS defined address had that city, you were out of luck.

Now, there's an obvious contradiction here! And it's possible that Google fixed it, but it would take extensive testing to know for sure. @JoyHawkins any thoughts?

 

[Stefan Somborac]

@Ezekiel58 - The address of Nicholson Plaza: 5322 Nicholson Ln, North Bethesda, MD 20852

Zoom in and look at any business in Nicholson Plaza. Their addresses all use Rockville!
El Pollo Real Restaurant Rockville: 5058 Nicholson Ln, Rockville, MD 20852
Trubeauty Concepts: 5054 Nicholson Ln, Rockville, MD 20852
Benjamin Moore Paint Store - Luu Color Center: 5022 Nicholson Ln, Rockville, MD 20852

Or Kensington!
K&G Fashion Superstore: 4955 Nicholson Ct, Kensington, MD 20895
Train Hard Train Smart: 4961 Nicholson Ct #100, Kensington, MD 20895

There's a very strange overlap here!

I searched the address of Trubeauty Concepts using three different city names:
5054 Nicholson Ln, Rockville, MD 20852
5054 Nicholson Ln, Kensington, MD 20852
5054 Nicholson Ln, North Bethesda, MD 20852

It always resolves to Kensington. That is, Maps considers 5054 Nicholson Ln, MD 20852 to be in Kensington.

I would search your exact address with all three city names and see how Google resolves it. Then use that city name on your profile. You can't fight against Maps!

PS: @JS Girard is so right: this is all dependent on the keywords you're testing.

PPS: The address change for Nicholson Plaza you point out is misleading, I think. I don't believe it's an old address; I believe it's some sort of mistake. Plazas don't move! (Do they?)

 

[JS Girard]

Honestly that last point looks to me like Google just autocorrecting the address, which is within the Kensington postcode according to Google.

Unfortunately, the USPS does not have a full postal addresses file that can be easily checked against the way Post Canada does. It lets me enter the same address in two different cities and I cannot confirm whether one is incorrect, so I cannot confirm whether Google's postcode assignment is accurate here.

 

[Stefan Somborac]

@JS Girard - I agree: Google is autocorrecting the address. My interpretation of that is that if you enter the address without a city, or with the wrong city, Google will correct it to show the right city. In this case, the street address, in that zip code, are in Kensington according to Google.

USPS has a decent address lookup tool: ZIP Code™ Lookup | USPS

In this case, it matches what Google shows. (In my experience, that's not always the case.)

 

[JS Girard]

@JS Girard - I agree: Google is autocorrecting the address. My interpretation of that is that if you enter the address without a city, or with the wrong city, Google will correct it to show the right city. In this case, the street address, in that zip code, are in Kensington according to Google.

USPS has a decent address lookup tool: ZIP Code™ Lookup | USPS

In this case, it matches what Google shows. (In my experience, that's not always the case.)

I wasn't sure how much to trust it because it casually let me enters the address as a North Bethesda one without any direct indication that it's incorrect. The Canada Post one will literally not let you enter such an address, which can be frustrating if you don't realize that your street has a "de" in the name. We ran into a case once where the street sign said just "Rue Bellefeuille" but in canada post's tool, it had to be entered "Rue de Bellefeuille".