Should client change phone number to rank?

[cwtaylor]

Alright, so we this client: The Car People, in Nashville. The client opened his first location on Spring St., then later bought out PAC Auto to open a second location on Dickerson St. Lately, we noticed that the Dickerson location wasn't ranking. I found that the previous business owner at Pac Auto had already built up a good web presence and that *sigh* our client was using their old number.

Basic NAP violation, ok, got it. But what to do next?

I decided to update PACs citations with The Car People's business name and website. Where I was unable to edit or where listings were already claimed, I just reported PAC auto as closed.

But yesterday I noticed not only was the Dickerson location still not ranking, but the Spring street location had indeed dropped several places too!

What kind of beast have I stirred?!

What kind of signals am I sending to Google that are devaluing the Spring st. location? Will things get worse before they get better? What can I do to make some progress on one without hurting the other?

Is it worth trying to get the previous business owners logins (not likey)? Talk to The Car People about getting a new number (not impossible)? Is it worth trying to get the site in order to build separate landing pages for each location?

Thanks in advance!

Nick
nick@cwtaylormarketing.com

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Nick, when did you verify the new listing? Because it's kinda acting like a brand new listing that has not worked into the local database yet.

Also when you closed the old listing, maybe could have helped some if you had noted the new name and linked to the new listing.

Sorry running to Dr appt I don't have time to look into it more right now.

 

[cwtaylor]

Hey Linda--Thanks for getting back to me. Which new listing/old listing? We've done verifications on Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Bing and YPs but that was over two months ago. No verify was req'd when I did updates to directories last week. Is that what you're asking? Wouldn't associating Pac Auto with a "new" name and link for The Car People create even more of a mess since it could be seen inconsistent with NAP?

 

[Linda Buquet]

No sorry, not talking citations or anything - talking G+ Local. (I always talk about G+ L never anything else, or hardly ever.)

So I was asking when you verified G+ L because it's acting like a new listing and if it's newly verified or there was a problem and it started over as a new listing that could be why it's not ranking.

Also is it in the new or old dash? I have a specific reason for asking.

Re open/closed. There is a Pac Auto market closed.

 

[cwtaylor]

Linda-Google+ page for both Spring and Dickerson was verified 2+ months ago along with Yelp, Yahoo, Bing and YPs on the new dashboard.

Here are links to their pages for reference:

The Car People (Dickerson)
https://plus.google.com/111055983383024416309/about

The Car People (Spring st.)
https://plus.google.com/104607620927053645523

Pac Auto Service
https://plus.google.com/100963913910641056954/about

I really appreciate you taking a look at this in advance....

Also, here's a response from the pro.moz forum, just for fun:
"
You're probably not looking at a quick fix any way you slice it but here's what I would do:

1. Create a new Google Plus Local page for the Dickerson address. (edit: Don't think he means another one, I wasn't clear that I'd already created one)
2. Claim/Create as many listings as possible for the Dickerson address
3. Create a landing page on the client's site for both addresses
4. Link each Google Plus Local page to the location specific landing page you created

I think you do those four things, you'll be fine.

"