Thinking of Saving Costs by Not Leasing 2 Local Offices in Vancouver & Toronto for Shared Office Space

[LocalSEODat]

Hi Everyone!!

I manage a small team that does the marketing at an immigration law firm. They have 2 locations, both in downtowns of Vancouver and Toronto.

Because we've been working from home for over 2mths now, they are rethinking, as many companies are of saving future costs of their large offices. We probably won't be back in the offices till Aug since my bosses are scared of re-infection.

I wanted to confirm my negative opinions of not having these 2 local offices and using shared office space addresses for occasional office needs of both locations.

Would this dramatically hurt our Local SEO? Are there any suggestions of possible solutions? They've had Van location since before 2013 and Toronto since 2016.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers, Dat

 

[keyserholiday]

That will not work at all. They business will be suspended once they attempt to move or set up the shared office spaces. What you are asking is a direct violation of Google’s TOS. The offices have to be fully staffed during normal and listed business hours. They would need a physical office with signage or risk being suspended. Since the client is in the legal space, they are under tighter restrictions and checks and balances.

 

[LocalSEODat]

Thank you! I was afraid of that. I know you can't use shared office spaces. But now they have a challenge, two large offices with a ton of monthly costs and now the ability with all the different software they've tried to manage teams remotely.

 

[LocalSEODat]

@JoyHawkins @Colan Nielsen Do you have any suggestions? Both also agree that without their two physical offices, that they won't be able to show up in local search for both Toronto and Vancouver? The only other solution is to find small businesses to sublease their large offices portions to them. That would be an even larger pain and another layer of work/management.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hey Dat, I 100% agree with Jason. The only other option is to change the law firm address to the firm owners residential address and set it up as a service area business and hide the address. This would limit their visibility to a certain extent. GMB might be ok with one service area type GMB per province if you did go with that option.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Colan & Jason have basically said what I would have said

 

[chadkimball]

maybe theres a creative solution, can they downgrade their office space and staff it with one person? That way you can keep your local GMBs and no need to change any nap info etc..

Think of it as an ROI issue. If the profit that comes in through those two GMBs exceeds the cost of a small office space in the same building, its worth keeping. If the profit doesnt exceed those costs then it probably doesnt matter if you remove them.

 

[shively]

Consider what Mr Kimball said.

I think most property managers are very concerned about maintaining good relationships with their current tenants. I think something could be accomplished where both parties are satisfied.

 

[chadkimball]

I agree. I think they may even have other tenants who are canceling and might be more willing to work out a deal now than they normally do. Maybe even keep your address active and downsize you to a small room temporarily until this covid thing is over

 

[LocalSEODat]

Thanks Everyone for your input!