Two businesses one location has worked but client wants to change

[Brian]

I have a new attorney client who for the last several years has had two businesses at one location using the same address and phone with different firm names. One business is a Family law firm the other business is related targeting family law mediation services. He has one Google account where both listings are managed. For years he has been ranking high in a competetive suburban market of Chicago with the law firm listing. Up until six months ago the Law Firm usually ranked at A or B and more recently at D or E. At times during the last six months he has had both listings rank on page one blended local. A few weeks ago his legal marketing firm recommended that he change the address/phone on the mediation business. That is when he called me. I changed the meditation firm's address/phone in the places dashboard to his home address (as a service area business) and a different phone. During the last few weeks we have edited his citations for the mediation business. Yesterday I noticed the old address and phone continue to be displayed in the search results for the mediation business. Even though the phone/address inside the dashboard still show as changed. Should I use Google phone support for this? I should add that am very nervous about working on this. He is heavily reliant on the many leads he receives from the high ranking on the Law firm listing. So I don't want to do anything to disrupt that. He is not very concerned about hurting the results on the mediation business.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Brian,

This is pretty much "shades of gray" heading into black and I'm afraid if you call support it could get him in trouble. In fact his main listing is at risk for suspension.

I'm sure Google would see this as ONE business that should only have one listing. Per guidelines: "A practitioner should not have multiple listings to cover all of his or her specializations." Plus since both listings deal with family law I would think you could cover all the keywords in the cats and description with one listing.

I'm surprised he got away with the 2 listings at the same address like he did. Usually that would lead to suspension. I've had lots of attys come to me for consulting due to this problem.

Not sure why the address isn't changing on the listing. Could be variety of things. Can't really tell without analyzing.

But I would not contact support on this one. AND if were me I would boot mediation out of dash and incorporate that service into the main listing.

 

[Brian]

Hi Brian,
AND if were me I would boot mediation out of dash and incorporate that service into the main listing.

So I should click delete in the places dashboard and then choose the option below?


Remove this listing from my Google Places account.
Select this option if you mistakenly associated the listing with your account. This listing may continue to display on Google Maps if provided by other sources.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yep, that kicks it out of the account, then the account and main listing are not in danger.

BUT the cool thing is, if there are still citations for the other practice, the listing will stay live on maps, so still could get calls. BUT would not be in violation. But it would just look like a bare unclaimed listing. It may still keep the old address and if it links to the home page of the main web site, it would compete in search and could knock the main listing out of blended and disconnect it.

But in training today I'll be teaching you how to deal with that when we discuss dupe issues.