Update Existing Citations or Create New?

[Scott Rawlins]

Need some confirmation. I have a potential dental client. He has been a single practitioner for many years and his current url is practitionerdds.com. He has recently added a new dentist and is rebranding to a practice name with a new site. Of course, his G+ page and all citations are for him individually. He will be staying on board for about 3 years before transitioning the practice over to the new dentist, with the idea that they will add more dentists in the future.

Should I claim all his existing citations and rebrand or create all new citations for the practice and minimize his listings? Thoughts?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Great question Scott.

Pinging Darren on this one!

 

[whitespark]

Hi Scott,

Even if he's a single practitioner dentist at the moment, he'll likely have listings for the practice and for himself. Since the address and phone will likely stay the same, my recommendation would be to update, rather than build new. Otherwise, you'll be leaving all those old listings out there which will cause some NAP confusion.

I looked up practitionerdds.com and couldn't find it. Tried some variations as well with no luck. If you could give me some info on the business I can take a look at his existing citations and confirm my recommendation.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I looked up practitionerdds.com and couldn't find it.

Thanks so much for answering my ping so quickly Darren!

I think that URL was just a fake example of the URL structure.

 

[Scott Rawlins]

Thanks Linda and Darren.

Darren - Thanks so much for taking the time. I will PM the site to you.

 

[whitespark]

Hi Scott,

I don't see many practice listings out there - they all seem to be strictly practitioner listings - but my recommendation is to still do an update rather than build new. I would:

1) Update all the existing listings with the new brand name and URL. Starting with the state registry of the business name, phone company, utilities, InfoGroup, Localeze, Acxiom, Factual, then on to the rest of the sites. If he's not listed on any of these, take the opportunity to add him.
Top Local Citation Sources by Country for USA, CAN, UK & AU | Whitespark

2) Create practitioner listings for the current dentist and the new guy on the important dentist practitioner listing sites.

Hope this helps!

 

[Scott Rawlins]

Thanks Darren. Yeah, you won't find anything for the practice as they have not officially made the switch yet. I appreciate you confirming my initial thoughts.

Hate second guessing myself.

 

[billbean]

Hi Scott,

1) Update all the existing listings with the new brand name and URL. Starting with the state registry of the business name, phone company, utilities, InfoGroup, Localeze, Acxiom, Factual, then on to the rest of the sites.

Darren, any tips/tricks for finding info re: state registry, phone co, and utilities?

 

[whitespark]

No quick tips. For the state you'll usually have to file some official change of name/address/phone forms. For the phone and utilities, you usually have to call them.

And by "you", I mean the business. This is one that we can't do for them. We can often look up problems with the state record. Just Google "secretary of state __statenamehere___ corporation search".

For the phone and utilities, you'll have to just refer to your billing to look them up.