Updating business strategy so we can change SAB to brick and mortar

[Gesundheit]

My gut tells me this might be a bad idea, but I'm really not sure.

Our company is a SAB, currently not listing our address on GBP or location pages. We operate in roughly 10 markets right now. Apart from some hiccups, our GBP strategy appears to work as expected.

Our competitors in general have an advantage in local search because they do business at they locations. To be more clear: they have showrooms where you can go and view product and start the buying process; we have warehouses where product is stored, but currently all of our client-facing activity happens at the customer's house.

Would it be a wise idea to test updating our business model so that some client-facing business was available at the warehouse in order for us to be able to use addresses on listings and landing pages? We would not open showrooms, but what if we had a collateral available, a kiosk available with our website open for appointment scheduling, or possibly the option to make payments at location?

I don't like to walk a fine line on Google guidelines, but I theorize that the above options could provide genuine benefit to a small number of customers, even if the business intent was for SEO.

Thoughts? Anyone ever attempt this before, or have any case studies?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Based on some recent testing we did there seems to be a significant benefit to having a visible address. If you actually see customers at the location, even if infrequently, and the location is staffed, you can show your address no problem.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Case study can be found here - Does Hiding Your Address Impact your Google Business Profile Ranking? - Sterling Sky Inc

 

[Gesundheit]

Case study can be found here - Does Hiding Your Address Impact your Google Business Profile Ranking? - Sterling Sky Inc

This makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing.

Let me dive a little bit more though, since I want to be sure we're not bending rules here: our listings use a common phone line that goes to our call/scheduling center; would that be an issue if we changed from an SAB to a brick and mortar location?

Relatedly, I assume that we would want to change our hours of operation to hours to match the hours of the warehouse, even though they might not align with the call center hours?