How do I optimize my business for multiple locations on Google?

ForumCategory: SEO - On-Page & Off-PageHow do I optimize my business for multiple locations on Google?
Mohammad Athar Staff asked 2 years ago
Does anyone have any advice on GMB locations? I have numerous locations for roofers etc outwith within the region where my office is. Can I verify a location that\'s based in a different area from my office address without negatively impacting the ranking?
2 Answers
Best Answer
Fajal Shah answered 2 years ago
If you have one business you are allowed one GMB listing. But there are many ways around this. Some ways get very black hat some ways gray hat. But I will tell you the one that will work and that won't get you in trouble. "Post edit is my last paragraph" When it comes to GMB listings the main rule that you should pay attention to is 2 out of the three NAP details have to be different. In the case where you're not going to change your address you are relying on your business name for your GMB listing to generate the proximity Factor. Therefore you would use a Geo prefix or suffix. If it's not a proximity Factor then it's a keyword Factor. In which case you will instead be using a keyword suffix or prefix. Let me give you some examples. Case 1 = normal. Name = brand, Address = normal address, Phone = normal phone number. Case 2 = multiple GMB listings for case 1, with proximity GMB listing names. Your extra GMBs. Name = prefix city or suffix city + business name Address = Normal Address Phone = different phone number from case 1. A fourth Factor now comes into play you will need a city specific landing page for that City specific GMB listing that has its own unique phone number and name but same address. On these pages is where part of this trick exists you need to also make the page make sense. Talk about why there's different crews, have a dedicated section on that page about the city. Or if it's a keyword method then again same thing that page better exemplify why you needed to do this. A good example of the key word GMB, is how a hotel chain has the pro shop, the spa, kitchen, and God knows how many other gmbs along with their normal root GMB. All with the same address. Just brand name with a keyword identifier, making it different from the root GMB, and different phone number from the root GMB. There is an entire art form dedicated to geolocation and keyword web development specifically related to Google my business. This is the safest of all of them because it's the different phone number that gets you to a different administrative section of your business that deals with the specific City you have prefixed your GMB with. Or different phone number that gets you to a different part of your business that handles something completely different from another part. There is nothing black hat about doing this. It might not be true that you have different admin dealing with different cities but because this is a possibility, especially when it comes to comptroller type stuff or dispatch, for many businesses Google cannot use it against you. However like with any loophole use discretion and don't go crazy with it. You can also do the same thing using keywords instead of Geo locations. There's some slightly different causes for this and it sounds like this one isn't for you but maybe it is that's why I mentioned it. But you won't be working for proximity signals and instead using keywords to trigger. Let's say you have a painting company and you are one city over from where the searcher is searching well since you have multiple keyword GMBs you might not get the proximity bonus but you get multiple chances at the exact match bonus. Again here you need to use discretion and not go crazy with this. There's also a lot of caveats and situational and circumstantial stuff to take into consideration. It's kind of hard to give you everything you need on this topic in one Facebook reply, nor can you possibly give me enough information in one post, for me to even feel comfortable about you trying to execute any of this LOL ... so be careful. There really is so much to know about this topic.
Poonam answered 2 years ago
The risk you would be running is that if they are not real office locations, someone may report it (or Google may discover it on their own) and they will all get banned. Other than that, there won't be a negative impact on your rankings just for adding locations.