Local Search for Home Businesses
-
I'm a home based business. I know Google has cracked down on PO boxes and UPS locations. What is one to do if they work from home but don't conduct business with clients from their home office? How can I get an address that's Google-approved?
-
Hi there!
I suggest reading through this blog from Moz: https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/are-coworking-offices-eligible-for-google-my-business-listings
While the main topic of the article is coworking spaces, it also addresses virtual offices and how this impacts your chances of ranking in the local pack.
In the article, it says: Virtual offices fail to meet Google guidelines, including:
- Make sure that your page is created at your actual, real-world location.
- Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible.
- Provide your regular customer-facing hours of operation.
- If your business rents a temporary, "virtual" office at a different address from your primary business, do not create a page for that location unless it is staffed during your normal business hours.
Hope this helps!
-
I agree with Matt and Robert. You can have a Google My Business listing that will show up in search results using a service-area-business designation and hidden home address.Where you will run into trouble is if you want to rank well in local search results and you have citation-rich competitors.
I say that b/c even though (as Matt points out) there are hidden-address citation sources, they are few and far between. You will have a hard time accumulating enough of those to outrank the competition.
If you're not worried about rankings and you just want visibility with people who already know your brand, you'll be fine.
-
Hi there,
I would also add that you don't have to use your home address in order to show up on Google Maps (Matt alluded to it with SAB's). You can provide an address to Google without having to showcase it to the public and it will rank similarly.
I have several clients who work from home but don't conduct any business there as a brick and mortar location. The only time you run into trouble here is if you try to show yourself appearing in multiple locations without concrete addresses, which it doesn't sound like you're doing.
Also really like Matt's suggestion of the hidden address citations. That's a neat resource I haven't seen before.
Feel free to reach out any time and we can discuss further if you like.
Cheers,
Rob
-
You are referring to what is called a service area business (SAB). Here a useful link for you: https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/intro-local-seo-service-area-businesses
Also, you should check out this great list of local citations that allow you to hide your address: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/22/private-local-citations-where-can-you-list-your-business-but-hide-your-address/
Matt
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Any Success Getting Fake 5 Star Google My Business Reviews Removed From Competitors?
Hi, I am working on a competitor who is obviously building up fake reviews using a 3rd party service. I need to build more evidence. A majority of his reviews on Google My Business, they are done by reviewers with very few reviews (no profile pic), and that seem to review 3-4 companies in the Chicagoland area the exact same day. This happens again and again. It started about 1.5 years ago. Before that everything looks normal. Any idea how much proof I need to actually get those reviews and/or his company removed? I am working on getting access to a private group on Facebook where he talks about it. Thanks in advance!
Reviews and Ratings | | vetofunk1 -
Local pack ranking anomaly -- help?
At a bit of a loss on this one... If anyone has any ideas about what's going on or how to tackle this, I'm all ears. One of my clients, an orthodontist, is appearing in the top three organic positions and in the local pack for almost all keywords we're targeting. However, for the keyword "orthodontist" without any location modifiers attached to it, we're appearing in the top three organic results but our Google listing is not appearing in the local pack. The three listings appearing in the local pack are his next-door competitor, one practice that closed almost a year ago, and a practice in two towns over. He and his competitor are the only two orthodontists in this town, so they should theoretically be the two main listings that are being pulled in. The listing for the closed practice is marked as closed on Google and has been reported to Google several times in the last few months. The listing has no website or reviews on it, although it does have an address and a phone number. We have spent months doing aggressive, in-depth NAP/local listing cleanups. We have 24 Google reviews with an average rating of 4.6 stars, and we're organically gathering reviews every week. We went through a site redesign at the beginning of this year, so we now have a mobile responsive website. We are appearing in the local pack for almost every other keyword that we have high organic rankings for, so we know it isn't necessarily an issue with our Google My Business listing. Does anyone have any ideas of what's going on, or what we can do to get our listing to appear in the local pack for this keyword? The keyword "orthodontist" is the single most important keyword to this client and our strategy, so we're open to any and all suggestions or thoughts.
Reviews and Ratings | | mothner0 -
If I use schema markup for my google reviews, would it be smart to have Google review's on my home page?
Hello, Moz's I'm thinking about added scheme markup to show my google reviews. I have a 4.8 rating and 25 reviews. I'm thinking about added scheme markup to show my google reviews. I have a 4.8 rating and 25 reviews. My first question is: when people see that and then visit my site, would it be good to have the Google reviews on the home page? My second questions is: Is there any reason why I wouldn't want to add this to my site? None of my competition has done this, so I'm a little apprehensive? Thanks in advance 🙂
Reviews and Ratings | | MissThumann0 -
Paid review service stars in search ads - why is that allowed?
I'm looking at paid review services like Trustpilot, FeeFo and others. I'm told I can filter out bad reviews, which I can't do with my Google Certified Stores reviews. I'm struggling to understand why Google include these in the reviews it uses for the star ratings in search ads. I know it's a different thing, but surely these reviews are in breach of the rules that Google apply to their own "My Business" reviews? They talk about "Conflict of interest: Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased" here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/2622994?hl=en Does anyone have a take on whether Google will drop these as the momentum builds in collection of their own reviews? Thanks, Paul
Reviews and Ratings | | PaulS710 -
Local Reviews.
Hi I was wondering if someone can tell me if I understand this correctly or at least my observation has been right? Does Yelp pick up the reviews left of Google and post it on yelp, if you are using the same gmail to log in to both your yelp and google account?
Reviews and Ratings | | LittleDog0 -
Why does Google return 1 star reviews in local listings as the "most helpful"?
I have a client who has recently received two 1 star reviews on Google local (unhappy customer and unhappy customers boyfriend). This is affecting an otherwise flourishing business as these two 1 star reviews are displayed prominently when you search for the brand in Google. They have since received more positive reviews, however Google insists on displaying, what they term, the "most helpful" reviews first. Why are these 1 star reviews deemed "most helpful"? In all honesty, they aren't even really that helpful, with the latter verging on slanderous. We are in the process of reporting this one as it personally attacks a member of staff, however, whilst we tentatively wait weeks for a response, I wondered if anyone has any idea on how G decides which reviews are "most helpful"? When there is no option for other users to rate these reviews as helpful (such as on play store).
Reviews and Ratings | | Silkstream0 -
Ups store and local listings
HI,
Reviews and Ratings | | corn2015
Does google look negatively if an address is at a UPS store? A client has their address there because they don't have a physical locaiton yet. Corn1 -
Google places and "people also search for"
I run a yoga studio in Toronto, Canada. I googled "Fireflow Yoga". The Google Places listing shows up on the right, and underneath it there is a listing for 5 competitors under the title "people also search for". Is there any way to turn it off that that "People also search for" does not appear as part of the listing? I also did a reciprocal search of the 5 competitors connected to our listing. They also have 5 "people also search for" on their places pages but we are not listed on their pages. What can I do to work towards Google showing our listing under "People also search for" when they look up similar businesses nearby? thanks. blBFSKU
Reviews and Ratings | | FireflowJ0