Citations for multiple practicioners in an office (real estate, dentists, etc)- Best Practices
-
We're just about to breakout our citations as we've added listings for a few real estate offices and dental offices for the individual real estate agents/dentists.
I didn't see any discussions on best practices, so I thought I'd start the discussion (please point me elsewhere if I missed it)
1. Is it even a good idea to build citations for a practitioner in an office (Dr. Who, Dentist, in addition to Whoville Dental Office)?
2. Name will be different, address will be the same, but what about phone #? Should they use the office phone # and their extension? Or a separate (cell) #?
3. Website citation: Should it go to their "profile" page on the website? Or home page?
Thanks in advance for any input
-
Hi AvalanceSearch,
Great questions. Let me address them in order.
- Personally, I'm not a fan of taking advantage of Google's offer to let partners in a practice build their own Google+ Local pages in addition to the main practice page. My hesitation stems from two things - Google's historic issues with merging similar listings and Google's historic refusal to delete doctor/dentist dupes (read: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-duplicates-merges/861-dr-dupes-google-local-user-edits.html)
That being said, it is certainly permissible to go this way, just so as you have a sense of historic problems that could potentially come up for clients.
-
It's fine to have a different name and same address in the multi-partner scenario. But, if you can, do give each partner a different phone number at which they can be directly contacted during stated business hours. The main reason for doing so is to lessen the chances of merged listings.
-
Yes, definitely point an individual practitioner's citations to his unique page on the website. Again, this helps reduce the likelihood of merges and provides a better user experience.
Hope this helps!
-
- I would argue there are (as you might expect) pros and cons for both approaches. For example-
- By having "Dr. Who, DDS" and "Whoville Dentistry" as separate entities and creating citations for both, you easily address users who might search for them in both ways. For example, I never can remember the name of my Dentist's office, but I do know his name and that's how I search for him. Same sometimes for other services where you associate with the provider much more than the name of the business.
- One con of the above example, is you now have two (or way more, thinking real estate) separate entities to maintain and twice the work in building citations to them.
-
If it were me I would go with direct line or extension and make sure all citations were formatted exactly the same and reserve the main, primary number for the business entity.
-
It depends on if this is a single-location brick and mortar or one of many branches. If a single location, go for the home page. If multiple locations, to the profile page of that location on the main website. Same for the individual person entity, it should go to their personal profile page on the website.
So those are some thoughts of mine.
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
-
How do I treat multiple buildings on the same college campus on Google for local SEO?
Should I delete them? Simply give them a different address like "City, State, Zip"? I see the benefit of having key buildings on campus in Google Maps, but I don't want those to affect my accuracy score and, thus, my local rankings for SEO.
Local Listings | | GabeGibitz1 -
Unique Local Citation Descriptions?
Hello! As SEO’s we have always understood that it’s best practice to craft a number of unique descriptions when submitting to local directories, rather than using one generic description across all directories. However, if we look at this logically; An average business owner (even if Google didn't exist) wouldn't bother to vary descriptions. They would have a generic brand template and simply submit the same description to each directory. What do you think? Is having unique descriptions a MUST for Local Business Citations, or is it ok to use one generic one? I look forward to hearing your thoughts, Lee.
Local Listings | | Webpresence0 -
Local Business Registered at not a real Address
Hi, I am working on local SEO for a client of mine and was interested to hear what will be recommended in this case: My client registered his business in a NYC address, for his own business needs. Can I use this address as a second location for the business? There is a secretary taking care of ALL the businesses listed there, but is not a location that services customers. We don't service customers on site at any location because it's a pickup business to begin with, but we do have a fully functional office in NJ Please don't dismiss this right away, it was registered in NYC and not in NJ and all our information on the web cites this address over our NJ one (obviously i'm working on promoting our NJ one, but that's nowhere to be found on the web).
Local Listings | | Rachel_J0 -
Citation building for multiple locations
Hey everyone, I think i've got a good handle on citations, but had a question regarding multiple locations. I'm going to be doing citation building for a local lawyer, and he's got 4 locations. I'd like to build citations for each of his locations, but I was wondering if the business name needs to change? Ie. If I am building citations for Town 2 and Town 3, should the business name be listed as "Company Name Town 1" for the first location, and "Company Name Town 2" for the second? Or is it fine to use the company name throughout all citations, and just change the location/phone number to the location based info? I'm just worried about Google seeing differing info, but the same company name, and possibly penalizing me for it. Thanks in advance!
Local Listings | | RCDesign740 -
Multiple Businesses at the Same Address
Hello everyone! Fairly new member here with a quick local question. A friend is starting a new business and sharing a showroom with another local business until they close up shop in a couple of months, at which point he will take over the showroom entirely. My question: in the meantime, what would be the best way to have two businesses at the same address? The best I can come up with to avoid the pages being merged or who knows what else would be to list one of the businesses in a non-existent suite, for example 123 S Someplace Ave, Suite 100. Is this strategy likely to cause any problems for either business? Ideally I would like to have both businesses appear in the listings until the first one closes, at which point I will just delete the page entirely.
Local Listings | | rbmac0 -
What to do if the domain name is very different from real business name for local listings
Hey guys, any advice is very welcome , I m´ ranking locally a website in the bay area for cabinets www.cabinetsbayarea.com we picked this domain name more for SEO purposes because it has the two most important keywords that we want to rank. My issue is that the real busniess name is HEMA DESIGN CENTER, so i dont know if we should change the name in the chamber of commerce to CABiNETS BAY AREA or list the business as HEMA DESIGN CENTER, with this website www.cabinetsbayarea.comr. We only mention the real name in the About Us. CABINETS BAY AREA it is more as a deparment of the real business name HEMA DESIGN CENTER What should i do? Thanks a lot, David
Local Listings | | conexion330 -
Why does it take so long for citations to get listed?
I understand that several citation places take over a month to get listed, but I just don't understand why. Granted, there's nothing I can do about it, but I'm just curious what the hold up is based on. Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
How can I manually build local citations for a client?
Note: I am not interested in paying for services to build citations for me. I am managing building a client's citations. On many sites I am asked to create an account and verify my information. I have tried to create accounts using my client's email address and specified password so that they can manage their citations down the road should their NAP change. However, many sites require further verification such as security questions or a phone code. It isn't practical or effective to ask a client to confirm and verify all of these accounts. What is the most effective way to manually build local citations for a client? How can I get around the issue of email and phone verification?
Local Listings | | BlairKuhnen0