Local Ranking with No Physical Address in New Service Area - How to Rank?

[photoseo1]

OK,

SO, I am a wedding company in Maui, Hawaii and have an established business on one island with a physical address. http://simplemauiwedding.net

We have started a new team in Oahu, Hawaii http://simpleoahuwedding.com and we provide service there and have a full team in place. How can I rank for Local Search on that Island with no physical address?

I would love to hear some proven strategies.

Thank you

[MiriamEllis]

Hey hey, Paul - you read my article! Woo hoo Thank you. And thanks for your great contributions to this thread.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi William!

I'm so glad you're here, participating in Q&A. Thank you for being part of this conversation. I want to take a minute to explain why ThompsonPaul is saying "no no!" to non-physical addresses, in hopes that it may be good learning moment for lots of community members.

P.O. boxes, mailboxes, virtual offices, etc, are a violation of Google's guidelines, which state:

Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location. PO Boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations are not acceptable.

Though you are absolutely right, William, that some mail services provide a street address, it's so important to remember that Google can read street level signage. So, if Steven's wedding company were to try to list at such a location, Google can easily see that they're looking at a mailing office instead of a business with a sign outside of it saying "Steven's Wedding Company". Important to remember that customers and competitors can see this, too, using Streetview, and can easily report any offending business for spam.

ThompsonPaul has linked to my recent Moz Blog post in which I explain that the results of being detected at an ineligible location would be a "hard penalty" causing listing removal, rendering any money, time or effort that had been put into building up the fake location listing null. We don't know for certain how this might, then, influence Google's feelings about the entire brand ... but I wouldn't want to risk that my spammy behavior in City B wasn't somehow putting a black mark next to my legitimate location in City A.

Finally, when this topic comes up, I always like to touch on the ethics of the thing. Smart businesses know that it can spell doom to be cited by the consumer public for deceptive practices. Not only has a failure to live up to truth-in-advertising standards led to public lawsuits, it has really tarnished brands. So, it's just good business to be 100% honest in how you present a business to the public, including being truthful about its physical locations. Anything else is a risk.

Good discussion going on here, William. Hopefully we can all learn something about these challenges from participating.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Steven!

So, basically, the answer is: you can't. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it is the reality for nearly all single location businesses that serve multiple cities. Google's bias toward physical location affects all service business models this way. Unless you can get a staffed, physical office in the second city, it will be a waste of your time to make it your goal to rank in the local results for that city. Instead, your options are:

1. Go after organic rankings for that city via the authority you build surrounding website content+links for that city.

2. Pay for visibility with locally-targeted PPC.

3. Use social media to try to build brand awareness for your work in that city.

4. Do everything you can to encourage word-of-mouth among existing customers. Customers in City A have friends and family in city B. Make a superior effort to offer the type of superior service that would cause the A group to recommend your services to the B group. Consider how loyalty programs might assist with this. Perhaps every customer who brings you a new customer gets a voucher for a free dinner, free massage, etc.

5. Explore building relationships with related businesses in City B. Perhaps your company does everything but bake the cake for weddings. Find the best bakers in City B and see how you can help one another in terms of lead gen.

A combination of all these efforts could begin generating some leads for you that are not dependent on the unrealistic goal of ranking locally where you aren't locally located. Hope this helps!

[ThompsonPaul]

I'm well aware of the reasons why small business owners might not want to have their home addresses listed, but it doesn't change the fact that Google will not allow use of UPS Store-type mailing addresses to pretend to be business locations. It's not a matter of having a "verifiable address" it's a matter of adhering to the requirement that you must have an actual business presence at that specific location where customers can come in person for service/sales.to qualify the local GMB address.

It is possible to set your home address, then select that it should be hidden and function as a local service area business instead.

But trying to get away with using a non-conforming "pretend" address will get you delisted when caught (and Google is very good at catching such non-conforming addresses in many ways, if it even lets you verify it in the first place.)

This is not just my opinion - it's specifically stated by Google in their own GMB terms of service. In fact, Local Search expert Miriam Ellis just posted about this in her Not-Actually-The-Best Local SEO Practices. To quote:

"Once caught, any effort that was put into ranking and building reputation around a fake-location listing is wasted."

Paul

[Dalessi]

Many people work from home and do not want to use their home address. I am sure we all know why. It is just not a good idea. It is their legal right to have a verifiable local mailing address in which they can send and receive mail. Another option is a local coworking space or execitive office space that offers mail and meeting space on an as needed basis.

The important thing is that it is a real address. You use it for real business and it can be verified.

Have a great 2018!

[ThompsonPaul]

Unfortunately, these types of "pretend" business addresses are specifically against Google's ToS for Google My Business locations. It's pretty easy for them to detect and they'll nuke your location listing as a result.

[photoseo1]

Thanks William!

[Dalessi]

You need to get a mail box addres such as Mail Boxes Etc or the UPS store that gives you a physical street address. If you want to get into local that is your best and easiest option.

Make sure the address gets verified like any other address would, and never use a "Post Office" box. That will not give you the verifiable address as far as I know.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards