Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Local SEO address question - adding a suite number for shared address for office building
-
Hi, I have a client that has an address that is shared for a few different businesses in the holistic health field. My client is a chiropractor. There is an eye doctor, massage therapist and acupuncturist aslo sharing the same address. It's a subburban setting with two buildings all sharing one address.
In the interest of preventing any merged listings down the road, I recently added un unofficial suite number to his website and Google places business listing. I also did this for all of his online directory listings, and for Bing and Yahoo as well.
Did I do the right thing here?
It seems to be having a positive impact on his local SEO as far as I can tell. Or at least there has not been any negative impact in the last 6 months
Your thoughts?
-
Great. I'm glad my answer helped. Good luck!
Miriam
-
Thank you for your answer, it's exactly what I was expecting your to say. I'll take the advice.
-
Thanks Miriam, I don't really know what's involved in making this "legal." He'll get the mail there with or without the suite # so I don't foresee a problem with postcard re-verification. So I guess he's good to go. If he wants to get it "legal" I can recommend that. Thanks for confirming what I already thought
-
Hi MozMan2,
Nice to see you here today! Okay...so you went about this 50% right, in my opinion. What's missing is getting the client an actual registered suite number at which he receives mail.
Initially, this is important in the even that Google (and others local business indexes) give you a postcard-only option for verification of the listing. Sounds like you're past that point, but remember, the need to re-verify does sometimes reoccur if you have to make certain changes to a Place Page.
For the long haul, the issue is one of differentiation. The inherent danger in different businesses sharing an identical address is that Google will conflate the listings, merging them into a mess of mixed addresses, phone numbers, reviews and descriptions.
Ideally, what the chiropractor should do is convince each of the professionals in his building to get their own suite number to prevent this from happening to any or all of them.
If he can't get them to see the light about this, then he should at least protect himself by getting his own suite number. Depending on where he lives, he may need to go to the post office or some other local authority to get this thing legalized so that he's got a separate mail box to which the mailman delivers his mail at his suite address in the building.
So, again, your overall approach is correct, but the suite number should be legit to keep this on the level. And you should make sure the suite number is consistent across all mentions of his business on the web.
Hope this helps!
Miriam
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
-
Moving Images to Subdomain: SEO Impacts
For sever work- load enhancements we are planning to move our images to a sub-domain. so the files would be located at something like images.domain.com Rather than domain.com/images/ We are a large Ecommerce site so we have a lot of images. These will be self hosted so we are not using a CDN. I'm hoping someone has done the same and if there were any steps they had wished they had taken before making the move/ if they noticed any traffic impacts things like that.
Image & Video Optimization | | RMATVMC0 -
What are reasons for poor (0 to 2%) CTR in spite of top position (number one) in SERPs?
My website pages appear for several local keywords like "granite countertops St.Louis" (About 480 impressions) and my site appears as the top most in SERPs. But the CTR is 1 to 2%. It is mentioned that the top positions may get as many as 35% clicks. What are the reasons? I need help with detailed solutions. archcitygranite.com
Image & Video Optimization | | govi0 -
Adding logo to graphics/memes/etc?
Do you all think it is best to add your logo/brand (in some small way) to graphics/meme/ etc that you create? I understand that the most important part about creating said content is that it is of high quality and usefulness to our audience, however, after something of that caliber has been created, have any of you noticed any difference by adding or not adding your logo/brand? Any suggestions, stories, resources, etc are always appreciate. Thanks in advance for your time and input, Ruben
Image & Video Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Local SEO: Ste vs. Suite vs. #
Hi, I used the spelled out "Suite" in my local NAP, but sometimes it's been shortened to Ste by citation websites. I'm trying to remain consistent here Should I use Ste H, Suite H, or #H? This is a good article on it: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local-citations/1605-suite-vs-ste-vs-your-citation-addresses-2.html but I'd still like your opinion.
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Practice Name vs. Dr. Name in Local Search
I wanted to get some opinions on an interesting situation for local search. Many doctors and dentists are found in one of two ways online: Their name and title, e.g. Dr. James A. Smith, MD Their practice name, e.g Smith Plastic Surgery, P.C Often sites like Healthgrades are providing data on the doctor him or herself, and the information can be tough to switch out. At the same time, there's a tendancy on the Dr's part to want to be listed as their practice name. Their site is often set up that way. How are you handling this kind of setup? Have you found a way to reliably associate (and format) a practice and doctor's name in a listing, in such a way that doesn't violate Google's quality guidelines? I know the drill for handling a doctor within a hospital, but this is a slightly different situation...
Image & Video Optimization | | BedeFahey0 -
Local Citation Sites
After searching through many local citation site I find that most only apply to the US. Are there any really good ones in Canada?
Image & Video Optimization | | casper4340 -
Australian Service that Allows you to Control all your Local Listings
Hey, After a few stumbles upon a variety of services that allows you to manage all your local listings from the one profile (the latest one was Yext.com). It got me thinking - is there an Australian equivalent? My research revealed nothing. Thanks.
Image & Video Optimization | | LukeyJamo1 -
Dynamic image serving SEO
We often use images from a dynamic image server, to cater for image asset management, multiple sizes etc. Similar to Adobe's Scene7, although that came out after we chose our product. So widgets.com may have all its images with a URL like myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90, instead of widgets.com/images/productname.jpg. A potential client wants to capitalise on traffic from Google image search. We could build an image sitemap, listing the images on each page. What should we place in the image:loc field? The code: myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90 Apparently we have to verify the hosting site in Webmaster Tools, but I can't see where. I have a single Webmaster Tools account, where most of our sites are defined. Would I have to verify it for each site using the dynamic imaging program? Love to hear from anyone with solutions for getting images indexed when they are hosted at third-party dynamic imaging programs.
Image & Video Optimization | | ozgeekmum0