Local Listings for a Virtual Product
-
My company sells very geographically specific products online. We have local offices in cities connected to the product and they are labeled with terms such as "florida widget".
Could I use local SEO and add my website link to Google maps, etc... with the local address or is that not allowed since the products are not sold in the physical local office but rather online?
-
Hi Sara,
To qualify for local inclusion, your business needs to meet these criteria:
-
Has a unique street address (not a PO box, not a virtual office)
-
Has a unique local area code phone number in the city of location (not an 800 number or tracking number)
-
Has face-to-face transactions with its customers, either at the place of business (like a hair salon) or at the customers' locations (like a window washer).
It sounds like #3 may be the sticking point for you. Do you have in-person transactions with your customers? Feel free to provide further details on this.
-
-
I agree with Matt. I have an online store with a local pickup option. I ship all over the US but do not do local SEO in the city where I am based. If your product is specific to the region you should be allright with a local SEO effort.
-
Thanks! Could doing this limit my SEO to specific cities. For example, if I have a listing in Paris could my SEO efforts in the rest of France be negatively affected since the listing is not in those cities?
-
I'd double check the terms, but I reckon this is ok. You have a real physical location at each spot, which is exactly what Google wants to map. They specifically ask whether you serve customers at each location or not when you submit to places, so that isn't a criteria to be listed.
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
-
Schema for a local business with multiple locations
Hello I am trying to add schema to a website that has several locations. Is the best way to do this is by tagging the home page of the website as the business main location and then create a page for each location and then mark them up accordingly? Thank you for your help.
Image & Video Optimization | | edwardfrebow0 -
Google Local pulling incorrect business name
A client mistakenly put her business name in one of the directories with "In" after the name for" incorporated". She wants to remove the "In" because it just looks weird, but we cannot figure out how, its showing up in google local too now. She did update her infousa listing but that didn't help.
Image & Video Optimization | | handsun0 -
My worst performing pages all have this /products/ URL structure...?
I rank first for my brand "example" on example.com But my product pages simply don't rank. Frankly, I don't know where they rank, but it's not top 40. They are indexed, as searching "site:example.com" returns all my site's pages. My product pages are outranked even by some of my shorter blog posts about the product. My product pages are the only ones on the site that use a folder/directory in the url. example.com**/products/**product-one is nowhere but this is the main product page. example.com/short-blog-article-about-product-one. Is the fact that the product pages are with the slashes a red herring and I should be looking for anther cause? Or is google saying, well these product pages are the only ones in these sort of path and therefore we'll treat them as secondary sources? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Brocberry0 -
Can this make one's local listing vanish from Google local search?
Hi All, Does anyone know if selecting "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under "service areas and location settings" in Google Places can cause a business's listing to disappear from Google local search? My interior designer client has a bricks-and-mortar location, was ranking at about #20 for "interior designer" in Portland, and now has dropped from local search. I had "No, all customers come to the business location" selected previously. In the past week, before the vanishing, I made these changes: 1. changed the service area to "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations", 2. removed "Portland" from the description in Google Places, and 3. submitted maybe two dozen directory listings to high DA sites (using Whitespark as the tool for determining where to post). Thanks everyone! Zack
Image & Video Optimization | | HammerandHand0 -
Local listing | Virtual office
Hi Miriam (and all Local SEO mozers), I read a couple of your answers where you advice people in different situations not to consider a virtual office when creating their Google Places listing and I would like to know if you would apply the same advice in my case. This is the scenario: I have a client who's in the limousine service in Orlando, he just bought the URL and registered the business with the City using a "virtual office" in Orlando. This virtual office provides him a physical address, local area phone number, 411 listing, a listing for the businesses in that building and an office to have his meetings. This is the part where it gets confusing when I read your answers and I will give you an example. You said here:
Image & Video Optimization | | echo1
_The requirements in order to qualify for a Google Place Page are that you have: __1. A legal business name__2. A local area code phone number__3. A physical street address (not a P.O. box or virtual office) to which customers either come to do business with you or from which your employees depart in order to serve customers at their locations (think chimney sweep, landscaper, etc.)_Number 3 says "A physical street address (not a P.O. box or virtual office) to which customers either come to do business with you".
My client is going to rent one of those virtual offices, which does have a physical address, on as-needed basis. This office actually does exist. Why would Google have anything against it?
One of the reasons why he chose that location is because he is running the business from home and he does not want the clients to see it.
Another reason is the image he wants to create for his company by having a different address where he can hold meetings and such. The phone number will be either a local land-line or a local cell phone number, in any case, it will be a _local area code phone number. _
So this is where we stand: he dispatches the cars from home (he does not have a garage, the cars stay with the drivers 24 hours) but he meets his clients and business partners at the other address. There is nothing fake about it, he does have a legal business name, a local area code number and a real place where customers come to do business with. Which address should I use for his Google Places listing?0 -
Google Places - Local Search - Not ranking when 100% complete?
Hi I have followed the examples set by David Mihm and fully completed a Google Places listing - with the geographical area covering the area that it serves along with lots of local citations but when searching on google for 'accountants swansea' it is way down on page 4 of the places results. Does it take time for Google to recognise these changes to Places listings or is my listing incorrect to attract a high listing for the search phrase. Looking at the competition many of them have not optimised or done anything with their listings pages so I am at a loss to explain why the listing is doing so badly. The places listing is at http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?hl=en&prmd=imvns&biw=1280&bih=829&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=accountants+swansea&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=accountants&hnear=0x486e45555a4e97b1:0x3d77128e2fe7cb74,Swansea,+Neath+Port+Talbot&cid=9815784575213492240&ei=UN6WTt7UJ8rasga-ocTrAw&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=7&ved=0CFcQ4gkwBjge
Image & Video Optimization | | idv0 -
Local Seo Help!
Hi everyone, Google Places is going to be the death of me. I have asked a few questions on this topic before but nothing seems to work. Here are some of my problems/concerns: It keeps deleting my description!? Have you seen this before? The "more about this place" section has not been updated since I claimed the listing over 3 months ago. The website it lists at the top of that section is our old website address which no longer works. The site was through a site builder and the company will not forward the domain to the new site. Are there any companies or services that can help build a great profile and help increase my rankings? I am starting to think this is over my head. Do I delete the page and start over? Any advice? Please! Company Website: http://www.petmedicalcenter.com Google Places: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1523&bih=863&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=pet+medical+center+of+las+vegas&fb=1&gl=us&hq=pet+medical+center+of&hnear=0x80beb782a4f57dd1:0x3accd5e6d5b379a3,Las+Vegas,+NV&cid=13431404354265657899&ei=EQolTpqREdSlsQKMlPXXCw&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=1&ved=0CCMQ4gkwAA FYI: I have added a lot of links between when I signed up for SEOmoz and the linkscape has not be updated in over a month an a half. I really appreciate your help! -Brant
Image & Video Optimization | | PMC-3120870 -
Listing in Local search
Hi, Are several listing in google places allowed ? I've got 1 address but with 3 differents services with 1 website for each activity . Tks a lot..
Image & Video Optimization | | mozllo0