Update business name across 150+ locations
-
We have 150+ locations. The current names in GMB vary based on the branch. They may include a branch number or city location in the title or some variation of the company name.
We'd like to update these to reflect our company wide branding and drop the branch #/location. Any ideas on the impact of this change?
-
Hi Jason!
I agree 100% with what Miriam and Ben have said.
I would go through all your listings and take out the geo-modifiers if that is not actually part of the legal company name. This could be causing confusion for Google and negatively impacting your rankings—not something you want to do!
However, if Google has not caught on to this (if the company's name does not actually include the geos), and you change these, it could impact how you rank for local search results. By having the city in the company name, you increase your chances of showing up in the local pack.
This is a situation where you will need to track, test, tweak, repeat until you find the right process for your particular situation! Hope this helps.
-
Having a single brand at all your locations will definitely help people recognise you and avoid conusion - especially if you use your brand without any variations on signage at your location.
With the branch number, I'd say do what is right for the customer. Does the customer care about the branch number, for example because it's on their collection notiification? If not, drop it as it's not useful to them and may even lead to confusion. If they do, keep it.
With the city name I'd say the same thing. If yor store signage calls your branch "Widgets R Us London" then having the listing name and the store name match exactly will reassure people they've found the right place. If your signage and other collateral says "Widgets R Us" then drop it. Even if there are multiple locations in one town their addresses are displayed in the search results so there should be no confusion. Have a look at how supermarkets in major cities do it (I'm in the UK so I've just checked Sainsbury in London while writing this) and you'll see that even when they have several branches close together they don't put their locations in the name as the address and the location of the pin on the map is enough to guide people.
Some people wonder about the beneits of including the city name as it might help them appear higher in the local results. From what I've seen including the location in your listing name has very little impact. Your location relative to the point being searched for and the reviews you've received are much more powerful factors. So moving toward a completely coherent brand shouldn't have any negagtive impact on your branding.
-
Hey Jason,
Unless those modifiers (city names) are part of the legal business names of the 150 businesses, then the Google My Business listings are actually in violation of Google's Guidelines (see: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en).
So, cleaning them up would be all to the good in terms of avoiding possible red flags at Google!
But, I'll be totally honest here. Could removing city keywords from your business name fields negatively impact you? Yes, it's possible, in that Google is still a bit goofy about weighting some exact match keyword brands in their SERPs. They shouldn't be doing this, they may be better at this than formerly, but I think this is still a factor.
So, you might see some ranking drops, BUT, that being said, I'd still recommend cleaning up your name as I'd rather struggle positively toward high rankings than deal with Google forming a negative 'opinion' of my business for violating their guidelines.
As you work on cleaning up your NAP, one thing to note. You will have to leave city names on your Facebook Place listings. They are the odd man out in this regard, requiring that you add modifiers to the business titles of multi-location listings, which is the exact opposite of what Google wants. Go figure!
Hope this helps!
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
-
What do I need to do for SEO when moving a business out of state?
Hello! So I have a business that I run out of a single location for the last 3 years. I am unfortunately having to move here in the next few weeks My question is what do I need to do in order to have the best chance at SEO for the new location? When should I make the changes? Does it take a long time for me to stop showing up in the previous location? and is there something I need to do to remove those? Also, is there an app or a website where I can find and update all listings at once or at least a bulk of them? I know that there are some weird sites that have my business info in them that I did not put there. Obviously these would have the wrong address. Some do not have a contact info or a way for me to log into them. What would I do with these sites? Thank you!
Local Listings | | Rmarkjr810 -
Business Citation Issue
Hey Experts, I have a website which is providing local business services to US clients. For this purpose, I have created the separate landing pages for each client. Now my question is that I have done citation for that particular landing page not for the root domain. Now the client has decided to stop working with us and I removed the business name and detail from that landing page but the landing page still exist on dummy business name. But citation of that business page still exists. Then how that business citation can affect that linked page? I mean it will affect the page ranking or Google trust or relevancy?
Local Listings | | urhaiurg0 -
Incorporated Business Listings
Hey Community! My agency has been working with more companies that are Incorporated lately who are requiring SEO assistance. A few of our customers have their business listed to include the Business Name, Inc. in the Google/Facebook listing and some of them don't. What would you guys recommend we go with when dealing with an incorporated business? One of the businesses we're working with is Blossom Childcare and Learning Center, Inc. Thanks
Local Listings | | Advancify
-Kris0 -
Promoting three businesses at the same locaiton
Hi,
Local Listings | | corn2015
A potential client has three busiensses at the same location. Does google allow for three business listings at the same location?promoting three businessess0 -
Can we place a FB business page link instead of direct domain link in a Google My Business listing?
A client of ours asked if we could place link to their local Facebook page instead of a link to the direct domain in their Google My Business listing. Will Google allow this?
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Map-pack results for multiple locations in the same city
We just started working with a local business with several offices across Virginia. All of their locations have G+ local pages, and all rank pretty well in map-pack results for their respective cities....except for one location. Two of their offices happen to be in the same city. One ranks well in the local pack, and the other one is totally buried. This is the only location that doesn't rank in the map-pack for its target local queries. This company still has a TON of work to do to clean-up their citations and improve their G+ local pages across all the locations, but I'm wondering if there are any best practices for handling two locations within the same city...we obviously want both offices to rank in the map-pack, and don't want to do anything that might hurt the one that is currently ranking well. I'm confident that generally cleaning up their profile across the board, and adding new citations for all locations would be beneficial, but would appreciate any suggestions or best practices for getting both locations in this one city to perform well. Thanks!
Local Listings | | djreich0 -
One Location - Multiple Businesses
We have a client that has multiple businesses running out of the same address with no difference in suite number - what's the best way to work with this considering NAP? The owner runs several different service businesses and a few online businesses (all legit) out of the same large office space and we want to try to figure out how to get him listed locally with the obvious NAP issue. We can get new phone numbers, but not sure of the best way to handle the duplicate address issue. Thoughs?
Local Listings | | DougHoltOnline0 -
Local SEO: Creating a Second home-based business?
I'm in a bit of a pickle, here's the issue: I have a home-based business with a physical address. I plan on starting another home-based business at the same physical address. I only have one phone (cellphone). I plan on operating both businesses unless one completely eclipses the other. I can probably see your head spinning right now . . . how big of NAP issues are we looking at? I own my house, I could probably add a line to the new business address (like a suite # or something) I can afford a landline or secondary cellphone if necessary Any thoughts, ideas, criticisms, direction, hate-mail, or solutions?
Local Listings | | roachdesign0