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
-
Google My Business Issue
I have seen an issue with GMB that Google Support say is not an issue. I work for an agency and we manage about 50-60 GMB accounts for our clients. Most of our clients are flooring retailers and under our MCC account we also have our agencies listing. When I was searching for my client on Google using their brand name for example Walmart, I noticed my agency listing shows even though my client is over 1000 miles away. I have used multiple browsers in incognito and multiple devices and still see this so I know its not a personalized result. We also link to this client from our website which is the only thing connecting the dots between my agency and the client. https://imgur.com/UEqNAyA - screenshot (hiding phone numbers & business names for obvious reasons) showing 2 locations over 1000 miles apart. My first attempt at contacting Google I was informed of ways to get my listing higher which I quickly told them that isn't my issue. I also asked to speak to a SME (subject matter expert) and was told all of them were on lunch, asked for a supervisor and was told they were too on lunch. Has anyone else experienced this? Any idea why it would show two different companies over 1000 miles apart when searching for a companies name? Did I stumble a way for SEO's to cheat the local map pack?
Local Listings | | Jacob-Lial1 -
Can you use Google Posts to make updates about emergency closures?
A client of mine asked about the new Google Posts feature that can be used via GMB. The question is can you use Google posts to give updates to visitors about emergency closures?
Local Listings | | BigChad20 -
Google My Business Login
Is there a way to turn off the Google Security feature that kicks someone out after logging into the account because it isn't a trusted computer or in a different location?
Local Listings | | BlairKuhnen0 -
Disadvantages to Hiding Business Address on Google Places?
From a Local SEO standpoint, wouldn't hiding a business address on Google Places for Business create an SEO disadvantage in that I would expect in the local portion of the search results, there would be a bias to showing businesses that have not hidden their address as then you can place a pin on the map at the location? Or from a Local SEO standpoint does it not matter if you hide your address or not?
Local Listings | | Jazee1 -
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 -
How do you go about updating / correcting bad business listings when you cannot contact the website directly?
There is a business listing I wish to correct / update on 411dir.biz There is no way to contact the website online, and in cases like this, I try to do a whois lookup, and reach out via the email / phone number there. This site seems impossible to connect with, has anybody else come up against situations like this in the past, if so what do you tell your client / what other approaches do people have? Thanks!
Local Listings | | ParadigmPCB0 -
How do I find associations between two businesses?
Google seems to have associated two business that share the same location (with added suite numbers) and I'm not sure how to break the association. The puzzling thing I discovered the other day is when I do a brand search in Google maps it populates this other business as seen here: (https://www.google.com/maps/search/tatt-away/@27.184467,-81.4366649,8z/data=!3m1!4b1) We have multiple locations in Florida I know this other business and it's hosted on the same VPS as well. My question is how to I find the correlation and break it?
Local Listings | | Tatt-Away0 -
Second location
Hello Moz Community, I have a client that is about to open up a second location. The website is optimized for his current location, should I convert his current site (Wordpress) into a Multi-Site Wordpress and convert the homepage to a directory for both locations with each location essentially having it's own website? If I go this route, I believe I'm going to drop in rankings on his current site since his location homepage url will change (example.com will change to ---> example.com/location-one) also there will have to be a lot of work as far as going through all citations and changing the url's on them. The other way I was thinking is just leaving the site as is and still converting the wordpress site to multisite, but not creating a directory page and just creating a new site for his new location. What do you feel is the best approach or if you guys have a better idea I would love to hear it.
Local Listings | | keywordwizzard0