11 replies to this topic

[Akuta]

The city in question is NYC so you have the major boroughs. The structure of the site is solid, but I'm a bit confused on how to go about listing NAPs in the local dirs because depending on your location set in Google you obviously get different results come up depending on your area code and address.

The issue with that is, we service the entire city and we have no physical location. So basically this is expecting me to create 6 different NAPs and 6x the citations as a result? This feels really wrong, but at the same time I understand it makes it easy on Google.

If there was an easy way to get an address in each location without it mattering to Google, like a POBox, I'd just do that, but they seem to not like that. It feels like my type of business is getting the shaft here. Maybe I'm not connecting the dots.

[Jill]

You have to have physical locations to be in google Places or really any local listing.

[torka]

Have you seen this article from Google? It tells how to set up a service area in Google Places.

Not all local businesses serve their customers from a brick-and-mortar storefront. For example, some businesses operate from a home address. Others are mobile and have no central location.
If a local business serves customers at their locations, it can list its service area - the area it's willing to serve - on Google. Users searching Google and Google Maps will then be able to find businesses that serve them.

http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=177103

HTH!

--Torka

[Akuta]

Have you seen this article from Google? It tells how to set up a service area in Google Places.


http://support.googl...n&answer=177103

HTH!

--Torka

Unfortunately it doesn't help at all in local listings because of proximity bias for physical locations. The only way I see this working is just having an actual place everywhere you need to be, and... tough I guess.

So with that said, should we add the NAP for our starting borough (Manhattan) to all of the other boroughs, and then just update each one as we get an office there? I can't imagine this working though unless we had 100x more citations from local blogs for the other boroughs.

Ohhhh, Google.

[Jill]

The only way I see this working is just having an actual place everywhere you need to be

Exactly. And if you don't but try to get in anyway, you'll be seen as trying to spam them.

[Bootfit]

How about registering a few virtual offices at each of the locations you want to service? You should then be able to register these offices on Google Places...

[Akuta]

How about registering a few virtual offices at each of the locations you want to service? You should then be able to register these offices on Google Places...

I guess. I could see this backfiring though.

The competition is almost non-existent so just going to take the 'area' route in Google places for all 5 boroughs and see if citations will trump proximity at some point.

[Jill]

I guess. I could see this backfiring though.

Not to mention that it would be spamming Google Places.

[Bootfit]

Not to mention that it would be spamming Google Places.

How is it considered spamming if the company has a legit virtual office in that particular area?

If it has 5 legit virtual offices in 5 different areas, again how would this be spamming?

The offices are there, Google serves up the results.

Edited by Bootfit, 03 August 2012 - 10:04 AM.

[Jill]

I guess I don't know what you mean by virtual office. I read it as fake address.

[Bootfit]

It's an office that you don't actually work from but your company is registered there. Services provided include phone answering and mail forwarding (to your real address) some virtual office suppliers offer other benefits like board/meeting room hire. It's all legit and above board and legal and is usually charged per month. There's no cap on how many virtual offices a company can have. The main advantage of them is to have an inner-city business address to appear a much larger company than you really are.

[Jill]

Pretty sure that Places Pages are supposed to only be for physical offices where people can walk in and do business with you. I realize that many of them aren't, but I remember reading that as part of Google's guidelines.

In which case, I'm not sure how happy they would be with virtual offices being registered. (They may not be able to distinguish them from a the other kind, however.)