How Would You Handle "2 Locations" For a Service Business?

[Travis Van Slooten]

I'll try to keep this brief:

Client has been in business for 40+ years and installs gutters in a large service area that spans 4 counties. Since the beginning of time they used their warehouse space (where they keep their trucks and materials) as their official business address. The client is fully aware this technically isn't a location as per Google's guidelines. This "location" is a good hour away from the main metropolitan city in their service area. They show up in Google Maps but only in a handful of cities immediately around this location. They have never appeared in Maps in the metropolitan city. They have accumulated 240+ 5-star ratings on their Google listing.

The client just moved to a home 20 minutes from the main metropolitan city. In order to show up in Google Maps for this metropolitan city, we created a new GMB listing with their new home address. I initially thought we would park the old Google GMB listing and just focus our efforts moving forward on the new listing, but the more I think this through I'm not sure what to do. As I see it, we have two options. Which would you recommend?

Option 1
Request Google to move the 240+ Google reviews from the old GMB listing to the new listing and then close the old listing.
Change all main/meaningful citations to the new home address.
Only show the new home address on their website.

Option 2
Leave the old GMB listing alone.
Leave all existing citations for the warehouse location alone.
Focus on getting reviews on the new Google listing.
Create new citations using the new home address.

I was initially leaning towards Option 2 but the more I think about it the more I'm not so sure. It seems like things could get messy trying to maintain two locations when really they only have one. Why maintain 2 Google listings, 2 Yelp listings, 2 Facebook pages, citations for both locations, etc.? But since they have such a strong Maps presence in and around their warehouse location I'm reluctant to lose all that by closing the old GMB listing. Please advise!

Thanks,

Travis

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Travis,

Glad to hear from you! I would update the existing listing to list the home address. *Technically* you're supposed to clear the address inside GMB for a home based business as well but there might be some negative impacts on ranking when you do this (based on this thread)

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

Thanks Joy! Congrats on the purchase of this forum. It's been a while since I poked my head in here but I plan on spending a lot more time in here moving forward I love the new style of the forum too. Nice work.

Regarding this client, since we have 2 Google listings now (but the new one is only about a month old), would I just delete the new listing, change the address on the existing listing, and then hide the address? If your answer is yes, I assume we'll have to reverify the old listing due to the address change.

Then regarding the citations, would you just update them to the new address?

Just curious...why would you go this route? I need to explain to the client why this is the best course of action even though it might look like we're reducing our potential maps coverage having only one maps listing.

Thanks,

Travis

Hey Travis,

Glad to hear from you! I would update the existing listing to list the home address. *Technically* you're supposed to clear the address inside GMB for a home based business as well but there might be some negative impacts on ranking when you do this (based on this thread)

 

[JoyHawkins]

I would suggest updating the address on the old listing first. Once it's updated, contact GMB support to get them to merge the 2. You can't really easily delete a listing once it's created unless it's a residential address.

I would suggest updating the citations as well so they're accurate.

I've always found that there is a certain amount of authority/ranking that exists with a listing that has history/age, just like a domain name. If you can avoid starting over with a new listing, it's always a good idea.

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

@Joy - thanks!