This is a two-part blog post. The two parts deal with different topics while telling the same story.
About a week ago, I wasn't investigating anybody. I was looking at the Google Maps results for SEO companies in Tucson and noticed how many reviews some of my competitors had.
I had ten.
I made a joke that apparently I needed to start walking around with a bullhorn asking people to leave Tucson SEO Pros five-star reviews. I did not do that.
Instead, I made the considerably worse decision of getting curious. I started clicking on the reviews. Then I started clicking on the other businesses those people had reviewed. Then I started looking at addresses. Then I started looking at Street View.
Then I drove to a couple.
Nine days later, two SEO companies had disappeared from Google Maps.
My accomplice and I were standing in the hallway of a commercial building trying to understand its suite-numbering system, and I had submitted a Google Maps listing for a licensed clinical social worker named Gretchen who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.
Yet this story is about her too.
Things had gotten out of hand.
But somewhere in this completely ridiculous sequence of events is a serious lesson about local SEO:
Gaming Google is a stupid business strategy.
Let's start with the obvious question.
If gaming Google Maps is such a stupid idea, why do people do it?
Because it can work. At least for a while.
Sooooo... Why Do It?
Exact-match keywords in your business name help. A physical location helps. Proximity matters. Being open when competitors are closed helps.
Put all of that together and you can give yourself a pretty substantial advantage in the local results.
Exact-match business name? Check.
Customer-facing address? Check.
Business hours stretched into prime time around 7 or 8 p.m.? Check.
And baby, you're cooking in the Maps results.
Throw some questionable reviews into the pot and you've got yourself a nice little lie gumbo.
We'll save buying reviews for another entry.
"You're One to Talk. Your Name Is Tucson SEO Pros."
That's fair.
Except Tucson SEO Pros is actually our business name. It has been since we started the company in 2016.
There's nothing wrong with having keywords in your business name if that's legitimately the name of your business.
Where you get into trouble is when Bob's Plumbing suddenly decides its Google Business Profile should be named:
Bob's Plumbing | Tucson Emergency Plumber | Water Heater Repair | Drain Cleaning
That's not branding. That's a wishlist for what you want to show up for.
Oh, and it doesn't work very well either. Trust me. Whistles innocently.
Google's guidelines say your Business Profile name should reflect the name your business uses consistently in the real world, including things like your website, signage and other branding.
If you're operating under a different legitimate business name or DBA, I would keep your paperwork and real-world branding lined up to support it.
The Legitimate Way to Have an Address on Google Maps
Want your address displayed on your Google Business Profile?
Great.
Have a real business there.
Is it unfair? I think so. Does it advantage larger businesses? Yep! Is Google basically incentivizing bullshit and address games? In my opinion, also yes.
If customers can visit your location during your stated hours, Google allows you to display the address.
That means this isn't supposed to be a mailbox you occasionally check or a room you rented long enough to get through verification.
Nor your house. If you are saying you are cool with people coming to your door and meeting them there, go right ahead. But if your Google Maps shows your weed overgrown front yard, and your very good boy, is ready to take anyone down approaching the door, you're not a publicly facing business.
If you're claiming customers can visit you there, customers should actually be able to visit you there.
Have a legitimate location. Staff it during the hours you're claiming to be open. Have permanent signage. Make sure the business is actually identifiable at the location.
Personally, I'd go all the way. Unlock the door. Put somebody at the reception desk. Get one of those jangly bells that rings when somebody walks in.
Congratulations. You now have an office.
Then There Are the Shortcuts
Here's where things get dicier.
One strategy is to get a legitimate office or suite on a short-term lease, establish the Google Business Profile, verify the location and then leave.
Now you've got your coveted physical address without the annoying expense of actually maintaining a physical office.
How long can that work?
I'll tell you exactly how long.
Until it doesn't.
Maybe nobody notices for six months. Maybe it survives for years.
But eventually the landlord rents the suite to somebody else. And the new tenant wants to create their own Google Business Profile.
Or your competitor notices that you're absolutely crushing everyone in the Maps pack and starts wondering why.
Especially when you have four, five or six times as many reviews as everybody around you.
But that is the next entry.
The Case of Suite 207 and Justice for Gretchen
This brings us to one of my favorite recent examples.
A local Tucson SEO company does, or at least did, publicly list an office address on Google. There's just one problem.
Take a drive to the listed address and somebody else's name is on the door.
Enter Gretchen. I don't know Gretchen. I have never done business with Gretchen. But through circumstances completely outside of her control, I suddenly became one of Gretchen's most enthusiastic advocates. Because Gretchen appears to be operating an actual business from the location associated with somebody else's Google Business Profile.
And now we have a problem.
The SEO company could simply acknowledge that customers don't visit it at that location, remove the public address and operate as a service-area business.
Instead, the listing became its own little saga. And poor Gretchen got caught in the middle. She deserves her own presence at her own business location. So I did something I definitely didn't expect to be doing when this started.
I submitted Gretchen's business to Google Maps.
Google accepted the edit.
Gretchen now has a presence on Google Maps at the location.
Then something else happened.
The SEO company's public street address disappeared. Did my edit cause that? I have absolutely no idea.
Maybe Google connected the dots. Maybe somebody at the SEO company removed the address. Maybe another report caused it. Google doesn't send me an investigative report explaining what happened behind the scenes.
And I'm not going to claim credit for something I can't prove. What I can say is this:
Gretchen's edit was accepted. The other company's public address disappeared.
What ultimately happens to that company's profile remains to be seen. So, for now:
Justice for Gretchen.
As far as I know, Gretchen has absolutely no idea there was ever a Justice for Gretchen movement. You're welcome, Gretchen.
If a Couple of Loudmouths With Smartphones Can Bring Down Your Strategy, It's Not a Very Good Strategy
This is really the point.
If a meaningful part of your marketing strategy depends upon nobody physically checking whether your business exists where you claim it exists, what are you doing??!
Google doesn't need some elaborate investigation. Neither does a competitor. People have cars. They have eyes. They have smartphones. And when something looks strange, they can take pictures.
The more successful the trick becomes, the more attention it attracts.
If you're sitting prominently in the Maps pack while competitors with legitimate offices are underneath you, you're giving them a pretty strong incentive to start pulling on that string.
Google Has Seen the Other Address Tricks Too
There are plenty of variations.
Maybe your buddy has a legitimate commercial building and agrees to carve out "Suite A1" for you. Unfortunately, Suite A1 is basically a broom closet. That's not much of an improvement.
Can customers actually visit your business there? Is it staffed appropriately? Is your business permanently identified at the location? Is it really your place of business?
Those questions matter considerably more than whether somebody managed to put "Suite A1" on an envelope.
A P.O. box?
Come on! Amateur Hour!
Google figured that one close to 20 years ago.
Virtual offices and coworking spaces aren't magic loopholes either. Google restricts virtual-office addresses, and coworking arrangements have to meet Google's requirements before an address can legitimately be shown as a customer-facing location.
The recurring theme is pretty simple:
You need to actually operate where you say you operate.
Today's Trick Becomes Tomorrow's Stone Around Your Neck
That's the part people forget. You may get away with something today. You might even get a ranking advantage from it.
Then suddenly the questionable address isn't some clever little SEO trick anymore. It's the foundation of a Google Business Profile with years of history and dozens or hundreds of reviews attached to it.
Now you're afraid to touch anything. You're afraid to change the address. You're afraid to remove it. You're afraid somebody else will move into the suite. You're afraid a competitor will report it. You're afraid Google will ask you to prove something that hasn't actually been true for three years.
Congratulations. Your brilliant shortcut has become a liability.
And this is one of my biggest problems with SEO strategies built around finding temporary holes in Google's rules.
Anyone can discover a trick that works today.
The harder question is:
What happens to the client three years from now when it doesn't?
This is why Google Maps optimization is pretty boring these days. When someone starts talking about Maps optimization, I immediately wonder what the scam is. Did you get a fake rental for a client? Did you use the 16th floor at 5151 E. Broadway? Google knows that's not a real office. You're living on borrowed time.
Just Admit You're a Service-Area Business
There's nothing wrong with being a service-area business.
Electricians do most of their work at customers' homes and businesses. So do plumbers, HVAC companies, roofers, landscapers and dozens of other perfectly legitimate businesses.
I understand the temptation, but don't pretend that customers are regularly strolling into your "office" because displaying an address gives you an advantage.
It goes back and forth in the way Google weights it, but NGL, it's a pretty substantial advantage as of the time I'm writing this.
If customers don't visit your location, you gotta hide the address, configure the profile appropriately as a service-area business and suck it up.
Maybe you give up an advantage somebody else is willing to fake. Or maybe you go take pictures and report them. Different strokes and so on.
Build something you can defend.
Because once your local search strategy requires you to lie to Google, your customers and the person who eventually rents Suite 207, you don't have a clever SEO strategy.
You have a ticking clock. For the moment, Gretchen has her listing.
The questionable address is gone. What happens next? We'll see.
Justice for Queen Gretchen. The rightful ruler of Suite 207!