Source
r/SEO•
liquid42

GMB Question!

Help

My friend owns a business with 80 locations across the country, however each store is owned and operated individually with separate names. But, they operate under the 'City Surfs' banner. Also each store has their own GMB profiles they manage.

We want to make sure when a customer types in 'City Surfs' in google maps that all business locations pop up for whatever city they're looking into.

How do we go about doing this when each store has a separate name and GMB profiles managed by the shops themselves, but they fly under the 'City Surfs' banner?

Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

Posted Jun 24, 2022, 6:07 PM UTC · edited

24
Icy-Load9807•

What is different about the business names?

1
liquid42OP•

The franchisee model allows each business to keep their brand & identity. So they're all independently owned and operated with their own unique business names.

We want to make them appear on google maps when a customer searches for 'City Surfs' in that specific city. So for example, 'Mike's Sport Shop' is a City Surf store. How do we that when each GMB listing is individually owned and operated.

1
Icy-Load9807•

Okay, thank you for clarifying. There are two ways I would approach this.

  1. Since each business is allowed to keep their brand and identity, I would name the listing “Mikes Surf Shop” and reference the business as a City Surf Store in the business description. This allows the search engine to associate the listing with the City Surfs brand.

Or…

  1. You could name the business “City Surfs: Mikes Surf Shop”, however, this name has to be consistent throughout the signage and branding.

Here is what Google says about name consistency

Name consistency: “All business locations within the same country must have the same name for all locations. For example, all Home Depot locations should use the name "The Home Depot" rather than "Home Depot" or "The Home Depot at Springfield.

There are 2 exceptions to this policy:

If you have multiple types of businesses, sub-brands, multiple departments, or various types of operations such as retail and wholesale, they may also have a distinct name so long as it is consistently applied to all locations of that business.”

I hope this helps.

(Sorry for the poor formatting, on Mobile)

2
liquid42OP•

This is very helpful! Thank you so much!

1