NAP problem

I have a client who is renting a virtual office and can't afford to do anything else. The only problem with the virtual office is that when you search that address on Google, you get 100 different businesses.

Now of course this isn't good for his citations. Any ideas of what to do in this situation? Maybe make up a suite number?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

You could see if he wants to use his home address?

Zandamonium said:

You could see if he wants to use his home address?

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Tried that one and he clearly wasn't interested.

He's a lawyer and wants to keep the address he has but I'm at a loss with the address situation.

Suite number will work nicely.

BassTrackerBoats said:

Suite number will work nicely.

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Even if it doesn't exist?

1ksao said:

Even if it doesn't exist?

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It's worth a shot, what else can you do besides get a different address? Not a whole lot of options here unfortunately, sorry man.

Tell your client that attorneys have already beaten Regus offices to death, years ago.

I've added suite #s to a lot of businesses that use a cowork situation and that works fine and they do not have an assigned suite, heck sometimes they do not even have an assigned desk for that matter.

Thank you both for your input. This may be the best option since I can't seem to come up with anything else.

1ksao said:

I have a client who is renting a virtual office and can't afford to do anything else. The only problem with the virtual office is that when you search that address on Google, you get 100 different businesses.

Now of course this isn't good for his citations. Any ideas of what to do in this situation? Maybe make up a suite number?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Couple options for you OP:

1) Coworking/hotdesking incubator style joints are popping up all over these days. They are often single location setups, with a small membership, and often offer a mailbox rental service for as little at $20/mo. You may have trouble finding one in smaller communities, but most bigger cities now have them. PM me if you'd like an example. In my experience, they don't always advertise this service on their website, so a call may be in order. Another good thing about these is they often have meeting space that your can rent out a la carte. For attorneys this is important as most state BAR rules state that the lawyer must be able to sit down w/ a client at the location they are advertising.

2) Another local lawyer, who doesn't offer the same services as you or your client. I've known many lawyers who have flexed this option, and working out a deal to rent a small sliver of space from another firm w/ too much space, and the occasional use of their boardroom. This will cost you $$$ surely, but I can't think of too many more legit options than this.

Now, there is a common misconception I believe that using a location that has lots of other businesses sharing the exact same address is a problem. In practice, I have not seen this. If you phone, business name, URL, etc is different, I don't see the problem. Consider for a moment the many other industries where this would be a normal and expected scenario - there are a lot of them. The only issue I see is if one of those 100 businesses exploit the location hard, setup 100 lead gen, spammy whatevers, it could find its way on to Google's radar. Mind you, I think it should be understood that there is always this risk when using any type of virtual setup, so this is just a given.

With that said, citations are a none issue.

Been down this road with a lot of legal clients, please reach out if you have any other Qs.

-Adam

BlueSteele said:

Couple options for you OP:

1) Coworking/hotdesking incubator style joints are popping up all over these days. They are often single location setups, with a small membership, and often offer a mailbox rental service for as little at $20/mo. You may have trouble finding one in smaller communities, but most bigger cities now have them. PM me if you'd like an example. In my experience, they don't always advertise this service on their website, so a call may be in order. Another good thing about these is they often have meeting space that your can rent out a la carte. For attorneys this is important as most state BAR rules state that the lawyer must be able to sit down w/ a client at the location they are advertising.

2) Another local lawyer, who doesn't offer the same services as you or your client. I've known many lawyers who have flexed this option, and working out a deal to rent a small sliver of space from another firm w/ too much space, and the occasional use of their boardroom. This will cost you $$$ surely, but I can't think of too many more legit options than this.

Now, there is a common misconception I believe that using a location that has lots of other businesses sharing the exact same address is a problem. In practice, I have not seen this. If you phone, business name, URL, etc is different, I don't see the problem. Consider for a moment the many other industries where this would be a normal and expected scenario - there are a lot of them. The only issue I see is if one of those 100 businesses exploit the location hard, setup 100 lead gen, spammy whatevers, it could find its way on to Google's radar. Mind you, I think it should be understood that there is always this risk when using any type of virtual setup, so this is just a given.

With that said, citations are a none issue.

Been down this road with a lot of legal clients, please reach out if you have any other Qs.

-Adam

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Thanks for the great input, Adam. Lot of helpful advice. Hopefully we can get everything squared away with his address and move on.

Just as another quick tip, check out what some of the other "virtual businesses" are doing in that location and make sure to follow their lead. Also make sure the address isn't listed as a post office as I've seen that happen before for virtual suites.

1ksao said:

Thank you both for your input. This may be the best option since I can't seem to come up with anything else.

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FYI, calling people's considered advice and analysis "input" is an insult. Sure it wasn't intentional, but that's how I respond when I hear it. "Input" is raw data of unknown value that goes into a computer to be analyzed. What you are getting (to a great extent) is "output", the results of other (and superior) minds doing the analysis and giving you the finished product.

Words mean things.

Anyways, my contribution is to consider a couple of factors, the primary being how much trust Google puts into government reports such as dba names, llc documents, etc... If attorney "x" just decides he's in suite 202 and tries to persuade Google that it exists, well maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. But if attorney x's dba and llc documents (varies by state, city, etc...) and whatever official legal records say that "suite 202" exists, then it does.

Another idea I've had is to actually go to the Post Office and inquire how to create a sub-address like that. If you think about the global situation with the war on terror, patriot act and how Homeland Security has taken a greater interest in the US Mail (example for a while we used to have to physically go down to the post office to get our packages because they wouldn't just leave them at the door, and when we got there we had to show valid ID like a driver's license), there may be a defined procedure to actually create an legal address that will encourage Google local to accept it. Because your client isn't the 1st attorney to try to do business from a 4 x 8 rat hole with 20 other people. I have a client that does the exact same thing.

Listing your business at your house is risky, and I agree with the client. I used to run ads for my attorney client in the "legal services" section on craigslist. The problem is that he didn't want to service people. He would throw legitimate clients away looking for a "big score", and he didn't want to pay me for the leads I generated so eventually I went away and took my leads with me. It's 3 years later, and he's still holed-up in his cubicle with his computer and his half-filled water bottle of chewing tobacco spit.