Last week, we were alerted by the SEOmoz blog to the fact that some service providers on Google Places may need to hide their address. If not, the consequences might be severe (i.e. removal of Google Place page). However, we couldn’t find a step-by-step explanation on how to hide your address on Google Places…
So, since we work with off-site service providers and care a lot about the local SEO community in general, we decided to put a little video together to show you exactly how to hide your address on Google Places:
Video Transcription
Hello and welcome to Gnome Tips! Today we’ll show you how to hide your address on Google Places.
Why in the world would you want to hide your address on Google Places? Let’s take a look at this Google Places guideline:
“If you business serves customers at their locations but does not receive customers at your location, you should select the ‘Do not show my business address on my Maps listing’ option within your dashboard.”
So, if you have a Google Place page for your business, but you don’t actually receive customers at your location, you should hide your address. Not doing so may result in your business being removed from Google Places.
To get started, go to Google Places and click the “Get started” button.
On your dashboard, find the small “Locations” link to go to your locations.
Click the “Edit” link under your business name to update your page.
Scroll down to the section called “Service Areas and Location Settings.” If you haven’t already selected the “Yes, this business serves customers at their locations” option, please do so.Then check the “Do not show my business address on my Maps listing” checkbox.
Scroll to the bottom of the page to Submit your changes.
Your Google Places page is safe!
Thanks for watching this edition of Gnome Tips. For more information about local SEO, visit our website at www.webgnomes.org.
New to Google Places?
Google Places is Google’s local business directory, the entries of which are the results of Google local search. If your business has a physical location, you want to be on Google Places!
We have created a step-by-step instructional video to help you get started: How to Add a Google Business Listing
Feel free to contact us with questions about local search marketing or anything else related to Internet marketing!