It seems like nobody likes Yelp – everyone has a horror story of a disgruntled employee or competitor going on and raking them with 1-star reviews. Then, the Yelp filter hides your good reviews, suddenly dinging your great reputation. Plus, their sales team is constantly hounding you to advertise. It can feel like your reviews and lead flow are being held hostage.

The Google Local directory is the exact opposite. It’s like a mover dreamt up the ideal review site and lead source and Google made it happen. Google hosts your reviews in an unbiased way, with no sketchy filter at all. Your Google Local listing is super high-visibility, it pops up folks search for movers in their neighborhood. Best of all, it uses your reviews to send customers to your site or to your phone line, driving leads directly into your sales funnel.

Sounds pretty great, right? To protect your access to leads, though, you need to follow Google’s rules. Google gives you a free place to advertise and generate leads, so it’s best not to make them angry.

Frequently folks ask us, if one Google Local listing is great, why not create a bunch of them? Here’s why we don’t create duplicate Google Local listings.

First, it goes against Google’s rules. Here’s a quick snapshot of Google’s duplicate listing policy:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en&ref_topic=4540086

To quote: Do not create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts.

The rules could not be clearer. In case that weren’t reason enough, here are 3 other advantages to having one listing rather than many.

  1. High visibility reviews
    One of the key advantages to Google Local is having reviews. If you have multiple listings, your reviews are diluted and hard for customers to find. Imagine, if you had to choose, would you rather go with the mover with 3 5-star reviews, or 30 5-star reviews?
  2. Reliable lead generation
    Keeping your listings up-to-date is complicated business. It’s made way more complicated if you have duplicate listings! For instance, if your phone number changes, it can be difficult to track down all the instances of that invalid phone number and correct them. If you fail to update your duplicate listings, then customers are dialing a dead line, and you are missing leads.

  3. Clear signal to search engines
    On the one hand, human beings are reading and interacting with your local listing. On the other hand, so are Google and other major search engines. By having one accurate listing, you are clearly signaling to Google which information is correct and trustworthy about your business. Search engines use this to determine a portion of how high your company shows up in search, so don’t risk it!