Should you publicize your home office address on the internet?

December 22nd, 2006 · 3 Comments

Once again Mike Blumenthal has given business owners some food for thought in his latest quest to uncover hints for high rankings in Google Maps. In his latest research Mike has demonstrated that ‘links’ to “local websites” , don’t even really need a live link pointing to your business website to get some bang for your buck in local search rankings(at least in Google Maps for now) ….

In fact one of the first things you notice is that your “links” don’t require a link at all just an actual street address and a business name that matches what Google thinks it should be. At this point in time Google obviously notes these references more liberally in Maps than on the organic side.

This is all well and good until you consider the many professionals who work from home and have in the past preferred not to make public their home office address, especially on the internet. Can these people still reap the benefits that other websites are obtaining while still maintaining a level of privacy?

A friend of mine is a single woman whose home office address really has no bearing on her business. She doesn’t need to give out her address on the internet or anywhere else and she doesn’t feel comfortable doing so. How can she solve this problem while still gaining ‘references’ through business name and address listings on other websites?

The answer is simple but does cost a few bucks. There is UPS store right down the street from my house will rent out a mailbox for around $15 per month. The address they give you is essentially a regular address almost looking like a suite number. This is not a PO box and doesn’t come with the disadvantages. In fact, they’ll even sign for and hold FedEx and UPS packages for you unlike a PO Box.

So if you don’t feel like giving out your home office address pop on over to one of these mailbox type places and get a new one! Then start adding getting website references with business name and address to your list of link building activities for your website. Any other ideas on this?

3 responses so far ↓

Mike Blumenthal // Dec 23rd 2006 at 9:48 am

Mike-
I ws ruminating on this issue and you do well to point it out.

It might also mean that you might want this arrangement in the next town over if that was really your market i.e. if you lived in the burbs and really wanted to be listed in center city.

Mike B
Dallas SEO // Aug 11th 2007 at 8:18 pm

Not only that but a physical address will also help you in Local SEO. I would be a good idea to link to that google maps link where google pinpoints your physical address (or UPS Store address)
Redmond // Sep 13th 2007 at 1:28 pm

This is such a bad idea… both yahoo and google clearly state that business are not to falsely represent business information. Let not forget Google Maps and other places like Yahoo Local are for business that are trying to attract new customer to their physical business. If you want people to go to your website put your money into Google AdWords or other PPC. Thanks to posts like this we are finding more spam on yahoo local and google maps at a scary rate. For you people trying to get a backlink from business directories this is a terrible idea and should be listed as a form spam if not already… this is why backlinks is such a bad idea because people will do whatever they can to get a list posted here and there.

This is so frustrating for real business that are not having a chance competing with all of these fake listings on Yahoo Local and Google Maps. Two great tools that are going to become useless before the year ends unless something is changed.