Search and maps file your business under the city in its postal address. Keep that address accurate, and say plainly on the website and in your listings which neighbourhoods and city you actually serve.

The wrong side of the line

Some businesses sit on a road that divides two cities. The postal address names one, and most customers live in the other, some of them across the street.

Search engines, maps and directories file the business under the city in its address. That is reasonable, and it is also the city most of its customers never type.

Someone who searches for the service with the other city's name is asking for businesses in that city, and the results lean towards businesses whose address says so.

The business can be closer than anything on the list and still not be on it.

Where the mismatch shows up

The third is the one fully in your hands. Search engines read a site to work out where a business works, and a site that names one city gives them one city.

Keep the address honest

The tempting fix is an address in the other city: a mailbox, a shared office, a friend's unit. Google's guidelines do not allow listings at addresses where the business is not staffed, and such listings can be removed.

The listing's address should be exactly where customers find you, written the way the post office writes it.

The postal city is not always the municipality the building stands in. Use the postal version everywhere, so the website and every listing agree.

Say where you are in words both sides use

The website is the place to describe the real service area, and to describe it for people rather than for search engines.

Name the road, the corner and the landmarks on the other side: across from the community centre, two blocks from the high school, next to the bus stop.

Name both cities and the nearest neighbourhoods, once each, in sentences a customer would actually want to read.

On the contact page, give directions from the side most customers come from, with parking and transit.

Titles, and the pages not to build

Page titles are often written once, at launch, with the postal city in every one. The home page title can name both cities once, after the service.

Keep it to a title that reads naturally. One stuffed with every nearby place name looks like spam to people and to search engines.

Resist building a separate page for each city with the same text and the name swapped. Google treats pages like that as doorways built to rank, not to inform.

A worked example

A podiatry clinic with two practitioners rents space in a medical building on the road that separates two suburbs.

Its postal address is in the smaller suburb. The building faces the larger one, where most of its patients live, many within walking distance.

Patients who searched for a podiatrist from home, without a city name, found the clinic easily, because it was close. Those who typed the larger suburb's name often did not see it.

The website named only the smaller suburb: in every page title, in the footer, and on the contact page, where the directions started from that side.

The clinic kept its address. The home page now describes the location in terms both sides use, the title names both suburbs once, and the contact page gives directions from the larger one.

Nothing moved the building across the line. What changed is that a patient from the larger suburb who finds the site can see at once that the clinic is theirs.

In the listings themselves

Google My Business lets a business that travels to its customers set a service area by city or postal code, and hide its address if customers never visit.

A storefront that customers come to must show its address, but its photos can still show where it is: the entrance, the sign, the street from the side most people arrive.

Choose the category that describes the business, and check the other listings, such as Bing Places and Apple Maps Connect, so the address and city match everywhere.

Mentions from the other side

Search engines also judge where a business belongs by who mentions it. A clinic that sponsors a team or joins the business association in the larger suburb is visibly part of that community.

That is slow, and it is real. It also brings customers on its own, with no search engine involved.

Check it from both sides

Search for your service with each city's name, from a phone standing in each city, and note who appears. Results change with where the searcher is, so a test from your own desk shows only one view.

Ask a few customers from the other city how they found you and what they typed. Their phrase is the one to describe yourself with.

The counter-case

For a business whose customers come from both sides in similar numbers, the postal city may do little harm.

A business that serves a whole region, such as a contractor driving forty minutes to jobs, has a wider service area question than one boundary.

And none of this moves a business into the other city. Search will still treat the address as the address.

Within those limits it is worth doing: keep the address accurate, and say plainly on the website and in listings where you really serve.

Both sides of the line

  1. Search your service with each city's name.
  2. Check the address matches the postal version everywhere.
  3. Rewrite the home page to describe your location.
  4. Add directions from the side customers come from.
  5. Name both cities once in the home page title.
  6. Add entrance and street photos to your listing.
  7. Ask customers what they searched for.

Step three matters most. A visitor from the other city decides within seconds whether you are local to them, and the home page is where that decision is made.

Why the results someone sees depend on where they are standing is covered in visitors planning a trip before they arrive.

Frequently asked questions

Why do I not appear for the neighbouring city?

Search and maps file your business under the city in its postal address. Searches naming the other city lean towards businesses whose address is in that city.

Can I list an address in the other city?

Not unless you are genuinely there and staffed during business hours. Google's guidelines do not allow mailboxes or unstaffed virtual offices, and listings at such addresses can be removed.

What should the website say?

Where you are in words both sides use: the road, the nearest landmarks, both cities and the closest neighbourhoods, plus directions and parking from the side most customers come from.

Should I make a page for each city?

No. Pages with the same text and a city name swapped are thin, and Google treats them as attempts to rank. One clear location description serves both sides better.

Can a listing show a service area?

Yes, for businesses that travel to customers: Google My Business lets them set cities or postal codes and hide the address. A storefront customers visit must show its address.

How do I check what customers see?

Search for your service with each city's name from a phone in each city, since results change with location. Then ask a few customers what they actually typed.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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