[Estimated read time: 7 minutes]
Coworking office spaces have existed for more than a decade around the globe, and I consider it a testament to their growing popularity for start-ups and agencies that I’ve been seeing an increasing number of questions about them in recent times at places like the Moz Q&A forum and elsewhere. The burning question on everybody’s mind is: do coworking locations meet or fall afoul of the official Guidelines for Representing Your Business On Google? This article attempts to provide the most thorough possible answer to this important question.
Image courtesy of Manuel Schmalstieg on Flickr
Google isn’t always completely transparent in their guidelines, so I went for the next best thing. In researching this topic, I communicated with Google My Business Community forum Top Contributor, Colan Nielsen, and want to thank him for conferring about best practices with me.
Virtual vs. coworking offices
Let’s sync up with a couple of quick definitions.
A virtual office offers a mailing address that is not physically occupied by the purchaser. This address is generally not a P.O. box. It typically offers some means of communication via a receptionist, call center and/or voicemail. A virtual office may sometimes offer rental of conference rooms. Virtual offices fail to meet Google guidelines, including:
- Make sure that your page is created at your actual, real-world location.
- Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible.
- Provide your regular customer-facing hours of operation.
- If your business rents a temporary, "virtual" office at a different address from your primary business, do not create a page for that location unless it is staffed during your normal business hours.
A coworking office is a space physically occupied by practitioners during stated business hours. In addition to providing desks, rooms, suites, phone booths, and other amenities, coworking spaces often promote collaboration between tenants and offer educational and social events. Many do feature a central reception desk, but participants should carefully weigh whether using such phone numbers is a wise decision.
- Properly utilized coworking spaces can be eligible for Google My Business inclusion.
10 tips for coworking local SEO success
Image courtesy of IsaacMao on Flickr
Over the past ten years, coworking spaces have popped up in cities around the world. They can be a good solution for:
- Startups with limited funding
- Sole proprietors who don’t like the quiet of working in isolation
- Home-based business owners who do not want to list their home addresses on the web
- Workers in rural areas in need of stable WiFi
- Professionals who consistently require office space but who can’t yet pay rent for a full, dedicated building
- Individuals looking for particular amenities, such as an address in a desirable location, a green environment (offered by some coworking spaces), or networking opportunities with other coworkers
If your business or your agency’s clients are researching whether a coworking space will help or hinder your local search marketing efforts, be sure any space you consider meets these requirements:
1.) You must physically occupy the space. Any other scenario revokes eligibility.
2.) You must be able to receive postal mail at the coworking space or you won’t be able to receive your Google My Business verification postcard.
3.) Many coworking spaces have a central receptionist who takes calls and messages. You will be better off listing your own phone number on your website and citations, instead — a number that connects directly to you. It’s fine if it’s a cell phone. Invest in a dedicated line for your business and always answer that phone with your business name in greeting. Your clients (and Google) want to know they’ve reached your business if/when they call.
4.) Your Google My Business listing hours of operation must accurately reflect the hours that you are actually at the office.
5.) If you rarely or never meet with clients at the office, but mainly go from the coworking space to meet them at their locations, your business model is a service area business (SAB) and should hide its address in the Google My Business dashboard to be Google guideline-compliant.
6.) If you do not accept walk-in traffic but meet clients by appointment only, again, you should hide your Google My Business address.
7.) Do not generate fake suite numbers. Unless you have been assigned a permanent, dedicated suite number in the office, simply list the main office address on your website and all citations. Concerned about citation consistency? Do a quick lookup with a tool like Check Listing to be sure you aren’t publishing variants of the address around the web.
8.) Even if you occupy different rooms at different times in the coworking space, do not be tempted to create a Google My Business listing for each of them. Create just one listing.
9.) Do not create multiple Google My Business listings for the difference services or goods you offer. You are just one business and are eligible for just one listing.
10.) Local SEO agencies serving clients who use coworking spaces must advise them of the risks and be prepared to act if there's an accidental GMB listing takedown.
The risks
A business that is staffed during stated business hours, has a dedicated phone number, and, where appropriate, is adhering to Google’s SAB guidelines, should pass Google muster. That being said, a small amount of risk exists in the coworking situation for these two reasons:
Accidental merging
In the past, Google experienced major issues with merging listings with similar details that were at the same or similar addresses. Google appears to have become increasingly sophisticated in parsing out one business from another at a shared location, but merges do still occur.
Should your business or clients experience a merge, first check for shared details apart from the address. A shared phone number appears to be the biggest risk factor, but shared Google categories between one business at a coworking space and a completely different business in the same building would be something to investigate as well. Make the details as you unique as you can and then get on the phone with Google to ask them to help you separate the listings.
Industry history
Coworking spaces are popular with tech start-ups. Unfortunately, SEO and design firms in particular have not always had an easy relationship with Google. In fact, for many years, Google excluded these industries from their local results. It’s believed that this may have been partly owing to Google’s determination that most businesses in these industries operate virtually rather than face-to-face with clients, but Google’s decision may also have been influenced by a high level of spam. Like the locksmith and auto dealership industries, tech industry companies may experience extra Google scrutiny, and a large cluster of business listings associated with a single address could potentially raise a red flag. Google could wrongly determine that a listing pertains to a virtual office rather than a staffed coworking space. If you suspect that a listing takedown has resulted from a mistake like this, your best bet is to fully explain your case on the Google My Business Community forum and ask the Top Contributors there to help.
Given these two provisos, owners and marketers promoting coworking locations should be vigilant in regularly checking up on their Google My Business listings to be sure that nothing has been merged or removed and that no strange ranking drops have suddenly occurred.
Google, the real world, and your business
Image courtesy of Jodimichelle on Flickr
Google’s rate of innovation has been breathtaking over the past two decades, and in local SEO, the pace of change has sometimes been particularly dizzying. One of the challenges I’ve encountered most in the midst of this continual technological commotion relates to Google not always accurately reflecting real-world business scenarios.
One example of this would be the many years it took them to offer a support phone number to the millions of business owners whose bottom lines and very existences were being directly impacted by Google’s local pack results. Another would be Google’s historic treatment of service-area businesses as something of an afterthought rather than a core component of local commerce.
Right now in the real world, economists say that the real rate of unemployment/underemployment in the United States is about 10%, while commercial real estate costs and rental pricing continue to skyrocket, driving would-be entrepreneurs to seek out affordable solutions to jump starting new businesses. Fortunately, this is a case in which Google appears to be keeping up with the times, allowing guideline-compliant coworking companies to be included in the local packs. To these bright new innovators who are working hard to contribute to their local communities, I’m wishing the best of success!
Coworking spaces are a good fit for many local business owners on the way up, and if you’re coworking, our community would love to hear about your experiences and tips in the comments.
Header image courtesy of Manuel Schmalstieg on Flickr.
Great post, Miriam. The subject is close to my heart, not only because I operate out a coworking space (have done for 3 years now) and provide SEO services for some of the businesses based there, but I even do SEO for the coworking space itself.
For the latter, my biggest concern has always been the fact that their address starts "[coworking space name], [building]..." while the addresses of many of the tenants at the space is likely to be "[their business name], [coworking space name], [building]..." while others don't mention the coworking space name and simply go for "[their business name], [building]..." - it's always been a concern of mine that Google might get confused between the lot of them and potentially merge some of them. Or do you think I'm worrying more than I need to?
Also, the map listing marker placements don't often line-up, because some people move it to their potential 'location' within the building. For example, we have a separate building behind the main building that's also part of the coworking space (sort of), and so some businesses have moved their GMB listing's map marker to their exact point, which is fair enough. Do you think this might cause problems though, if all these places say they operate out of the same coworking space/building but don't concentrate on the same point (albeit they're within the same 200 metre radius or so)?
Lastly, telephone numbers... While I'm pretty sure that every tenants has their own dedicated phone number that's separate to the main coworking space's number, would you say it's good practice (or even a necessity) to approach tenants who have used the coworking space's number in their GMB listing asking them to change it? Do you think it's worth doing that, to try and make sure that their listing is the only one with their number? Or do you think Google's smart enough to work it out, especially as some of the coworking space's categories include "business centre" and "coworking space"?
Sorry for all the questions - looking forward to your response. :-)
These are great questions for sure. I think from them two things that I see being beneficial would be to hide the address would help with the multiple map markers and will just allow you to show up for a local search in terms of the business, and having your own dedicated phone (cell or land line) would be the best route in terms of contact information to claim your business and customers, if not then that is a major NAP situation waiting to happen, so with that I would personally change the number if the listing uses the main co-working space one.
Once again great questions for this very relevant topic in our ever changing atmosphere of getting work done.
Thanks Tim. Some of the coworking space's tenants can accept people who turn up off the street to see them ("walk-in traffic," as Miriam calls it), so I guess they wouldn't need to hide their address, and therefore it can be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Or do you think that's the best plan-of-action regardless, and therefore for only the coworking space to show the address? Just checking I understand your suggestion - thanks.
Hi Steve!
So glad this post relates to your workaday world. Regarding naming, the best authority on this comes from the Google guidelines that relate to containment info. Here they are:
Containment information indicating that your business is located inside another business (whether or not the businesses are part of the same organization).
You've actually raised something here that I did not cover in my piece: how the OWNERS of coworking businesses should be doing Local SEO and whether there is a need to set policy regarding how tenants of the building market themselves. This is a whole other interesting topic, really! I've encountered this issue with franchises needing to be sure that their branches aren't violating Google guidelines, and needing to make corporate policy surrounding that, but I've not had the chance to discuss this the coworking scenario - whether it's correct for building owners to have any say in how occupants are marketing themselves. Honestly, it seems to me like that it would be smart for an owner to give a presentation about the Google guidelines to help occupants adhere to them on their own.
This could also pertain to your question about Map marker placement. Personally, I'd be inclined not to move the markers, but I don't have a case history to back that up. It's a good question, though.
On your last question, if you do decide to set some sort of building policy, then phone numbers would be my number one priority in that. As I've written, above, Google does seem to have gotten so much better at handling shared addresses, but I see every day in my work supporting Moz Local how shared phone numbers can cause havoc.
So, in sum, I think you've raised important questions, the most important being whether it's appropriate for the owner of the building to set policy for tenants. I'd love to see further discussion of that. Thanks again for reading this!
Thanks Miriam - all good stuff. Appreciate it! :-)
I really appreciated your smart questions, Steve!
@Steve,
Do you have an example of one that does that with the title? There is also the "this business is located in..." feature for malls and big buildings and I wasn't sure if you were referring to that or the actual business name. Also, the map marker thing isn't an issue at all. No need to hide the address unless you don't ever have customers show up. If the multiple markers was an issue, big business towers with dozens of businesses in them would be really screwed ;)
Hey Joy. I'd forgotten about the "located in..." thing, but I meant if Business ABC who's based in Coworking XYZ puts their GMB name as "Business ABC" and then their address as "Coworking XYZ, Building, Street, etc." - i.e. that the coworking space's name is included in the address field. Are you and Miriam saying that the "located in..." route might be the best way to go?
Thanks for your comments on the map marker as well - good point! :-)
@Steve yeah putting a building name in the address field will probably mess up the address formatting and could make Google not understand the address which would lead to driving directions being wrong. I would try the located in feature.
Noted - thanks Joy! :-)
Thumbing you up, Joy. Nice answer!
Awesome post Miriam. I've been asked this a lot too. I always advise that businesses in this space should put up TONS of photos both on GMB and their website of their working space at the location with signs, employees etc to prove they are really there. Even pictures of employees outside the building would help. Anything to help prove it's legit. Like latrose commented, Google often asks for photos for proof. Better to have them before they ask.
Hey Joy! That's a super additional tip. Thank you so much for sharing. Nice to see you here. Colan and I were just praising your work this morning. I really appreciate you adding your knowledge to the comments here!
worthful read! I never been read this kind of post which is like a key of success in SEO factors. Disadvantage of co working office is very informative.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, Pratibha.
I have to say you are my source for Local SEO mindset and this is a great read. I personally was utilizing a co-working space and just assumed there was no way of claiming a business so I just did my work there and marketed the best I could. With other colleagues that have chosen to freelance this will be great information for them to read. I think my biggest takeaway from this was the various strategies on the workspace or virtual office.
I really liked the reasons to hide the business address and have to agree with every aspect of why.
Hey Tim!
Very kind comment, and I'm so glad you found some good clarifications in this. Every time I meet with a new business scenario, I turn back to the guidelines for the millionth time and try to wring answers out of them. :)
Nice article, this kind of working in my city, is not so used in Madrid, we are alwais 5 years behind Europe or USA, and i think is a very good way to share the expensives, we could handle other problems without problem.
I apologize for my english.
Hey There!
No apologies necessary. I may be the biggest fan in the world of bilingual people! You might want to take a look again at coworking options in Madrid, as I'm seeing them exist, if you're interested:
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-insta...:1,lf_ui:2&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=40466175,-3673793,8672&tbm=lcl&rlfi=hd:;si:6586546084991014299
Check it out!
I used to do marketing for a commercial real estate company that had a coworking space program! It's true, you need to have an actual suite number to help differentiate your space from other startups in the location. Maybe if you pay a monthly fee for a desk area at a coworking space, you could request assigned mailbox numbers from management. Most coworking spaces are startups themselves, and happy to make accommodations for the community.
Hi Cynthia,
Could you provide a bit more detail about the source of the information you've shared. To my knowledge, Google does not require suite numbers to differentiate between occupants of a building. I'm wondering if when you were marketing your client, it was some years ago when many SEOs were experimenting with fictitious suite numbers for the purposes of differentiating businesses, when merging was still such a major Google issue?
As long as you can get your mail at the prefered address go for it!
Very informative and appreciative! I haven't needed to do any Local SEO for businesses working out of coworking sites, but guess I know what to do if I come across one!
I haven't dug into the guidelines recently, but always thought you needed to have at least 2 'differentiating factors' to be listed.
Meaning if I shared the same location/address as another business...my Name and Phone would need to be different to get my own listing. Same goes for a business operating multiple locations...Name would be the same but the Address and Phone numbers would be different so I would qualify.
Whether that was an old rule-of-thumb, or was a a fact, I don't know!
Hi Jason,
My guess it that you might have heard folks saying that back during the scary days in which Google was merging things left and right. These days, Google is much better at understanding multiple businesses at the same address, but yes, you'd want them to have a unique name and phone number. Hope that helps and thanks for taking the time to read.
HI, From this post i learn some new things and for sure will implement it on my business listings too, A i am also working in a co working space in Pakistan (Tech Hub).
Thanks for the info Miriam Ellis
Hi There! That's great and thanks for letting me know the coworking phenomenon is also thriving in Pakistan. Cool to know!
Dear Miriam,
That's really interesting! I didn't know tha coworking could lead to so many problems, I've always thought that it was a great way to start! There's more people everyday that are willing to share an office and that's great, but they should totally check more articles like this one fist!
Hey There!
Hope you'll have a chance to share with friends and associates in that scenario, because, yes, the economy makes co-working an appealing option for many people just starting out. Glad you found this useful!
If you have a verified business listed then you can submit in bulk for your co working offices. All those physical locations must be available at website.
Great idea. I know multiple businesses which are running on cowork space.!!
Hi There! Glad you found this applicable. Great to know!
I have never known of the existence of coworking offices util last year when I received an email from a client looking into to build a Website for their business. I immediatly googled it and found a lot of useful information online about this service which I ended hiring from time to time as a freelance developer to host meetings and conferences with my clients in Valencia Spain.
I read all your post and I really got some tips about using this service correctly when it comes to Google business listings.
Good Morning, Baltran! I'm flattered to know you enjoy my writing here at Moz and am pleased this one was applicable to your work experience. Have a great weekend!
Hi Miriam,
Yes, today co-working is the new trend. Thanks for sharing this.
I definitely opted to hide the address and use an address coworking , gives greater security in my point of view and provides additional professionalism to our own professional brand . In this case my advice is clear , use this possibility to share business address with others persons. Diego
From experience - the virtual office v's Co-working spaces.
After years of spending 3 hours a day community to and from work, we chose to work from home, but recently have had to use a virtual office and are trying out co-working spaces for a few months.
We have always worked from an office pod at home; we decided to move counties (2 hour drive from original location) and we considered that a virtual office isn't good for Google, but then Google isn't a big part of creating new business for us. But our clients needed a 'security blanket' and wanted us near to them and a place where we could meet up. We opted for a virtual office with a meeting room.
What can I say, within a month new business increased in the old area we lived in. Possibly because people could see we were in a working location, although rural, instead of at a home address in a busy town, working from home is still not that accepted, people presume you're stuck in the smallest bedroom in the house.
In our new location, we don't know anyone, so have opted for a combination of working from our offices at the bottom of our garden, to using a number of different co-working spaces, all at different locations. We did this so we could meet a wider variety of people and business types - again this is working for us as we are generating work. Our new location is so rural working from home is an accepted way of life so don't need a business address to impress people.
In both circumstances, we didn't make this move to manipulate Google, but looked at what our business and what we needed in the real world.
You don't have to manipulate Google search results, Google allows you to tell them 'which areas you service'. And since we moved I use Google maps more often and I'm shown business across the UK, not just in the little area I live and work in.
We work in an coworking office and it's great to have a lot of useful information from your classmates and also have a place to meet with your customers and business.
This is brilliant, Miriam! As someone who's asked Moz Q&A community about this very subject (a couple of times now!), it's great to read something so solid in article form. You've really clarified some points for me here. It can be a bit confusing getting a confident answer in Q&A sometimes when different people are suggesting or telling you to avoid different methods. So thank you for taking the time to reach out to Colan, and getting some expert information!
Hi Ria! I know I always appreciate the good questions you ask in Q&A. It's true, you'll hopefully get a variety of answers there and then can follow the path that seems best to you. So glad this one expanded on a subject you'd been wondering about. Thank you for you nice comment!
Hi Miriam
For some time the term co-working is fashionable. Thus, it has become a great advantage for those who start a new business and that suits them apply a local SEO your small business
Hi Miriam,
That was such a good post for those who want to start a company but are quite a bit lost about where their office is going to be at. Many people go into coworking without knowing what they're really getting into and this post is really helpful for them.
Love this kind of articles in Moz cuase thanks to them I can give good advice to a lot of people I know who are searching for this kind of info.
Great to know you found this to be a good resource! I appreciate your comment very much.
Hi Miriam,
I never thought the importance and relevance that would take the local SEO. We must be updated on this issue all the time. Thanks for the info!
So glad you found it helpful, Sandra.
Thanks Miriam, I am managing SEO for a UK taxi company. They have a virtual office and they were on #2 in web results and on #5 in places, suddenly they are now completely disappear from Google places.
I am sure that there is some crackdown about virtual offices.
Hi Shah,
Virtual offices have actually never been accepted by Google as legitimate physical addresses. The appropriate strategy for something like a taxi service would be to list their physical address in the GMB dashboard, but be sure they've taken the necessary steps to hide it, as transportation companies are service area businesses rather than brick-and-mortar businesses. Hope this can help you advise the client.
Colan is seriously the best. Local SEO: it takes a village. Great article Miriam, thank you.
Hi Gerry!
Agree with you. Colan is super! And I appreciated his willingness to talk with me about this topic. Very cool of him!
I've had issues with google and co-working spaces (not a SAB). I was told that more than one business can not have the same address (if there where suite numbers it would have been acceptable). They asked for photos to prove that it was a physical location, and not a virtual office, and even after that refused to list it. In the end since no one else at that location had a business listing at that address, they relented.
Google are hopeless. I remember a Google employee once saying on a forum that no legit business should share an address and that only proper businesses have individual businesses, or something to that effect. S/he got torn to shreds. Fancy saying something so ignorant and oblivious of how the real-life working world works.
Hey There Lastrose!
The quality of Google support is not always ideal ... you don't always end up talking to someone who knows Local. You will often get better answers from Google's forum than you will from them on the phone. Sounds to me like you might have been talking to someone that didn't have quite enough training.
Great post, also never thought of these disadvantages on coworking site, This is really a great article.
I've been asking myself these questions a few times before and did not find any answer. Thank you for this informative article.
Great stuff, Miriam, I've had many clients in the past who weren't sure about this.
Hi Marty!
Thank you, and I hope this piece will be something you can share with future clients.
Hi Miriam
For those who are starting in your new business and do not have resources to hire a new location, it may be interesting to look for a place where they can make coworking ... He simply try to correctly fill Google My Business and be available in the indicated hours
Another great article on the sometimes shaky and often wavering road of Google My Business (or dizzying as you so perfectly described it). Creating GMB listings can be such a headache, I'll make sure to bookmark this for those one-off situations. Thanks as always, Miriam!
Hey Paul!
It's my pleasure, and I was hoping this article would be one that folks like you could find on an as-needed basis. You never know when that next phone call might bring a co-working client your way :)
Thanks Miriam, this is something I should have read when I was starting up from home 4 years ago!
I see in your guidelines great selling points for owners of co-working spaces. They should integrate this type of advices into their everyday business (Why our co-working space is good for your local seo?" and transform a potential weakness into a selling point if done well and if they can help those using the space to avoid risks and take advantage of local search.
Hi Luis!
I really like the point you've raised, and hope that owners of co-working spaces will tune into your smart suggestion!
Great idea. I know multiple businesses which are running on cowork space.
Hi Miriam,
Good post and one that Local SEO's deal with often. GMB has never been accused of being transparent or easy to understand so it's nice you can break it down easily for the masses.
Having co-working places was difficult to nail down correctly when I was working at a larger insurance company. The problem with some of them was they had the same office location AND the same phone number. Google did not like that and would only Rank/Recognize one of the agents in the office. Those were a pain but its understandable why G would not recognize them both with the same address and phone numbers. To me, having the same information was a bad business decision anyway, but that was out of my hands.
Thanks again for the great write up.
Hey Brian,
" GMB has never been accused of being transparent"
Haha - I hear you there! Yeah, the phone number thing is definitely one I wanted to emphasize in this. I couldn't agree with you more that it's just not good for business not to have your own number. It's a necessary investment for almost any business one can think of and there's no good excuse for not making the investment.
Enjoyed your comment!
Cool woman!
Thanks for sharing. www.agrawaltaxiwale.com
I never thought of these disadvantages can have a coworking site when my stay Google My Business. Great article.
So glad this was a fresh idea to consider, Enrique.