two categories needed - two offices

I have a web design client with one URL, but two separate business locations. As it is a real estate company, If feel their placement of location in the directory is very important.

Their business is 50/50 between the two offices. One of their competitors is listed in the category for one of their locations, as well as another more general category. (Two listings - how'd they do it?)

If it is necessary to choose only one category, would it be best to be included in the more general category, or one of the two more specific categories?

Would they be better off with two URL's, one for each office?

As I don't know your website, the company and very probably can't edit it the catagories I can only give you a global answer based on my knowledge and common available guidelines
Within Regional a site is listed in the city-category where its office is located.
If the company has 2 (or more) offices within the same state/region/province/county the site will be listed on the state level.
If the company has 2 (or more) offices located in several states it will be listed on the next higher level (upto country level).

Exact number of levels and there names depends on the country.

Unless you provide us with a url we can't help. It depends on where your branch locations are.

Generally you should submit once to the smallest regional area that will cover all your branches.

So if both branches are in the same county, but two different localities - submit to the county level real estate category and list both branch locations in the description.

In some cases we may dual list where it makes more sense to do so than to list at a very high level. e.g. If a company had 2 branches in 2 different states it may end up listed in 2 localities rather than at US level (since US level implies coverage of the US - which clearly isn't the case for a 2 state company). Or we may just list it once where it's head office is. But there are no hard and fast rules.

Thank you andysands and pvgool. Your (very prompt) replies to my post are very helpful to me. I know now how to better advise my client.

A minor correct to pvgool's excellent advice...

If the company has 2 (or more) offices within the same state/region/province/county the site will be listed on the state level.

Click to expand...

Assuming that this is a US business, actually should be "If the company has 2 (or more) offices within the same state/region/province/county/metropolitan area the site is eligable for listing at that level" (not always at state level).

In some categories, a business with one web site and two physical sites might be listed in both Localities. Real Estate, however is not among them.

As for the competitor -- please report them in the (Dead Sites, etc.) thread in the abuse forum.

And since we are talking about a real estate company, be sure to tell that that a website which is a collection of recycled pablum from other real estate sites does not qualify as unique content -- and we are judging real estate sites in increasingly strict terms of what is unique to the site, and what is the same stuff that every real estate agent provides.

Also, make sure that the site is complete; Just last night I turned down several real estate sites with zero content when I clicked on listings and featured properties.

An agent's picture and office address is not sufficiently unique.