Optimize Your Local Multi-Location Service Business on Google… For Every Location

If your service business has multiple physical locations, you have an advantage over your competition that shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s hard to overstate the value of the precious real estate that comprises the “map pack” located on the first page of Google search engine result pages (SERPs), and your various locations mean you can potentially get a larger piece of the pie.

When considering the ever-growing number of searches that take place on mobile devices and the dominant presence of the “map-pack” on mobile search results, this value increases significantly. So how do you get there? Before you do anything else, you need to understand the basics of Google local business listing optimization.

Optimizing Your Locations for Top Performance

According to recent studies, proximity to the searcher is the new top local search ranking factor. By this rationale, the more locations that you have, the more opportunities you have to be close to potential customers looking for your services. So the question is, how do you optimize your locations for top performance and ranking?

At Mediagistic, we highly recommend that multi-location service businesses implement these best practices:

• Use one domain and create separate pages for each location. The URL for these pages should contain the GEO and possibly a focus keyword. It is also important to add unique content, offers and geo-specific keyword targeting to each page.
• Optimize the internal linking structure throughout your site to include links to corresponding location pages when they are mentioned in the content. This will pass page authority to your location pages.
• It is imperative that each location has its own verified and optimized Google My Business listing. Ensure that these GMB listings link back to their corresponding location page, and not the homepage.
• Create a consistent name, address, phone number, and website (NAPW), by acquiring unique citations and links for each location page.
• Create unique social signals for each page. Add individual location pages on Facebook and link them back to the specific location pages.
• Embed the Google map of the location that links back to its Google My Business listing. Add a Facebook icon on the page that links back to its location-specific Facebook page. Add a Google review icon on the page that links to reviews for location specific GMB page.
• Add unique rating and location schema to each page.

Combine these steps with our general advice for strengthening your local SEO presence, and you’ll be well on your way to having an optimized multi-location presence. And if you’re thinking of setting up some fake locations to help bolster your local SEO presence, you might want to read the whole blog in the previous link. Fake locations are a really bad idea.

Holistic Local SEO Solutions for Multi-Location Businesses

Of course, knowing all the right steps isn’t all you need to ensure your multi-location business is fully optimized. You need a knowledgeable team working on your behalf to get your local SEO presence firing on all cylinders.

Mediagistic offers a diversified array of marketing channels and strategies that can accomplish all of the above action items. Every aspect is turnkey, from creating optimized and structured location pages, GMB listings and location-specific Facebook pages, to managing third-party software like Yext Powerlistings for NAPW consistency. Call us today to start a discussion about how we can make your multi-location business rank.

Anthony McDuffie is a Digital Strategist at Mediagistic. He specializes in the implementation, management, and optimization of online pay per click campaigns. For over ten years, he also has run a small local moving company with his family. Having been a small business owner himself, he intuitively knows the challenges and frustrations that businesses face when trying to advertise online. Connect with him on Linkedin.

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