6 Local SEO Tips for Multi-Location Businesses

Key Insights

Multi-location businesses face many challenges and need an organized and clean approach in order to not confuse search engines and customers:

• Target geo-specific keywords and use a single domain with geo-optimized landing pages for each location.
• Create localized content and sitemaps for each location to improve visibility and SEO.
• Get listed on local directories, build local backlinks, and ensure consistent NAP information across all platforms.
• Monitor and respond to online reviews for each location to enhance credibility and improve search rankings.

Google knows exactly what you want, which is why ‘Distance’ is one of the top 3 most sought-after factors for Google to determine your business’ search rankings. What does that mean? Most of us are looking for a service provider nearby because we want everything to be quick! Thus, we always search for terms like “shop near me” from a barbershop that you’re looking for a quick cut or a a tyre repair shop that fixes our broken tire; we constantly search for words like “business near me”.

Hence, Google has constantly been pushing forward the need to provide business locations for quick local search engine marketing.

But what if your business is set up in multiple locations? What do you do to show up in the relevant local searches from all your branch locations?

We have six simple tips for you to improve the Local SEO presence for multi-location businesses.

Multi-Location Tip #1 - Work with a Single Domain Only

Using multiple domains for different store locations can backfire as it may confuse customers.

And not just customers; search engines view separate domains as unique websites. This adds to the risk of duplicate and invalid content. But most importantly, you won’t be getting the benefits of the existing website’s domain rating and, creating a new subdomain you will lose all your existing domain rating.

Instead, you can add multiple geo-optimised landing pages for each business location. This will not only solve the duplicate content problem but also make it easier for the search engines to crawl your website.

Multi-Location Tip #2 - Create a Standard Sitemap

Sitemaps are a great booster to any website’s visibility, especially for Local SEO strategies involving multiple store locations.

Sitemaps provide basic information regarding your website, like page addresses, to the search engines in a structured manner.

This helps search engines crawl the website and all the geo-optimised landing pages with ultra-ease. Make sure your sitemap isn’t buried deep into your webpage; the more visible it is, the better it is.

Check here to learn how to build and submit a sitemap.

Multi-Location Tip #3 - Create Localised Content for Each Location

After creating geo-optimised landing pages for each of your business locations, the next step would be to create localised content for all of them.

Let’s say that you have an e-commerce store set up in different locations. In such a case, you can create content based on the products exclusively available in that particular region.

Another example, for a multi-location restaurant, you can create a Google Microblogging Post for each location and publish it daily. That way, you can constantly push fresh content to the search and the search engines will notice that your business is up to date.

Create blogs that are relevant to the targeted specific area only. Search for the keywords people are searching for, and write valuable information to drive traffic to your content.

You can also add pictures from different stores to their corresponding landing pages to add to the visual difference. But don’t forget to SEO edit your images.

Multi-Location Tip #4 - Get Listed on Local Directories and Online Profiles

When someone searches for a business like yours, Google will site all the directories and online platforms to analyse your location’s information. When Google indexes your location’s accuracy on multiple platforms, it helps if you are accurately listed on all the possible local directories.

Therefore, the importance of Local Listings management is undeniable. You need to make sure that all your important business information (NAP information) like name, address and phone number are consistent across the web. Also the opening hours should match with your website and Google Business profile.

Creating a business listing for each location you serve in might be very challenging. Using a Local Listings Software like we offer in our Obenan Suite will be an excellent solution to manage all your location data in one central platform and ensure that your data is effortlessly synchronized across the web.

Multi-Location Tip #5 - Build Backlinks Wherever Possible

Backlinks are a go-to term in Local SEO services. Every main local SEO organic study and survey shows backlinks as one of the most prominent ranking factors. So, if you want to rank your local business higher on Google, you’re going to need backlinks for sure.

Here are some tips for creating the Local Backlinks:

1. Get local citations: There are many online platforms you can create your business listings, or you can work with a listings company like obenan to generate the citation for your location. 2. Local community groups: e.g., Reddit, Facebook groups, Nextdoor, etc. 3. Add internal links: Your site is also a local site, and you control it. Internal links are a strong link-building tactic. 4. Colleges, Schools or Universities: e.g., job postings, scholarships, club sponsorships, discounts, alumni links 5. City-specific sites and directories 6. Local news, magazines, and podcasts

Some sites focus on the state or your surrounding areas. You want to target local outlets as those sites will have a organic connection with your business and will not just be “random” sites that link to yours. These links will be considered high-quality.

Discover 4 unique link building tips to upscale your local SEO strategy

Multi-Location Tip #6 - Monitor and Respond to Online Reviews for Each Location

Reviews (along with an owner’s response) show that consumers trust a business, which is a foundational factor in ranking. Therefore, Google takes review ratings, review amounts and review responses from multiple sites into consideration when determining the order of businesses it returns in local searches.

Responding to your online reviews from multiple platforms and using specific keywords influence local search engine visibility significantly. With Obenan’s Review Management software, you won’t be missing any reviews across dozens of online platforms and our mature AI will answer automatically on your behalf within one hour! To cut a long story short, love them or hate them, online reviews are the key to success. Make sure you continuously encourage customers to leave a review and pay close attention to responding as soon as a review comes in; respond not only on Google but on every local directory that customers leave reviews on.

Learn more on how to do local SEO for multi-location businesses - a complete guide for your success!

Recap

Remember, Google will verify each of your business’s locations. So, it is also helpful to verify yourself as the business owner on Google Maps to gain more trust and traction from Google.

Social media sharing and influencer marketing are also some of the most likeable ways of driving more traffic to your website these days. We shall discuss more this in our future posts.

Local SEO for multiple locations is surely more hard-work than Local SEO practices for a single location. You need to optimise each page according to different locations and keep track of the trends in other areas.

This especially holds true if your business is a global enterprise and operates in different time zones or countries.

But it seems to work out for all the big global chains, doesn’t it?

If you are finding it hard to go by all these metrics on your own, please get in touch with us to excel your business in the search ecosystem.