How to optimise local SERPs for a multi-location business
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What’s your business’s location count? Local SEO entails optimising a business’s brand and website for local searches. Not all firms have one location, though. Some have over a dozen locations. Multiple locations require a different local SEO strategy.
Geo optimize each landing page.
Each of your business’s locations should have a geo-optimized landing page. Geo-optimized landing pages target a specific location. Whether you have two or 20 locations, create a geo-optimized landing page for each. Google will link your business to a geo-optimized landing page.
Build geo-optimized landing pages with these tips.
- Promote your products or services.
- Make geo-targeted landing pages unique.
- Target your business’s locations with keywords.
- Use geo-targeted keywords in landing page addresses.
- Add location-based keywords to meta titles and descriptions.
- Create a call-to-action (CTA) to stimulate business contact.
- Include physical addresses for your business’s locations on geo-optimized landing pages.
Single-domain only.
While you can design numerous geo-optimized landing pages, you should use a single domain. Multiple domains backfire. Domains are independent websites to search engines. You’ll have many webpages with duplicate material if you use multiple domains.
Sticking with a single domain reduces duplicate material and makes search engines’ jobs easier. Not crawling multiple websites. Search engines will just have to crawl one domain for all your geo-optimized landing pages.
Build a sitemap.
Your business website needs a sitemap. A sitemap is useful for general SEO, but it’s especially helpful for local SEO with multiple locations. A sitemap guides search engines to your geo-optimized landing pages.
Sitemaps include organised website data. Basic or advanced. Basic sitemaps merely include page addresses, whereas advanced sitemaps include update frequency, page priority, latest modification date, picture licences, video thumbnails, and more. A basic sitemap is enough for multi-location local SEO.
Upload a basic sitemap to your business’s home or root directory. It can go anywhere on your website. Search engines will find it harder the deeper it is. If search engines can’t discover your sitemap, they won’t crawl your geo-optimized landing pages or other pages.
Cite each location offsite.
Each of your business’s sites should have offsite citations. Offsite citations are online mentions of your firm. Bright Local says they’re the sixth most important local SEO component.
Offsite citations vary by publication. Most directory websites list a company’s brand, address, phone number, and website. Offsite citations for your business’s locations can boost sales-driven local search rankings.
Add all of your locations to Google My Business.
Google My Business lets you improve your business for multiple locations (GMB). GMB is the marketing platform that Google provides to local businesses. Essentially, it is a multichannel directory of local company listings. These listings are seen in Google’s search results and Google Maps. When a customer performs a local search or utilises Google Maps, he or she may discover the GMB listing for your business.
If your business already has a GMB listing, you should add every location to the platform. Go to your account dashboard and pick the “Manage Locations” button to add a new location to GMB. You should then see a “Add Location” button in blue. Clicking this button followed by “Add Single Location” will bring up a screen where you can enter the new location’s details.
If your firm has more than 10 sites, manually adding them may be time-consuming. Thankfully, GMB includes a facility for bulk location submission. Click “Import Locations” as opposed to “Add a Single Location.” Then, you will be invited to download an Excel file. Add the requested information about your business’s locations to the cells of the downloaded spreadsheet. Finally, upload the newly finished spreadsheet file to GMB. Google will utilise the spreadsheet information to establish new locations for your business.
Remember that Google will require you to validate each location of your business. Google will not display your company’ GMB profile for searches and Google Maps inquiries regarding a location until you have verified it.
Multiple locations demand a distinct local SEO strategy than a single location. Several locations necessitate that you optimise your company’s brand and website for searches conducted in multiple locations. You may boost local SEO for numerous locations by creating geo-optimized landing pages, using a single domain, making a basic sitemap, creating offsite citations, and adding all of your business’s locations to Google My Business.
