How to Dominate Local Search with Multiple Locations



dominate local search

Need a cup of coffee but don’t know where to find the nearest Starbucks? Search for “Starbucks near me” and Google will return search results for the Starbucks that’s closest to your current geographic location – even if there’s another one just a mile away.

The same goes for other major chains ranging from Home Depot to Bed Bath & Beyond. These stores all have a single, central website with multiple local landing pages and local Google listings to ensure each location can be found in local search results.




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If the big guys can do it, why then do so many small businesses struggle with managing multiple location listings or end up with only one listing? Or worse, have that one listing be their company headquarters rather than an actual brick-and-mortar store that serves customers?

Yikes!

Google and other directories allow businesses to have multiple listings and optimize each listing for a specific location. Whether your small business is opening up its second store or its one hundredth store, learning how to manage multiple local listings to dominate local search (and prevent duplicates) is an absolute must.

Dominate Local Search

Create Location-Specific Landing Pages for Hyper-local Targeting

Yes, you can still have one main website, but each location needs its own landing page within your main business site if you’re to dominate local search. These pages will contain unique geo-specific content and contact information. Place the geo-descriptors in the most valuable SEO page elements, including page titles, H1 tags, and image tags.



Naturally integrate location-specific keywords into your page content. For enhanced hyper-local targeting when describing your location or how to access your business, include relevant neighborhood descriptors, like the nearby landmarks, malls, or parks. Reference the neighborhoods or main streets near this location or include local customer testimonials and/or pictures, as appropriate.

Fix Auto USA, which has multiple locations throughout California, does a solid job with its local landing pages. The Chula Vista location just south of San Diego, for example, includes the location’s name in the Web address (http://fixautochulavista.com/), the name “Fix Auto Chula Vista” in the page title and H1 tags, naturally integrates references to the neighborhood into the copy. There’s even a customer testimonial that includes the customer’s name and location (nearby Imperial Beach).

Optimize Business Listings for Accuracy

Google My Business allows business owners with a verified account to import and verify a business locations list. In theory, the entire import process won’t take more than an hour; however, actually optimizing these listings and managing them appropriately can take a bit longer. For starters, you need to verify the NAP data (name, address, place) — your business’s digital “thumbprint.”

It’s not enough to ensure your address is correctly listed on your website. Since your NAP will appear in a variety of places across the web, it’s important for your business to keep this information as consistent as possible so that a searcher finds the same information on Google, Bing, Yelp, and other directory sites. Finally, be sure your listing is consistent. Do you spell out “suite” or abbreviate it “Ste.?” Is the “doing business as” name correct across all platforms?



If your business is “John’s Consulting, LLC.,” you don’t want to use “John’s Consulting Inc.” or “John’s Consulting.” NAP consistency is critical to outranking the competition, especially when it comes to your Google My Business ranking.

Holiday Hours or Store Closings? Update Listings with Search Directories

Changing your store hours because of the holidays? Closing one location and opening another nearby?

Take a few minutes to update your listings with the local search engines, including Google My Business, the Bing Business Portal, and Yahoo! Local.

In addition to store hours, check phone numbers, categories, coupons, images, descriptions, and mobile page links. Holiday hours, business hour changes, closings, and moves to new locations are essential to dominate local search and keep your business’s local search results current.



Conclusion

If prospective customers can’t find your business online, they may (incorrectly) assume that you don’t have a nearby location and end up doing business with the competition.

Don’t lose out on valuable foot traffic because you fail to optimize your local listings online. Mastering multi-location search doesn’t have to be hard. Get started by creating location-specific pages, ensure NAP data is accurate, and update your data across search engines and directory sites as needed.

Local Search Image via Shutterstock
8 Comments ▼



Brian Hughes Brian is a seasoned digital marketing expert who loves to write about subjects that help small businesses grow their brands and increase their rankings online. He accomplishes this through his agency Integrity Marketing & Consulting, which he founded in 2011.

8 Reactions
  1. Great post Brian!

    Business owners skip updating the opening hours with those of each location, and expect it to work! The same for have consistent information for all the listings.

    You have collected valuable advanced tips regarding the local search in one post.

    Thanks for sharing!
    Hussain

  2. Any recommendations for businesses that provide services throughout various suburbs/cities? I own a painting company with a home office address (listed on my google business page). We meet all of our customer’s in their homes of course and I know that they are probably searching for painters in their hometown.

    I’ve listed suburbs by name on my website for SEO purposes but would you recommend that I create landing pages for the suburbs we would most like to market to? I mean I could put specific town information, reviews as we grow and pictures but it would be a little different if we had physical locations.

  3. Brian thanks for the article and valuable info.

    Some of the info regarding location pages left me a bit confused.

    The locations page for fix auto usa lists and links each page as fixautousa.com/location yet when you click on it you are brought to a totally different domain – fixautousalocation.com – Does each location have its own separate domain? I thought Google likes to see businesses with multiple locations like this:
    Domainname.com/location and that page would be the locations site – i.e. It would not rederict you to a domainnamelocation.com site.

    Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks so much.

    Charles

  4. They are professional with good quotation, I worked with them before and I suggest them in all American in USA

  5. I agree with Hussain, many businesses lose clients due to not updating business hours on Google Business Manager. There’s a couple of other things that you can do as well such as including labels, adding in keyword-rich descriptions, etc.

    With everyone getting on the band wagon after covid we’ll really need to get smart about the way we go about dominating search rankings

  6. I’m sure that the Google updates have caught up with a few of these, and I think that SEO will become a little more advanced during 2021. I’d definitely be interested in helping you put together a 2021 version of this article

  7. Thanks for your valauble post





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