How to Boost Local SEO for Businesses with Multiple Locations

Local SEO can be tricky, but once you have a grasp of how it works and what the best practices are, it will become much easier to handle. Since as many as 46% of searches are made on Google for local businesses, and 76% of those searches will result in a visit to the store within 24 hours, it’s critical that your local SEO is on point. When you have more than one location, it might be a bit more work, but it’s still just as simple. Here’s what you need to know. 

Have separate landing pages for each location

This is probably the most important step in the process. You can’t expect to market multiple locations from a single company landing page. Local SEO requires that you have sites or pages for each separate location and that those pages are optimized accordingly (more on that next). If you have three different locations for your business, create a landing page for each. If you’ve got 10 locations, make 10 landing pages. And so forth. 

Granted, it takes a little more work for you to create a successful local SEO campaign for multiple locations since you’ll have more pages to set up and more listings to generate. However, it’s an effort well-made when people can find the exact location that they want with a simple search. 

Optimize every page/location accordingly 

We mentioned this briefly above. In addition to having different pages for different locations, you also need to make sure those pages are optimized properly with local SEO for the specific location in question. Don’t use generic terms or mix locations on your pages because that looks spammy. Essentially, look at it like you’re creating a different face for your business with each location that you have to generate content for. No matter what those faces are, they need to be professional and properly optimized, at the very least. 

Create Google Business Profiles for each location 

Google Business Profiles (formerly Google My Business) are the quintessential element of local search optimization. You should create a business profile for each of your locations separately so that they can rank independently and get the attention of the right local audience. Make sure that you list a consistent name, address, and phone number, and that you fill out all sections of the profile accordingly. The more information you provide, the better authority ranking you’ll get from Google, so don’t just throw up some profiles and call it a day. 

Multiple locations mean multiple local SEO campaigns  

Essentially, it’s about creating a strategy that includes local optimization for each location. While a typical SEO strategy for a single-location business might include just one branch for local SEO, a business with multiple locations will have branches in its strategy for each different one. Here’s a visual to give you a better idea of how your SEO strategy architecture should look. 

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Single location SEO strategy Multi-location SEO strategy 

       ↓                      ↓                ↓          ↓             ↓

         Local SEO          Location 1      Loc. 2      Loc. 3 Loc. 4

                           SEO           SEO         SEO SEO 

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As you can see, you’ve got separate mini-strategies within the larger strategy when you have multiple locations. This will require separate keyword research and campaign planning for each one. Managing these campaigns can seem like a lot of work, but essentially, they’re the same strategy, just for different locations. Therefore, your biggest task will be avoiding duplicate content and making sure that you get the right keywords on the right landing pages. 

The value of unique content 

While your business name, address, and phone number should be identical on every listing, the rest of your content needs to be unique to rank well and get noticed. If you create 10 different versions of the same landing page for your 10 locations and the only thing you change is the city name, Google is going to notice. There are rules that even your own content can’t plagiarize itself and that duplicate content needs to be below a certain percentage threshold for it to not get penalized by Google. 

When you divide your local SEO strategy by location, you’ll have a much easier time taking a unique approach to ensure that you have a consistent landing page design across the board, but that the information provided is different and valuable to each audience in its own way. Google’s algorithms and search indexers are smarter than ever and if you’re trying to just copy and paste a bunch of landing pages, you’re going to get caught and possibly even banned from the search engines in the future. 

The biggest boost for local SEO when you have multiple locations is to follow these guidelines and deliver unique, user-friendly, helpful content that educates, informs, and lets people know what you have to offer. When you do that, the rest of the content strategy will fall into place. Remember to research keywords for each location separately to ensure the best rankings for your pages. 

While you’re strategizing, who’s fielding the incoming leads?

Once you’ve got your local SEO strategy in place for each location, you’re going to start seeing an influx of new leads that need your attention. Do you have the systems in place to manage those leads? When you partner with Smith.ai, you get dedicated virtual receptionists with a 24/7 answering service, and that’s just the start. We can also assist with lead intake and screening, appointment scheduling, live website chat, and so much more. 

If you want a little help with your outreach and sales, ask about our outbound sales and support solutions and the outreach campaigns that we can provide. Plus, it all includes a custom strategy to manage all of it so that you never miss a beat, even when you’re busy doing other things.

To learn more, schedule a consultation to discuss what the 24/7 virtual receptionists at Smith.ai can do for your business. You can also reach us at hello@smith.ai or (650) 727-6484.

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