Is your business growing? How to rank for more than one location on Google

There are few things more rewarding for a business owner than expanding to one or more new locations. Expansion means your business is growing. Sales are likely to be increasing, and the opportunities are endless.
The flip side of expansion – especially when you have a website for multiple locations – is how you ensure your search engine optimisation keeps pace with your business. As Google's algorithms become increasingly sophisticated, it is essential for businesses to rank for local search terms to stay competitive.
Fortunately, there are several things you can do to ensure your SEO doesn't suffer when you branch out.

Create pages for each location

There's more than one way to skin a cat, but let's talk about best practices for listing multiple business locations online.
You may have already noticed that large companies often offer a tool on their website to search for branches. Unless you are dealing with thousands of locations, like Target or Walmart, it is best to proceed as follows.

1. Create a „Locations“ page on your website that lists all of your locations.
2. Then link each location to its own page for that location. For example, you could create URLs like these: http://www.yourcompany.com/locations/service-city-state. This structure ensures your website is easy to map out and simple to navigate.
3. On each page you create, you should include the location's name, address, and phone number. You should also include the location's opening hours and any other relevant information. The more useful the page is, the better it will rank on Google.

The advantage of a single domain name is that it costs less than registering multiple domains. Furthermore, it is clear and easy for potential customers to understand if they wish to visit more than one location.
For every location page, you should ensure your city and state are included in the URL, title tags, H1 tags, and alt image tags. This information will help Google to crawl and index your website, and ensure it gets the search success it deserves.

Standardise your NAP entries

The next step is to standardise your NAP entries. NAP stands for „Name, Address and Phone Number,“ and consistent entries are a vital part of local SEO.
When Google prioritises search results, it wants to ensure the information it provides is accurate and useful. If the NAP listings for your business are inconsistent in any way, it confuses Google's algorithms and dilutes your online presence.
For example, imagine you have one location with 10 NAP entries. If you have two variations of the company name, three variations of the address, and one error in the phone number, you have a total of seven competing pieces of information for that single location. It's easy to see why this can be a problem.
Each time you add a location, take the time to list the name, address and phone number as you wish them to appear. Then, check all existing NAP locations and ensure the information matches exactly.

Optimise Google My Business for each location

The next step is to list each individual location of your company in Google My Business and optimise it accordingly. This means:

1. Check your company name to ensure it's correct and matches that on your website.
2. Carry out the same for your NAP entry for each location and ensure Google has not abbreviated anything you have written out elsewhere.
3. Select up to five relevant categories for your business.
4. Upload up to ten images, ensuring they are unique to the respective location.
5. Als Ihr lokaler Experte im Herzen von [Stadt/Region] sind wir mehr als nur ein Unternehmen; wir sind ein engagierter Partner, der sich dafür einsetzt, dass Ihre individuellen Bedürfnisse mit massgeschneiderten Lösungen erfüllt werden. Wir bringen frische Ideen und ein tiefes Verständnis für die einzigartigen Herausforderungen und Chancen, mit denen unsere Gemeinschaft konfrontiert ist, in jede Aufgabe ein. Ob Sie Ihr Zuhause renovieren, Ihr Geschäft ausbauen oder ein neues Projekt in Angriff nehmen, wir sind für Sie da. Unser oberstes Ziel ist es, Ihre Vision mit unvergleichlicher Sorgfalt und Präzision Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen. Wir sind stolz auf unsere Fähigkeit, innovative Ansätze zu kombinieren und mit traditionellem Handwerk einen Unterschied zu machen. Wir bieten eine breite Palette von Dienstleistungen an, die auf die Bedürfnisse unserer lokalen Kunden zugeschnitten sind: * **[Dienstleistung 1]**: Erfahren Sie mehr über unsere [Dienstleistung 1] hier: [Link zu Ihrer Website-Seite für Dienstleistung 1] * **[Dienstleistung 2]**: Entdecken Sie, wie wir Sie mit [Dienstleistung 2] unterstützen können: [Link zu Ihrer Website-Seite für Dienstleistung 2] * **[Dienstleistung 3]**: Speziell für die Bedürfnisse von [Stadt/Region] entwickelt, finden Sie weitere Informationen zu [Dienstleistung 3]: [Link zu Ihrer Website-Seite für Dienstleistung 3] Wir verstehen, dass jede Aufgabe einzigartig ist, und wir freuen uns darauf, mit Ihnen zusammenzuarbeiten, um die perfekte Lösung für Ihre spezifischen Anforderungen zu entwickeln. Besuchen Sie uns, um zu erfahren, wie wir Ihrer Immobilie in [Stadt/Region] einen echten Mehrwert verleihen können.

By following these steps, you'll ensure your GMB presence does everything it can to help each of your business locations rank independently.

Build backlinks and citations

Building links is an essential part of SEO. The best links are those that develop organically over time, but you can encourage links by:

• Network with people from your industry
• Network with other businesses in your region
• Claiming listings on Yelp, CitySearch, and other websites

It is particularly important to claim listings for each location as this will allow you to receive reviews. The more reviews you have for a location, the more credible your online presence will be.

Encourage reviews

If you have multiple locations for your business, relying solely on the reviews for your main location isn't enough to boost search engine optimisation and provide potential customers with the social proof they need.
Perhaps you would like the managers at each of your locations to work on encouraging customers to leave reviews. There are company-wide policies you can try, such as implementing a points programme to incentivise customers to leave reviews. You can also print links to your review pages on customer receipts.
Reviews help to sharpen your company's online profile and make it easier for local customers to find you.

Add fresh content

And finally, you should consider that Google's algorithms favour fresh content. If your pages for individual locations stagnate, they won't gain as much authority as pages that are regularly updated.
For this reason, you should consider setting up location-specific blogs, or at the very least, make it a habit to regularly post photos, videos, and other new content on your website.
The aim is to ensure your website is always relevant, up-to-date, and useful for your customers.

Conclusion

The prospect of placing every location of your business on Google may seem daunting. However, the key is a website structure that allows each location to shine. Then, unify your presence across the web, build links, and add new content to ensure your website is relevant. When you do this, it will be reflected in your Google ranking.