What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the strategy to optimize websites to rank for local search terms based on the region.
It is a powerful way to get organic traffic to websites based on their geolocation.
This is required by the businesses that fall into the categories mentioned below.
With a website, you can target the entire world, but if your target audience is located in or near your city, then it is crucial for you to go with local SEO.
Optimize your website for your city name, state, and county so that people will know your office location quickly.
Local SEO also includes content marketing, on-page optimization, link building, and Google map optimization.
Local SEO can benefit any business with a physical presence and serving a particular geographic area. Without Local SEO, there is a chance that you are losing out on 80% of your potential customers.

Why is Local SEO Crucial for Every Business?

If your business fails to show up in organic local search results, you lose out a massive chunk of your potential customers.
About 50% of people searching locally to locate a business, visit the store on the very same day.
So, local SEO is vital to grab a local 3-pack.
Further, the very first experience of your business starts with the customers’ first search (mostly on Google) for your business or store. If you make it hard for the users to find your business, then you will lose their sales.
Local SEO makes it easy and convenient for people to find your business. It helps you in free promotion of your business, products, and services to the potential buyers turning to search engines for their queries and searches.
By ignoring your local SEO, you allow your competitors to win your potential customers.

11 Steps to do Local SEO for Multiple locations

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1. Do a Thorough Competitor Research

Doing thorough competitor research is crucial for location-based SEO as it helps in understanding competition and challenges various businesses face.
Find the competition in your location and compare your website performance with all of them.
Given the wealth of data available for free over the Internet, this research process is quite simple, quick, and affordable for most businesses.
Businesses can hire professional agencies to track their competitors and analyze the business landscape regularly.
The idea behind competitor analysis undertaken by any business is to develop a reliable framework to make competitive assessments, gain intelligence on direct competitors, and learn better ways to position their products, brand, and the company in the market.
Also, it helps you learn the best practices being used in your industry and avoid making mistakes your competitors made.

2. Use a Single Domain

It is a tempting idea to create separate domains for each location when your business operates in multiple locations.
Google will index each domain individually. If you are using multiple domains, then you need to do content publishing, and link building works for all the websites.
Also, You need to multiply your marketing efforts, and it will eventually increase your marketing budget multiple times. So we recommend you should stick to one domain (or site).

If you want all your locations to rank higher in organic searches, then you need to create an individual page for each location. It will help you to appear in multiple city searches with one website.
Managing websites for each location is time-consuming, expensive, and frustrating; it harms your search rankings.
This is why most top brands have a single domain and try to rank in multiple locations worldwide. For example, Nike has thousands of stores worldwide but still maintains a single domain.
On the other hand, it is way easier to manage each location from one single domain.
You just have to geo-target the intended sections from your website by keeping everything else the same.

3. Build Pages for Each Target Location

The prime reason for the failure of multi-location businesses is that they have only a single page for their multiple locations.
Having all your business content on a single landing page does nothing good for your SEO.
Lack of targeted pages will cost you ranking opportunities. Every page of your business website should be focused on one thing.
Building specific pages dedicated to different locations helps you rank better on search engines.
Things will work in your favor if you create a page that links back to all your location’s pages.
Customers will be able to find your nearest location easily. Also, create a geo-specific URL whenever it makes more sense to do so.

4. Add Unique Content for Every Page/Location

As a business, you must ensure that every location page for your business has location-specific keywords and content like city name, county name, etc.
If possible, create wise pages for multiple places to increase SERP rank and sales.
Also, there should be a separate page for each service offered in that city.

Example :
Main>> Sydney>> Cataract Removal
Main>> Sydney>> Hair Transplant
Main>> Sydney>> Facelift Surgery

Further, it is crucial to have unique content for each location.
Just changing the location names and some other specifics while keeping all the other content same to game Google will cause definite damage to your page ranking and credibility.
Google algorithms are too smart to be played with black hat SEO tactics.
Also, if you have the “reviews” section on your pages, avoid using the same review comments by the same person for every location.
Include specific reviews from the people living in those cities.

5. Create Google My Business Listings for Every Location

You can control the appearance of your business by optimizing and claiming your location-specific profiles on Google Maps using Google My Business.
You can use a single account to manage and organize all different locations and interact with potential customers.
For each location, Google My Business allows you to create individual listings. It will help to do Local SEO for Multiple business locations.
You need to add the URLs of each location-specific page to your business profile. Then you have to verify every location, add your hours of operation, manage reviews, and add pictures.
This will provide accurate information to your local audience. In the below image, users can visit the first outlet before 10 PM while visiting the latter anytime.
It is important to ensure that the categories classifying your business and your business name are consistent across locations. If you try to spam keywords into the title, Google will penalize your site(s).

6. Embed Google Maps for Every Location

When you are designing separate webpages for multiple locations, you should add a Google map for a couple of reasons.
First, maps make it easier for customers to find your business. Second, maps associate the business website with its physical location.
Embedding a map onto your web drops pins for every location and shows your customers where you are. It plays a crucial part in doing local SEO for multiple locations in one city.

The benefits of embedding a map include :

• It makes it easier for customers to find contact details of each location.
• Customers can find out what your store or business looks like from outside using street view feature of the embed maps.
  

Embedding a Google map is very straightforward. Visit the Google Map page for your business and click on the “Embed” button and you are done.
You can customize the size of the map based on your web page’s dimensions and design.

7. Make Use of My Business Listings Insights

Just setting up a Google My Business account isn’t enough, but you must also check if your business is attracting customers through it.
Google My Business Insights is another extremely efficient and useful tool that helps in customizing multiple locations SEO. This tool offers insights into your Google Business Listings in terms of showing you how your customers are interacting with your business listings.

A few more key insights that you can get using this tool are :

• The percentage rate of people who found your business through branded and direct searches.
  You can find these insights for different periods like weekly, monthly, and quarterly.
  
• Shows the keyword for which your business listing showed up in the organic search results.
• Inform you about the actions taken by the customers after your business showed up in the listings.

8. Citations

Ranking well on highly authoritative directory listings is crucial for multi-location businesses. You must get trusted sources to link back to your website. It is a key ranking factor.
Google crawls across the Internet to find all your citations of multiple directory listings, your website, and review sites to compare and validate the information you have posted.
Inconsistencies in your content harm your page rank and reduce trust, especially when you are doing SEO For Multiple Location Businesses.

That is why you should build accurate citations with exact business name, phone number, street address, and website page for all your locations.
Apart from Google, there are many other sites people use to look up your business, like Yahoo, Yelp, Bing, Facebook, Mantra, Foursquare, Yellow Pages, Angie’s List, and Better Business Bureau.
Further, ensure your website for each location is listed in relevant local or industry directory listings as well.

9. Gain Reviews for Every location

A very large majority of consumers trust star-ratings (at least a four-star) and The reviews on GMB are real, and users are more likely to get an opinion on a business.
online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations from relatives or friends before they choose a business.
It has become a mainstream practice these days that online reviews feature in most search results, especially the search results containing map listings of businesses.
After creating your Google My Business listings specific to each of your locations, you should encourage your page visitors to leave good reviews along with ratings. It plays a vital local SEO strategy for multiple locations businesses. These review comments and star ratings are then displayed publicly on your Google Business Listings for everyone to see.
Good reviews attract more customers to a business location as they send positive and strong signals about the legitimacy of your business.

10. Build Backlinks for Target pages

Backlinks are significant for multiple locations SEO.
Links are one of the major key factors involved in ranking your business higher in search results.
When you have multiple locations, it is imperative that you build backlinks to all your location pages too.
A few ways to build backlinks are to partner with local charities or resources like Chambers of Commerce, create local and relevant content, host events, and sponsorships.
Create backlinks from high authority business directories and local listings well known and approved by search engines.
All these practices will offer you opportunities to attract backlinks to your location pages.
You can also reach out to the local bloggers, social media stars to know if they would share and promote your business on their sites.
Use BuzzSumo to find the trending and most engaged blogger in your location by using the keywords you want to target.
It takes a bit of time and creativity to find the best place for your business to be profitably listed.

11. Add Schemas and Structured Data

Schemas and structured data help you to markup your website content with specialized tags to help Google find specific information that gets displayed in the search results.
Schemas help Google find structured data across your webpages for proper and quicker indexing.

Without schemas, Google crawlers may find it difficult to figure out your location, the number of customer-reviews your website has, and what your business does.
Adding schemas not only helps visitors easily reach your business website, but it also makes it easier for search engines to validate and mark relevancy of your business related to the local search terms.
We recommend all multi-location business websites to add schemas. It will increase the visibility and credibility of your business.
Google recommends your business to use Schemas as it increases the click-through rates.

Additional Tips to Boost Multiple locations Local SEO Rankings

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1. Add a Blog to Website

Fresh content helps your website stay current and relevant as Google favors fresh content. Adding a blog to your website develops its library of content and offers new information to the users.
When a blog is used effectively, it supports ranking for business-related keywords and locations.

A blog adds value to a business website. It is easier to promote the blog content, as the blog is social media friendly and do not turn away readers.
Visitors reading your blogs will most likely share your content with their user base and on other social media platforms giving your business more visibility.

2. Create Social media Profiles

Social Media helps your business create meaningful relations with your existing and potential customers.
You can introduce a personal side of your business, people, and management to your followers or potential customers and show them how your products and services are helping the world.
Many of your potential buyers visit your social media profiles first during their research and decide to interact or do business with you based on their experience.
By using social media profiles, you can gain public trust, show your credibility, engage with people, and increase your brand awareness.
Social media interactions also boost your website traffic.

3. Respond to Reviews

As a credible business, you should always respond to your customer reviews, especially the negative ones.
Ignoring the bad reviews without a response will alienate your business from your customers. And when you respond, you must refrain from debating or making condescending remarks.
Because this may lead to increased negative reviews, and as per reports, 85% of people trust online reviews and 57% of consumers consider a business only if it’s rated 4* or above.
Your customers will base their buying decisions on how you respond to the negative comments. Try to “make it right,” whatever went wrong and led to a bad review.
When you actively respond to your customer’s comments, positive or otherwise, you come across as a business that values customer feedback. And, on the bright side, positive reviews improve your visibility and draws in more customers.

4. Make Your Website Mobile-friendly

Smartphones and tablets are responsible for generating more than 60% of all US online traffic.
Google favors mobile websites and ranks them higher in organic search results. Among the other factors, mobile usability is the third most important factor your website ranking depends on.
Here’s a screenshot of the mobile performance of an online business that constitutes 30% of its total audience. The percentage will be even more if you have a physical presence where potential customers can visit.
If you do not have a mobile-friendly site, Google and other search engines will ignore your mobile search results.
More than 70% of local searches happen on mobile, and without a mobile-friendly site, the chances of getting in local 3-pack are hard.
It will lower your organic traffic for “near me,” and geo-based search queries coming from mobile devices.
As per the new updates rolled out by Google, it will consider the ranking signals from the mobile version of your websites over those from the desktop sites.

5. Create & Update Sitemaps

Creating a sitemap is the next step after creating a web page for every location. And if you have an existing sitemap, you should update it with details about the new web pages you create.
XML is used to create sitemaps that assist the search engine crawlers in smoothly navigating through various pages of a website for indexing them.
Every time considerable changes are made to your website, the sitemap must be updated with the details of the changes you have made.
When you submit a new sitemap, ensure that you have removed the one that already exists (if there’s any).
Sitemaps will boost your websites visibility in the search engines.

6. Add Google Analytics

Irrespective of the size of your website, Google Analytics is the best and the most useful tool to help you understand your online performance.
It helps your business track the website visitors, their age, gender, interest topics, geographic location, and measure traffic coming from different channels.
You can track the performance of various location pages of your business and figure what needs improving and what’s working well.
Google Analytics helps you know your customers and visitors better, and with this knowledge, you can enhance the user experience. It can help you create targeted content to help you with SEO in various ways.

7. Run Location-specific PPC ads

Internet technology has come a long way, but ads are still one of the best ways to be found online. So, you must run PPC ads for your business with links leading to your local pages.
You can choose from a bevy of advertising options like Google AdWords, Yelp, and Bing ads.
Without shelling out too many dollars, you can build great credibility and brand-recognition by effectively using PPC ads and bring in big revenue bucks.
PPC ads can be targeted based on locations, location groups, areas, tiered demographics, and countries.
These location-specific PPC ads will help you find the right customers to help your business grow.

Get in touch with our experts to do Local SEO for Multi-Location Businesses.