Are you a contractor, electrician, painter, or small business owner with multiple business locations and service areas? Whether you are a home services chain, such as an HVAC company, a major gym franchise, or another business with various sites, multi-location businesses that want to attract more customers online can benefit from these SEO tips.
Craft Well-Written Location Pages
One of the core tactics that can do wonders for your search engine optimization is to thoroughly optimize the content on your website. Search engines can then read the copy on your pages that helps them determine where to rank your website in search results based on how relevant your content is, if it is high quality, and if it illustrates authority in your industry.
And when it comes to hoping to rank well in specific local areas, you will want to target location-specific keywords – such as “Cincinnati plumbers,” “Minneapolis gyms,” etc. – by creating or revamping locational landing pages on your website that are centered around keywords related to the location of your business.
Pro-tip: Be sure to embed your location from Google Maps to help push users to get driving directions and further signal to search engines the location of your various businesses.
See How You Stack Up Against Other Businesses
We recommend you try doing some basic competitor research to see what the location pages of your competitors look like, how many words they have on their pages, what internal links they have, what their page speed is, and more. You can check out our handy cheat sheet to get started.
Optimize and Manage Your Google My Business Listing
You are most likely familiar with Google My Business, but if you are not, it’s time you get acquainted. GMB is a major part of local SEO, and is a prime way to expand your horizons and get more customers to your various locations. There are four parts of your GMB profile that will ultimately influence your rankings on Google Maps:
- Business name
- Business categories
- Website link
- Reviews
Ways you can optimize your listings include making sure your name abides by Google’s guidelines, adding any relevant categories to your listing, ensuring the website link is being sent to a relevant page for a given location, and trying to collect more reviews for your listing.
Pro-tip: Did you know you can report any competitors on Google Maps who are breaking Google’s guidelines? Violations include using keywords in a business name, using a private address, and more. Be sure to check out our guide to spam submissions to find out how to get started.
Create Unique, Trackable Phone Numbers
One of the hardest parts about SEO, especially for local business, is being able to track phone calls and discover where customers found your business.
With the help of CallRail, we have been able to create unique tracking numbers that can be placed on GMB listings, in PPC ads, and on your website, that allow you see ROI data from your various efforts.
Double-Check Citations for Each Location
Much like each of your locations may have their own individual social media profiles, you will want to make sure the same theory is applied to popular citation sites such as Yelp, Alignable, and AngiesList. The same goes for other directory sites related to your industry and local area.
Provide Quick Ways for Contacting
Alongside having induvial forms and phone numbers on your location pages, something such as a chatbot on your site can help filter users on your site to representatives of the location they are interested in.
For example, with software like LiveChat, you can craft messaging for specific pages on your site, creating a more personal and customized experience for users.
Use Your Blog to Boost Local Connections
Testimonials from businesses you’ve worked with, posts highlighting local tradeshows or events, and helpful list posts like “Best 10 Spots in [City] for Happy Hour” can all be very strategic opportunities.
You can use this content as a way to gain local backlinks from businesses you feature on your blog and potentially get linked by news resources as well.
Add Tailored Schema to Location Pages
Schema is a great way to better help search engines read and understand your website and its individual pages. And luckily for local businesses, there are even types of code that can help reiterate where your business is located, its services, and more, all improving your rankings in search engines.
Want to Learn More Tips for Multi-Location Business Types?
Here are some other posts from our blog that may help:
