As the world continues to globalise, more and more businesses are expanding across borders to reach more customers. This has given rise to multi-location marketing techniques that provide companies with local and global visibility. If you’re a business with operations across multiple cities or countries, optimising your website to rank locally in each area or region will be key to attracting new customers. However, optimising your digital assets for multiple locations isn’t easy. It requires a well-planned strategy that ensures every location gets the right share of visibility. This post will explore how multi-location SEO can be a game changer for businesses operating across different locations and how the best SEO services can help get brands ranked higher. 

What is Multi-Location SEO?

The rise of multi-location SEO isn’t a coincidence. It is the process of optimising websites and digital assets to maintain brand visibility across several physical, local, and cross-border locations, such as stores and franchises. Multi-location SEO is built upon the foundation of local SEO, where each individual location is boosted to rank higher. This ensures your business gets visibility within the community it operates in.

For example, consider you run a chain of coffee shops in different locations and cities. You want to ensure that all those coffee shops rank higher within their regions when someone searches for the “best coffee shop in New York” or where to find the “best cold coffee in London.” This kind of targeted location-based optimisation is done through multi-location SEO. This ensures your coffee shops appear in relevant search results whenever a customer searches for services in their area.

Why Does Multi-Location SEO Matter?

Small businesses, local shops, and even large corporations thrive on physical stores and online websites. Therefore, they require optimising their local search results to make it easier for customers to find them. Multi-location SEO makes it possible and opens new opportunities for businesses to connect with existing and potential customers. Here’s why multi-location SEO matters: 

1. Increased Local Visibility

   Multi-location SEO ensures your business appears in local searches whenever someone looks for a product or service. When your Google My Business (GMB) profile is optimised, and there are many reviews about your product, it becomes easier for customers to trust you. For instance, when someone searches for the best chocolate croissant in Paris, your bakery will be the first on the list. 

2. Better User Experience

   People appreciate accurate and relevant information. Hence, putting relevant information and tags about individual branches, such as addresses, images, phone numbers, and hours of operation, will make it easier for customers to reach out and book or buy your services and products. 

3. Improved Local Rankings
   

   When you focus on local SEO for each business location, your chances of ranking higher on search results and Google Maps increase. This can significantly increase the number of customers at your physical store while also increasing online engagement, such as reviews, images, and ratings. 

4. Competitive Edge

   Getting multiple locations listed gives you a competitive edge over other businesses that don’t optimise local results. Investing in the best SEO services ensures that all your locations get equal attention so no physical location is left behind. The data collected during multi-location SEO also helps modify business strategies and ensure loss-making or low-performing branches get more attention for better overall results. 

How to Implement Multi-Location SEO for Your Business

Now that we’ve established the importance of multi-location SEO let’s look at strategies used by the best SEO Services to build profitable brands: 

1. Create Separate Location Pages for Each Branch or Store

Multi-location SEO is all about localisation in the same city or across the globe. Here’s what to include in separate location pages on your website or social media accounts to increase reach: 

• Location-specific content: Customize each page with location-specific content, language, and details that portray specific information about the branch or region.
• NAP Consistency (Name, Address, Phone Number): Ensure the NAP is consistent and accurate across all platforms, including local directories and the Google My Business profile. 
• Local keywords: Research location-specific keywords that can be added through content marketing, meta titles, and meta tags across the board. For example, “Best cheap pizza in New York.” 
• Customer testimonials and reviews: Ask customers to share their honest feedback, pictures, or ratings of your services to add credibility and trust within the region or services. 

2. Optimize Your Google My Business Listings

One of the most critical ways to benefit from multi-location SEO is by optimising your Google My Business (GMB) profile, which helps you appear on Google Maps and local searches. Here’s what you need to do: 

• Claim and verify each location’s GMB profile: Get your physical locations verified by GMB to appear in Google search results and listing. 
• Complete your profile: Ensure you fill out all relevant information based on facts, images, business hours, addresses, and service offers. 
• Encourage reviews: Ask customers to add reviews, images, and ratings that can improve your local rankings. 
• Use location-based categories: When completing the GMB profile, make sure you select the correct category. For example, a food and beverage restaurant might not be well-suited to a hotel or hospitality category.

3. Use Location-Specific Keywords

Using the right keywords is crucial as it increases your chances of visibility when users search for anything on the internet. When used correctly, keyword-optimized content can generate high-user interest, generate leads, and produce purchases. 

Likewise, incorporating location-specific keywords makes you more discoverable and aligns with the local intent of a searcher, resulting in more geographically relevant content. These strategic location-specific keywords within website content, industry reports, and feedback can also help build a strong local reputation and customer trust, 

• “Best SEO services in New York”
• “Best acting classes for kids in Brooklyn”
• “Top technology company in Palo Alto”

Location-specific keywords like the above help Google search content across a location and provide more targeted results. Hence, when you use the right keyword, your chances of appearing on top of SERP increase exponentially. 

4. Build Local Citations for Each Location

Many of us have read research papers or reports with citations that provide information about the author, title of the research, year it was published and where it was published with a unique identifier number. 

Within a business context, citations refer to mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on websites such as review sites, online listening and directories. Other websites include local directories, review sites, and online listings. Getting listed in local directories using the keyword and accurate business information confirms to a search engine that your business is legitimate and relevant in that area. Following are some examples of where to get your business listed: 

• Local directories include Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Better Business Bureau (BBB).
• Local Chamber of Commerce websites such as Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, etc.
• Industry-specific sites and local blogs such as Citysearch, Foursquare, and TripAdvisor.

5. Create Location-Based Content

All forms of SEO depend on sharing the right content across websites, blogs, and review pages. Irrespective of the nature of your business, create location-specific landing pages, write location-specific reviews, or share service information that speaks to that community’s specific needs and interests. For example, you could write blog posts or landing pages relevant to:

• “How Our Best SEO Services in New York Helps Local Businesses Succeed”
• “5 Things You Didn’t Know About SEO in California”
• “Interesting coffee shops spots to spend your evenings in Paris”

Real-Life Example: How Multi-Location SEO Helped a National Brand Grow

Many real-life business examples have benefited from multi-location SEO, giving every franchise and store a boost in visibility and customer engagement. 

The UPS Store, a franchised subsidiary of United Parcel Service, provides mailboxes, shipping, printing, fax, and shredding services across the United States. To improve their local visibility, they applied a multi-location SEO strategy that includes unique content, local keywords, and consistent NAP information for every store. This encourages residents to find the nearest UPS store within minutes while getting accurate Google Maps directions to each location. This not only improves UPS’ search engine ranking compared to FedEx but also increases customer traffic to their stores.

Why You Need the Best SEO Services for Multi-Location Optimization

While businesses are expanding beyond borders, their need for local engagement is also increasing. Engaging the best SEO Services like Avancera Solution can lead to the successful implementation of a multi-location SEO strategy. Although complex, the right SEO experts can optimise your local listings and website content to resonate with local communities’ needs. The best SEO services will help you:

• Conduct SEO audits to identify locations that need optimisation,
• Perform location-specific keyword research in areas your business serves.
• Optimise location pages and websites through on-page SEO,
• Create backlinks and business listening through off-page SEO,
• Monitor customer engagement and campaign performance to ensure all locations get the desired traffic. 

Conclusion

Multi-location SEO is becoming crucial for any business with a presence beyond their local area, city, or country. By optimising your website and Google My Business (GMB) profile for each location, you can significantly increase your chances of getting ranked higher in local listening and attract more customers to your stores. or branches. Partnering with a skilled SEO team at Avancera Solution can supercharge your aims to achieve multi-location success. Contact Us today for an SEO audit and future prospects.