Learn 10 local SEO tactics for businesses with multiple locations. Start increasing your ROI.
Many businesses have multiple locations. Whether you operate a franchise, a regional chain, or a global enterprise, using local SEO tactics for your multi-location business is essential to success.
Learn how you can make your brick and mortar business stand out and how local SEO can help you grow your business.
What is Local SEO?
First, let’s take a quick look at what local SEO is and how it works. Local SEO is about optimizing your business’s online presence to attract traffic from local customers. This traffic can be digital or foot traffic.
Some tactics that can be included in your local SEO strategy include:
Online listing
Using relevant keywords on web pages
Getting Customer Feedback
The goal is to appear at the top of search results when customers in your area search for information or services you offer. After that, you want your content to drive foot traffic to your offices, thereby increasing sales and conversions.
The Importance of Local SEO
With a full suite of marketing activities covering a large geography, you may be wondering why local SEO matters. With the right optimization, you can appear at the top of the results when a user searches for information related to your business or goes looking for a local resource to visit.
By being where the customer is looking for information related to your business in your area, you can better serve your community and increase the likelihood of conversion because you will be where the customer needs you.
And while you might think that digital search users rarely visit stores, that’s not true. Here are some statistics that highlight the importance of spending some time optimizing your local SEO.
Google reports that 46% of all search queries have a local intent
97% of users searched for a local business online
28% of searchers ultimately Denmark Email Lead make a purchase based on search results.
Based on these numbers, you cannot afford to ignore local SEO and should strive to expand your online presence as much as possible. If you want to gain a competitive advantage over other businesses in your area, SEO is of utmost importance.
Challenges faced by multi-location companies
Local SEO for multi-location businesses is challenging. It presents a unique challenge because you are working to optimize your online presence for multiple locations, and each location provides a unique experience and may cater to different demographics.
As you build your local SEO strategy, consider how you will overcome these challenges.
Local Content: You must be consistent in your content creation, even if that means managing a complex content calendar to ensure consistency across different locations and demographics.
Consistent Local Link Building: When adding your business location information to various sites and business boards, you want to make sure you are consistent in how you list your business, including whether you use the abbreviation street or drive or include LLC or Inc. after your business name.
Research your competitors: Competition will vary across different locations of your business, meaning your strategy will need to be tailored to each area to compete properly.
Review Management: You should respond to reviews online, but managing your reputation in multiple places is challenging. But it is also necessary for reputation management. You should monitor the various review sites closely.
Brand Identity: As you adapt your strategy to the different audiences and cultures in the regions you serve, you must maintain your brand identity despite different ways of handling voice, tone and messaging.
Dispersed Teams: Depending on the size of your organization, your marketing team may be spread across multiple locations. This dispersal makes it even more challenging to manage your online identity and develop local SEO.
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Local SEO Tactics for Multi-Location Businesses
Now that you know the importance of local SEO and the challenges you will face along the way, here are some ways to help you grow your online presence as a multi-location business.
1. Add location-specific pages
Your site should have landing pages for each location. Each page should contain relevant keywords as well as information about the location of your business. Don’t just copy and paste one page and update the address for each location. These pages should be unique and showcase what you offer to your community in that location.
Local SEO Tactics
2. Create your Google Business Profiles
Claim your Google My Business profile for each business location. Make sure you list accurate business information. Add photos that showcase your business. After a customer makes a purchase from you, encourage them to leave a review. Google ranks pages with lots of high-quality reviews higher. So if you want to get more exposure on Google Maps and in search, it’s important to keep your reviews section up to date.
3. Use structured data markup
Structured data markup provides search engines with more information about your business. You can include location information as well as contact information. Using structured data markup will help you become more visible online.
4. Use geotargeted phrases
When doing SEO research, research keywords that are specific to a location and include geo-targeted phrases. This will help search engines understand how your business ranks for local searches. You will gain greater visibility in local searches and showcase what you offer.
5. Earn Local Backlinks
The backlink strategy involves getting high-quality backlinks from sites with outstanding domain authority to increase your overall site authority. But also look at getting local backlinks from companies in your area to increase your local credibility.
6. Write local content
When creating your content calendar, include blogs, social content, and articles that focus on the local communities you serve. This will show search engines that you are relevant in these areas and delight your audience.
7. Respond to reviews
Monitor your various online profiles and accounts to respond to reviews. Whether customers leave positive or negative reviews, you should respond to them and show how responsive you are to your customers.
8. Apply local SEO strategies
Use local content on social media. Include promotions for the communities you serve. Create event pages if you host local meetups. Encourage local communities to engage with you on social media and show that you understand local issues and nuances. This can be challenging for global companies, but you shouldn’t ignore it just because it’s difficult.
9. Create a mobile-friendly website
The more optimized your site is, the better it will be perceived by users. Search engines want to know that the customers they send to your site will have a good experience and find answers to their questions. So, while a mobile-friendly site is not location-specific, it is an important element of any SEO plan.
10. Monitor performance and adjust
As you create location-specific content and work to improve your rankings, keep an eye on your site’s performance. Look for ways to create similar content once you have high-performing content. Listen to your customers’ concerns and address their needs with your marketing. You won’t know when the decisions you make will impact your site’s traffic unless you keep a close eye on the metrics. Refine your SEO strategy as you see results from your efforts.
Work with local SEO experts
New Light Digital understands the challenges that global businesses face. Our team has helped businesses of all types, located in many different locations, gain local SEO rankings and improve their online presence. Schedule a free consultation to learn more about our services and how we can help.
