Local SEO Strategy for Multi-Location Businesses

[Linda Buquet]

Do you do Local SEO for any multi-location businesses? I just skimmed what looks like a pretty good article from ClickZ by Andrew Beckman, CEO of Location3 Media.

Local SEO Strategy for the Multi-Location Marketer | ClickZ

"For multi-location and franchise brands that have hundreds or thousands of locations, there are many challenges to implementing and evaluating local marketing strategies. Launching a successful local SEO strategy is certainly at the top of the list as being one of the most challenging initiatives for an organization to embrace holistically. What makes local SEO challenging is, in part, the variety of strategies that must be considered in order to ensure you are addressing all potential ranking factors. Let's take a look at some of the most crucial strategies for successful ongoing, and foundational, local SEO. The necessities:"

I don't have time to read in detail, so if you pull out any good insights or have questions, please post below.

FYI this is one of the topics we'll be covering too at our webinar on July 31st.
FREE Webinar: Advanced On-site Local SEO Techniques - Mike Ramsey & Matt Hunt

 

[cjones]

Interesting article, but as Andrew states, "there are many challenges to implementing and evaluating local marketing strategies.". It's also hard to do justice to a topic like this in a 500 word post.

One area to stress is that most franchise owners are NOT interested in doing Local SEO or online marketing for their own location. But, it's important for the franchisor (or corporate office) to have content management tools in place that will allow local managers to create and maintain online content for their own locations. If there's no interest to create local content, then the management of this content will need be done at a corporate level to maintain consistent branding.

 

[Andrew RLM SEO]

Some great points made by Andrew in this article. The main issues that I have had lately for multi-location businesses is making sure that all the business listings for each location has the correct NAP info. This has been a big problem with some of our companies that have changed locations.

As Andrew states, "it is so important to have the same content across all channels." This can be very difficult and time consuming when you are dealing with businesses with multiple locations or if they have changed locations in the past.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks cjones and Andrew for weighing in.

And welcome! Thanks for joining us!

 

[aaronwatters]

I'm about to dive in to this pretty heavily. Have a high likelihood of getting a client that has 7 locations in the city of San Antonio. These are all under the same company...no franchises. I'll try and update this when we start working on it, I'm planning on doing a Google+ Brand page alongside 7 Google Local Pages.

Anyone with experience, I'm very interested in tips!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Aaron, we have a bunch of different threads about this issue. I don't have time to find the best ones, but the search box works pretty well.

Plus here are some other resources for you. I do training and consulting on this issue.

Here's my on-site Local SEO course. It's not specific to multi-locations but does cover the most important issues. Local On-site SEO Training + Automated Local SEO Template

Plus we have a FREE Webinar coming up Wed and part of it will be about multi-location issues.
FREE Webinar: Advanced On-site Local SEO Techniques - Mike Ramsey & Matt Hunt

 

[Michael Fritzsche]

This article is definitely on point. Thanks Linda for the post. Unfortunately multi-location business usually have a very difficult time implementing, scaling, and maintaing a holistic Local Search Strategy. Local search is still an emerging and changing medium yet, highly valuable for most businesses that sell locally e.i. chains, franchises, etc. Using technology to automate and scale the process of distributing content can streamline processes and save considerable time and resources.

aaronwatters - if all locations are in San Antonio i would highly recommend group pages!

My organization specializes in a Multi-location enterprise level Local Search technology. reach out if you have specific questions

Michael Fritzsche - Local Search Champion
www.simpartners.com - Linkedin

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Michael and welcome.

Feel free to add a sig with link to site and that way folks will know who you are. (Then it will be displayed in future posts.)

 

[iProspectDK]

Im about to do a bulk upload for a global client spanning 67 countries with 2000 entries. What will be my main challenges in this task?

 

[Broland]

Im about to do a bulk upload for a global client spanning 67 countries with 2000 entries. What will be my main challenges in this task?

Time and organization.

 

[iProspectDK]

Time and organization.

I was hoping for a more serious answer to be honest.

 

[iProspectDK]

Bump please help.

 

[manny1020]

Bump please help.

Best article I've read for multi-location local seo using one domain:

Get Your Multi-Location Business Ranking in Multiple Cities With One Domain - YouMoz - Moz

 

[iProspectDK]

Thanks but its 67 countries and maybe 600 cities, were talking multinational global company here.

 

[manny1020]

Thanks but its 67 countries and maybe 600 cities, were talking multinational global company here.

One Domain? Multiple domains?

There really won't be much difference in terms of procedures compared to smaller sized companies with less cities, you'll just be doing them at a much larger scale.

 

[iProspectDK]

Its one company with one .com domain with physical stores in 67 countries

I tried Albania the first country on the list, and there was trouble with the postal number, the province and the arrows location.

Im having fears that the bulk spreadsheet will never pass through verification, when there was so many issues with just one store in one country.

Does anyone have any experience with multicountry multicity bulk?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Im about to do a bulk upload for a global client spanning 67 countries with 2000 entries. What will be my main challenges in this task?

I was hoping for a more serious answer to be honest.

Its one company with one .com domain with physical stores in 67 countries

I tried Albania the first country on the list, and there was trouble with the postal number, the province and the arrows location.

Im having fears that the bulk spreadsheet will never pass through verification, when there was so many issues with just one store in one country.

Does anyone have any experience with multicountry multicity bulk?

Sorry I didn't see this til now.

You'd do much better getting help from those that have dealt with this by starting a new thread, in the help forum at bottom with a RELEVANT TITLE.

Something like: Help with Bulk Multi-Country 2000 Locations.

Right now yours Qs are buried in a general thread about "Local SEO Strategy for Multi-Location Businesses" You need to get the attention of someone who has dealt with this before.

 

[Jason]

The Google Bulk Upload tool will be your biggest challenge. It's what some people would call "not good".

Expect to have to go make many adjustments after the upload. Best of luck to you.