Thinking about opening second branch

[wexed]

Hello,

We are a maid cleaning business. Evidently it is a service area business as we go to customer locations and few visit us at the the branch.

As we have been analyzing our business we have noticed that most of our customers are in fairly tight radius around our branch. This is despite our paid marketing to be exactly the same outside this radius, including paid ads, yelp, angie's list etc...

A lot of new customers, when they call, ask us where we are located, making me believe that whether we run paid ads or not, a big piece of a customer's research is figuring out our location. This then explains why so many of our customers are located around the main office.

This is of course reinforced by distance being a main factor in organic search results. We do show #1 in most of our surrounding areas.

So in an effort to accelerate growth, we are thinking about opening a second location. This would have the benefit of reallocating our ad spend that's far away from our current main office and move it to the areas around our new branch.

What are the main factors that you would use to determine where to put the new branch? Here's how we are thinking:

- Far away from current branch (~50 miles) in order to establish an entire new territory
- Pick a large town as we have found that organic rankings are easiest around office location
- Strip mall / office park location that's easily accessible from main traffic arteries
- High disposable income area as those are our best customers

Main concerns:
- New area has different phone area code. How can we continue using same website but make sure the area code doesn't become an issue?

Is there anything else that we have to keep in mind to make sure we get a second gmb listing?

 

[wexed]

i think the phone number can be resolved with callrail local swap.

 

[valesence]

Great Question, and great decision basing your location off of gmb. I will talk about what I know, it may be wrong or outdated but it will give a basis for conversation. Please correct me if you feel differently.

Google gives a big consideration to location. I agree with op, that I would place my location, if renting close to your highest concentration of ideal customers. Sometimes it is tricky, business locations are sometimes far away from residential neighborhoods. For a sab it is more important to be close to the customers.

Another issue, finding address's without search engine clutter. If the former tenant had a lot of backlinks and citations it could cloud googles judgement about your authenticity. It isn't always easy to find, but an address without many google links or citations should always a consideration.

A business location is usually beneficial, though many have used residential address's. The business address will also help if you need to post a sign, and take a picture to prove your existence. A little harder to do in a residential neighborhood.

Do Nots.

Do not get a post office box or other type of shared address. Just getting a desk at an office complex will diminish your credibility, not increase it. Just think google is all knowing, and they know shared office spaces are shady. Most cases they won't rank or sometimes they will ghost you completely.

Hope this helps

 

[wexed]

Thank you so much for your answer and input.

We're not a big company so we will always end up in some type of shared office location. The locations we look at are typically ~500 square feet to hold up to 4 employees in an office park type location with a suite number. We're not looking at any locations that also provide virtual addresses.

Thanks for your hint on backlinks / citations. Having a few previous citations from superpages, yellowpages and yelp shouldn't be a problem though as long as it's not all cluttered up.

 

[wexed]

When you say citation clutter, does that apply to the identical address with same suite number or does it apply to the overall address including all different suite numbers at the address?

 

[Rich Owings]

Be aware that simply opening an office may not get you in the front page map pack. That may take a lot of time and effort. It depends on how stiff the already existing competition is.

 

[wexed]

Hi Rich,

Understood. The plan is too get all the citations, collect reviews and continue chopping wood until the office starts ranking well a few years down the line.

 

[wexed]

Just to be clear. We're not trying to make a short term move to game a search engine. We are in the planning phase of our second branch location which is a long-term investment.

As part of the process of picking the location we are looking at several operational factors and we also want to make a smart decision based on SEO factors.

When we opened our first location we made a multitude of SEO mistakes. The location does well today but with the second location we would like to avoid as many of these mistakes as possible.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@wexed, I assume it's a physical office, with non-maid employees there during business hours, and not a bogus "satellite location." In other words, I assume it complies with the GMB guidelines.

If so, here are some additional considerations for choosing where to set up camp:

1. Not too near a town line.

2. Maybe not a bedroom community. (Though people who live in one may want a maid, the chances are greater than normal that they'll research maid services while at work.)

3. Not a place where no two people seem to call it the same thing. Census-designated places, unincorporated communities, cities that have been renamed recently, and cities that spill into another state can be tricky areas to rank in.

4. Most residents own single-family homes.

5. Other maid services are located there, clearly serve that town, or run AdWords ads there. (If everyone ignores the place, there may be good reasons for that.)

6. Is it not a spam swamp? However many or few Maps-spammers there are now, add 20-50% and you'll have the number two years from now. It may be a good local market in either case, but as least know what you're wading into.

 

[valesence]

Just to be clear. We're not trying to make a short term move to game a search engine. We are in the planning phase of our second branch location which is a long-term investment.

As part of the process of picking the location we are looking at several operational factors and we also want to make a smart decision based on SEO factors.

When we opened our first location we made a multitude of SEO mistakes. The location does well today but with the second location we would like to avoid as many of these mistakes as possible.

I made a ton of mistakes on my second office. Found a nice inexpensive office to use. Rented it, started seo. Found out it was just out of the city in an unincorporated area. After 1 year, I moved my office and started over. $20,000 mistake.

Couple things I did when looking for a location. I used google maps to find all the other listed business's of my type in a city. I then looked at income data from a mailing list company. This helped me find the neighborhoods that likely purchased my service. Then I found an office as close to those neighborhoods as I could. I also used the other listed business, and wedged my location between them and the customers I wanted.

If you need more suggestions PM me. I own a service company and do my own SEO.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

I only skimmed this thread so if I say something that doesn't make sense, forgive me.

I would not base my second location on SEO. Google could change proximity ranking influence tomorrow and now you chose your 2nd location for a reason that is null. It's the same thing with branding. People brand their company name sometimes for SEO. They put keywords in their business name, put it on signage, business cards, their website, etc. because having keywords in your business name is weighted fairly heavily in Google right now. When Google removes that at some point, what is the benefit of naming your business with keywords now? There is none.

Because of that, I would choose a 2nd office based on business reasons other than SEO.

Also, allocate money for an SEO budget so your radius of influence can expand. The way Google is constructed now, no, you can't rank in maps all over the city necessarily (although you can over time with a good enough Local SEO company potentially) but you can rank organically all over the city. You just need a good Local SEO company. And they will be expensive because they will be well worth it.

I would switch up your strategy.

 

[shively]

Hello,

We are a maid cleaning business. Evidently it is a service area business as we go to customer locations and few visit us at the the branch.

... stuff deleted ...

Is there anything else that we have to keep in mind to make sure we get a second gmb listing?

You may want to follow this thread in regards to your second location.

Using Heat Maps to find a clients next office location - Local Search Forum