Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to create unique content for businesses with multiple locations?
-
I have a client that owns one franchise location of a franchise company with multiple locations. They have one large site with each location owning it's own page on the site, which I feel is the best route. The problem is that each location page has basically duplicate content on each page resulting in like 80 pages of duplicate content.
I'm looking for advice on how to create unique content for each location page? What types of information can we write about to make each page unique, because you can only twist sentences and content around so much before it just all sounds cookie cutter and therefore offering little value.
-
What about associations with other local businesses, any sponsorships and events? Are there any local events that the business gets involved in or are related to the business?
Is there anything specific/unique about the different customers at different locations? How can you tune the content to target/engage this particular demographic.
Are their any landmarks or well known places you can talk about (while you visiting x why not pop in for a y...)
And as EGOL said, I definitely agree that you need to get the people who know the area and know their customers to provide (and maintain) the content. Can you do this in a way that raised their profile, boosts their ego and motivates them rather than just lumbering them with something else to do?
It's a great opportunity to promote their business to their customers...
-
As David mentioned, directions are good because they're rarely the same.
In addition:
- Photos of the storefront, the inside of the store, and perhaps the kitchen or something like that.
- Name of store manager if they're comfortable with that.
- Schema.org markup of Address and phone number of course.
- Reviews/testimonials for that store location, even if they're pulled off of Yelp.
- Links to Yelp, Google Places, Foursquare, etc. for that store location.
There's a recent July 2012 statement by Matt Cutts suggesting that a couple sentences is plenty of unique content in a situation like this. Excerpt:
Eric Enge: Let’s switch gears a bit. Let’s talk about a pizza business with stores in 60 cities. When they build their site, they create pages for each city.
Matt Cutts: Where people get into trouble here is that they fill these pages with the exact same content on each page. “Our handcrafted pizza is lovingly made with the same methods we have been using for more than 50 years …”, and they’ll repeat the same information for 6 or 7 paragraphs, and it’s not necessary. That information would be great on a top-level page somewhere on the site, but repeating it on all those pages does not look good. If users see this on multiple pages on the site they aren’t likely to like it either.
Eric Enge: I think what site owners may argue is that if someone comes in from a search engine and lands on the Chicago page, and that is the only page they see on the site, they want to make their best pitch on that page. That user is also unlikely to also go visit the site’s Austin pizza page.
Matt Cutts: It is still not a good idea to repeat a ton of content over and over again.
Eric Enge: What should they put on those pages then?
Matt Cutts: In addition to address and contact information, 2 or 3 sentences about what is unique to that location and they should be fine.
So, I would focus on the Schema markup for the location, linking it to social profiles for that store, adding images or reviews as mentioned above, and making the page look nice. Anything else that is unique to that store is decent content to add.
-
1. Add some unique customer reviews to each location page. Legitimate of course
2. type out directions on how to get to that location using your own language. Use local landmarks and whatnot.
Make sure there is a page linked from the homepage that links to all of the location pages. Like a dealer locator page.
-
Franchisees should write about why their location and staff make their store the best place to grab a sub. If you don't know the location and you don't know the staff you can't be the author.
-
Any idea on what to suggest they write about? All of the franchisees are not my clients, but nevertheless I imagine the duplicate content is pulling my clients rankings down. Also if I could get this project that means more money:)
-
Make the franchisees do this work.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Page Indexing without content
Hello. I have a problem of page indexing without content. I have website in 3 different languages and 2 of the pages are indexing just fine, but one language page (the most important one) is indexing without content. When searching using site: page comes up, but when searching unique keywords for which I should rank 100% nothing comes up. This page was indexing just fine and the problem arose couple of days ago after google update finished. Looking further, the problem is language related and every page in the given language that is newly indexed has this problem, while pages that were last crawled around one week ago are just fine. Has anyone ran into this type of problem?
Technical SEO | | AtuliSulava1 -
Umbrella company and multiple domains
I'm really sorry for asking this question yet again. I have searched through previous answers but couldn't see something exactly like this I think. There is a website called example .com. It is a sort of umbrella company for 4 other separate domains within it - 4 separate companies. The Home page of the "umbrella" company website is example.com. It is just an image with no content except navigation on it to direct to the 4 company websites. The other pages of website example.com are the 4 separate companies domains. So on the navigation bar there is : Home page = example.com company1page = company1domain.com company2page= company2domain.com etc. etc. Clicking "home" will take you back to example.com (which is just an image). How bad or good is this structure for SEO? Would you recommend any changes to help them rank better? The "home" page has no authority or links, and neither do 3 out of the 4 other domains. The 4 companies websites are independent in content (although theme is the same). What's bringing them altogether is under this umbrella website - example.com. Thank you
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Duplicate Content
We have a ton of duplicate content/title errors on our reports, many of them showing errors of: http://www.mysite.com/(page title) and http://mysite.com/(page title) Our site has been set up so that mysite.com 301 redirects to www.mysite.com (we did this a couple years ago). Is it possible that I set up my campaign the wrong way in SEOMoz? I'm thinking it must be a user error when I set up the campaign since we already have the 301 Redirect. Any advice is appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Ditigal_Taylor0 -
Should H1 tags include location?
I have an IT services company that is based out of Denver. In the past I always used Denver in the H1 tag like this "Denver IT Support & Managed Services" or "Denver Data Center Solutions" I know that H tags are not that important any more but I still want to put them on each page. My question is in a post panda world do those look too spammy? Should I not include Denver on each page. I have about 25 service pages that I was going to do this for. Each page will be different because of the service but I was going to include Denver on each page. On that same note how, I normally put never in the title for each page. Should I rethink this also? Obvisouly I want to rank on Denver and the service. Any help on this would be great. Thanks
Technical SEO | | ZiaTG0 -
Duplicate Content and URL Capitalization
I have multiple URLs that SEOMoz is reporting as duplicate content. The reason is that there are characters in the URL that may, or may not, be capitalized depending on user input. A couple examples are: www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-rent www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-rent There are currently thousands of instances of this on the site. Is this something I should spend effort to try and resolve (may not be minor effort), or should I just ignore it and move on?
Technical SEO | | Jom0 -
How would you create and then segment a large sitemap?
I have a site with around 17,000 pages and would like to create a sitemap and then segment it into product categories. Is it best to create a map and then edit it in something like xmlSpy or is there a way to silo sitemap creation from the outset?
Technical SEO | | SystemIDBarcodes0 -
How to resolve this Duplicate content?
Hi , There is page i get when i do proper menu navigation Caratlane.com>jewellery>rings>casualsrings> http://www.caratlane.com/jewellery/rings/casual-rings/leaves-dew-diamond-0-03-ct-peridot-1-ct-ring-18k-yellow-gold.html When i do a site search in my search box by my product code number "JR00219" The same page is appears with different url http://www.caratlane.com/leaves-dew-diamond-0-03-ct-peridot-1-ct-ring-18k-yellow-gold.html So there is a duplicate content. How can we resolve it. Regards, kathir caratlane.com
Technical SEO | | kathiravan0 -
Duplicate content and http and https
Within my Moz crawl report, I have a ton of duplicate content caused by identical pages due to identical pages of http and https URL's. For example: http://www.bigcompany.com/accomodations https://www.bigcompany.com/accomodations The strange thing is that 99% of these URL's are not sensitive in nature and do not require any security features. No credit card information, booking, or carts. The web developer cannot explain where these extra URL's came from or provide any further information. Advice or suggestions are welcome! How do I solve this issue? THANKS MOZZERS
Technical SEO | | hawkvt10