Second location

[keywordwizzard]

Hello Moz Community,

I have a client that is about to open up a second location. The website is optimized for his current location, should I convert his current site (Wordpress) into a Multi-Site Wordpress and convert the homepage to a directory for both locations with each location essentially having it's own website? If I go this route, I believe I'm going to drop in rankings on his current site since his location homepage url will change (example.com will change to ---> example.com/location-one) also there will have to be a lot of work as far as going through all citations and changing the url's on them.

The other way I was thinking is just leaving the site as is and still converting the wordpress site to multisite, but not creating a directory page and just creating a new site for his new location.

What do you feel is the best approach or if you guys have a better idea I would love to hear it.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Gannon!

Let's take a look together at a well optimized multi-location business like REI.com. Just one site for the brand, but great little pages for each location. See this: http://www.rei.com/stores/corte-madera.html

Look at the super effort that is being made to include unique content on this city landing page versus the many other cities in which this company has stores.

To me, this is the best possible business model for any multi-location local business. All possible benefits accrue to the overall brand rather than being split up between a bunch of different websites, while individual city landing pages benefit from the strength of the overall brand. I am not a fan of a multi-site approach for local businesses. I am much more in favor of every effort you make strengthening the overall website and brand at a single source.

A way I find helpful to think about this is:

1. Core pages like Home, About, Products, Services - optimized for the brand.

2. Locational pages like city landing pages, Contact and blog posts - optimized for brand+ location

And, yes, you'll want to build a completely new set of citations for the 2nd location, and, if you decide to create a landing page on the site for the 1st location, as you have for the 2nd, you should edit the original citations to reflect the new landing page instead of the homepage.

Will you lose rankings? It's possible that you could temporarily, but if the business is on the verge of expanding, you have to think to the future and have a strategy for properly marketing each of the locations as they are developed. Definitely look at the way REI has done this. I find them to be a great role model!

[Lumina]

I recently oversaw a website redevelopment for a company that has several locations. We stuck with one website that has pages and content targeted to each of its locations. Each location has its own page and unique, location-based content that - while not a huge draw for the pages specifically - does add to the overall ranking for those locations in search. I've seen many other big sites doing the same, so it stands to reason that this is probably the best method.

Under your "About" or analogous navigation item (assuming you have one), a "Locations" page would be a great place to start something like this. One thing to be wary of - make sure that you keep both locations in focus. Don't just create content for one over the other, as it may create imbalances and issues in rankings.

Hope that helps!