How should I structure a site with multiple addresses to optimize for local search??

[LMDNYC]

Here's the setup: We have a website, www.laptopmd.com, and we're ranking quite well in our geographic target area. The site is chock-full of local keywords, has the address properly marked up, html5 and schema.org compliant, near the top of the page, etc. It's all working quite well, but we're looking to expand to two more locations, and we're terrified that adding more addresses and playing with our current set-up will wreak havoc with our local search results, which we quite frankly currently rock.

My question is

1)when it comes time to doing sub-pages for the new locations, should we strip the location information from the main site and put up local pages for each location in subfolders?

1a) should we use subdomains instead of subfolders to keep Google from becoming confused?

2. Should we consider simply starting identically branded pages for the individual locations and hope that exact-match location-based urls will make up for the hit for duplicate content and will overcome the difficulty of building a brand from multiple pages?

I've tried to look for examples of businesses that have tried to do what we're doing, but all the advice has been about organic search, which i already have the answer to. I haven't been able to really find a good example of a small business with multiple locations AND good rankings for each location. Should this serve as a warning to me?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Arthur,

I'm glad my response was helpful and - ouch - I hear you on the merging headache! Don't forget, help has improved in the Google Places Help Forum, which is actually moving to a new location. In case you don't have the new link, here it is:

http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!forum/maps

You may already have tried this, but if you haven't, the Top Contributors there or even Vanessa Schneider of Google might be able to manually help you with troubleshooting the merging issue. Note - I say 'might' because merging issues are really hard to remedy and you can get them fixed only to have them come back again.

Here's some good news. There is a chance that with the recent Venice update in Local, your organic rankings may be becoming even more powerful. You might like to read this:

http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-venice-update-local-seo.html

I sincerely wish you luck with disentangling merges. I do Local SEO, but I confess, I don't take on merges because they are such a pain in the neck. If you get into a position where you need help, you may be able to hire a Local SEO who specializes in dupes and merging. Just a thought.

Cheers!

Miriam

[LMDNYC]

Thanks, Miriam, for an excellent and thorough response.

Regarding some of the points you brought up:

1. We are planning to have the central location remain the flagship store, at least for now, so you're right, it does make sense to keep the focus as is right now, although we're busy tinkering away at a dynamic solution that pulls the address closest to the searcher.

2. One of the new locations is not in state, but is in the same metropolitan area, while the other one is half a country away.

3. Our biggest concern, and the source of our paranoia, is the fact that we have had a massive headache with Google Places for the last year and a half. We initially launched our first expanded location late 2010, and the minute we put the address on our main page, the two listings merged in google places. Since then, we've had nothing but problems with local. Our listing has merged with multiple other listings, has disappeared entirely and come back, etc. In fact, the reason you didn't find it locally is that we're currently trying to disentangle two profiles, one of them being correct and the other created automatically by google with an amalgam of our info and that of other businesses in the area.

Our fear is that if we add multiple addresses and location information to the website, our places issue will magnify a thousand-fold, and in a walk-in business like ours, a single local result is worth 10 first place organic rankings.

Thanks again, and I hope this clarifies our gripping terror somewhat.

[MiriamEllis]

Hello Arthur,

Thank you for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum and will do my best to give you my thoughts on this.BTW, nice website!

I want to clarify with you your statement: "but all the advice has been about organic search". You are clearly very conversant with Local, so I'm just making sure we're talking about the same thing, namely, the blended local/organic results. I did a quick search for 'laptop repair ny' and see you at #1 in organic, though not in the A-G blended results below. I'm searching from California. I switched my location to NY and saw basically the same thing - you are #1 organically for what I'm assuming is one of your key terms, but not appearing in the pinned results below. So, are we talking about your organic rank or your local/blended rank here? Perhaps you can provide a little more information on that.

That aside, let's get to your questions, some of which I'll have answer with more questions :)!

1. Are the two new locations going to be equal in importance to your original office? Or, is your original office going to remain as headquarters for the business.

If the first, I can see why you would consider taking location info off the homepage, etc., because you are then dealing with 3 different geographic terms and may not be able to get equal 'bang for your buck' if you try to optimize for all of them on each main page. That being said...I would be loath to make this decision, because you have achieved a level of organic dominance for your main location. (As an aside...are all 3 locations in NYC or are you branching out into other parts of the state?)

If the second scenario, the choice becomes much easier. If the original office is your headquarters, then I would leave things as they are, build onto the site with new content for the new locations and also make a few mentions of your other locations on the main site pages. You would be doing this with the intent to keep the main thrust of your site's overall SEO focused on that original location, while building out new stuff as your two new locations grow.

Even if your business model dictates that all 3 businesses are of equal importance, I think I would still be inclined to go with this plan. I would hate to see you lose what you've gained. And, as you are dealing with just 3 total locations (not 20 or 100) I think you can effectively optimize the site for all three without taking away what you have already established for office #1.

1a. This question is one I've seen asked and argued over frequently. People take different sides. Matt Cutts basically said years ago that Google doesn't see much difference between subdomains and subfolders. See http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/

I really don't think the situation has changed since then. In my opinion, subfolders offer greater ease of use for the site owner/web master. So long as your code is crawlable, I honestly don't think Google cares what you do in this regard and I wouldn't worry about confusing the bots. I would personally go with subfolders if given a choice between the two...but again, this seems to be a personal preference thing rather than a genuine SEO issue. ***A confession: I've gotten local landing pages to rank just fine putting them all on the root directory, so really, don't sweat it!

2. Do not, not, not make the content on your city landing pages duplicate. Yes, this is something to sweat! Devote the funding/energy/time to writing excellent unique copy for each landing page. If no one in the organization can do this, hire a copywriter with a strong knowledge of Local. Pay handsomely for this service if you have to, because it is your best bet for getting Google to see the pages as relevant, useful and distinct. To read more about this, checkout Eric Enge's interview of Carter Maslan:

http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-carter-maslan-032710.shtml

Specifically, read this part:

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Eric Enge: Let’s say you have more than one location, 100 for example. In your view, is it helpful to have individual pages on the website for all of the locations? Also, is it helpful to have the Google local business center linked to each of those individual pages rather than having 100 locations that point to a single web address?

Carter Maslan: I can tell you what I think the ideal end state is, and there are various levels of getting there. Ultimately, we would like to have the store-specific page known so that people can just click through and see today's specials and any kind of adjustments for that particular day. We would love to have all of that information on a direct click to the most specific page for that location.

That’s what we encourage, but there are still a lot of chains and things that just link to their top-level domain. I guess it's a split answer. We want to get to a store specific page, but we are not uniformly there across all of the businesses.

Eric Enge: Could that potentially be encouraged by making it a ranking factor, for example?

Carter Maslan: Yes. I guess there are two sides to it. If you create a store-specific page that really just has an address, it wouldn't be as helpful as having some genuinely good content on the page that the user would really appreciate having as the first click-through experience. That’s what I think we need to work through.

We don't want to arbitrarily tell people that they must create a store-specific page, because we are really just trying to find the most useful page for that business. That’s why I am not so definitive on the store-specific page or not. I really just want what’s best for the retailer, store or businesses, first and foremost giving the user what he would want to see when he clicks on that business.

Eric Enge: Say you have a store-specific page that lists specific and individual things about just one store location. Depending on the kind of business that could be an inventory list that shows you've got extra stock?

Carter Maslan: There is a chain of stores that carries yoga equipment that my wife really likes. They have special yoga instruction, carry special brands, and host lectures on some special days. There are all kinds of things that the retailer does that relate to that specific store location, and there is also a general corporate catalogue page. So this is not black and white, and even though we want to encourage it, it's not that there is a definitive guidance saying companies need to have that page.

Eric Enge: Obviously it’s good if there is a quality page with information unique and specific to each location.

Carter Maslan: Yes, that's great. If we know that there’s good information about that page, then that helps on search and the snippets that we can show on the search results, because we know that the page is referencing that place. It does help even if it ends up not being the page that you list as your primary homepage. If there is good content that we know is content about that place, then it helps us do a better job with query results.

If a company has a page that's store-specific and talks about its class schedule, and there is one that says its holding Tai Chi class tonight and someone is searching for places to do Tai Chi, then that helps us to score it. If a lot of people have found that page helpful about the Tai Chi class, then when people search for Tai Chi we would know that that location has something to do with Tai Chi.

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Hopefully, Arthur, these tips will get you off to a good start. Congratulations on the expansion of your business. That's really exciting, and don't skip my advice in question #2. This, plus correctly claiming your local business profiles for the news locations, is going to be totally critical to your success.

Good luck!
Miriam