Google My Business URL Choice

[JohnWeb12]

Hi guys, we have a national chain hardware store hardware store as a client.  We built them a new website, and now they want us to do local SEO to help them rank better.  We are debating for GMB whether to promote our new website URL or use the location page on the national hardware site.  Most similar stores seem to promote the location page on the national site, but the client just spent money on having us build them a new website.  What gives our client the best chance of ranking better?

[MiriamEllis]

Good topic, and I believe what John is describing is a franchise in which there is a national website for the brand, but that individual locations of that franchise are owned by individual owners. Is that right, John?

If so, the problem with franchises is that they frequently don't give location owners much or any control over what is on their landing page of the corporate site, so in some cases, the franchise owner might want his own website so that he can work toward building the brand locally more than the franchise is going to do on his behalf. Is this the right decision? It really depends. Honestly, if it's something like a pizza franchise where menus, sales and everything else is the same across the board, I don't see a compelling reason to operate a unique local website. But, if there is a high degree of differentiation between what's being sold or done at different locations, and the business owner doesn't have any control over what appears on the corporate site, then there could be a case for the separate site. How is it with the hardware store? Is everything the same in its Chicago location as in its Denver location, or is something really different happening at the two locations .... different products, different specials, different classes, something else? That's what needs to be determined.

[danwebman]

We have a location finder which drills down into a page per location which then has cross links to the products lines which that location provide.

The page title for each location is something like<name of="" company=""><city town=""><geographical area=""></geographical></city></name>

<main service="" product="">if not too long!

If in your database you could have a description section for a unique piece of content per branch better still, perhaps location information or specialties for the location.

I would however echo the message about one website for the company and only split off into a second site for specialist products or brands. Even then I would use one website if I could get away with it as content is king and lots of good content will get noticed more.

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[RyanScollon]

Sorry if I am not understanding correctly, but are you saying that you have built a separate website for one store even though it has a location page on the national website? Is there any specific reason to having a separate website? Usually I would advise against having a separate website for just one store as your issue is the most common reason why.

I assume the national website will have much more authority so there are a few things you could do here. My first bit of advice would be to keep it consistent. If they want to rank in local, your best bet is to update all citations to use the new micro site. I would also use the link of the micro site on the GMB page. I would also advise you get a link on the national site to the micro site and use the national site more as a citation. I hope this makes sense.

[ChrisAshton]

This really comes down to a question of page and domain strength. Just like regular organic results, their placement in the local pack is going to depend on a number of relevancy/geo signals in conjunction with the usual trust factors.

If the new website is going to have a full campaign attached to it and specifically targeting that store's location then I'd suggest using this one. If the national site is going to be the stronger one, perhaps the SEO time is better spent focussing on that site rather than splitting it across two.