Hi KH,

What are your analytics telling you? Which site or sites are performing well? Were there overriding reasons to take that direction a few years ago and now the business has changed? Are most of your customers local? Is proximity important to them?

Logically I would expect results to be not as good as they could be if your efforts were consolidated into a single domain with dedicated local pages but am curious to hear answers to those questions first.

Have you done a side-by-side comparison of your page to the competition? It could be that on-page isn't that is preventing you from achieving a higher ranking. It could be you don't have enough links, enough powerful links, or links with topical anchor text. It could be (as you mention) speed. If you're trying to rank locally, it could be proximity to the searcher. Or it could be your content doesn't incent engagement. It could be the page hasn't been indexed yet. There are so many possibilities.

Hi Kimberley,

1- Should we create multiple location pages for the same franchise owner?

You're right, the answer is "yes" but the objective of creating a single page per location is not so your franchisee shows up in local search results (on Google Maps), but so they show up in organic search results.

Can they just use a friend's/relative's address?

You need a unique mailing address for each location you want to show up in maps. A place where someone will answer the phone during business hours with a typical business greeting like "XYZ Business. How can I help you." I don't recommend using friends/relatives addresses for lots of reasons including the fact that friends and relatives move and you'd still have to incur the cost of getting a unique phone number and optimizing a business listing for each location.

2. It seems like a lot less work just building one landing page for each location, but is the payoff the same?

More is better. Google favors fresh, active, and growing websites. Many businesses build a one-page-fits-all solution due to budget constraints. That can work in niche / non-competitive markets, but rarely does otherwise. You should assess your budget, resources, and competition and then decide on an approach.

I like Patrick's answer and agree that you need enough words to be able to orient visitors and search engines. While there is no best practice minimum, I personally aim for at least 100 words.