Businesses with multiple locations have to market themselves on two different levels: the main website and the local ones that flow from it. Target audiences will want to see both before making buying decisions, and the content must be highly relevant and optimized.
Strategic SEO is essential for your primary and local websites, as is a consistent, familiar brand and style across all sites and platforms. The local ones need to be optimized for distinct markets; otherwise, a potential customer googling something like "ABC Hotels Trenton" can miss that area location if you only optimize for "ABC Hotels."
Challenges of Multi-Location SEO Optimization
Search Engine Land shares information about a study of 154 multi-location brands undertaken by Forrester Consulting. 61% of the respondents reported that local digital marketing is an untapped opportunity for them, and 77% stated it is "very challenging" to execute local digital marketing strategies across their stores. Though all those surveyed had done local digital marketing, their efforts were admittedly inadequate or incomplete.
According to the respondents, there was a lack of internal coordination amongst their teams and not enough available resources for scaling the marketing programs locally across large numbers of locations. 31% claimed that they did not have locally targeted paid social media strategies, and many could not respond quickly to customer complaints and engagement at local store levels. Other concerns included a lack of interaction between external agencies and in-house marketers and a lack of distinct software solutions to meet multi-location needs.
Local SEO and Local Content
As a multi-location business, general and local SEO are essential for your success. WebFX explains the difference between general SEO and local SEO: the objective of traditional SEO is to improve website visibility on national and global scales, and local SEO helps you capture local searches in your territories. Both use similar strategies in many respects, but local SEO specializes in connecting with people looking to purchase in chosen areas.
More than 90% of online experiences begin with search engines. Ensuring that your company appears toward the top of search result pages (SERP) is crucial because people usually click on the first few results and pay little attention to the rest. Search Engine Journal reports that the #1 organic search result has an average 28.5% click-through rate (CTR), #2 has a 15.7% CTR, and #3 falls to 11%. By the time it gets to the 10th result, the CTR is only 2.5%.
Wordsmyth Creative Content Marketing works with multi-location partners to optimize national, global and local SEO practices. We typically produce a local SEO audit, identifying potential issues and ensuring that our clients' websites position them for success. From there, we conduct SEO keyword research and copywriting to ensure each web page integrates the appropriate, geo-targeted search terms. We conduct due diligence throughout our collaborative efforts, so keyword research remains relevant and impactful.
Creating Better User Experiences
Businesses with multi-location and multi-product structures can have product pages that vary in different locations and by product, and each will need SEO research. Galileo Tech Media writes that these pages have to be on point with terminology that draws in consumers and provides the experiences they want. Brand consistency is essential, but you can emphasize certain products and features in different locations.
For example, if your clothing company sells parkas and bathing suits, you might want to feature the parkas during the winter months in your colder market regions. This localization is based on target demographics used in keyword research. Content can be tweaked in different ways, too. We can maneuver your site's content and product hubs (these are topics that potential consumers search for) to ensure that everything flows to promote seamless customer experiences.
Wordsmyth Creative Content Writing partners with multi-location clients to provide content marketing and geo-targeted SEO strategies to build up businesses. We rely on our talented staff, technical expertise, local SEO best practices knowledge, and highly personalized, exceptional customer service to help multi-location companies drive web traffic and increase conversion across their markets. Wordsmyth is proactive, interactive, and ready to help your business reach the top of those SERP pages. Contact us today so we can help you boost your SEO rating.