Where locations differ in hours, season or services, give each a location page connected to one main page. Where they are alike and close together, one page listing both addresses is easier to keep active.

One page, two addresses

A business opens a second location and keeps its Facebook page as it was. The page has one address, one map pin and one set of hours.

Customers of the new location look up hours and leave reviews on a page describing the first one. Some drive to the wrong door.

Others check in at the new address anyway, adding the place themselves when no page exists, and Facebook turns it into a page. Nobody at the business runs it.

Facebook can connect location pages to a main page, which solves part of this and adds work of its own. The right choice depends on how different the locations are.

Four ways it can be set up

The third is the arrangement Facebook built for this. The main page carries the brand, the posts and a list of locations, while each location page holds its own address, hours, phone number, check-ins and reviews.

What a location page keeps right

Someone standing outside your second location who searches Facebook, or checks in, should find that location: its door, its hours, its phone number.

A location page gives them that: the right map pin, its own hours, and check-ins and reviews about the place the customer actually visited.

Reviews matter here. A complaint about a slow Saturday at one branch belongs on that branch's page, not on the rating of a location that had nothing to do with it.

What one page does better

One page is far easier to keep active: the posts, the followers and the comments all sit in one place, and one person can run it in minutes a day.

Every extra page needs posts, answers to messages and current hours. A location page with nothing new since spring looks closed, which is worse than no separate page at all.

Unconnected separate pages are the weakest choice. Followers split, the same posts go out twice, and customers cannot tell which page is the real business.

Choosing by how different the locations are

Ask what a customer needs to know before visiting each place. If the answer is the same everywhere, one page will do.

Two shops a few blocks apart, with the same hours, staff and stock, can share a page. Give both addresses and phone numbers in the About section, and say which location any post is about.

Different hours, different seasons, different services or a long drive between them point the other way. So do regulars who think of their own branch first and the brand second.

In between, start with one page and add location pages once customers start asking about the second site separately.

Pages Facebook made without you

When someone checks in at a place with no page, they can add the place themselves, and Facebook turns it into an unofficial page. It appears in searches and gathers check-ins and reviews, with no owner.

Search Facebook for your business name and for each address. An unofficial page offers a way to claim it, usually by confirming the business by phone or with a document.

Once it is yours, merge it into the matching location page, so its likes and check-ins join the official page instead of competing with it.

A worked example

A surf school teaches from a shop in a surf town, open all year, and from a summer base in the parking lot of a second beach forty minutes down the coast, open June to September.

For years it ran one Facebook page with the shop's address and year-round hours. In summer, students booked at the beach base drove to the shop instead, and some missed the start of their lesson.

Check-ins at the second beach had created an unofficial page for the base, with no hours and a one-star review from someone who arrived in October to find nobody there.

The existing page became the main page, keeping its followers and posts. The shop and the beach base each got a location page beneath it, and the claimed unofficial page was merged into the base's.

The base's page now shows its own address and season, and says plainly that it is closed outside it. Surf reports and offers still go out from the main page, where the followers are.

Linking each page to its website page

Each location page has a website field. Point it at that location's own page on your site, not the home page, so the visitor lands on the place they were already reading about.

That page on the site should give the same address, hours and phone number, written the same way, and link back to the location's Facebook page.

The same details belong in each location's Google My Business listing, so the website, the listing and the Facebook page tell one story.

Names, pictures and who posts

Name location pages consistently, with the business name followed by the place, so customers can see at a glance that they belong together.

Use the same profile picture on every page, usually the logo's symbol, and let each cover photo show the location itself.

Give someone at each location the editor role on its page, so hours and local news come from people on the spot, and keep the admin role yourself.

The counter-case

A second site that customers never visit, such as a workshop or a warehouse, needs no page of its own. Neither does a counter inside another business.

A business without anyone to post for each location is better served by one active page than by three quiet ones. Location pages can come later.

But where locations keep different hours, seasons or services, connected location pages keep each address and its check-ins right, while the main page keeps the following together.

Before the holiday hours change

Christmas falls on Friday, so every location's hours will change at least once in the next two weeks.

  1. List every location customers actually visit.
  2. Search Facebook for pages made from check-ins.
  3. Choose one page or connected location pages.
  4. Give each location page its own address and hours.
  5. Point each page to its own page on the website.
  6. Name one person to keep each page current.
  7. Post holiday hours on every page this week.

Step five ties the rest together. A location page that sends people to the home page makes them search a second time for an address they had already found.

Why each location needs a plain page of its own on the website is covered in a store locator that search engines cannot read.

Frequently asked questions

Should each location have its own Facebook page?

Where locations differ in hours, season or services, yes, connected to one main page. Where they are alike and close together, one page listing both addresses is easier to keep active.

What does a location page hold?

Its own address, map pin, hours, phone number, check-ins and reviews, so customers find the place they are visiting rather than the details of another branch.

Why not run separate unconnected pages?

Followers split between them, the same posts go out twice, and customers cannot tell which page is the real business. Connected location pages avoid most of that.

What are unofficial pages made from check-ins?

Pages Facebook creates when someone checks in and adds a place that has no page. They gather check-ins and reviews without an owner. Claim them and merge them into the right page.

Where should a location page link?

To that location's own page on your website, giving the same address, hours and phone number, rather than to the home page.

When is one page enough?

When customers never visit the second site, or the locations share hours, staff and services. One active page serves better than several quiet ones.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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