Give each location its own plain page with the address, hours and phone number in text, list those pages in ordinary links, and point each location's Google listing to its own page rather than the home page.

Addresses behind a search box

A business with several locations often lists them in a store finder: a map and a box that says enter your postal code. The addresses appear only after someone types one.

Other sites draw a map with a pin for each location, loaded by a script. Click a pin and a small bubble shows the address and hours.

Both work for a person who knows what to do. To a search engine, the page is a heading, an empty box and a map with nothing written on it.

The details of every location sit in the site's database. They are just not on any page a search engine can read.

What a search engine actually reads

Search engines read the text on a page and follow its links. They do not type postal codes into boxes or click pins to see what a bubble says.

Google has become better at running the scripts on a page over the past year or so, but a map that fetches its locations only after a visitor acts still gives it little. Other search engines read less.

So a search for the business's name and a neighbourhood finds nothing on the site about that neighbourhood, that street or those hours.

To check, type site: and your domain into Google, then add one location's street name. If nothing comes back, search engines do not have that address from your site.

Where the details hide

The first hides the most. Every location and every detail sits behind one box that only a person will ever fill in.

What a customer on a phone sees

People looking for the nearest location are often on a phone, standing somewhere, and a store finder is hard work on a small screen.

The site asks to use their location, or for a postal code they may not know, then shows pins too close together to tap accurately. A plain list, neighbourhood in bold and address beneath, answers faster.

A page for each location

The fix is a plain page for each location, reached through ordinary links from one page listing them all. Each page carries its own details as text.

That means the full address, the phone number written out so a phone can call it with a tap, the hours, and a line on getting there: parking, transit, which door.

Add what is particular to that location, such as a patio, a different menu or longer hours, and a photograph of the front so people recognise it from the street.

A map can still sit on the page, beneath the written address rather than instead of it.

Each listing pointing to its own page

Each location should have its own Google My Business listing, verified and, like every listing this year, connected to a Google+ page. Each listing has a website field.

Point that field at the location's own page, not the home page. Someone who taps through from the local pack, the map of up to seven businesses at the top of local results, then lands on the place they chose.

The address, phone number and hours on the page should match the listing exactly. A suite number on one and not the other makes it harder for search engines to be sure both describe the same place.

A worked example

A plant-based cafe with four locations, one downtown, one near a university and two on suburban shopping streets, listed them in a finder on its website.

The finder showed a regional map and a postal code box. Hours and phone numbers appeared in a bubble after a click, and every cafe's Google listing linked to the home page.

Someone searching for the cafe's name with a suburb landed on a home page that mentioned no suburb. Staff at each cafe fielded calls asking for another location's hours.

The rebuild kept the finder but added a locations page linking to a page for each cafe, with its address, hours, phone number, a photograph of the front and a line on parking.

Each Google listing now links to its own cafe's page, and the details on both match word for word.

One place to change the details

Several locations means several sets of hours that change: holidays, renovations, a location closing early on winter Sundays.

Keep each location's details in one place on the site, used by its page and by the list, so a change is made once. Update the matching listing the same day.

Hours that disagree send someone to a locked door, and they blame the business, not the listing.

Real locations only

A page for each location is not a page for every town you would like to appear in. In March, Google announced a ranking change aimed at doorway pages, near-identical pages made to rank for one place name after another.

Pages for genuine locations, each with its own address and details, are a different thing. Write each for the people who visit that location, and they will not read like copies.

The counter-case

A business with a single location needs none of this: its address and hours belong in the footer of every page and on the contact page.

With two locations, one page showing both clearly, each with its own address, hours and phone number in text, can be enough to start.

And for a business with dozens of locations, a finder is a genuine convenience, as long as plain pages sit beneath it.

For anything from a handful of locations upward, the advice holds: a page for each, details in text, and each listing pointing to its own page.

Location by location

  1. Search your site for one location's street name.
  2. List every location's address, phone and hours.
  3. Build a plain page for each location.
  4. Link them all from one locations page.
  5. Point each Google listing to its own page.
  6. Match the details on page and listing exactly.
  7. Keep the finder as an extra, if wanted.

Step five is the one that costs nothing and changes where people land. A listing that sends everyone to the home page makes the visitor repeat the search the listing had already done for them.

Deciding which listings should exist in the first place follows the same reasoning as a listing for each practitioner at a clinic.

Frequently asked questions

Why can search engines not read store finders?

They read text and follow links, but they do not type postal codes or click map pins. Details that appear only after a visitor acts stay out of their reach.

What should each location page include?

The full address, the phone number in text, the hours, directions and parking, what is particular to that location, and a photograph of the front.

Where should each Google listing link?

To that location's own page, not the home page, so someone who taps through from the local results lands on the place they were already looking at.

Do the details need to match exactly?

Yes. Small differences between page and listing, such as a suite number on one only, make it harder for search engines to be sure both describe one place.

Are location pages the same as doorway pages?

No. Doorway pages are near-identical pages made to rank for one town name after another. A page for a genuine location, with its own details, is something else.

Should I remove the store finder?

Not necessarily. For a business with many locations it is a useful extra, as long as plain location pages with text details sit beneath it and are linked normally.

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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