Every branch should win its own neighbourhood.
When someone searches for a clinic, gym or showroom near them, Google chooses from the locations that are closest and most relevant to that searcher. A business with five branches is really competing in five separate local searches, and a single generic contact page gives Google almost nothing to work with for any of them.
Multi-location SEO gives each branch its own signals: a verified profile, a page with real local detail, the same name, address and phone details everywhere they appear, and reviews that belong to that branch. Then it measures each one separately, because an average across locations hides the branch that needs help.
Six things every location needs to rank.
One Profile per Location
A Google Business Profile for every real, staffed location, with categories, hours, services and photos specific to that branch.
Unique Location Pages
A page per branch with its own team, services, opening hours, directions and FAQs, not the same text with a new town name.
Store & Branch Locator
A crawlable locator that links to every location page, so customers and search engines can reach each branch in a click or two.
Local Schema per Location
Structured data on each location page with its own address, phone number, opening hours and coordinates, linked to the parent brand.
Reviews per Branch
A simple routine for asking customers to review the branch they actually visited, and for replying to every review, good or bad.
Reporting by Location
Calls, direction requests, website clicks and enquiries reported for each branch, so you can see where search is helping and where it isn't.
Central Control, Local Detail
One naming convention, one set of core categories and one owner account across every profile, with branch managers able to add photos and updates without breaking consistency.
Location pages Google wants, not doorway pages.
Google's spam policies describe doorways as pages created to rank for similar searches, such as near-identical pages for different towns, that lead visitors to essentially the same place. A good location page avoids that by describing a real branch a customer can actually visit.
| Doorway page | Genuine location page | |
|---|---|---|
| A real place behind it | None, or a virtual address | A staffed branch customers can visit |
| Content | The same text with the town name swapped | Team, services, hours and photos for that branch |
| Directions and transport | Missing | Nearest stations, parking and a map |
| Reviews and FAQs | Generic, or none at all | From that branch's own customers |
| Where it leads | Everyone funnelled to one contact form | Booking or contact for that specific branch |
If you serve areas where you have no branch, one well-written service-area page is usually better than a thin page for every town. I'll tell you honestly which approach fits your business.
Consistent first, then competitive.
Location Audit
A list of every branch with its profile status, address format, phone number, categories and current local visibility.
Profile Clean-Up
Duplicate profiles resolved, ownership brought under one account, and every location verified with matching details.
Location Pages
A content brief per branch, filled in with local managers, so each page carries detail only that branch can give.
Schema & Locator
Location schema and a store locator added, or checked if you already have them, with every branch page linked from the locator.
Reviews & Citations
Review requests built into each branch's routine, and the main directory listings checked so every branch's details match.
Branch Reporting
Every location side by side each month, with specific actions for the branches that are falling behind.
What counts as a location for Google Business Profile
Google's guidelines say a profile is for a business that makes in-person contact with customers during its stated hours, either at the address or by travelling to them. Virtual offices, unstaffed addresses and remote mailboxes generally aren't eligible. The guidelines change from time to time, so check the current version before adding a new location. During the location audit I flag any profile that looks at risk of suspension, so it can be fixed before it becomes a problem.
Many sites, one way of measuring them.
At Philip Morris International I led a standardised KPI framework so ecommerce performance across 50+ markets could be compared like for like. At CPP Group I implemented Google Analytics across seven markets with one centralised view. Multi-location reporting applies the same principle to your branches: every location measured the same way, on one page.
Read the CPP Group case studyMulti-location SEO in London and across the UK.
Businesses with several sites face a search problem single-site competitors don't. A group of clinics across three boroughs, a chain of gyms, a firm with regional offices or a retailer with a handful of shops all need each location to rank in its own neighbourhood, while the brand stays consistent everywhere. In London, where one borough can hold dozens of competitors for the same service, that local detail decides who appears in the map results.
The foundations are the same as local SEO in London, repeated carefully for every branch. Google Business Profile optimisation usually matters most, because the map results are built from those profiles. Location pages come next: each one should answer the questions a customer has about that particular branch, from parking to which services are offered there.
The website has to support it. A crawlable store locator, clean internal links and location schema are all part of technical SEO, and if your current site can't hold proper location pages, a new website may be the quicker fix. Reporting then ties it together through GA4 and profile insights, split by branch, so decisions about each location are based on its own numbers.
I work remotely with multi-site businesses across London and the UK, alongside head office and branch managers. Opening a new site soon? It is far easier to set a location up properly at launch than to untangle duplicate profiles later. Tell me how many locations you have and where they are, and I'll suggest the most sensible place to start.
Common questions.
Profiles, location pages, reviews and reporting across branches.
Multi-location SEO is local SEO for a business with more than one branch, clinic or site. Each location gets its own Google Business Profile, its own useful page on the website, consistent contact details and its own reviews, so every branch can appear in searches near it instead of relying on head office to rank everywhere.
Yes, if the branch is a real location where staff meet customers during stated hours. Each one should have its own verified profile with its own address, phone number, hours and photos. Don't create profiles for virtual offices or addresses you don't staff; Google's guidelines don't allow them and they risk suspension.
Write each page about a real place. Include the branch's address, hours, team, the services actually offered there, directions, parking, photos and reviews from its customers. If the only difference between two pages is the town name, they look like doorway pages. Where you have no branch, one strong service-area page usually works better.
Usually not. One website with a page for each location is easier to maintain, shares authority across every branch and keeps the brand consistent. Separate websites split your effort and often end up thin and out of date. The main exception is a franchise where each owner genuinely runs an independent business.
Ask at the right moment and make it easy. Give each branch its own review link or QR code, build the request into the end of an appointment or purchase, and reply to every review. Never offer incentives or buy reviews; Google's policies prohibit both, and fake reviews can be removed or penalised.
Track each branch separately. Google Business Profile shows calls, direction requests and website clicks per location, and adding UTM tags to each profile's website link lets GA4 attribute visits and enquiries to the right branch. I bring both into one monthly report so you can compare locations side by side.
