Local SEO best practices for multiple locations

[BedeFahey]

When dealing with local search for a business with multiple locations, I've always created an individual page for each location.

Aside from the address and business name being in there, I also like to make sure the title tag and other important markup features the state/city/suburb, or, in the case of hyper-local, hyper-competitive markets, information more specific than that. It's worked very well so far.

But, the one thing you can always count on with Local is that the game keeps changing.

So I'd like to hear what you think... How do you deal with multiple locations these days?

Has Google (and others, of course) advanced far enough to not mess things up if you put multiple locations on the same page? (Do I hear snickers? Be nice now)

How does Schema.org fit in to your tactics in this area, if at all?

Cheers

(Edit: dear SEOmoz, stop eating my line breaks)

[MiriamEllis]

Greetings, Bede,

So sorry about the line breaks. We've been having a little problem with that, and I hope my response to you isn't one big paragraph

The process you have been using for your Local clients remains a best practice, in my experience. Not only does this separate the information out as best you can for bots, but it is a good practice for human users who will be signaled upon reach such a landing page that they are looking at information about their own geographic location. You are so right that things keep changing in Local, but this is one area in which creating unique, rich content landing pages is still a smart choice.

In regards to Schema vs., for instance, hCard, the benefit is that Google, Yahoo & Bing have all agreed on this markup as standard. However, definitely read this 2011 discussion at Mike Blumenthal's blog in which Mike opines that rushing to switch from hCard to Schema may not be your #1 top priority:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/10/07/a-free-tool-to-build-geo-sitemap-and-schema-org-compliant-files/

Through 2011, I continued to use hCard on my Local clients sites without issue, but it is certainly smart to acquaint yourself with the features of Schema that apply to Local. The tool linked to from that post is a great place to begin.

Hope my feedback is useful!

Miriam