How to create unique content for businesses with multiple locations?

[RonMedlin]

I have a client that owns one franchise location of a franchise company with multiple locations.  They have one large site with each location owning it's own page on the site, which I feel is the best route.  The problem is that each location page has basically duplicate content on each page resulting in like 80 pages of duplicate content.

I'm looking for advice on how to create unique content for each location page?  What types of information can we write about to make each page unique, because you can only twist sentences and content around so much before it just all sounds cookie cutter and therefore offering little value.

[EGOL]

Make the franchisees do this work.

[RonMedlin]

Any idea on what to suggest they write about?  All of the franchisees are not my clients, but nevertheless I imagine the duplicate content is pulling my clients rankings down.  Also if I could get this project that means more money:)

[EGOL]

Franchisees should write about why their location and staff make their store the best place to grab a sub.  If you don't know the location and you don't know the staff you can't be the author.

[EvolveCreative]

1. Add some unique customer reviews to each location page. Legitimate of course

2. type out directions on how to get to that location using your own language. Use local landmarks and whatnot.

Make sure there is a page linked from the homepage that links to all of the location pages. Like a dealer locator page.

[KaneJamison]

As David mentioned, directions are good because they're rarely the same.

In addition:

1. Photos of the storefront, the inside of the store, and perhaps the kitchen or something like that.
2. Name of store manager if they're comfortable with that.
3. Schema.org markup of Address and phone number of course.
4. Reviews/testimonials for that store location, even if they're pulled off of Yelp.
5. Links to Yelp, Google Places, Foursquare, etc. for that store location.

There's a recent July 2012 statement by Matt Cutts suggesting that a couple sentences is plenty of unique content in a situation like this. Excerpt:

Eric Enge: Let’s switch gears a bit. Let’s talk about a pizza business with stores in 60 cities. When they build their site, they create pages for each city.

Matt Cutts: Where people get into trouble here is that they fill these pages with the exact same content on each page. “Our handcrafted pizza is lovingly made with the same methods we have been using for more than 50 years …”, and they’ll repeat the same information for 6 or 7 paragraphs, and it’s not necessary. That information would be great on a top-level page somewhere on the site, but repeating it on all those pages does not look good. If users see this on multiple pages on the site they aren’t likely to like it either.

Eric Enge: I think what site owners may argue is that if someone comes in from a search engine and lands on the Chicago page, and that is the only page they see on the site, they want to make their best pitch on that page. That user is also unlikely to also go visit the site’s Austin pizza page.

Matt Cutts: It is still not a good idea to repeat a ton of content over and over again.

Eric Enge: What should they put on those pages then?

Matt Cutts: In addition to address and contact information, 2 or 3 sentences about what is unique to that location and they should be fine.

So, I would focus on the Schema markup for the location, linking it to social profiles for that store, adding images or reviews as mentioned above, and making the page look nice. Anything else that is unique to that store is decent content to add.

[DougRoberts]

What about associations with other local businesses, any sponsorships and events? Are there any local events that the business gets involved in or are related to the business?

Is there anything specific/unique about the different customers at different locations? How can you tune the content to target/engage this particular demographic.

Are their any landmarks or well known places you can talk about (while you visiting x why not pop in for a y...)

And as EGOL said, I definitely agree that you need to get the people who know the area and know their customers to provide (and maintain) the content. Can you do this in a way that raised their profile, boosts their ego and motivates them rather than just lumbering them with something else to do?

It's a great opportunity to promote their business to their customers...