Google+ Page for a company that has 5 stores located in different cities?

[YESdesign]

Hello there,

which is in your opinion the best practice to setup a Google+ Page for a company that has 5 stores located in different cities?

(That company is not already listed in Google Maps!)

Many Thanks

YESdesign team

[littlesthobo]

It depends on what you are wanting to achieve with it.  I you were looking to rank in local search I would definitely be setting up a page per store, with the location in the title, such as 'Store Name' + 'Location'.

If people are searching for specific products in one of these towns you could optimise each google place/page.

If it was more about online and national/international brand awareness then I'd have just the one page and give it all the focus.

[YESdesign]

Thank you Jo, given that the brand is local, what would you do if the 4 shops are within 100Km?

[littlesthobo]

I think that would be fine to set up.  As long as you have four distinct adresses for each shop I would have a place for each.

Just using the example of Clinton Cards in the UK, a high street chain of Greeting card shops.  They have dozens of shops throughout the UK in probably every town.  I just did a search for

Halifax Card Shops

Bradford Card shops

For both of these, two totally separate google place listings exist for Clinton cards, as local businesses.  They are maybe 15km apart.

[YESdesign]

Thank you for your example and for your help Jo, I appreciate that. I still have 3 problems to figure out:

1. I need to update 4 different Google+ Pages with the same offers, which is the best practice?

2. If a user "circles" one page this means that is not "circling" the other 3, does exist a way to avoid the 2) issue?

3. In order to avoid the 1) and 2) issue, does it make sense to create 1 Google+ Page and 4 different "Google Places for Business"?

Many Thanks again.

[GregoryTK]

Hi,

I agree with Jo, best to set up different web pages and Google+ Local pages.

I did something similar for http://www.jhbathrooms.com/showrooms where each showroom has a dedicated webpage and its dedicated Google+ Local page.

And I use Whitespark's Local Rank Tracker to keep an eye on the rankings for the individual showrooms and locations, based on keyword AND location.

[YESdesign]

Thank you Gregory. But I still have these 3 problems to figure out:

1. I need to update 4 different Google+ Pages with the same offers, which is the best practice? Does exist?

2. If a user "circles" one page this means that is not "circling" the other 3, does exist a way to avoid the 2) issue? How would you deal with this issue?

3. And, in your opinion Gregory does it make sense to create 1 Google+ Page and 4 different "Google Places for Business"? Have you ever tried this solution?

Thanks

[littlesthobo]

Hello

The answers to those 3 problems come bac to the strategic decision on whether to have one page and build as a brand, or to have 4 pages and build as a local brand.

1.  If you have four pages you will need to update all four..I think there are ways of automating, but none of the automated G+ content I've seen looks any good - I think I've only seen people able to send their tweets (and they look as wrong there as they do on facebook).  Bufferapp is working on adding G+, but in the meantime, if you are looking to build locally, I would keep the four pages and update them all manually, individually and tailored to your local audience.

2. If you have a user circling one, you would hope or expect that it's because they are attracted to the local page and they are circling as it is locally relevant and interesting to them.  e..g if they live in halifax and circle halifax, then thats fine.  The bradford page should be of no great importance to them.

3.  Google places for business technically doesn't exist anymore.  They were replaced by Google+ Local pages.

[GregoryTK]

Hmmm, good questions... not sure I have any relevant answers unfortunately?

I am just slightly confused about the difference you make between your Google+ Local page and Google Places for Business... You can still use the Google Places for Business admin pages to manage your Google+ Local content, but the actual Places pages have been transitioned into Google+ Local pages.

[YESdesign]

Thank you so much for your answers Jo! Have a great day!

[YESdesign]

Ok thank you Gregory, I'll try Google+ Local pages! Have a good day!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi YesDesign,

Good discussion going on here, to which I will add the explanation that right now, multi-location business models like yours cannot merge their multiple Google+ Local pages into a single Google+Local/Google+ Business page for overall management. That is only for single location brick and mortar stores. Google has promised that this will be possible at some point, but it isn't right now. And, merged listings continue to have all kinds of problems even when they do meet the requirements for merging.

Provided that each of your physical locations has a unique local phone number, if you were my client, I would be setting up a unique Google+ Local page via the old Google Places dashboard for each store location. *Do not put the location of the store in the business title fields of the Google+ Local page. Just use your legal store name or DBA and depend upon the info you put in the address fields to 'localize' the page.

And, as others have suggested here, it's a best practice to set up a city landing page  on your webste for each of your unique locations. Make these pages totally awesome, totally unique...no thin or duplicate content.

With these city landing pages in place, you can then link to them from the website field on the Google+ Local page for each respective location.

For more on the topic of city landing pages, see:

The Nitty Gritty of City Landing Pages

http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1403

I wrote that piece to cover some of the nuances of this common Local SEO best practice and a lot of people have written to let me know it helped them, so I think it may be helpful to you, too!

Hope this helps!

[YESdesign]

Howdy Miriam, thank you for your advices too!

I will set up a unique "Google+ Local Page" via the old "Google Places for business dashboard" for each store location.

Given that I only have a few photos for the 5 different showroom, besides changing title tags, meta description, images alt tag (a couple for each showroom) and "google maps", what else do you suggest me to change to differentiate them and avoid duplicate content?

Any idea also from Jo and Gregory will be appreciated!

Thank you in advance guys,

YESdesign team

[MiriamEllis]

Hi YesDesign Team,

Did you visit the link I included in my earlier reply? I make quite a few suggestions for the diversification of city landing pages in that article that I think will really help you! Hope so!

[SEOBirmingham81]

Hi Guys,

I have a similar issue - I have recently taken on a client with several different stores across the country, each with unique phone numbers, addresses and pages on the site etc, so I fully intend to create individual Google+ pages for each of them as there is currently just one overriding Google+ page for the business itself.

I have access to the Google Places for business account which contains all the stores separate Places details - is there a way I can then use this to create individual Google+ pages for each store?

Currently when a store appears in local listings the Google+ page isn't listed as managed by anyone - when I attempt to claim it using the same account it seems I am starting the process to adding a whole new Google Places profile.

Is there any way around this?

Thanks in advance,

Dan

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Dan,
Recommend that you read:

http://localu.org/blog/merge-google-pages-usually-cant-now/

Hope this helps!

[MonaLisa4]

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