Creating a new Google local business page vs. adding additional locations to an existing Google business page?

[Vspeed]

We are a service company that both travels to customer locations and serves customers at our business location. The split is about 80/20 (travel vs. serve customers on location). We just opened up a new office in a city about 1 hour away from our main location. The question is, should we create a new business page and account on Google local or should we add the new location to our existing google local account? The new location has a separate website, phone number, email etc. My inclination is to create a new local business account/page on Google. Has anyone experimented with both solutions and tested which option creates more powerful local signals for ranking?

[LauraSultan]

Add additional locations through the Google My Business dashboard under the same Google account. It simplifies management of the listings and helps Google understand the relationship between locations.

[Vspeed]

Thank you, if the second location were to be sold as a franchise with a different owner, would this change your answer at all? Or would this additional factor be inconsequential?

[LauraSultan]

It's a fairly simple process to transfer ownership of a Google My Business page. See Google's instructions for how to do this.