How to get Google to choose office location pages and not the homepage. Tips and Suggestions?

[highwayfive]

Hello Mozzers

The issue I have is a client with a number of office locations (six) across the south of England and they want each to rank well for each location + the qualifier solicitors. IE Brighton Solicitors. Work has been undertaken on the office location pages to include the services offered from each location, full postcodes and phone numbers. These location pages are linked to from the footer of the website so have good internal links. The site has a DA of 49 and the office location pages have a PA of 33. Google in its wisdom keeps ranking the home pages for the searches. The result is that the site ranks well in one location (London) but poorly in all the majority of others (2nd,3rd and 4th page). Were it does pick up/choose the location page the rankings are better than the homepage. The other locations are less competitive than London according to the Keyword difficulty tool.

Any tips on to suggest to Google that it should rank the office location pages and not the homepage for each location?  Thanks in advance

[ZoeRigley]

Hi,

Have you added each pages' location to the Meta Title, H1 tag and within the body text of each relevant page?

Also, you could use your internal linking structure to indicate that your location pages are important. For example, ensure each has a prominent link on your homepage, a 'Locations' page and your contact page. You can also have sub-pages for each location, which all link back to the original location page. I see you say you've added postcodes- I'd also add the full addresses of each location.

Does the Solicitor's main name contain a location? This may be why it's confusing the search engines, but the above suggestions should improve this.

I hope this helps!

Zoe

[highwayfive]

Thanks Zoe,

Each page has the full address and post code and have the primary search terms in the title, H1, meta description and page copy. I could add some alt.images tags to the map and I am trying to get them to produce some unique photos for each page as well.

[ZoeRigley]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, that should help too, and opening hours for each business if they're not already there. Do you also have each location set up with its own location page on Google Plus? Having great citations across the rest of the web, with consistency for each location, should help too.

Good luck! 
Zoe

[Coolguyry]

Hey highwayfive,

I've work with several multi-location businesses, and for the most part, achieve location pages outranking home page for geo related search queries. Here's a couple questions I'd have for you.

**Content **- How's the content on the location pages? Is it focused on the geo, ie directions, nearby landmarks, etc.

Links - You mentioned having links in the footer going to the location pages, however do you have any main body content links that make sense to link to location pages? For example, on the the service pages, if this service is only offered at one or two locations it would be a natural fit to link to them there. Footer links are great and a good way to get a wave of internal links, but main body editorial links seem to carry much more weight.

Google+/Citations - As Zoe mentioned, Do you have Google+ location pages for each location that link back to the location page (and the location page linking to the Google+ page)? How's the citation health for each location?

Best of luck, Ryan

[Moz.HelpTeam]

Hey There,

Ultimately, it's up to Google to determine which page they consider is the authoritative result for a search, but in a multi-location scenario, here's how you can help them make your desired choice:

1. Be sure locations are NOT sharing phone numbers.

2. Be sure you have a unique, high quality landing page for each location. No thin, duplicate pages. Be sure the complete NAP is at the top of each of these pages.

3. Be sure the landing pages are being linked to from a top level menu.

4. Be sure ALL citations (including the GMB page) are linking to the correct website landing page for each location. Be sure none are just linking to the home page or some other wrong page of the site.

5. Be sure adequate citations have been built for each location on trusted platforms and that the NAP is consistent on each one.

6. Be sure there are no duplicate GMB pages for any of the locations, nor duplicate citations with bad/mixed-up data on other pages.

7. Very important, be sure all GMB listings you've created are guideline-compliant. Be aware of any violations and resolve them and also be aware of any past history of spammy behavior on the part of the business.

8. If all of this is already 100% perfect, see if you can make improvements to the internal linking structure and 3rd party links pointing to these landing pages.

Hope this helps!

P.S. This is Miriam posting, but I'm in Mozzer Alliance at the moment.

[JaredCarrizales]

I agree with Miriam, make sure that you have enough citation strength/listing withing for each location, as well as making sure you're listing is linking to your individual location page on your site. This is by far the biggest differentiator in my experience.