Local Rankings for Second Business Location in the SAME City

[djreich]

I have an issue regarding local rankings for multiple locations within the SAME city, and I'm hoping to start a productive discussion about the various options for helping a second location gain visibility in the local pack.

Here's the context…My business is an electronic cigarette shop in New Orleans, called Crescent City Vape. Our first location (Uptown) opened up a year ago and ranks very well in the local-pack as well as organic results for target keywords, as well as brand terms.

Our second location opened up 2 months ago, also in New Orleans (Lower Garden District), about 3 miles away from the first shop. This shop, however, is not visible locally or organically, unless we get extremely specific with a branded search query like "Crescent City Vape Lower Garden District" or "Crescent City Vape St. Charles Ave." It does not rank locally for "Crescent City Vape" or "Crescent City Vape New Orleans"

We have one website: crescentcityvape.com -- and both shops have a location landing page on the main site:

crescentcityvape.com/uptown
crescentcityvape.com/lower-garden

However, when we launched our local SEO work for the first shop, we used the homepage as the URL in Google+ Local, as well as all of our citations.

When we launched the second shop, we used the location landing page as the URL for G+ and all of our citations. We also added a location modifier to the business name on G+ Local: Crescent City Vape - Lower Garden District

Both shops have 5+ reviews on Google+ Local, and both shops have citation profiles that are better than any other competitor. I'm confident that the local SEO basics are covered…and this is evident from the solid local and organic rankings for the original shop.

My concern isn't that the second shop is ranking worse than the first. I expected this. But I am very concerned that the second shop doesn't even rank for a branded search like "Crescent City Vape." You have to get unrealistically specific with local descriptors to see the G+ local result for the second shop. e.g. "Crescent City Vape Lower Garden District".

Here are some of the options and questions I've been pondering. Would love anyone's thoughts on what's worth trying and what might be too risky…since obviously I do not want to sacrifice rankings for the original shop.

1. Changing the G+ URL of the second shop to the homepage (rather than that local landing page). In this case, G+ pages for both locations would link to the homepage. Then updating Moz Local and other citations accordingly with the URL as the homepage. My concern is that this will end up hurting rankings for the original shop more than helping rankings for the second shop.

2. Removing the location modifier from the second shop's Google+ Local business name. When you google "Starbucks" or "McDonalds" you get a local-pack that usually includes 3 of their locations in the pack, and none have location modifiers. I'm wondering if the modifier is sending the wrong signal, because right now, when you Google "Crescent City Vape" only the original location shows up with a local result.

3. Changing the modifier for the second shop's Google+ Local business name to something like "Crescent City Vape: New Orleans E-Cigs". Some of our competitors have added keywords to their G+ names and it's been effective for them. I know this is not aligned with Google guidelines, and may be a risky play. We don't have anything to lose with the second location if we try this…However, is there any chance this would negatively affect our original shop's rankings (since it's the same domain)? If we went in this direction, should I update our citations accordingly? And build new ones with this new "name"?

4. Does page authority of the business URL have an impact on G+ Local rankings? i.e. would building quality links to the local landing page have much of an impact? i.e. is that a productive use of time and resources, as opposed to promoting the homepage and other more important landing pages?

Appreciate your thoughts and feedback! Hopefully this discussion will be helpful for other businesses trying to rank for more than one location in the same city. Thanks!

[LauraSultan]

Given that the new shop opened up 2 months ago, you should continue to see improvements for that location if you've covered all the local SEO best practices.

The original location probably has more authority for the reasons you specified, but you may see the newer location perform better when someone is physically closer to that location. You'll have to test that to see. If you are physically closer to the Lower Garden District when you search, which result do you see for local?

I doubt the ideas you mentioned would make much difference. If you've covered all the local SEO best practices, you should focus on adding hyperlocal content to the Lower Garden District landing page. Talk about some of the best XYZ within walking distance of your shop, any events nearby, add photos of the interior of the shop, etc. Make sure you have blog posts pointing to that landing page as well.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi David!

Good topic. First of all, you should remove the modifiers from your business title on your Google+ Local page (and elsewhere). Google was briefly supporting these types of modifiers, but the most recent iteration of their guidelines states that this is not acceptable

• Location information, such as neighborhood, city, or street name, unless it is part of the real-world representation of the business. Your name must not include street address or direction information.
  • Not acceptable: "Starbucks Downtown", "Macy’s Union Square", "Holiday Inn (I-93 at Exit 2)", "U.S. Bank ATM - 7th & Pike - Parking Garage Lobby near Elevator"
  • Acceptable: "Starbucks", "Macy’s", "Holiday Inn Salem", "U.S. Bank ATM", "University of California Berkeley"

So, do get rid of the modifiers.

But ... I do not recommend linking both locations to the same page. If one is the corporate headquarters, then linking it to the homepage would be fine, but in a multi-location scenario, linking to a specific landing page of the website for each shop would be a more typical way to ensure that you are keeping your locations distinct and separate. And yes, the authority of these pages very likely does impact rankings.

Be sure the first thing on these pages is the complete name, address and phone number of the specific location. Be sure you are creating good, unique content for each of the pages, too.

The challenge you are up against with more than one business in the same city is that Google is unlikely to show more than one of the same business in a keyword search. A brand search is different. If someone just searches for 'Crescent City Vape', Google may well show both businesses in a 3 or 7 pack, but if the search is just for 'e-cigarettes in Crescent City' then Google is less likely to show any business more than once in a pack.

So, where this leaves you then is pinning your hopes on the fact that Google is getting more and more sensitive to the user as the centroid of search - meaning that Google is likely to show users (especially mobile users) the location of your business that is physically closest to them at the time they make their search. So, a user searching from his cell while in Uptown will be more likely to see the Uptown location on his phone (and possibly his desktop) while if he goes over to the lower garden district, Google is likely to show him that shop instead.

What this boils down to is that you need to optimize and promote both locations equally, and leave it up to Google to parse which user group gets shown which result. This is about as good as you can do. I would not make the locations part of the business name on the website - instead, I would include this in:

1. The content of the page

2. The description on your citations

3. Blog posts

4. Social outreach

5. Menu links pointing to these pages on your website, as in 'Visit our Uptown Location', 'Visit our Lower Garden District Location'.

Hope this helps!