Adding a new location to your website

One site, not two

A second site starts from nothing. No accumulated visibility, no links, no history, and it competes with the site you already have for anything the two both cover.

Adding a location page to an existing site inherits everything the site has built. That inheritance is the single strongest argument, and it applies from the first day, in search and in an answer engine alike.

Our page on one business, one domain covers the wider principle, and a second location is the commonest reason people break it.

There is also a practical cost. Two sites means two sets of updates, two sets of profiles and two chances to leave something stale. Small businesses rarely maintain the second one after the first year.

What a location page has to carry

Everything specific to that place. The address, the team, the hours, the coverage, the phone number if it differs, and the work you have done nearby.

The service description can be shared across locations, because the service genuinely is the same. What must differ is everything about the place and the people.

Our page on location pages covers the shape in detail. The test is whether removing the town name leaves anything that could not belong to the other location.

Structuring the site for more than one

Create a locations parent page listing all of them, with each location page beneath it. That structure scales to a third and fourth without rearranging anything.

Keep the service pages central rather than duplicating them under each location. One good service page linked from every location beats three copies of it.

Our page on site structure covers the arrangement, which is worth deciding before the second location rather than during the third.

Give the locations parent page real content rather than a bare list. A short description of how coverage works, which location handles what, and how to choose between them makes it useful in its own right.

What each location needs

The list below is what a customer searching for your service in that town is looking for. Missing items are the reason a location page gets read and produces no call.

• The full address and how to find it
• Hours for that location specifically
• Who works there, with photographs
• A phone number or contact route for that office
• The towns and neighborhoods it serves
• Work completed in that area
• Parking, access and anything locally practical

Profiles and listings

Each location needs its own business profile with its own address and hours. This is usually where local visibility is actually won, rather than on the website itself.

Keep the details identical between the profile and the location page. Our page on consistent business details covers why a mismatch is the most damaging small error available.

And audit the old listings after any move. A previous address left live in a directory will keep sending people to a building you no longer occupy.

Ask staff at the new location to be named on the page. A location page with real faces from that office outperforms one with stock imagery, and it is the easiest local difference to create.

When a separate site is justified

When the locations are genuinely different businesses. Different brand, different service, different market, different ownership. Then two sites reflect reality rather than splitting one.

Franchise arrangements sometimes require it, which is a constraint rather than a choice. Our page on franchise sites covers what that usually permits.

Otherwise the answer is one site. The cases where two genuinely perform better than one are rare, and the cost of finding out is a year of split visibility.

Opening announcements

Publish the location page before the location opens, saying when it opens. The page needs time to be found, and the weeks before opening are when local interest is highest.

Then treat the opening as a reason for the local press, local directories and nearby businesses to link to you. Those links are easiest to get in the opening month and much harder later.

And update the parent page, the navigation and the profiles on the same day. A new location that is invisible in your own navigation is the most common oversight of all.