Porter: How to Tighten Your Local Search Strategy

With the exponential increase of mobile searches and the impact of those searches on in-store visits, local search marketing is becoming more important than ever for franchise systems and corporate brands.

According to Google, 50 percent of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone will visit a store within a day, and 18 percent of local mobile searches lead to a sale within one day. That means beefing up your local search strategy is not just a play for awareness; it’s a precursor to driving more customers into your stores.

Many brands are aware of the industry shift and have placed more emphasis on and increased budgets toward local SEO services, but may still be missing the mark. Location3 CEO Alex Porter recently shared his insight on how these brands, especially franchise systems and multi-location businesses, can tighten their strategy and see real results.

Here’s an excerpt from Porter’s column posted on October 25, 2017, on Business.com:

While it’s helpful to have content about your local stores on your brand website, each location should also have its own landing page. Ideally, a store location should have its own unique, mobile-optimized page that includes hyperlocal content specific to that particular business location.

For example, a national gym will still need location pages catered to each franchise. The Brooklyn location might have different hours than the Manhattan one. To get even more granular, the Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, location might differ from the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, one. From a technical standpoint, it’s incredibly important to build these pages using a subdirectory structure (not a subdomain) so that the local pages themselves can benefit from the organic ranking authority already established by the brand’s root domain. (Example: www.yourbusiness.com/denver/south-broadway)

For more tips on a more robust local search strategy, the entire post can be read here.