For a small business or the business of a craftsman, local SEO is much more relevant than SEO itself. Your goal isn’t to cause a deluge of visits to your website but to get people to walk through your store door. The key to achieving this is local SEO. And when the same entity multiplies local branches to get closer to its customers, local referencing is coupled with multi-site management.
Setting up such a strategy requires taking into account some specificities specific to geographic SEO. Do you want to know everything to get the most out of the local SEO and multisite management duo? We have studied the question and provided you with our insight through this article.
A reminder of what local SEO is and the rules for its implementation
Referencing, taken in its broadest sense, the one for which we glue the adjective “natural”, concerns universal queries, those taken into account by global Google. Local SEO uses techniques that allow your brand to reach out to its local customers on the search engine. This type of referencing is the one that signals the presence of your small business to the inhabitants of the street, neighborhood, or small town where it is located.
These two strategies, which tend to different destinations, do not take the same path. While natural referencing relies on foundations such as netlinking and content optimization, geographic SEO has certain specific tools. Google My Business, content with a strong local semantic load, and inbound links from local sources are the basic boxes to fill in to establish a local SEO strategy.
The contexts where local SEO and multisite management meet happily
Another factor for getting your site to the top of the local SERPS is to combine local SEO and multi-site management. But this solution is only suitable for certain institution profiles. This is the case for brands that offer franchise programs or that ensure their expansion through a policy of subsidiaries. The parent platform highlights the group’s values and carries its banner nationally and internationally. But dependent sites stand out according to the needs of their local target.
The same is true of retail networks. As customers’ expectations differ from one sector to another, a different URL should be linked to each point of sale. This option entails de facto the need to set up multisite management of all the open channels to drain traffic locally. The formula is suitable for:
- Provide visibility to each facet of a white label
- Successful completion of an affiliate program
- Structure a network of professionals united by the same values
- Set up a multilingual platform
- Promote a network of franchised catering establishments, etc.
Carry out the relocation of a large retail chain.
You will understand, local SEO relies on multi-site management in many contexts. Under what variants are such management available?
The different forms that multi-site management can take
There are two scenarios for building a multisite web space. The first is executed by taking as a basis the main site to which a subdomain is added. For the platform www.notre-enseigne.com, a geographic variation can become www.lille.notre-enseigne.com. Each of the subdomains is carried by the basic domain. This formula is used for a geographic deployment of the same brand. The solution is also essential when you want to communicate the power of attraction of a name to the small variations formed by subdomains.
Another way to set up your multisite setup is to assign a specific domain to each site. We turn our backs on the name followed by the distinctive sign of each site and the main address. And we create a different page in all respects, except for mentioning its relationship to the base domain.
Of the two formulas, which one will fit your strategy perfectly? The answer to this question depends on the goals assigned to your multisite branching project. Whichever choice you make, you must use the right keys to build local SEO for the different subdivisions of your site complex.
The 3 levers to operate to raise your local SEO to the top through multisite management.
Here are three pillars of the approach to apply to give your SEO a chance to know the subject.
The indispensable contribution of Google Business
Without Google My Business, your business has zero chance of making itself known to local customers. This free service allows you to appear in the results of queries launched by Internet users in your immediate environment. Filling out the form that the Grand Master Google dedicates to it constitutes the starting point of your local referencing. And this is for each page of your multisite universe.
You must fight the tendency to provide the same information for all outlets. This would create a cacophony of data and inconsistency, which Google’s bots are not too fond of. If the work relates to a network of craftsmen, you must indicate the address of each of the professionals, since they have different scheduling constraints.
The task can be overwhelming, but the price to pay to bring out each of the 50 points listed on your multisite space.
Truly local and unique content per site
You know, for any SEO process, content is king; but with local SEO, local content has to be brought to the throne. Certainly, the rules of on-page optimization remain in force, but the writing of the texts of your site must offer an important part to the lexical field of your locality Evocation of streets, avenues, restaurants, pharmacies, schools, administrative services located in the same district form avenues to explore.
Content with a high semantic load oriented on the geographic universe of your sector will help Google easily understand your local roots. Which is a catalyst for your local SEO. As with Google Business, you must make your content unique for each of the parts of your multisite universe.
Well-chosen keywords
Optimizing your content involves relevant keyword targeting. Unlike general SEO, which may be satisfied with a query like “motorcycle repair”, a local keyword will read: “motorcycle repair in Capvern”. Try once again to wage the same battle, but on different terms, for all multisite chain links.
Netlinking and geographic SEO: generating inbound local links
Netlinking is not a simple referral as part of a local SEO strategy. Here, aim for backlinks from institutions like the town hall, but associations of professionals operating in the same geographical area as you. Local press and tourism blogs can be a source of profit.
Invest in professional directories. As soon as they are relevant to your strategy, use Yellow Pages, TripAdvisor, Booking, etc. It goes without saying that this netlinking will have to be done for each parcel of your multisite site. Always to gain the esteem of Google.
What solution for better organization of the site complex?
In view of the scale of the work to be done, many entrepreneurs are giving up. But there are solutions to make your job easier when you want to head up local SEO combined with multisite management. CMS, in particular, WordPress, offer sufficiently developed plugins to take into account the functionalities essential to piloting the Airbus.
Be careful, the solution of a multisite management CMS will automate certain tasks and allow effective monitoring of course, but 90% of the SEO work will continue to weigh on you. The way to maintain the peace of mind you need to take care of your core business is to delegate this part of your marketing plan. Using an SEO agency will guarantee you better visibility with your local target while saving you considerable time.
In conclusion
We speak of local referencing to indicate the work performed to appear in the SERPS displayed on local queries. It has its own techniques: use of Google My Business, content based on a local semantic field, local keyword optimization, local netlinking. In the context of multisite management, the same process is repeated on each of the web windows. It is only on this condition that local SEO will benefit your multisite management.
