We all know how local SEO for multiple locations is important for businesses. Similarly, social media marketing strategies for local communities are also very essential for businesses to reach out to targeted audiences, particularly for ecommerce and online retail businesses with multiple branches or geographic footprints. Keeping this in mind, the social media giant, Facebook has launched Neighborhoods, a single destination to build and strengthen local communities on Facebook.
Neighborhoods – A Nextdoor-like Tool
People have always used Facebook to connect with their neighbors and local services – such as to gather support for local businesses, asking for recommendations and tips in local groups, offering support, or meeting neighbors who share common interests and so on. Especially during this pandemic, these connections have surged. Therefore, to tap into those connections in a direct way, Facebook – with 2.7 billion users globally – rolled out a new feature, Neighborhoods within the main app – that offers many capabilities similar to Nextdoor, a hyperlocal social networking service for neighborhoods.
‘Neighborhoods’ is a single destination that makes it easier to bring the local experience across Facebook into one place, and strengthen local communities on the platform. This dedicated space within the Facebook app helps users to engage with a wider group of locals who they’re not directly connected to. It helps them connect with their neighbors, participate in their local community, and discover new places nearby.
How ‘Neighborhoods’ Works
Neighborhoods profile – an opt-in experience of the Facebook app – is dedicated to user’s neighborhood that’s different from their main Facebook profile.
Facebook cited in its blog post that, “to join Neighborhoods, a FB user need to be 18 years or older and confirm their neighborhood. The profile photo, name, and cover photo will be the same as that used in his/her Facebook profile. Users can add other information about themselves such as personal interests, favorite places, and a short bio in Neighborhoods profile”. Once a user joins Neighborhoods, Facebook will confirm with the users if they really live where they say they do.
In addition to join just their own neighborhood, users also have the option to join nearby neighborhoods and can then join discussion areas with other users who live within the same part of the city.
What Does Facebook Neighborhood Offer?
This feature – that is currently available in Canada, and will begin to roll out to select US cities soon – gives Facebook users a space to connect outside of the news feed. Some of the best things it offers FB users include:
A Chance to Meet and Connect with Neighbors: As we mentioned earlier, when a user creates their Neighborhoods profile, they have the option to add their interests, favorite places and a bio, so that people can get to know the user within the Neighborhoods Directory. Users get a chance to meet and connect with their neighbors by writing a post to introduce themselves, engaging in discussions on posts from fellow neighbors and by answering Neighborhoods Questions in the dedicated feed. These answers would by useful information for people who are new to an area.
Allow to Engage with Local Neighborhood Groups: Neighborhood users are allowed to create and join groups reserved for people within that neighborhood, so that they could meet others around them who share the same interests. However, to make it easy for people living nearby to find their neighbors, admins of local Facebook groups can import their group into Neighborhoods. It will also allow people using Neighborhoods to create or join Neighborhoods-bounded groups – for local bird watchers, or discuss the previous night’s game with fellow basketball lovers in one’s area – that are available within the Neighborhood’s experience.
Discover New Places and Local Recommendations: Neighborhoods provides a Recommendation feature that lets its users share suggestions to their neighbors about places and businesses to visit from their local community. Neighborhood also provides another feature Favorite Polls, which allows neighbors to vote on their favorite places and businesses in the area, including restaurants, parks and more.
Provide Moderation and Safety: To help users keep interactions among neighbors relevant and kind, the new feature Neighborhoods is built to be safe and inclusive with Guidelines. The moderators of Neighborhoods use these Guidelines with the aim to review posts and comments in the Neighborhoods feed. They can either report a post or comment to a Neighborhoods moderator or remove/hide the posts that go against Neighborhoods Guidelines and Facebook Community Standards. However, users can block someone on Facebook or Neighborhoods – Facebook won’t inform them – and if the blocked user has logged into Facebook, they won’t be able to find you in the Neighborhoods directory.
Offers Privacy: A user can choose whether to join Neighborhoods – your neighborhood or your Nearby Neighborhoods – and create a profile. The profile will have the user’s name, profile and cover photo from their Facebook profile and the name of their neighborhood. However, when a user creates a group in Neighborhoods, it can be private or open and visible or hidden. If the Neighborhood Group is:
Private: Only members of the group who have joined the neighborhood can see posts
Open: Anyone in the neighborhood or Nearby Neighborhoods (if Nearby Neighborhoods is selected) can see who’s in the group and what they post.
Visible: Anyone in the neighborhood can search for and find this group.
Hidden: Only members can find the group.
This new feature by Facebook – which was under development since October last year – is a great way to gather data on users, and it would potentially keep them on the app longer. Moreover, according to TechCrunch, “this new feature will be sharing users’ neighborly behavior to serve their targeted ads elsewhere.”
Most importantly, once the feature is rolled out in the US, a FB user can consider joining Neighborhoods as their social media strategy. This is because having a good social media marketing strategy in place helps to reach out to a large number of targeted audiences and also boosts the business’ visibility with both existing and new consumers – globally or locally.
Are you looking for innovative strategies to do SEO for a business with multiple locations? Studies show that a massive 46 percent of all searches performed on Google are local. It is estimated that nearly half of all Google searches revolve around local businesses. In other words, local SEO for multiple locations is paramount for driving success for businesses with multiple branches or geographic footprints. Multi-location SEO ensures that your business appears in the top search results when people in your area search for products and services related to your offerings.
What Is Local SEO and How Does It Matter?
Local SEO involves using techniques that make your website rank or become visible to people when they search for a specific product or service within a specific geographical area. The main goal of local SEO strategies is to rank better for a local audience rather than a global one. According to reports from Hubspot, half of consumers who search for a local store via their Smartphone are likely to visit the same store within a day. The impact is immediate on any business, regardless of the industry. Local SEO for multiple businesses is usually to get listed in the Google Map listings on the first page of the search results. In fact, the key difference between local SEO and organic SEO is the intent. Google picks out search queries that have “local intent” pretty fast, meaning the searcher wants search engine results with local businesses. Local SEO services allow business websites to show up in front of a relevant audience online and provide the following benefits –
Reach your Intended Audience – Various locations cater to different demographics. When a specific business is working in different locations, this can make it difficult to streamline their marketing efforts. Therefore, creating unique pages and content for each location makes it possible to better communicate with potential customers in each specific area.
High Ranking in Google Search Results – When displaying search results, Google and other search engines factor in location data. For instance, a person residing in Colorado searching online for Pizza Shops is not going to or does not want to see results for restaurants in other places like Vermont and Google takes this point into account. Local online marketing tactics can help improve your rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs) and increase the page’s visibility among local audiences.
Link source – https://www.webfx.com/internet-marketing/local-seo-for-multiple-locations.html
Widen your Reach – Including location (like cities, states or regions) when searching for businesses online is useful as people tend to search products and services with place names at the end. When people within your specific area search online for products or services related to your business, you want your company to appear in the top search results, and local SEO can help with this.
How to Do Local SEO for Multiple Locations – Points of Focus
To rank a website both in local and organic searches, it is important to have a robust SEO strategy in place. Search engines consider hundreds of factors to rank and index websites in searches. These include outbound and inbound links, keywords and content. If you want your multiple-location business to rank locally and organically, it is important to show search engines that your company is the right answer to the users’ queries. Search engines need to know your exact company address so that when customers search for a location, they can find your business easily. Becoming relevant to specific searches is important to make this happen.
Here are some key strategies to use for local SEO for multiple locations and reach more customers –
Perform Competitor Research – Understanding the SEO market and assessing the level of competition is one of the basic strategies to effectively implement SEO for multiple locations. Analyzing key facts like – what makes your company unique and how you can leverage your strengths for a particular location will help you design and implement a local SEO strategy that can attract and convert more visitors. Begin the process by conducting a simple analysis of the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for potential growth. Analyze what your competitors are doing and identify the key areas where you need to improve. Performing competitor research will help design local SEO campaigns that resonate with the target audience.
Use a Single Domain – If your business operates in multiple locations, you can create separate domains for each specific location. However, as each domain is indexed separately, the marketing efforts (like publishing content and building links) will only affect the domain where the content gets published and builds links to. In other words, if you want each of the locations to rank well in search results, it is better to stick to one website with individual pages for each of the locations. On the other hand, if you are planning to create unique content (beyond a contact page) for each of the locations, it is important to use a subfolder or sub domain to manage them. This will in turn allow you to geographically target specific portions of the website without having to manage and optimize multiple sites.
Build or Optimize Content for each Specific Location – Creating separate pages and content specifically (optimized for each location) is important to get ranked in top spots for each of the locations. Many location pages make a big mistake by not adding much content, so make sure you add everything that a user would want to know. By creating unique pages for each location, you can optimize on-page elements like page titles, and content for each specific area to be targeted. Here are some ideas related to content that need to be added to these pages –
Common Questions – Add commonly asked questions and answers about the website services.
Service Descriptions – Describe the specific services that your website offers. If you offer a variety of different services, consider creating a new page for each. By creating unique pages for each location, it is possible to optimize on-page elements like page titles, and content for each specific area that needs to be targeted. Make sure to include the city and state name on each web page. Including unique content for each of the locations is important to avoid duplicate content penalties. This will also help you create a more targeted user experience.
Photos or Images – Adding photos, videos, and maps that showcase each location or area of work will help customers get a feel about your specific area of business.
Reviews – Reviews are important to capture customers with a strong intent to make a purchase. Searches about a specific brand and its location are sure to occur. Create pages with testimonials from local customers for each location or post images related to your business. If product reviews or testimonials are featured in web pages, make sure to sort them and place them on the corresponding location pages. In addition, include a custom description of the services provided at each location, as well as internal links to blog posts or case studies.
Directions – Try to add instructions for getting to your business from each cardinal direction (starting with the highway exit). Embed a map with your location pinned as well. Make sure to include the city and state name on each web page. Including unique content for each of the locations is important to avoid duplicate content penalties. This will also help you to create a more targeted user experience. One of the major benefits of case studies is that they allow you to connect the specific area of business to local clients and provide search engines with more local signals.
Claim “Google My Business” Listing for each Location – Claiming your business on “Google My Business” is a relatively easy process, and allows you to show up on Google Maps for searches within your area. For businesses looking to advertise multiple locations, Google My Business is a great option, and it helps to streamline all of your business information. GMB allows you to manually add additional locations or else if your business has 10 or more locations, you can make use of bulk location management to import and manage new locations. Submitting NAP (name, address and phone number) citation on GMB is a positive signal to SEO. There are also a host of other local business directory listings on sites like Bing and Yelp that can be used to keep track of the specific locations that get listed. After submitting your NAP to directories, be sure to claim your local map listing as this can ensure that customers can find your website and see what the outside of your building looks like via Street View in case they are unfamiliar with the neighborhood or containing location. Using Schema.org structured data markup for your address and hours is also a good option that will allow you to more accurately describe your content to Google’s search engine crawlers.
Encourage Reviews for each Location – About 85 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as a recommendation from a friend or acquaintance, and 49% of consumers look for at least a four-star rating before selecting a website. Reviews are now featured prominently in many search results, especially search results that trigger map pack listings. They are also great social proof as people tend to trust what other customers have to say about your website more than information you publish yourself. Sending short email surveys about your specific products and services, and asking feedback from people about their individual experiences are some of the common ways to encourage reviews. In addition, featuring local reviews on each of the local pages on your website is another valuable way to target more qualified, local traffic.
Local SEO is an important part of modern, digital marketing plans. Even though an intensive process, running a multi-location local SEO campaign isn’t that different from doing the same for a single location. The basic principles are the same – the only thing is that you have to just do a bit more work and keep track of all the minute details. Properly optimizing your business for multiple locations requires careful consideration of the above discussed strategies. Creating a well-organized site that clearly articulates each location can help individual pages appear in the proper searches and create a strong digital presence for all your locations and your organization as a whole. Partnering with a reputable digital marketing agency with a proven track record of successful local SEO campaigns can help your website attract and convert more local traffic.
