Website Location Page Content Checklist

The key to creating great locations pages is to deliver relevant content that satisfies the users search intent. The following recommendations are NOT Google Business Profile (GBP) recommendations. This is for your website!

NAP Information

Location pages must have the business name and phone number that match their Google Business profile. If your GBP includes an address, then include that as well and make sure it also matches your GBP formatting.

Hours & Holidays

Include a list of business hours, and include a current list of holidays your business honors and is closed. It is important to keep it current, an out-of-date holiday sends a poor message to users that the information of the page is not current. This includes hours, services, products, and even casts doubt as to whether or not your business is simply closed forever. If they call and nobody answers then they’ll go elsewhere for their needs.

Photos of the Interior and Exterior

To create a unique location page, add photos for the location. No two locations are alike so take advantage of that fact. Make sure to use image alt tags and captions for each image. Include interior photos and pictures of your key staff and management. Again, use alt-image tags and captions for these images.

Include exterior pictures to help new clients with finding you . Take street level images of your business, making sure these include signage and logos of the business. Include pictures of your parking lot if applicable. If your location is obscure, then include images of local businesses near you.

“Exterior photos are meant to help new visitors find your business upon first arrival and can also be a decision-making factor for new business.”

– SearchEngine Journal

Be sure to future proof your local page and use Webp image formats. They load faster and look great! Jpeg image formats, invented in 1998, are out-of-date. PNG images are now 25 years old. You’re updating your website with the latest code, why not update your images too?

Expert tip – include a video

Business Description

Most business location pages fail here. Using the same description on all location pages and simply replacing the location name.

To help make each description unique and relevant consider including some of the following:

• Services offered: Call out the ones that are unique to the location compared to others
• Products and brands: List out some of the major brands the location sells, include brand logos and don’t forget to use image alt tags for these logos.
• Brief bio of key management: Have a one-liner about key management figures, including their name and years of service.
• Nearby locations: This is yet another great way to create a unique location page. Include nearby locations and link to those pages. This helps with internal linking as well as creating unique content.

Your Selling Proposition

Describe what makes this store unique compared to competitors in the area. This can be a single line or paragraph.

Avoid putting boilerplate content from other parts of your website. Simply relisting products and services again and again is NOT unique content.

Add Local & Relevant Business Events

An easy way to create local content is promoting local industry gatherings, news, employees, and other educational content on your page.

Reviews & Ratings

Add customer reviews to your location page. Reviews are unique to the location and add user generated content to your page. Gather these from your Google Business profile. Include at least 3 to 5 reviews. Don’t just include perfect reviews, people don’t trust perfect scores. To get the most benefit from these reviews they need to include the review text, author name, source, and date of the review. With this information, a review schema can be added to your page.

You may also use review management services to embed customer reviews. NRC Health for example specializes in managing patient reviews for healthcare systems.

Respond to your reviews, always give thanks to the positive ones, and respond to the negative reviews. Review signals (quantity, velocity, diversity, etc.) were the third most important factor for local map pack rankings and the seventh most important for organic local rankings, according to Moz.

CTAs

• Get Directions: Do add links to Google Maps, (Google Maps API) or other map services but go further by including directions. Adding directions to a location page is essential in ranking for those ‘near me’ queries, and it helps first time users find your business. Provide at least a couple of approaches (East/West or from North/South) from major highways. Include major intersections that help customers get to your business. Don’t forget to mention nearby businesses and major landmarks.
• Request appointments: Let’s face it, you are likely too busy to respond to emails requesting appointments. Consider using built-in appointment setters that allow customers to make appointments on their own.
• Shop Now: Include a link to the product finder or product page(s).

Schema (LocalBusiness – Schema.org Type)

Most content management systems now include basic schema. Stand out by adding more specific types for your industry, such as: AutomotiveBusiness

Page Title

Page “Title” should include these table-stakes:

• Brand name
• Geo-specific keywords (city or local area)
• Product of service keyword(s)

Meta Description

Write your meta description based on content that appears on your location page. Otherwise, Google might change it randomly. Use the meta description to convince searchers that you have the information they are looking for. Include your key selling points. Currently Google limits these to 170 characters.

Internal Linking

Location pages should be easy to find. Make sure that site visitors can get to them within 3 clicks. Anymore than that and they’ll simply Google it, which means they might find your competitors page instead.

Consider adding the following internal links:

• Link to nearby locations
• If you offer specific products or services, link these to informational pages. Don’t be tempted to copy and paste those details on your local page. It creates duplicate content and Google might NOT index your location page.
• Include links to location specific social media profiles if applicable. (These should open in a new window)
• Link to your company about page (if applicable)
• Connect users to your shopping pages
• Link to your appointment page

Load Speed

Finally, make all of the above recommendations load quickly! For desktop users it should load in less than 4 seconds. For mobile users 2 seconds. Any longer and they start bailing on you and this increases your bounce rate and consequently your organic rankings and visibility decline.

 

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Add Pero SEO as a preferred source to your Google searches to find more healthcare marketing strategies.