Opening a Second Location Nearby (Advisable?)

Hi folks,

Wondering the consensus on opening up a second location on GMB relatively close to my first location, for wider reach and more traffic.

I currently have two businesses out of the same office with different suite #s. I'm looking at opening a second location nearby for one or both of the businesses if possible.

I've done extensive citation/NAP work on each business up to this point, however I have the opportunity to verify a location in a much higher traffic area than my original place of business.

I'm wondering if its possible or at all advisable to open a second location roughly 2 miles away. My businesses are party/event planning services.

I rank well in the 3-pack, but there are tons of businesses where I am and proximity typically wins.

In particular:

- Would I simply make a separate landing page on my site for the other location's GMB? Featuring the NAP of this second location.

- Should I come up with a different name like "XYZ" and "XYZ Express" to prevent confusion in the citations I already have and will secure for my new location? A different Phone # as well?

- Would the 3-pack show one or the other? Or is it possible to get both listed?

Has anyone tried something like this? Appreciate any feedback.

/e Sorry meant to post this in Local SEO

Thread moved.

Bump

Why 2 miles away? You can get both on the map pack if they are in the same city. Try to alter the name a bit or even a diffrent name but under the same llc (dba), let me know if you have any questions, I specialize in local seo clients and i dont think opening another store 2 miles away with the same name is a good idea. Unless you're dunkin donuts or McDonalds lol

Your situation has many different variables to consider.

City Population - State Population. Strategy for California is different than Little Rock.

Sq. Footage Cost of Space. How big of a new office are you thinking about?

How many customers in a year and how much volume?

Customer acquisition cost?

Customer lifetime value?

How do your customers find you? Google business listing? Organic Search? Local freebie newspaper? Youtube videos?

How big are your customers and what is the normal spend? Events - Parties? Concerts? Corporate?

How have all your previous customers found you?

If you start a 2nd company, make sure it has a different brand, different llc, different insurance, different business license, different "feel", maybe for a sub-niche in the event world.

There are a few people here in Florida that buy those gigantic blow up movie theater screens, have a good digital projector and silent RV type generator, pop corn machine and sell outdoor movie packages for parties. It all fits in a small trailer and you can train college girls or guys to run them for you. Pay them $15 an hour plus a percentage of tickets sold & popcorn provided. They rake in the money for these mini-events.

You might want to sell the company someday or transform it into something else, like a talent agency for booking talent into events or a lighting company for supplying services to events...you get the idea. You might want to replace some of your current vendors. You are an SME (subject matter expert). That gives you an advantage over your vendors.

Also, it must be separate so that you can get a different DUNs number so you can get new credit lines for it.

Hope this helps.

Another Mysterious Secret From The Eye™

Best regards,

The Eye

In GMB you'll need to add another location with separate address, all the details etc.
On your site you want to add another page for another location and you can rank this page separately.

Thanks for replies -

It seems with the most recent update, proximity is the most heavily waited factor on displaying 3 pack listings (especially on mobile? from what i understand).

Much of my business comes from local search discovery. I should've noted: I operate in Las Vegas.

An address on the strip (which I now have) is monumentally more tourist traffic than one out in east or west Las Vegas, for example.

I don't want to move my business address and mess up citations, so my options are to:

1.) Create a landing page for new business location on site and keep (or alter name), diff address, diff number.

2.) Create a totally new business and site for that location.

I'm wondering:

If I have two GMB listings with the same URL and business name (and business category), will they both potentially show up on a local 3 pack? Or will Google choose one at a time?

It can be both or one at a time depending on device and location.
E.g, on mobile being next door to location A most probably user will see just a single location, but both on the desktop.
There're no universal results, but each user will see a result depending on his current situation.

se900se said:

It can be both or one at a time depending on device and location.
E.g, on mobile being next door to location A most probably user will see just a single location, but both on the desktop.
There're no universal results, but each user will see a result depending on his current situation.

Click to expand...

Right, ultimately one location per user query is fine with me.

I guess I'm more concerned if I would be penalized for having two similar businesses close together that are party planning or unique services (and not McDonald's for example).

And how different would the NAP have to be for something like this to be OK'd by google long term.

Materia said:

Right, ultimately one location per user query is fine with me.

I guess I'm more concerned if I would be penalized for having two similar businesses close together that are party planning or unique services (and not McDonald's for example).

And how different would the NAP have to be for something like this to be OK'd by google long term.

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I don't think you would be penalized in any way for having two different locations even if they are on the same street or same building. There're chains like CVS, Sephora, McDonald's etc who literally have 3-5 locations within couple blocks, as well as there're situations like with WeWork where you have a dozen companies registered under the same address and room and they don't even have the suite # as they use open space. I am sure you should be fine!

NAP should be different for each location, but I guess it would be anyway considering its a different location.

se900se said:

I don't think you would be penalized in any way for having two different locations even if they are on the same street or same building. There're chains like CVS, Sephora, McDonald's etc who literally have 3-5 locations within couple blocks, as well as there're situations like with WeWork where you have a dozen companies registered under the same address and room and they don't even have the suite # as they use open space. I am sure you should be fine!

NAP should be different for each location, but I guess it would be anyway considering its a different location.

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Ok thanks, I guess the challenge is coming up with a different Name close to my current biz name but different enough.

And as far as landing page I can just link to my homepage as well? Or people would suggest a separate landing page?

Materia said:

Ok thanks, I guess the challenge is coming up with a different Name close to my current biz name but different enough.

And as far as landing page I can just link to my homepage as well? Or people would suggest a separate landing page?

Click to expand...

I would suggest either creating a separate page within your site where you have your NAP mentioned, than the same home page of the old business.

When I create separate locations, I usually only do it for different cities. However, whenever I do, I always create landing pages for the cities and use that as the main URL for GMB and citations. I also use a call tracking # that redirects to the main line and will slightly alter the name, so it has a completely unique NAP and URL. I've never gotten penalized or had any listings removed (knock on wood)

se900se said:

I would suggest either creating a separate page within your site where you have your NAP mentioned, than the same home page of the old business.

Click to expand...

gawdric said:

When I create separate locations, I usually only do it for different cities. However, whenever I do, I always create landing pages for the cities and use that as the main URL for GMB and citations. I also use a call tracking # that redirects to the main line and will slightly alter the name, so it has a completely unique NAP and URL. I've never gotten penalized or had any listings removed (knock on wood)

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Ok, thats the plan now.

When you say alter the name - how much of a change do you mean? If visitors come in through your 2nd location landing page then tab to different parts of the site, are they not thrown off by logo/name change?

For example something like this?

Dan's Office Supplies
Dan's Office Warehouse

Or more like this?

Dan's Office Supply

Materia said:

Ok, thats the plan now.

When you say alter the name - how much of a change do you mean? If visitors come in through your 2nd location landing page then tab to different parts of the site, are they not thrown off by logo/name change?

For example something like this?

Dan's Office Supplies
Dan's Office Warehouse

Or more like this?

Dan's Office Supply

Click to expand...

Example - Kempinski Hotels most of the time name their hotels after the street or location of the exact hotel.
They have a website: Kempinski.com and a location URL looks like this: https://www.kempinski.com/en/singapore/the-capitol-singapore/

The GMB lands to the: https://www.kempinski.com/en/singapore/the-capitol-singapore/ and for other locations accordingly.
So, that's the same site, but different internal/landing page.

In my opinion Supplies/Warehouse/Supply all look good and you can choose the name you like the most.
Users won't be confused if your main shop called Dan's Office Supplies and the new location would call Dan's Office Warehouse (if the name warehouse fits), you can add the name of the street or literally anything you like and it shouldn't bring any problems with Google since the location is different.

Don't change the logo completely, just add or change Supply to Warehouse, so the users will know its same shop.

se900se said:

Example - Kempinski Hotels most of the time name their hotels after the street or location of the exact hotel.
They have a website: Kempinski.com and a location URL looks like this: https://www.kempinski.com/en/singapore/the-capitol-singapore/

The GMB lands to the: https://www.kempinski.com/en/singapore/the-capitol-singapore/ and for other locations accordingly.
So, that's the same site, but different internal/landing page.

In my opinion Supplies/Warehouse/Supply all look good and you can choose the name you like the most.
Users won't be confused if your main shop called Dan's Office Supplies and the new location would call Dan's Office Warehouse (if the name warehouse fits), you can add the name of the street or literally anything you like and it shouldn't bring any problems with Google since the location is different.

Don't change the logo completely, just add or change Supply to Warehouse, so the users will know its same shop.

Click to expand...

Thanks, this makes sense.

Do you think it important at all to create a layer in between like such?

https://www.kempinski.com/en/singapore/the-capitol-singapore/

or something like this is ok?

https://www.kempinski.com/the-capitol-singapore/

Materia said:

Thanks, this makes sense.

Do you think it important at all to create a layer in between like such?

https://www.kempinski.com/en/singapore/the-capitol-singapore/

or something like this is ok?

https://www.kempinski.com/the-capitol-singapore/

Click to expand...

When you have stores around the world and on different languages for sure add language + country, though for now, just mysite.com/my-second-location - should work well

Thanks again

30miles away yes, next door yes if you can push your competitor off the 3pack!