A business with branches in eight towns has eight chances to appear in local results, and a multi-location SEO strategy exists to take all eight. The temptation is to build one good page, duplicate it seven times and change the address. It is fast, it looks tidy in the CMS, and it produces eight pages that say the same thing.
BrightLocal’s guide to crafting unique and helpful location pages, updated in June 2026, is blunt about that approach. It warns against “diluted-value content” where only the address changes. This post sets out what a location page needs instead, how unique it should be, and how to keep the whole set connected.
What a multi-location SEO page needs
The checklist is longer than most templates allow for. BrightLocal lists the elements of a strong location page, and the useful way to read it is by asking which ones change between branches. Most of them do.
| Element | Changes per location? | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Name, address, phone | Yes | Must match the Google Business Profile exactly |
| Opening hours | Often | Part of the details to keep consistent with the profile |
| Location-specific services | Often | Not every branch offers everything |
| Local reviews | Yes | Evidence from customers of that branch |
| Staff, where relevant | Yes | The people a visitor will actually meet |
| Directions and parking | Yes | Answers the question a visitor has before they leave |
| Accessibility | Yes | Varies by building |
| Photos | Yes | Shows the real premises, not stock imagery |
| Links to nearby locations | Yes | Connects the set and helps visitors choose |
| A clear next step | Sometimes | “Calling, booking, getting directions, or checking availability” |
Read down the middle column and the template problem becomes obvious. Very little on a good location page is shared. The brand story and the general service description can be, but they should be the smaller part of the page, not the bulk of it.
How unique does each location page need to be?
BrightLocal gives a number for this, which is rare in local SEO advice. It says “more than half of the page content” should be unique to the location, and suggests 40–60% uniqueness as a target. Those two statements do not quite agree with each other, so read them as one practical instruction: aim for roughly half the page being specific to that branch, and lean higher where you can.
The way to reach that is not rewording the same paragraph eight times. Rewriting shared copy produces pages that are technically different and practically identical, which is the duplicate content problem in a thin disguise. Unique content comes from facts that only apply to one place: the team, the parking, which services that branch offers, reviews left by its customers, photos of its front door.
Take a hypothetical dental group with three clinics. One has step-free access and a car park; one is above a shop with no lift; one offers orthodontics and the others do not. Those three facts alone justify three different pages, and they are exactly what a patient searching nearby needs to know.
The work is mostly collection, not writing. Ask each branch manager for the facts a head-office copywriter cannot know: who works there, what customers ask most often, where people park, what the building is like inside. Reviews are the easiest unique content of all, because customers of each branch have already written them. Show the reviews left for that location rather than a company-wide carousel, and the page becomes more specific without anyone drafting a word. Refresh them when the profile collects new ones, so the page does not freeze on whatever was said in its launch month.
Keep every location consistent with its Google Business Profile
BrightLocal advises keeping “the business name, address, phone number, opening hours, services, and other location-specific information” consistent with the Google Business Profile. Mismatches are easy to create in a multi-location business, because the website and the profiles are often managed by different people, and hours change locally without anyone telling the web team.
Google’s own guidelines for business profiles add a rule worth repeating: “Do not create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts.” One branch, one profile. The general practice that follows is to link each profile to its own location page, not to the homepage, so the profile and the page reinforce each other.
A simple control is a single location record, one row per branch with every detail, that both the website and the profiles are updated from. When a branch changes its hours, the row changes first. Adding schema markup from the same record keeps the structured data in step as well.
Structure: make every location page findable
A location page nobody can reach does nothing. BrightLocal recommends putting location pages in both XML and HTML sitemaps and linking them from a locations menu or a store finder, so none of them ends up orphaned. Our post on orphan pages explains why a page with no internal links is so easy for crawlers to miss.
A finder that works only through a search box or a script-driven map is a common trap. Visitors can use it; crawlers may never see the individual pages behind it. Pair the finder with a plain list of links to every location, grouped by region if there are many. Then link nearby locations to each other, which helps the visitor who lands on the wrong branch and spreads internal links across the set. The wider principles are in our guide to internal linking, and the XML sitemap guide covers the file itself.
Where multi-location SEO crosses into doorway pages
The risk sits with pages for places where you have no premises. BrightLocal notes that geo pages without a physical location “can easily become doorway pages”, and advises proceeding with caution. A service-area business that genuinely covers a town can justify a page about it, but only with content specific to working there. Twenty town pages that differ by name alone are what Google’s doorway pages policy describes.
The honest limitation is that no percentage settles this. The 40–60% figure is BrightLocal’s suggested target, not a threshold Google publishes, and a page can clear it on word count while still offering a visitor nothing new. The better test is practical: would someone choosing between your branches learn something from this page that they could not learn from the others? If not, the page needs more substance or should not exist.
For most businesses the answer is to build fewer, better pages: one per real location, done properly, before any pages for areas served from elsewhere.
Frequently asked questions
What is multi-location SEO?
Optimising a business with several physical locations so each one can rank locally, mainly through a dedicated location page and a matching Google Business Profile for every branch.
How unique should location pages be?
BrightLocal says more than half of the content should be unique to the location and suggests 40–60% uniqueness as a target. Pages where only the address changes are what it warns against.
Should each location have its own Google Business Profile?
Yes, one per location. Google’s guidelines say not to create more than one page for each location, and each profile should link to its own location page.
Can I create pages for towns where I have no office?
With caution. BrightLocal notes that geo pages without a physical location can easily become doorway pages, so each needs content genuinely specific to that area.
The takeaway Build one page per real location, make roughly half of it specific to that branch, keep details identical to the Google Business Profile and link every page from a plain locations list. Treat pages for places without premises with real caution.
