Locations Best Practices - Success Playbook

Last updated on October 23rd, 2023

Learn more about our locations best practices to maximize the performance of your visibility.

Name

The name should match the correctly spelled, real-life name of the business known to customers. 
Avoid promotional info, containment or location info, store codes, legal terms in the business name or any information already found in other fields of the location info.

Name Pro Tips:

  • Use the Storefront Name Where Appropriate: Using a consistent name across listings can help with recognition and discovery. Whether your brandis known by its storefront name or legal name, consistency is key.
     
  • Avoid Keyword Stuffing: Do not add unnecessary keywords to your business name. For example, adding "Best Pizza in San Francisco" to the name of a restaurant called "Pizza Planet" would be inappropriate and may negatively impact SEO rankings.
     
  • Adhere to Platform Guidelines: Every platform has specific guidelines for listing business names. Make sure your business name adheres to these to avoid being penalized or removed from listings.
 
 

Address

Address is also of high importance, because that’s how the customers can find your business. The address should be precise and accurate. Use the field Address for the street name and the house number of your business, and the field Address Extra for additional information that can help find the business, like unit number, suite, floor, location references or corner/cross streets. Uberall is pre-approved as a trusted partner to make Geo-pin changes.

 

Address Best Practices:

  • Avoid using PO boxes/mailboxes or virtual offices. 
     
  • The city and zip must match
     
  • Provide the city name the business is located in, not the closest biggest city.


 Address Pro Tips:

  • Service areas can be used if local delivery or visit is offered.
     
  • Avoid Abbreviations: Unless they are widely recognized, avoid abbreviations in your address. 
     
  • Include Landmarks Only in Address Line 2: If you need to include landmarks to help locate your business, ensure these are only added to the 'Address Extra' field. The main 'Address' field should strictly contain the official address.
     
  • Google Guidelines
 
 

Phone Number

The phone number is another important field, as they help your customers reach out to you for more information about the business.

Best Practices:

  • Phone number should be consistent between website and all publishers
     
  • Phone number should match the country code
     
  • If applicable, provide a direct phone number instead of a call center number

Pro-Tips:

  • Use Local Numbers When Possible: If you have a local business, consider using a local phone number instead of a toll-free number. 
     
  • Update Numbers When Necessary: If your business phone number changes, make sure to update it across all platforms immediately. An incorrect phone number can lead to a poor user experience and potential loss of business.
     
  • Use Call Tracking Numbers: Using call tracking is another great way to analyze and evaluate the performance of your digital marketing by allowing you to track and record incoming calls from your listings. This is accepted by Google, Facebook, and Bing. 
     
 
 

Business Category

Categories are one of the most important pieces of information about the business. It directly influences the online presence of the business and helps the customer identify the type of business they are looking at.

Be specific – less is more. Categories are not keywords, use the most precise category that the best describes the business. The primary category is prioritized and should be aligned with your main offering. 
 

Pro Tips:

  • Avoid Duplication: Do not use multiple categories that mean the same thing. For instance, if you've chosen "Pizza Restaurant," you probably don't need to add "Pizza Place" or "Pizzeria."
     
  • When Necessary: If your business services evolve over time, make sure to update your categories accordingly.
     
  • Consider Customer Perception: Think from the perspective of the customer – what category would they search for to find a business like yours?
     
  • Don't Over-Categorize: While it's tempting to choose multiple categories to appear in more searches, overuse can dilute your business's relevance and negatively impact your ranking. Stick to the fewest number of categories that accurately describe your business. In fact, using wildly unrelated categories could be a factor of suspicious activity that could end in a suspension. 
     
 
 

Website

The website field can boost a location’s performance. This field provides additional information to customers about the business and serves as one source of truth for publishers to validate your location data.

Best Practices:

  • Localize the website URL if possible, using a location page instead of a homepage
     
  • Do not provide URLs that redirect to other landing pages
     
  • Do not provide URLs for making bookings/appointments, there is a separate field for that
     
  • Avoid having unnecessary spaces and symbols in the website field
     
  • Ensure the website URL has “localbusiness” schema markup to provide important information to search engines

Pro Tips:

  • Ensure the URL is Correct and Functional: This might seem obvious, but always double-check the website URL to ensure it's correctly typed and leads to a functional, live website. Broken links can hurt SEO rankings and user experience.
     
  • Consider Mobile Users: Ensure the website URL leads to a mobile-friendly site. A significant number of local searches are done on mobile devices, so a mobile-friendly site is critical.
     
  • Include a UTM Parameter for Tracking: If you're looking to track the source of your website's traffic more precisely, consider adding a UTM parameter to your URL. This will enable you to see exactly how much traffic is coming from your local listing.
 
 

Keywords

Keywords can be a great tool for enhancing the SEO of the location to rank higher and make it more relevant for local searches. Although not sent to Google, they influence visibility across other publishers.

Best practices:

  • We recommend using up to 10 keywords per location
     
  • Use highly relevant keywords associated with the business
     
  • Use the names of the products or services as keywords. 
     

Pro Tips: 

  • Use Long-Tail Keywords: These are longer, more specific keyword phrases that visitors are more likely to use when they're closer to the point of purchase or when using voice search. 
     
  • Include Location-Based Keywords: As you're dealing with local listings, including your city or neighborhood name in your keywords can help improve your ranking in local search results.
     
  • Understand User Intent: Keywords should align with what a potential customer might search for. Think from the perspective of a consumer – what terms or phrases would they use to find a business like yours?
     
  • Consider Seasonality: If your business has peak times or seasons, include relevant keywords. For example, a pizza place might use "Super Bowl pizza delivery" in January and February.
 
 

Opening Hours

Opening hours are also an important field, and publishers like Yelp, Apple and Google expect these hours being correct. 

Large amount of rejections and suspensions on the customer facing platforms come from the opening hours being incorrect. 

Best Practices:

  • 24 hour format. 
     
  • Must match the opening hours on the website 
     
  • Must match hours displayed at the physical store
     
  • Explore the possibility of “More Hours” (e.g. drive through, etc)
     
  • Special Hours vs Temporary Closures: Only use “temporarily closed” if your business is closed for more than 7 days or closed indefinitely. If your business is closed for less than 6 days, set Special hours. 
     

 

Pro Tips

  • Update Regularly: Ensure the opening hours are regularly updated to reflect any changes due to holidays, special events, or unexpected closures. This helps maintain customer trust and avoid frustration.
     
  • Indicate Closed Days: Clearly indicate days when the business is closed. Using Special Opening Hours for holidays can overwrite the regular open or closed days. 
     
  • Specify Different Service Hours if Needed: If different services within your business have different hours (like a restaurant within a hotel), clarify this. Platforms like Google allow you to set more hours for specific services.
 
 

Short & Long Description

Description is split into short description and long description. The description fields of a business provides useful information on services and product, as well as the mission and the history of the business. These fields may impact your local optimizations of the location, as it may include important keywords. 
 

Best Practices:

  • Google only allows up to 750 characters for long description; otherwise the short description is displayed. 
  • Include products and services offered at the location and mention your service area.
  • Avoid promotional information, URLs/links, or offensive language and content.
  • Keep it simple and avoid over promotional copy that could trigger a suspension.
     

Description Example:

Welcome to Pizza Planet, your go-to destination for the freshest and most delicious pizza in San Francisco! Located conveniently in the heart of the city, we have been serving our community with authentic, hand-tossed pizzas since 2000.

At Pizza Planet, we believe in quality and taste above all. Each pizza is carefully crafted with the finest locally sourced ingredients and baked to perfection in our traditional brick ovens.

We welcome you to dine-in at our vibrant restaurant, where our friendly staff is ready to provide a warm, family-friendly atmosphere. 

 
 

Labels

For multi-location managers, labels help group and sort locations within CoreX. Labels are not published on directories. Public labels are manageable to all users on location level.

Best Practices:

  • Categorize by Relevant Criteria: Labels can be used to group locations by any meaningful criteria such as region, brand, ownership, performance, or services offered. 
  • Use labels to analyze performance of the locations within the label
  • Schedule posts across all locations within a specific label. This can save time and ensure consistency of messaging across similar locations.
     

Use Cases:

  • Restaurants can use labels to identify locations that have closed for construction.
  • Group experimental or concept branches
  • When running a promotion campaign slowly, you can identify locations with labels
  • Group location with drive thru services
     

Pro Tips: 

  • Create Actionable Labels: Use labels that can assist with actionable steps. For instance, labels can indicate locations needing renovations, those due for a compliance check, or ones that are underperforming.
  • Stay Organized: Keep your labels organized. If too many labels are created, they can become difficult to manage and may lose their effectiveness. Try to keep labels broad enough to include several locations, but specific enough to still be useful.
  • Review Regularly: The relevance of certain labels may change over time. Regularly review and update your labels to ensure they continue to be effective and serve their intended purpose.
     
 
 

Attributes

Attributes help customers identify what are some specific features, services and other qualities of the business which in turn helps show the business in relevant local search. 
Attributes are sent to Google, Apple and Facebook.
Attributes applicable for the business vary depending on the primary category of the location. 
 

Best Practices:

  • Review attributes available per primary category and select all that apply for each location. 
  • If applicable to your location, maximize the appointment link attribute
     

Pro Tips

  • Publish More than 1 Attribute: Most locations only provide 1 attribute missing out on additional opportunities for visibility.
  • Leverage Popular Attributes: Some attributes might be more popular or commonly searched by users. If these attributes apply to your business, make sure to include them.
  • Highlight Unique Selling Points: Attributes can be a great way to highlight what sets your business apart from others. For example, if your business is pet-friendly or offers free Wi-Fi, including these attributes can attract customers looking for these features.
  • Consider Relevance for Local Customers: Choose attributes that local customers might particularly value or seek out, such as 'Locally Owned,' 'Free Parking,' or ‘Near Public Transit.’
 
 

Photos

There are a variety of formats accepted in the Photos tab including: Logo, Square Logo, Facebook Cover photo, Google Cover Photo, Locator Cover Photo, and Albums

Best Practices:

  • Rename the files to include your location information prior to uploading. Avoid file names like photo-1.jpg, sdkfjhskdjnf.jpg, etc.
  • Have at least 10 local photos of the location to cover a diverse range of aspects of your business including: interior, exterior, products or services.
  • Professional photos are great but good quality smartphone photos will suffice.
     

Pro Tips

  • Update Regularly: Keep your photos up to date. If your business undergoes significant changes, like a renovation, update your photos to reflect this.
  • Avoid Over-Editing: While some adjustment can enhance a photo, too much editing can make it look unnatural and misleading.
  • Customer-generated Photos: Encourage your customers to share their own photos. These can often provide a more authentic perspective on your business.
  • Captions and Descriptions: When applicable, use captions or descriptions to give context to the photo and include relevant keywords.
 
 

Services

This field provide all the services available at your business separated by comma. They should be grammatically correct and relevant to your business category. 
 

Best Practices:

  • Add services to increase visibility and relevance for customer searches
  • Avoid jargon. Use plain, simple language that anyone can understand. 
  • Prioritize top services: Highlight services you want to be known for or the ones that are most popular among your customers.
  • Use Predefined Services over free-form text entry: Selecting  services from the auto-generated list can help ensure Google trusts those services more than typing it yourself.

Pro Tips:

  • Use Relevant Keywords: When listing services, use relevant keywords that customers might use when searching for your type of business. This can increase visibility and relevance for customer searches.
  • Update Regularly: It's crucial to keep the list of services up-to-date. Include seasonal changes or any other alterations in your services to maintain accuracy and relevance (e.g., a restaurant could add "outdoor seating" in summer months, or an ice cream shop might add "seasonal flavors").
  • Detail Each Service: Go beyond just listing the service. Provide a brief description of each service to give potential customers a better understanding of what they can expect. 
 
 

 

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