Short answer: Each genuine staffed location needs its own Google Business Profile, its own website page and its own review stream. The most common failure in multi-location businesses is treating branches as copies of each other — which produces duplicate content, split management and branches that quietly underperform.
What counts as a separate location
Google’s requirement is a distinct, staffed premises where customers can be served during stated hours.
| Eligible | Not eligible |
|---|---|
| Second branch with its own staff and opening hours | A virtual office or mailbox |
| A separate shop, clinic or workshop | A co-working desk used occasionally |
| A depot customers visit | A relative’s address in a target town |
| A practitioner with their own premises | An unmanned storage unit |
Creating listings for locations that do not meet this bar is one of the more serious guideline breaches and can put every listing in the account at risk, not just the questionable one.
Structure that works
- One Business Profile per location, each verified, each with its own address, phone number and hours
- Location-specific phone numbers where possible — a single central number weakens local signals and makes attribution impossible
- One website page per location, genuinely distinct, linked from a locations index
- Consistent NAP per location across all directories
- Local manager involvement — branch staff know their area and their customers
The duplicate content trap
Multi-location businesses almost always build location pages from a single template. It is efficient and it undermines the whole exercise.
Each location page needs material that could not belong to another branch: that branch’s team, its photographs, its reviews, its parking and access details, its opening hours, its local context.
This is the same principle as local landing pages generally, but the stakes are higher — thin location pages across ten branches is a substantial volume of low-value content on one domain.
Reviews are the hardest part
Here is the problem nobody plans for: reviews attach to individual listings, not to the brand.
A business with six branches typically finds two have plenty of reviews and four have almost none — usually because two managers took it seriously and four did not. Those four branches then rank poorly, receive fewer enquiries, and appear less credible than their sister sites.
Fixes that work:
- Make review requesting a defined part of the branch process, not an initiative
- Give each branch its own review link, printed or on a card
- Report review counts per branch monthly so gaps are visible
- Have someone responsible for replying across all locations — response rates collapse when it is nobody’s job
Never centralise the asking to head office. Reviews come from the moment of service, which happens at the branch.
Access and permissions
Set this up deliberately before it becomes a problem:
- Use a business group or organisation account so listings sit together rather than in personal accounts
- Give branch managers appropriate access, not full ownership
- Retain ownership centrally — staff leave, and orphaned listings are painful to recover
- Document who has access to what
A surprising proportion of multi-location businesses discover they cannot edit a branch listing because it was claimed years ago by someone who has left.
Branches compete with each other
An underappreciated reality: if two branches are reasonably close, they will compete for the same searches and may cannibalise each other’s visibility.
There is no clean fix — Google shows what it judges most relevant to each searcher. What you can do is differentiate genuinely: distinct service emphases, distinct local content, distinct catchment framing. Trying to force one branch above another rarely works.
Consistency versus locality
The balance to strike: brand consistency in name, tone and visual identity, but genuine local difference in content, photographs, reviews and detail.
The business name must be identical across listings — adding the town to the name (“Smith Dental Solihull”) breaches guidelines unless that is the actual registered trading name of that location. Google displays the location alongside the name anyway.
Reporting per location
Aggregate reporting hides problems. Track per branch:
- Profile views, calls, direction requests, website clicks
- Review count and average rating
- Review response rate
- Photo uploads in the period
Branch-level visibility is what surfaces the location that has quietly stopped doing any of it.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use one phone number for all branches?
You can, but location-specific numbers give stronger local signals and let you attribute enquiries properly.
Should each branch have its own website?
No — one site with distinct location pages is better. Separate sites split domain authority.
Can I add the town to each branch name?
Only if it is the genuine registered trading name of that location. Otherwise it breaches guidelines.
How do I stop branches cannibalising each other?
Genuine differentiation in content and catchment. Some overlap is unavoidable where branches are close.
We manage multi-location profiles for UK businesses, including per-branch reporting that surfaces underperforming sites early. Book a free audit.
Related reading: Duplicate Google listings · Local landing pages