A business with more than one location should have one Google Business Profile for each real, staffed location, managed together from a single business group, with each profile linking to its own location page on your website. Every location then competes in the map pack around its own address, and the location pages carry the organic rankings for each area.
This guide covers which locations qualify, how to set them up and manage them together, how to name them, how to build the matching pages on your site, and the mistakes that quietly hold multi-location businesses back.
Key takeaways
- Each qualifying location gets its own profile. A location qualifies when it is a real place with staff who serve customers there, or a base a service team operates from.
- Manage all of them from one business group, so ownership, access and reporting stay in one place.
- Use the same brand name on every profile. Do not add the town to the name unless it is part of the real name on the sign.
- Link each profile to its own location page, not to the homepage. That page is what ranks in the organic results and what converts the visit.
- Reviews, photos and posts are per location. A strong flagship does not lift a neglected branch.
Which locations should have a profile
Google’s guidelines for representing your business require that a profile represents a real location. That gives a simple test for each place on your list.
| Type of location | Own profile? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A shop, office or clinic where customers are served in person during set hours | Yes | The standard case. Show the address. |
| A base a service team works from, such as a depot or satellite office with staff | Yes, usually as a service-area business | Hide the address if customers do not visit, and list the areas served from that base. |
| A virtual office, mailbox or coworking desk nobody staffs | No | Not allowed, and a common cause of suspension. |
| A town you serve but have no location in | No | List it as a service area and build a location page for it on your site. |
| A department inside one location, such as a separate practice or service counter | Sometimes | Google allows some departments their own profiles; check the guidelines for your category before creating one. |
Setting up multiple locations
Use a business group
Google lets you group profiles under one business group so they can be managed together. Put every location in one group owned by a company account, not by an individual employee’s personal account. When people leave, the profiles stay with the business.
Verify each location
Each location is verified on its own. Google may offer a phone call, email, video or postcard, and it chooses which options are available. Businesses with many locations can sometimes verify in bulk; Google sets the conditions for that, and they can change, so check what the manager offers when you reach that number.
Set up access deliberately
Give each location manager access to their own profile only, and keep ownership at company level. Review the access list a few times a year and remove anyone who has left, including past agencies.
Naming, categories and details
Keep the brand name consistent
Every profile should use the business name as it appears on the sign. If your sign says “Smith Dental”, every location is “Smith Dental”. Adding “Smith Dental Lansdale” or “Smith Dental Best Dentist” breaks the guidelines unless that is genuinely the location’s name. The address tells Google which branch is which.
Use the same primary category everywhere it fits
If every location does the same thing, the primary category should match across them. Where a location offers something the others do not, add it as a secondary category on that profile only.
Get the details right per location
- Hours. Each location’s own hours, with holiday hours set ahead of time.
- Phone. A local number that rings that location, or a tracking number that forwards to it, with the main local number listed as well.
- Services and products. What that location actually offers.
- Photos. The real exterior, interior and team at that location. Shared brand imagery is fine alongside them, but the location’s own photos are what reassure a customer they have the right place.
- Website link. The location’s own page on your site.
Build a page on your site for every location
The profile ranks in the map pack. The location page ranks in the organic results, gives Google more to understand about that branch, and gives the customer a reason to choose it. Linking every profile to the homepage wastes that.
A good location page includes:
- The location’s name, full address, phone and hours, matching the profile exactly.
- A map and directions, including parking and landmarks.
- The services offered at that location, and anything particular to it.
- The staff who work there, with photos.
- Reviews from customers of that location.
- Local detail about the area it serves, written for that area, not copied from another branch.
- LocalBusiness structured data with that location’s details. Our free schema markup generator will produce it for each one.
Link the location pages from a locations hub, and link each one to its neighbors. On our own site, the areas we serve page plays that role for the towns we cover.
Mixing storefronts and service-area locations
Many growing businesses end up with a mix: a showroom customers visit, plus a depot or two where crews start their day and customers never come. Both can belong in the same business group, but they are set up differently.
- Storefront locations show their address, set opening hours for walk-in customers, and rank in the map pack around that address.
- Service-area locations hide their address, list the towns or zip codes served from that base, and set hours for when they take calls or jobs.
- Service areas should not overlap heavily. If two bases claim the same towns, decide which one serves each area and set the lists to match, so you are not competing with yourself.
The website should mirror the same split. A storefront gets a location page with directions and opening hours; a service base gets a page about the area it covers, the services offered there and how quickly the team can reach a customer. Customers care about different things in each case, and the page should answer what they are actually asking.
When a business adds a base, it is tempting to give it a profile immediately. Wait until it is genuinely operating, with staff and a working phone, so the profile describes something real from the day it is verified. A profile created early and then left inactive, or one that has to be moved soon after, does more harm than good.
Reviews across many locations
Reviews belong to the profile they are left on. A flagship with hundreds of reviews does nothing for a new branch with five. Each location needs its own steady flow.
- Send each customer the review link for the location they used, not a generic one.
- Make each location manager responsible for asking, and give them the tools to do it easily.
- Reply to every review on every profile, in the voice of that location. Responses show customers someone is paying attention.
- Never move reviews between profiles or ask customers to review a location they did not visit.
Common mistakes with multi-location profiles
Duplicate profiles
Old profiles from a previous owner, a past agency or a former address often survive. Search Maps for your name and each phone number, and claim or remove duplicates so each location has exactly one profile.
Inconsistent details across the web
When directories list a location with an old address or phone, Google has conflicting information about it. Keep a master sheet of every location’s details and correct listings that disagree.
Thin, copied location pages
Ten pages with the same text and a different town name do not help. Google’s guidance on helpful content is aimed squarely at pages like that. Each page needs something real about its own location.
Opening and closing without updating the profile
When a location moves or closes, update or close its profile promptly. A profile that sends customers to an empty building generates bad reviews quickly.
Treating every location the same in reporting
One combined number hides problems. Track calls, direction requests, website clicks and rankings per location, so a struggling branch is spotted early.
How we manage multi-location profiles for clients
We manage Google Business Profiles for businesses with one location and for groups with many, and the work for a group follows a consistent routine.
- An audit of every location. Ownership and access, duplicates, name and category consistency, details against the website, and how each profile ranks around its own address.
- A clean structure. All profiles in one business group owned by the company, with location managers given access to their own branch only.
- A location page per profile, written for that location, with matching details and structured data, linked from a hub and to its neighbors.
- A review program per location, with the right link for each and responses on every review.
- Weekly activity: posts and photos for each location, and checks for edits Google or the public have suggested to the profiles.
- Reporting per location, with rankings tracked weekly in SEOApp, the rank tracker we built, so each branch can be compared with the others.
That work sits within our Google Business Profile management and local SEO services. If you are expanding into towns where you do not yet have a location, a page built for each town is the way in; our own Lansdale page is an example of the format. For a person to review your current profiles, start with the free audit.
Frequently asked questions
Can one Google Business Profile cover several locations?
No. Each real location needs its own profile. A single profile can list service areas, but it represents one place and ranks around that place in the map pack.
Should each location’s profile name include the town?
Only if the town is part of the location’s real name, as shown on its sign and paperwork. Otherwise use the same brand name everywhere and let the address identify the branch.
Can two locations share a phone number?
It is better for each location to have its own local number. A shared central number makes it harder for Google to tell the locations apart and harder for you to measure calls per branch.
Do I need a separate page on my website for every location?
Yes. Linking every profile to the homepage gives up the organic rankings and the conversion a location page brings. Each page should match its profile’s details and say something specific about that location.
What happens to reviews if we move a location?
If the business moves and the same location continues at a new address, update the address on the existing profile rather than creating a new one, and the reviews stay. A new profile starts from zero.
Can I manage all the profiles myself?
Yes, with a business group and a routine for posts, reviews and checks. The work grows with each location, which is why many multi-location businesses hand it to someone whose job it is.
