A business with several locations needs both: its own page for each real location and a shared blog. The location page carries the address, team, opening hours and services on site; the blog answers the specialist questions once for everyone and picks up regional topics where relevant. What doesn't work is dozens of near identical location pages for towns where you have no premises: Google classes such pages as doorway pages and treats them as spam.
This question comes up for any business operating in two or more places: a joinery with a workshop in Weinfelden and a showroom in St. Gallen, a trust company with three offices, a garage with two branches. It also comes up for businesses with a single location that work across thirty towns. The answer depends on whether the places are real locations or service areas.
Real locations and artificial location pages
A real location has an address where customers can visit you or from which your team works, a team that is actually there, and usually its own Google Business Profile. For every such location, a dedicated page is right and necessary: Google matches local searches using address, proximity and consistency of details, and without a location page, the website lacks the anchor for the second place.
An artificial location page is a page that exists for a town where you have no premises and differs from the others only in the place name: "Painter Amriswil", "Painter Romanshorn", "Painter Arbon", with the same text. Google calls such pages doorway pages in its spam guidelines: pages created for specific search queries to funnel users to the same destination, which have no value in their own right. Google treats them as a policy violation. The result isn't good rankings for thirty places, it's a risk to the whole domain.
The distinction in practice:
| Feature | Real location | Artificial location page |
|---|---|---|
| Address, phone number, opening hours | own | none, or those of head office |
| Team and contact person | on site | none |
| Content | own offers, photos, directions | swapped-out place name |
| Google Business Profile | present | not possible |
| Recommendation | own page | no page, instead a service area and blog |
The structure for businesses with multiple locations
A proven approach consists of three levels:
- Service pages describe what the business does, once for all locations. They target searches such as "bespoke kitchen" or "tax return GmbH".
- Location pages describe where and with whom. One per real location, with address, map, team, opening hours, photos of the premises and the services offered there. They target searches such as "joinery St. Gallen".
- A shared blog answers the specialist questions that are the same at every location, and picks up regional topics where they exist.
The location pages link to the service pages and to regional blog posts. The blog posts link to the location responsible for that region. This creates a structure in which every place has an anchor, without content existing twice. Which settings to set in the Google Business Profile for each location is covered on the relevant knowledge page.
Why one blog and not three
Three blogs for three locations sound like triple the visibility and are the opposite. The specialist question "Which type of wood for the kitchen front?" is the same in Weinfelden as in St. Gallen. Answering it three times creates duplicate content that Google has to consolidate, and spreads the upkeep across three thin blogs that all fall dormant. One blog with a single post on the type of wood, linked from every location page, is stronger and easier to maintain.
Regional topics in the shared blog
Regional posts are where towns without a location can still feature, with genuine content. Examples that differ from an artificial location page:
- A project report: "Built-in wardrobe under the sloped ceiling in Arbon: how we solved the alcove."
- A local regulation: "Building permit for the charging station in Kreuzlingen: what the municipality requires."
- A seasonal topic with local relevance: "Painting the facade on Lake Constance: why autumn is the better time."
- A comparison within the region: "Parquet in older flats in St. Gallen: the three most common subfloors."
Each of these posts has a reason to name the place and says something that applies only to that place. That's the difference from a doorway page. How regional searches work in Switzerland, with canton, district and agglomeration, is explained on the page Getting found regionally in Switzerland. The basics of being found from your region are covered under Local SEO for SMEs.
Example: trust company with three offices
A fictional trust company with offices in Frauenfeld, Wil and Winterthur builds its website like this:
- Service pages: accounting, tax advice, payroll administration, company formation. One page each, covering all locations.
- Location pages: Frauenfeld, Wil, Winterthur. Each with address, team, parking, opening hours, the services offered on site and a map.
- Blog: one blog. Specialist posts on tax deadlines, payroll, VAT. Plus regional posts where they exist: cantonal differences in tax returns between Thurgau, St Gallen and Zurich, a post on start-up advice in Winterthur, a post on property gains tax in Thurgau.
The cantonal differences are the natural regional content here. The company doesn't need a page for every municipality in its catchment area, because the location pages cover proximity and the blog posts cover the topics.
What to do with this
Count your actual locations and give each one a full page. Run one blog for all of them. Include places without a location only where you have something specific to say about them, and nowhere else.
Frequently asked questions
We serve 30 municipalities but only have one location. Should the municipalities get their own pages?
Not as plain location pages with the place name swapped out. It makes more sense to have one page about your service area that names the municipalities, plus blog posts that say something specific about individual places: a project there, a local regulation, a particular feature. A place gets its own page once there's content that applies only to that place.
Does every location need its own blog?
No, that leads to duplicate content and spreads the work across several thin blogs. One shared blog with regional posts is stronger. Only if locations are in different language regions or offer completely different services is a split worthwhile, and even then usually as a language version or section, not as a second blog.
Should every location have its own Google Business Profile?
Yes, as long as it's a genuine location with an address where customers can find you or from which you operate. Each profile should link to its respective location page, not to the homepage. That way the details on Google, on the website and in directories all match up.
How do I stop location pages from holding each other back?
By clearly assigning each page to one place, in the title, the heading and the content. Two pages both targeting "joinery Thurgau" compete with each other. A page for Frauenfeld and one for Kreuzlingen, each with its own details, don't.