How to Structure Websites for Multi-Service or Multi-Location Businesses
How to Structure Websites for Multi-Service or Multi-Location Businesses
As your business grows, your website must scale with it. Whether you’re adding new services or opening offices in multiple cities, your site’s structure can make or break your SEO performance. A well-architected site helps search engines understand your offerings, prevents duplicate content issues, and ensures customers find the right page quickly.
Here’s how to structure your website for maximum clarity, scalability, and local SEO performance.
Site Architecture for Scale and Clarity
A strong site structure starts with logical organisation. For multi-service or multi-location businesses, this usually means:
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A clear homepage linking to main service or location categories
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Service or location category pages leading to detailed subpages
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Consistent navigation and breadcrumbs for user clarity
Think of your site as a hierarchical tree—every page should fit neatly into a branch, without overlap or confusion.
Using Subfolders vs Subdomains
Choosing between subfolders (example.com/sydney/) and subdomains (sydney.example.com) is critical.
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Subfolders: Consolidate SEO authority under one domain, easier to manage.
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Subdomains: Treated as separate sites by Google, requiring additional SEO effort.
For SMBs, subfolders are usually the better choice for scaling services or locations without splitting SEO value.
Creating Location/Service-Based Landing Pages
Each location and service should have its own dedicated landing page. For example:
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/services/accounting
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/services/bookkeeping
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/locations/newcastle
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/locations/sydney
These pages should feature unique, locally relevant content (e.g., testimonials, maps, office details, or city-specific keywords) to improve both relevance and rankings.
Avoiding Duplicate Content Penalties
One of the biggest SEO risks for multi-location businesses is duplicate content. Simply copying the same service page across multiple city pages won’t rank well. Instead:
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Customise content for each location
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Add unique elements like staff profiles, office photos, and client case studies
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Use canonical tags correctly if some content must be duplicated
Fresh, location-specific content is key to standing out in search results.
Geo-Targeting Best Practices
Google needs clear signals to serve the right page to the right audience. Best practices include:
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Embedding Google Maps and location schema markup
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Claiming and optimising each Google Business Profile
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Including local business details (address, phone number, opening hours)
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Using city-specific keywords naturally within content
These steps help ensure your Sydney customers see your Sydney page, while your Newcastle customers find the Newcastle one.
Why Site Structure Matters for Growing Businesses
For multi-service and multi-location businesses, website structure is more than a technical decision—it’s a growth strategy. A scalable, SEO-friendly structure ensures your website continues to perform as your business expands.
At Bottrell Media, we specialise in building and optimising websites for multi-service and multi-location businesses, helping you rank locally while scaling nationally.
👉 Book a consultation today and discover how we can restructure your website for better SEO performance and business growth.
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