6 SEO Strategies for Large-Scale Businesses with Multiple Locations

Imagine this; you’ve recently been employed as an in-house digital marketing expert team leader in a Fortune 500 company. The company owns a website that has over 1,000,000 pages. That’s not all, there’s more – the company has multiple locations across the world. 

You are expected to help the company’s website rank on Google’s first page and other search engines. Unfortunately, you’ve never handled a project of this magnitude – and the website’s pages are bound to increase over time.

Deep inside, you know you need to get it done the right way. Of course, you wouldn’t want to waste time and company resources – you need to get down to business as fast as possible. 

But where should you even start? Does the company’s in-house digital marketing team have the skills and capacity to take on this massive project?

Here’s the deal:

Enterprise SEO is an absolute nightmare even for experts who’ve been in the industry long enough. In fact, most large-scale businesses fail to rank well on Google because of limited in-house SEO expertise and manpower.

Luckily, we’ve prepared this in-depth guide article to help you know where to start and the most important factors to consider.

Let’s dive right in!

What is Enterprise SEO?

Enterprise SEO can be defined as optimizing a big company’s online presence to improve visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). Large-scale business SEO is way more complex than “normal” SEO.

Here’s why:

Large-scale businesses often have a lot of content on their websites. It is also essential to note that large-scale businesses have a complex website structure. The going gets tougher when the company has multiple locations.

For example, some big companies like Toyota, BMW, etc. have several websites localized for each region.

You’ll have to optimize the website’s content and build solid backlinks from other high-authority websites. You’ll additionally need to improve the technical aspects of the website in a smarter and more scalable way.

Should You Outsource Your Business’s SEO Services?

Most large-scale businesses have an in-house digital marketing team which is great. However, relying on the in-house team alone to help your business’s website rank better, get more prospects, and increase revenue is a huge gamble.

Here’s why:

Enterprise SEO is complex and difficult. You’ll need to train each team member how to correctly do large-scale SEO, which consumes a lot of time and company resources making it inefficient.

That’s why most successful large-scale businesses outsource their SEO services to professional SEO agencies. Working with someone/a team of diverse professionals with skills in large-scale business SEO will certainly get your business at the top of SERPs.

In addition, outsourcing your large-scale business’s SEO services is considerably cheaper than having an in-house digital marketing team. Further, you can get more SEO activities done faster by simply outsourcing your SEO services.

Feel free to get in touch with us for more information about our services and pricing.

How to Do Large-Scale Business SEO Correctly

Before diving in too deeply about how to do SEO for large-scale businesses, it would be best to first understand why SEO is so important. Check this out:

Doing SEO for large enterprises correctly is important because:

• According to a recent study done by SEMrush, the top three websites on Google’s SERPs get 50% of all the clicks. Also, the first five websites on Google’s SERPs account for 68% of all the clicks.
• While PPC advertising is important and helps drive more sales, many people tend to ignore the ads section – they click on the organic results instead. Focusing on SEO is also beneficial as it has low-cost barriers which make it cheaper than paid advertising.

Bottom line:

It is essential to do SEO correctly. Check out our top six recommendations of how you can do SEO for large-scale businesses correctly:

1. Refresh Old Content (While Protecting Domain Authority and Backlinks)

Refreshing a large-scale business’s website content is one of the most challenging activities for any enterprise SEO team. Remember, the website has thousands if not millions of pages that need to be refreshed and updated.

Microsoft has 120 million indexed web pages on Google

– Now, why does it matter?

Refreshing old content and updating information, e.g., statistics, missing links, etc. is important as it helps your target audience get the latest and most accurate information. However, it is essential to remember that the old content has high page authority and backlinks.

You’ll need to find the right balance between refreshing old content and adding new information without doing away with secondary keywords which help your site rank high on SERPs.

– So how do you go about it?

The best way to refresh old content without losing backlinks and authority is by first determining which pages need to be refreshed. You’ll also need to know what content you need to add to make the pages more competitive. 

It is practically impossible to refresh all the content on a large-scale business’s website. Therefore, the whole process needs to be smart and scalable for it to be successful.

2. Quality Content Creation

It is essential to note that Google is user-centric, and they want to do away with anything that users find unsatisfying. Google recently hinted that they are going to start honing in more helpful content.

According to their most recent update, Google encourages content writers and editors to come up with content that benefits readers (people-first approach). They’ve clearly stated that you should avoid using the search-engine-first approach when writing content.

Check this out:

Quality content creation is essential because it has a significant impact on your marketing efforts. It attracts and pushes prospects down your marketing funnel. A marketing funnel is basically a customer-centric marketing approach.

So how do you go about creating quality content?

It’s simple; you’ll need to engage your SEO team by looking for target keywords. You’ll additionally need to provide guidelines on how the content should be written to make it competitive.

For example, you can instruct writers to include internal and external links, strategic positioning of primary and secondary keywords, add image alt text, etc. In addition, the writers can become a little bit more creative by writing captivating meta titles and descriptions.

Pro tip: When doing keyword research for large-scale businesses, things could easily get out of hand. Your team may generate lots of keywords and have lots of actionable suggestions that are most likely going to have a positive impact on your SEO efforts.

Remember, large-scale business SEO is best done in a scalable way – consider completing the process in a smart and scalable way. Also, since the content will be written using a people-first approach, it would be best to have a clear understanding of your target audience, especially their pain points.

That way, you’ll be able to generate quality content that readers will enjoy reading and be compelled to share with their friends and colleagues.

3. Create a Page for Each Location on Your Website

Most large-scale businesses have different branches across the world. As such, it would be best to have unique pages for specific locations as they are most likely going to rank on local searches.

Here’s the mistake that most enterprise SEO experts make:

They try to rank their website’s home page for multiple locations which does a huge disservice to their SEO efforts. They end up losing prospects because Google calculates the distance between the user and the business unless the user specifies the preferred location.

4. Create a Google Business Profile

Imagine this; you’ve just moved to a new city. The moving and settling process has been so hectic and you want to treat yourself to a day in the best spa in town. The first thing you’ll probably do is a quick Google search for “Best spa near me”.

Since Google is user-centric, it’ll provide you with business listings. Each listing is ranked differently and provides valuable information such as opening and closing times, business days, real reviews from previous customers, etc.

You decide to reach out to the spa that you find most appealing. 

Now imagine that you are the owner of that spa – you’ve just scored yourself a new customer simply by having a Google Business Profile.

Here’s the deal:

The same thing happens in real life to large-scale businesses. Most people today rely on Google for information, so it is essential to ensure that your business listing can easily be found by Google.

The best thing about creating a Google Business Profile is that it only takes a few minutes to complete and is completely free.

5. Build Backlinks for Each Location

Building backlinks is an essential part of all SEO campaigns. Building backlinks on an enterprise level is complex – just like everything else. The logic behind building backlinks is that Google gives more organic traffic to a web page that has lots of backlinks.

How can you get more backlinks for your large-scale business website?

By writing quality content and refreshing (and updating) old content. The good thing about building backlinks for a large-scale company is that you already have an upper hand – your business is recognized and already has brand authority.

6. Page Speed

Page speed is one of the most essential factors that determine how well your website ranks. It directly affects user experience, which is pretty much what Google focuses on because it strives to ensure that its users are satisfied.

In addition, page speed also has a significant impact on prospect-to-customer conversions. Most prospects exit your website if it takes too long to load. Check this out:

Image credit: Think With Google

How can you make specific web pages load faster?

• It would be best to go with a hosting platform that is performance-optimized
• Consider compressing and optimizing your web page’s images and other sources
• Reduce page redirects

Honorable Mention: Why Digital Marketing Transformation is Essential for Large-Scale Businesses

The ultimate goal of digital marketing is attracting prospects and converting them to loyal customers as well as retaining existing customers. In other words, digital marketing should drive sales and prove returns on investments (ROI).

Digital marketing transformation is essential for large-scale businesses as it is a certain way of future-proofing businesses. It refers to implementing new technologies to help businesses make more sales and prove ROI as the world continues to rely heavily on technology.

One of the most effective ways of transforming digital marketing at an enterprise level is by using Deloitte’s FOCUS model.

This model helps large-scale companies implement changes to their marketing methods. It gives them a clear view of what they need to do to get a good ROI.

Making Sense of it All

Enterprise SEO indeed is one of the most difficult tasks in the digital marketing field. However, the process can be simplified by doing a proper digital marketing transformation. Remember, digital marketing transformation is a way to future-proof your large-scale business.

As such, large-scale SEO is the future for large-scale businesses. This article has outlined five of the most essential factors to consider when doing SEO for big businesses that have multiple locations.

Remember, large-scale business SEO needs to be done in a smart and scalable way mainly because big businesses’ websites have lots of pages. That’s why enterprise SEO is so complex and difficult.

It would be best to reach out to a professional digital marketing agency Sitemetrik to help you out with your business’s enterprise SEO. Doing so will save you a lot of money in the long run and you’ll get to work with people who’ve done enterprise SEO successfully.