Geo-grid rank tracking is a valuable strategy for multi-location businesses looking to precisely track local search rankings across locations and get hyperlocal insights into local SEO performance.
However, since different locations serve unique areas, with varying populations, competition, and geography, a one-size-fits-all approach to multi-location rank tracking can be overly broad.
Customizing the geo-grid — the area you’re tracking local search performance in — to match each location’s unique characteristics ensures multi-location businesses get the most relevant insights.
Why Customizing Geo-Grids Matters
Customizing geo-grids ensures that each location’s rank tracking aligns with its real-world service area. This provides you with more precise local SEO insights and eliminates performance data for irrelevant map areas that can potentially skew insights.
It’s important to note that not all rank tracking tools provide the option to customize geo-grids — many don’t even offer geo-grid rank tracking!
However, some tools, like Local Falcon, offer flexible grid points, allowing you to set a custom grid size, radius, and shape for individual rank tracking scans or multi-location campaigns.
When Should Multi-Location Businesses Customize Rank Tracking Geo-Grids?
1. Different Service Area Sizes
A business with multiple locations may serve very different geographic areas. For example, a coffee shop in a dense urban area might primarily attract customers within a few blocks, whereas one in a suburban or rural area may draw customers from several miles away.
Using the same default geo-grid size for both locations won’t provide an accurate view of where each business ranks. The urban coffee shop needs a tighter grid with more data points concentrated within a small radius, while the suburban or rural one benefits from a wider geo-grid to reflect its true service area.
Adjusting geo-grid size and spacing based on customer reach helps you measure rankings where they actually matter.
2. Geographic Barriers and Natural Features
A restaurant located near a lake, ocean, or large park (like a national or state park) may have grid points that fall over water or uninhabited land. This distorts ranking results because customers won’t be searching from those locations.
If part of a geo-grid is over water, forests, or other uninhabited areas, it skews rank tracking data, showing a business ranking well or poorly in locations that don’t actually have potential customers and thus aren’t really important to track.
Customizing the grid by disabling points over water or shifting coverage toward populated areas ensures your data reflects real-world search behavior.
3. Competing Business Density
A location in a highly competitive market, such as a city center with dozens of similar businesses, needs more granular rank tracking, while a location in a less competitive market may only have a handful of direct competitors.
In hyper-competitive markets, rankings can fluctuate dramatically from one block to another. If a business isn’t tracking rankings at a fine enough scale, it might miss critical insights into its local SEO performance.
Customizing the geo-grid to increase the number of tracking points in competitive areas allows you to monitor ranking shifts with greater precision.
4. Local Search Behavior Differences
Customer behavior varies based on location. In urban settings, people often search for businesses within a short walking or driving distance. In suburban and rural areas, customers are willing to travel further to reach a business.
A rigid, default geo-grid doesn’t account for these behavioral differences. An urban business may only care about rankings within a one- or two-mile radius, while a suburban business may need to track rankings in a five- to ten-mile radius.
Adjusting grid size and spacing ensures you’re tracking rankings in areas with the most potential customers.
5. Multi-Location Businesses with Overlapping Service Areas
A business with multiple locations in close proximity can benefit from custom geo-grids to ensure each location is tracking rankings for the specific area where its target customer base is searching from.
Setting custom geo-grids lets you clearly define service area boundaries for each location, preventing overlap in local search ranking data and ensuring you’re getting the most relevant insights.
6. Special Considerations for Franchises and Chains
Franchise owners may have different marketing budgets, goals, and strategies for their locations, meaning a standardized rank tracking approach might not align with each location’s needs.
A corporate-owned location in a prime real estate spot might need a different SEO strategy than a smaller franchise in a less trafficked area. If both use the same default geo-grid, the data won’t provide useful insights tailored to each location’s individual challenges.
Custom geo-grids allow franchisees and multi-location business owners to track rankings in ways that make sense for their specific locations rather than following a one-size-fits-all model.
Benefits of Customizing Geo-Grids for Multi-Location Businesses:
- Gain More Accurate Ranking Insights: Ensure you’re measuring rankings in relevant areas rather than getting distorted data.
- Make Smarter Strategic Decisions: Identify location-specific challenges and opportunities to refine their local SEO strategies.
- Strengthen Competitor Analysis: See a clearer picture of how your competitors are ranking in each specific target area.
- Maximize Local SEO ROI: Allocate resources more effectively by focusing on areas that actually need improvement.
Multi-location businesses can’t rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to rank tracking. Every location has unique challenges — whether it’s service area size, competition, geography, or customer behavior. Customizing geo-grids is the key to unlocking meaningful local SEO insights and driving better results!
