Best Practice When Selling One Location of Company with Multiple Branches - Local Search

[Ayres-SEO]

I have a client with a small business with 4 different branches. Currently, we have a main landing page for the company, plus distinct landing pages for each branch with maps, territories, distinct phone numbers, etc., for each branch.

The company recently sold one of the branches to a competitor  as they do not want to service that area anymore. They have asked me what they should do now. Obviously, we are going to remove the location page for that branch, but we also need to transfer the phone number to the other company for use as part of the sale.

What tasks should I look into for separating the branch from the rest of the company while still maintaining best practice for the rest of the site/company?

Thank you for your help and suggestions.

[DonnaDuncan]

Just updating the URL of the post Miriam mentioned. It's been moved and is returning a 404 error. Try https://www.imprezziomarketing.com/is-permanently-closed-killing-your-ranking-4-case-studies/ instead.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Dominick,

You know - honestly what I'd do here is comment on Joy's post with your question! I bet she'll reply and because it appears she has dealt with your exact situation before, she might be able to offer some additional suggestions like that. Why not go right to the source?

[Ayres-SEO]

Miriam,

Thanks for the awesome resource. It really shed some light on the process that I have never had to confront. I think the example of "relocating" the list of the sold branch would be the best way to do it. If they want to register the their address as they new branch at that location they can do that on their own time (who knows if they even have an SEO team...I doubt it). So it looks like the way forward is to ask Google to mark it as relocated to the closest other branch.

Can you think of anything else we should do? On our page we can make a note of it on the branch specific landing page for the sold location or just redirect that to the main page with all the locations on it.

What do you think?

[MiriamEllis]

Thanks, Dominick,

This scenario is actually more complex than it may seem at first glance because of a couple of things. It would seem like the obvious step would simply be to report your sold branch as closed and move on, letting the new owner open a new GMB listing for their new purchase. However, before you jump into doing this, do read this: http://imprezziomarketing.com/seo-blog/google-maps/is-permanently-closed-killing-your-ranking-4-case-studies/

I would not want you reporting the branch as closed to impact your other open branches, so please do read that case study to see if this helps shine some light on your strategy for this.

[Ayres-SEO]

I am pretty sure they are renaming it, as my client is retaining their company name for their other branches. I do not know what the SEO/marketing plans are of the new owners. My client wants to continue to promote their other branches and the company overall.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Dominick,

So, is the new owner going to rename this old branch of yours to be something different? Have you discussed with the owner what their plans are, in terms of website and Local SEO efforts for the newly acquired branch?