A growing number of brands are listing themselves as a concession store in a department store such as John Lewis, Debenhams, Harvey Nichols, Harrods and Selfridges.

Listing multiple concession brands at a department store’s address presents an opportunity and a threat in local search.

An address is an asset in local search – so if you can list your brand at a legitimate business address it is more likely to appear in local search results.  However, the NAP (Name, Address and Phone number) must to be consistently listed in local listing sites and citations.

The Opportunity – multiple brands (when set-up correctly) can be listed at the same address with different web links, presenting a rich local search profile and enhanced organic performance for key categories.

The Threat – multiple brands incorrectly listed at the same address can interfere with each-others’ organic search performance and undermine the search profile of the department store.  We’ve seen examples of 7 different brands listed at the same address all of which were using the same phone number!

We’ll explain below:

Department stores host a number of brand concessions selling anything from clothing, perfumes, furniture and electricals to holidays and food, etc., yet as they are listed in local citations as “department store” they have a fairly limited category group in which to appear in local search.  The opportunity is to list each (major) brand concession separately in local citations in-order to broaden the category search footprint AND to let brands appear in their own respective category searches.

For example, instead of mentioning fashion and electricals in a single category listing for “department store”, you could have three separate category listings; one for fashion, one for electricals and one for department store.

As a result, you could get three strong search result for three unrelated categories.

HOWEVER, this needs to be done correctly and in a controlled way to avoid NAP citation conflicts.

Here are our guidelines for multi-brand stores:

1. Have a NAP listing policy that all concession brands must adhere to.

2. Brands must get the permission of the store before listing.

3. Brands that are listed at the same address MUST:

• Be listed as a brand not the department store name
• Use a different telephone phone number to the department store (and other brands)
• Be clearly and categorised (e.g. Fashion, Clothing, or Electricals, Appliances)
• Use a different URL which preferably points to a location specific landing page.
• Use rich brand content (in local citations).

4. Control the number of brand and category listings.

5. Clean or remove conflicting local citations.

This approach is not limited to concession brands, it can also be used for supermarkets (for example) that offer different in-store services such as opticians, pharmacy, restaurants etc.

MiShop.local helps multi-location companies to control their brand in local search.

If you are flummoxed by how to practically implement a NAP strategy for a multi-brand location – please call us now – we can make things clearer and easier.