When to deploy a Store Locator, and how?

A store locator is a very useful tool for businesses that have multiple physical locations, such as retail stores, restaurants, or bank branches. A store locator is an interactive element that businesses can integrate on their website to help customers easily find the nearest branch or store.

A good SEO-optimised store locator can also increase traffic to your website – on average, up to 20% of a website’s traffic can come from the store locator.

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Discover the good practices to choosing a provider for your store locator!

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However, there may be times when your store locator needs a redesign. Here are some signs that should prompt a review of your store locator:

You are redesigning your website

Are you completely or partially changing your website? This is the opportunity to do the same with your store locator! Indeed, it’s better to group all the changes on the website at the same time to optimise the time of the IT teams, who are generally very busy.

You are working on your SEO

If you are currently working on the SEO of your website, it may also be a good time to consider local SEO actions, particularly for your store locator, which is a very important traffic driver for your website. Indeed, there are many standards to follow to ensure that your store locator has a positive impact on the local SEO of your brand: if the structure of your store locator pages is not properly organised, for instance, it may need to be redesigned.

You are reworking the user journey

As part of implementing or improving a drive-to-store strategy, it is appropriate to construct or optimise all the necessary omnichannel tools to smooth the user journey across different channels. A store locator is the ideal tool linking your website with points of sale. If you already have a store locator, you could decide to enhance the UX to make the user journey smoother, or even integrate a booking module to encourage users to visit your physical points of sale.

Your store locator is simply not up to date

If your location data is not up to date (address, phone number, etc.), your customers may end up in the wrong place, which can be frustrating for them, but it can also have a negative impact on your SEO. Similarly, an outdated design can harm the user experience and give the impression that your business is not up to date. If you notice that your store locator looks old and outdated, it is time to think about a redesign to refresh its looks. This was the case for our client Unilabs, who did not have a centralised management of their local data, resulting in inconsistencies and outdated information on the store locator.

The performance of your store locator is slow

If your store locator takes too long to load or if the results are slow to display, this can frustrate your customers and have a negative impact on your SEO. If you notice that your store locator is slow, it is time to consider a redesign to improve its performance.

In conclusion, if you find yourself in any of these situations, it is time to consider a redesign of your store locator. A well-planned redesign can enhance user experience, your SEO, and thus your revenue.