The phone rings in every town you serve.
What should happen online when we open a new branch?
Before the doors open: a page for the branch, a verified Google Business Profile, the address and phone on the directories that matter, and the service pages saying it's available there. Opening week: photos of the real place, the first reviews asked for, listings checked. In that order, a new branch is found in weeks instead of years.
Most businesses open a branch, get the trucks lettered and the phones working, and remember the website six months later. By then the branch has been invisible online for half a year of trading.
Six weeks before
Confirm the exact name, address and phone the branch will use, and write them down once; every mention from here on copies that line. Create the Google Business Profile and start verification, which can take weeks. Draft the location page: who’s there, what it covers, how far it travels, what’s different about that market.
Two weeks before
Publish the page, marked as coming soon if needed. Add the branch to the service pages (“available from our Orillia branch”) and to the locations list. Submit the address to the directories that matter in your trade and region, with the identical name, address and phone. Set up the phone number so calls to it are counted separately.
Opening week
Real photos of the real premises, yard, trucks and team, on the page and the profile. Ask the first customers for reviews on the branch’s profile, not head office’s. Check the profile shows the right hours and services. Announce it where your customers are, with a link to the branch page, not the homepage.
First three months
Watch the branch’s enquiries separately. Keep reviews coming. Add a local detail or two to the page as you learn the market. Check the directories haven’t mangled the address.
Why the order matters
Google builds its file on a place from the moment it first sees consistent signals. Everything above makes those signals exist on day one. A branch set up this way reaches “found” in weeks; one set up afterwards spends months catching up.