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Visibility
Every location builds up its own visibility. What can differ per location, which event brings a location to a standstill, and the list you use to check it address by address.
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8
min
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Team SOUS
Published
Key takeaways
This article in a few bites
Every location builds up its own findability, even with the same formula everywhere, so your newest location starts at zero while your brand is visible.
Most mistakes are small and old, and they happen because the venue changed and the profile stayed as it was.
With six venues you hear about it last from the location you visit least.
Reviews pile up at your oldest venue, so reviews requested per location with the name of that location in them land on the right profile.
SOUS Spotlight is billed per location, so you know in advance what an extra location costs you.
Every location builds up its own visibility, even when the formula is the same everywhere: its own business profile, its own opening hours, its own reviews and its own pin on the map. If something is wrong at one location, that one slips away while the rest carries on. So it is maintenance per address, and every location you open adds an address.
Uberall measures that 83% of chain locations never turn up in an AI answer, while 86% of those same locations do appear somewhere on Google. Being present and getting found are two different things.
Why does one location slip away while the rest keeps running?
A guest who searches for “poke bowl near me” gets a list of addresses. What ends up in that list hangs on the details of the location itself: how complete the profile is, whether today’s opening hours are right, how many recent reviews sit under it and how far away it is from the person searching. Your brand name barely plays a part in that.
So your busiest venue can be sitting high in that list while your newest location three streets away does not show up at all. The same kitchen, the same menu, but a younger profile with fewer reviews that was filled in during one afternoon at the opening and never touched again.
Signal | Attached to | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
Business profile on Google and Maps | the location | a new location stays impossible to find while the brand is visible |
Opening hours and public holidays | the location | guests at a closed door at the venue with different hours |
Pin and directions | the location | route requests come out on the wrong street |
Reviews and average rating | the location | one strong location does not carry the others |
Menu, prices and photos | the location | the guest picks the venue that looks current |
Brand name and spelling | the brand | two variants split your search volume |
What can differ per location, and what does that cost?
Most mistakes are small and old: the venue changed and the profile stayed as it was.
What differs | How it happens | What a guest does | What you lose |
|---|---|---|---|
Opening hours are wrong | summer hours and public holidays go on the door and never into the profile | stands at a closed door, or does not even call | today’s guest plus a review about being unreliable |
Pin is in the wrong place | a corner building or a back entrance where the address is right and the coordinates are not | drives to the wrong side of the block | a route request that leads nowhere |
Old phone number | the number moved, a new switchboard, or one taken over from the previous owner | calls nobody, or calls somebody else | the pickup order that carries no commission |
Duplicate profile after a takeover | the old name stays alongside the new one | lands on old photos and old reviews | views and reviews spread across two profiles |
Menu differs | the kitchen at that location adjusts and the profile does not | expects something that is not on the menu there | a guest who has to pick something else, and a point off their rating |
Photos from the opening | the first set was never replaced | picks the location that looks better | visibility in a search where you did appear |
With one venue you find this within a week because somebody at the bar says something. With six venues you hear about it last at the location you visit least, and that is usually also the location that most needs to be found.
Which event brings a location to a standstill?
Visibility rarely breaks all at once. Something happens in the running of the business, and the profile does not follow along.
Event | What has to happen per location | When you notice it |
|---|---|---|
A new location opens | create the profile, set the category and attributes, photos, ordering link, collect the first reviews | only after weeks, because you are comparing against the opening rush |
A public holiday or a holiday closure | fill in the different hours per location, also when one venue is open | the same day, on the phone |
Renovation or a temporary closure | change the status and the hours, and set them back after reopening | at the reopening, when the views do not come back |
Taking over an existing venue | merge the old listing or have it closed, push the new details through everywhere | months later, through reviews arriving under the old name |
A new phone number or a new switchboard | update the number per location on the profile, the site and the ordering page | in the pickup revenue, and never through a notification |
A menu change at one location | change that one menu and that one price | in what guests at the table say about it |
So write down who keeps each location up to date. The location manager knows about a change before anyone else, and the profile can go straight through with it.
Why do your reviews pile up at one location?
Because your oldest venue has years of head start and guests often search for the name they know. Even when you ask for reviews the same way at every location, most of them still end up at the venue with the most visitors. Your newest location starts at zero and stays there, even when the kitchen there runs better.
The rating of the location decides whether it comes along in recommendations. In that same study Uberall measures that ChatGPT only cites venues averaging 4.3 stars or higher, and that the threshold sits slightly lower at Perplexity and Gemini. A location with seven reviews does not reach that average reliably, not even with a good menu.
So ask for reviews per location with the name of that location in them, so they land on the right profile, and reply to what comes in. A profile where nobody replies reads to a guest like a venue where nobody is paying attention.
The checklist per location
Walk the list door by door, and note behind each line the date you checked it.
Name, address and phone number identical on the profile, your site and your ordering page
Opening hours complete, including days with different hours and public holidays
Pin on the entrance guests actually use, tested with a route request from another address
Category and attributes set per location: pickup, delivery, terrace, wheelchair access
The menu that applies there, with the prices the till charges there
Photos of this location itself
No second profile under an old name, an old address or a previous owner
Reviews from the last three months present and answered
Delivery zone and pickup times as they apply now
Written down who keeps this location up to date
Date of this check
What SOUS Spotlight does per location
SOUS Spotlight is a subscription per location, and for every location that takes part the listing goes to 45-plus platforms and search engines, from Google and Maps to ChatGPT and Claude. In the dashboard you see per location how it is doing and which venues nearby are competing, so you know where you can come up higher than they do.
Review replies go out automatically in your own tone, and you set per star rating what the software handles and what comes to you. You also get twenty content suggestions a week, a report every two weeks, and onboarding by a specialist followed by a dedicated account manager. The price is €90 per month per location with annual billing and €129 per month with monthly billing. Because it runs per location, you know in advance what an extra location costs you.
What it delivers at hospitality businesses working with SOUS: Grand Café JAN! gets 3x the visibility on Google Maps, at Schmidt Zeevis map views went up 25% and route requests 29%, and NENI expanded nationwide without extra operational pressure, with 46% higher average monthly revenue.
If you want to see how your locations are doing right now, the free AI scan is the quickest place to start: ai.poweredbysous.com. Run it for the location you visit least often.
Frequently asked questions
Does every location need its own Google business profile?
Yes. Google works per location, so a second location under the profile of the one you already had cannot be found by somebody searching in that other neighbourhood.
Can I move reviews from one location to another?
No. Reviews belong to the profile they were posted on. What you can do is ask for reviews per location with the name of that location in them, so new reviews land in the right place.
Does one good website help for all my locations?
Partly. On your brand name a site gets you further, and the guest who searches without your name ends up at the profile of the location. So give every location its own page with its own address, its own opening hours and its own ordering link.
What does this cost for five locations?
SOUS Spotlight charges per location: €90 per month per location with annual billing, €129 with monthly billing. SOUS Commerce Launch covers SOUS Spotlight for one location, so for your other locations SOUS Spotlight is added per location. Because it runs per location, you know in advance what an extra location costs you.
Why does my newest location show up nowhere, while the rest is doing fine?
Usually because the profile is young, has few reviews and was filled in all at once at the opening. Work through the profile point by point, and go and collect the first reviews from guests who have already been there.
How quickly is a correction visible?
That varies per platform and cannot be promised. So write down the date you changed something and check back on it, because otherwise you will not know later whether a change came through or got stuck somewhere.
Do I need different text and photos per location?
Yes. Same formula, different neighbourhood: the pictures of that venue, the name of the neighbourhood and what there is to do there belong in the listing of that location.
