Your second branch opened in the spring. The footer still shows the first branch’s phone number, the contact form sends every enquiry to one person who has no idea which site it concerns, and a customer turned up on a public holiday because the website said you were open. None of this is a technical failure. The site simply has more facts to keep true than it did a year ago, and nobody was assigned to them. That is the heart of multi location website maintenance: the software side looks like that of any WordPress site, but the information side multiplies with every address you add.
This guide is for owners and managers outside India who run one website for a business with several branches, clinics, shops, offices or service points. It covers where details go stale, how to keep them in one place, who should be allowed to change what, and what a monthly check looks like.
What goes wrong when one site speaks for several places
On a single-address business, the contact details are mentioned a handful of times and everybody knows them. With several places, three problems appear.
- Facts drift apart. The same opening hours are typed into the contact page, the footer, a map block and a popup. One gets updated; three do not.
- Nobody knows who is responsible. The branch manager assumes head office updates the website. Head office assumes the manager does.
- Enquiries land in the wrong place. A form that worked when there was one inbox now has to route correctly, and nobody tests it after a staff change.
These are small, boring failures, and they are the ones customers notice. A person who drives to a closed shop does not blame a plugin.
List every detail that changes, and where it appears
Start with a simple sheet, one row per location and one column per fact. It becomes the master record that everything on the website is checked against. Then work out where each fact shows up on the site.
| Detail | Where it often appears | What happens if it goes stale |
|---|---|---|
| Address and map | Contact page, footer, directions block, structured data | Customers go to the wrong door, or search results show the old place |
| Phone and WhatsApp number | Header, click-to-call button, footer, forms’ confirmation email | Calls reach a closed line or the wrong branch |
| Opening hours | Contact page, footer, popups, banners | Turn-aways, complaints, unhelpful reviews |
| Staff and team photos | About page, branch information | Someone who left is still listed as the contact |
| Services at each place | Service pages, menus, booking forms | People book something that branch does not offer |
| Email recipients | Form settings | Enquiries go unseen |
The column that surprises most owners is the middle one. Count how many separate places on the site hold the same phone number. If the answer is more than two, the site needs tidying before it needs more content.
Keep each fact in one place
The principle is simple: a detail that appears in six places should be typed once and displayed six times. How you do that depends on how the site is built. Common routes in WordPress include the theme’s own settings area, a block or template part that other pages reuse, or custom fields that feed a list of locations. A developer can tell you which fits your site. What you want is the result: change the number once, and every page that shows it follows.
Whether your locations share one page or have several, the same question applies: when a detail changes, how many places must be edited by hand? Where the answer is “many”, a good maintenance routine includes a proper search of the site each time, so nothing is missed. If you take on a provider, ask how they would find every mention of a number or address across pages, widgets, menus and templates.
Handing the routine to someone else
Because the technical routine of backups, updates and security checks is the same for every site, many multi-branch businesses give it to a web maintenance company in India and keep the decisions about branch details in-house. The page about our India-based service shows what that sort of monthly plan covers. The split works well when it is spelled out: the provider keeps the site healthy and makes the changes you request, and you stay responsible for telling them when a location’s facts change.
That last part is the one to write down. A provider cannot know that a branch closed on Friday unless someone tells them, and the instruction should come from one named person, not from whoever happened to message last.
Multi location website maintenance: decide who may change what
When you are maintaining a multi-location website, it is tempting to give each branch manager a login so they can update hours themselves. Sometimes that is exactly right. Think it through first:
- What does each person actually need to edit? Opening hours, perhaps, or a staff list. They almost certainly do not need to touch plugins, settings or other branches’ pages. WordPress roles can be narrowed, and our explainer on WordPress user roles sets out what each one allows.
- Who approves? If anyone can publish anything, you will eventually find three versions of the company description. A short rule works: managers change facts, head office changes wording.
- What happens when someone leaves? Branch staff turn over faster than head-office staff. Accounts should be removed on the person’s last day, not the next time someone remembers.
- Is there a single way to ask for changes? One email address or form that goes to whoever maintains the site beats a scatter of messages. Include the location, the page, the new detail and the date it takes effect.
Enquiry forms and routing
Forms are the part of multi location website maintenance that quietly causes lost business. Check these each month:
- Submit a test enquiry for each location and confirm it reaches the right inbox.
- Check that the confirmation message the visitor sees, and any automatic email, names the right place and shows the right number.
- Look at what happens if the form has a “choose a location” field. A location that closed last quarter should no longer be in the list, and a new one should be.
- Confirm the spam filter has not started blocking real messages. A message filter that is too strict is one of the usual reasons real enquiries vanish.
After a staff change, repeat the test. A form that points to a person’s old email is one of the most common causes of “we never got your message”.
Keeping Google and the website saying the same thing
Your website is not the only place customers meet your details. Google’s business profiles, map listings and directories each carry their own copy. When they disagree, people and search engines both lose confidence in which is right. Treat the master sheet as the source and update everything from it. The post on keeping name, address and phone consistent across the web explains why this matters and where to look. For closures and special days, change the hours on Google and on the website on the same day, from the same sheet.
Different industries, same pattern
Details vary by trade. A restaurant group worries about menus and kitchen hours at each site, which our notes on restaurant website maintenance cover. An agency with several offices worries about property feeds and agent profiles, which are discussed in the guide to real estate website maintenance. The pattern underneath does not change: know each fact, store it once, name its owner, and test the routes people use to reach you.
When a location opens, moves or closes
These three events cause most of the damage, because they touch many places at once. Treat each as a small project with its own list.
- Opening: add the new row to the master sheet first. Then add the place to everything that lists locations: the contact page, any map, the form’s location choice, the footer and the email routing. Check search results and your Google profile a few days later.
- Moving: the address changes in every place at once, and the old one should not linger on pages that nobody visits. Update Google and your listings the same day.
- Closing: remove it from the form list and the menus, decide what visitors who search for the old address should see, and redirect any page that no longer applies to something useful rather than leaving a dead end.
Agree who tells the person looking after the site, and by when, so that the website is not the last to find out.
A fifteen-minute monthly audit
- Open the site on your phone and tap every phone number and map link for each location.
- Compare the hours on the site with those on Google for each location.
- Send a test enquiry to each inbox.
- Read the staff list and remove anyone who has left.
- Check the user list for accounts that should no longer exist.
- Confirm that last night’s backup completed.
- Write down what changed this month, so the next person can see the history.
When a location opens, moves or closes, do the same checks at once rather than waiting for the monthly pass. If you are unsure who should be doing which part of this for your own site, send us a note with a rough description of how many locations you have and how the site is set up, and we will say honestly where we would start.
Next in this series: First 30 Days of a Website Maintenance Plan: Week by Week
