Did you know that 92.96% of worldwide online traffic to websites is funneled through Google Search, Google Images, and Google Maps? That means a vast majority of the world’s population is finding local franchised businesses by searching for simple phrases such as, “pest control near me,” or “car wash Salt Lake City.” But how will the search engines know to show your stores or offices to potential customers? That’s where franchise SEO comes in.
In this article, we’re going to share all you need to know about franchise SEO. Our goal is that you’ll walk away knowing exactly what franchise SEO is and what it isn’t, and that you’ll learn how to navigate common problems franchise owners run into when it comes to franchise SEO. Let’s start with a simple definition of franchise SEO.
What is Franchise SEO?
SEO for franchise businesses is a set of strategies that can be employed to improve the search engine visibility of franchise websites and local business profiles for each franchised business location. Franchise SEO involves using organic, proven methods to make a franchised company’s website easily findable, more relevant, and geared towards common search queries causing search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo to rank them better.
The result is more traffic to a franchise’s website, an increase in visibility for franchised business locations, and a leg up on the competition. Although franchise SEO takes time and dedication, it always proves to be well worth it. There are countless franchise SEO strategies used to boost online visibility, but we’re going to share just a few with you today. Let’s take a look at popular franchise SEO techniques used to promote a franchise’s online presence:
- Keyword Research and Implementation
Keyword research for franchise SEO is the process of finding popular search terms customers use when looking for businesses like yours. Keyword research and implementation are lengthy processes involving discovering searchers’ intentions, writing content that meets their needs, and creating a positive experience that keeps them coming back. For franchise businesses, producing content that addresses the intent behind commonly searched localized keywords is a powerful way to attract residents to each of your franchised locations and nurture a positive reputation as an expert in your field or industry.
Too often, however, businesses and/or their marketing partners make the assumption that internet browsers throughout the country (or world) behave the same way and search for the same queries. The reality is that, while the average searcher in one city may look for “pest control in Los Angeles,” users one city over may search for “Beverly Hills exterminators.” While it can be a daunting task, it’s best to discover searcher behavior unique to each city where your target audiences reside. This practice will make the next step that much more effective.
- Localized Content Creation
Creating localized content in blog posts, service pages, and most importantly, location pages (or areas served pages), is a vital part of franchise SEO. Your goal should always be to answer the questions your clients (or potential clients) are asking. When it comes to your franchise locations, users generally want to be greeted with basic information about the store or office, such as its address, the best way to contact your team, and the services or products offered at the specific location. By writing high-quality and informative content about your franchise locations, search engines are more likely to rank your location pages higher leading to greater reach. Every store or office that a business operates, and/or every area the company serves, should have its own website page. While producing these pages is crucial to online success for your franchise, creating such a high quantity of similar content can also present challenges such as duplicate content and scalability, which we discuss more in depth below.
In addition to producing location and/or area served pages, it’s wise to also publish localized blog and FAQ-type copy. This can rapidly establish you as a local and as an industry expert. It’s also a great way to capture a good amount of additional traffic by answering broad questions your clients are asking. For example, if a potential customer searches for “housing prices in Houston Texas,” a real estate agency adept at online marketing can meet that user with an expertly crafted blog post, provide them with an answer to their question, and hopefully secure a future client. These types of queries generally generate significantly more search volume than hyper-localized service-based queries like “Houston real estate agencies,” but also have a more informational, as opposed to commercial or transactional, intent. This means that such blog content will drive more website traffic and brand awareness, but probably won’t immediately generate more sales. Nevertheless, the more localized content placed on your site, the better chances you have of attracting your ideal audience.
- Local Business Profiles
Now more than ever, technology is used to our advantage to find relevant, nearby businesses. Whether you need a trustworthy electrician or an affordable lunch spot, search engines are the go-to for finding local businesses. Google Business, Bing Places, Apple Maps, and Yelp (to name a few) give us storefront hours, directions, and even reviews so we know what to expect from a business. Keeping your franchised location business profiles complete, consistent, and accurate, with up-to-date hours and contact information, detailed descriptions of your services, and even small updates about your business can be extremely beneficial in getting your company’s multiple locations ranked above competitors. The most important of these online business listings is Google Business, but there are hundreds more and they all add up. The key is to maintain accuracy and completion among all of them, which can prove to be a large undertaking. It’s also important to ensure that the business name, address, phone number, and other business details match what you have listed on the corresponding website page for that location.
Franchise SEO vs. Local SEO
While smaller companies may use local SEO practices to optimize a single website or location, franchise SEO is a form of local SEO strategy expanded to address a franchise’s multiple locations, even up to thousands of business locations. In simple terms, franchise SEO is using local SEO strategies for multiple locations.
Since some franchises have multiple locations in one city, it’s important to use franchise SEO to draw in the right people for each geographic area. As stated above, through the use of localized content creation to address commonly searched terms, franchise SEO can be used to naturally extend a franchise’s reach. However, while having multiple locations is one sign of a successful franchise, it also brings unique challenges for franchise owners when it comes to leveraging the power of SEO.
SEO Challenges for Franchises
While franchise businesses are presented with numerous challenges when it comes to optimizing their content for search engines, three stick out the most: avoiding duplicate content, managing scalability, and reporting accurately on the performance of each franchise store or office. Here are some brief descriptions of each challenge and why they can cause issues for your SEO campaigns:
- Duplicate Content
As mentioned above, it’s best practice to create a website page for each franchise location or service area. While it may seem simple to write a decent paragraph of content and copy and paste it across hundreds or thousands of location pages, this will not cut it. Google and other search engines see duplicate content as less valuable than unique content, because it doesn’t provide anything special to the user. Each page should include a good amount of content that’s unique to the specific store, office, or service area in question. Some good ideas include outlining services or products offered at the location, relevant information unique to the city (e.g., local weather if it impacts services, local census data, local history, etc.), or highlighting other nearby businesses and attractions (what other errands can customers get done while they visit you?). Be careful not to be so specific that you have to change the content every time you hire a new employee or go out of stock for a specific type of light bulb. This brings us to our next challenge, scalability.
- Scalability
Scalability is perhaps what sets franchise SEO apart from any other type of SEO. Franchises have to manage website content, business profiles, keyword research and tracking, conversions, and much more for up to tens, hundreds, or even thousands of business locations. Furthermore, the goal of the majority of franchises is to continue growing. As the franchise grows and new stores or offices are opened, the company is tasked with replicating—but not duplicating—their strategy. The key to successfully managing a scalable SEO program as a franchise is to develop a sound framework (i.e, identify all common keyword search patterns, produce page templates, generate checklists, etc.) within which you can address each location according to its unique needs. It should be clear what steps need to be taken and what the end result should look like, but you must be able to treat each location according to its unique strategic needs which can be unveiled by in-depth keyword research and audience discovery. Remember: replicate, don’t duplicate.
- Reporting
Once you’ve successfully replicated sound SEO strategy for all of your business’s stores or offices, you’ll need to set up accurate tracking and reporting for your company as a whole as well as for each specific franchise. More often than not, you’ll need to provide and explain these reports to numerous stakeholders, including franchise owners. Not only does this mean that you’ll need to paint the picture for potentially hundreds or thousands of individuals, but also that you’ll need to connect the dots for many of these stakeholders who are undoubtedly experts in their field, but don’t know the first thing about digital marketing. We’ve found that, while this can be extremely difficult at times, it can be successfully accomplished with the help of consistent education, patience, and beautiful big graphs with lots of color and few words.
As your franchise grows and more locations pop up, the importance of implementing solid SEO best practices only increases. The difficult truth, however, is that few have the time to conduct exhaustive research, plan winning strategies, and put best franchise SEO practices in place when they’re trying to run a booming company. While it may appear convenient for us to say this, our best recommendation to combat these challenges is to hire a professional marketing agency like Rock Salt Marketing that has experience executing successful SEO campaigns for countless franchises.
Hire Rock Salt Marketing for Franchise SEO Services and More
Rock Salt Marketing’s team has vast experience in providing franchise SEO services to companies around the world. We’ve worked with some of the leading Fortune 500 franchises in the US, and have achieved exceptional results for a multitude of businesses across the globe. When working with Rock Salt Marketing, you’ll experience results-driven franchise SEO services firsthand. We take care of creating content, managing business profiles, tracking performance, and reporting on all of your current and future franchise locations. We also work closely with your team and educate them on franchise SEO best practices and the necessity for increased online presence.
Are you looking for more than just franchise SEO services? Perhaps you also need help managing paid media campaigns or managing your website. If that sounds like you, our comprehensive digital marketing services are a great fit for your needs. Get in touch with us to work with Utah’s choice marketing agency, and we’ll help your franchise explode online and on the ground.
