Search Engine Optimization is very important in everything related to web positioning nowadays and franchises do not escape from it. The objective of this practice is to get search engines like Google or Bing to position your website in the top three places of their results when someone searches.

If you want to rank organically well for all franchise locations, there are four things you should take into account:

1. Quality, relevant and attractive content (in volumes). First of all, the content of your website should respond to your clients’ questions or concerns and, in addition to that, it must provide value. That is to say, it must contribute something significant to the visitors since they carry out the search with an already defined objective.
2. Indexation. This is an essential term when it comes to SEO strategies. You must have a well-coded and structured website, so that it can be found, read and indexed quickly by search engines.
3. You must establish your site as an authority and seek to be a leader in the industry. In the web world, the authority of the sites is very important and all part of the general web presence. Franchises usually have no trouble getting it since they obtain links from other websites such as partners, vendors or suppliers easily. However, they often struggle with the structure it must have (link building).
4. Local relevance. It must be a relevant factor, locally speaking, for search engines. At the same time, it must have markup and support content.

Have you started analyzing the amount of content in your franchise? Do you think you have a lot? If so, but you still feel that smaller companies outperform you, then you must ask yourself if you are doing things right. Although many people, including marketing managers, think that having a lot of content is the key to success, it should be understood that having low volumes of it should never be the main reason why a franchise association fails to position itself organically, although usually it is part of the problem. In this sense, we have that the error is not the lack of content but its poor structuring, which can become an obstacle to being well punctuated by search engines.

What should franchisors do? Here, you should study a little the status of websites and domains of your individual franchise locations. Do they have enough content to achieve a beneficial organic classification? Is this good enough to support search engine optimization? 

What about the Franchisees? One of the most common disadvantages that franchisees face is that their content depends directly on the corporate site or in its online marketing material. What can be done in that case? Well, it is ideal to create a micro website, optimize it and attach a lot of content. And, if this represents a problem, you can try other channels or media you can own, such as social networks.

Do you know the importance of consistency, infrastructure and scalability when it comes to the code and structure of your website? Well, their lack is one of the biggest problems that can arise in this area. We know how laborious it can be to create good SEO strategies and, in addition, many people are unaware that the possibly most relevant aspect in relation to this is the following: relevant and valuable website content that allows you to compete in the search and competition market of each location. Regardless of whether you are a franchisor or a franchisee, it is imperative that you have constant and permanent communication with the other party, which will give you regular checks to see if everyone is running in line and following the same purpose.

Advices for franchisors: most franchise websites or website collections are large, so it is usual to have a lot to handle, especially if it is within a CMS that manages all locations of both a domain and individual websites. Similarly, it is common to deal with different franchise owners if it is the case that they manage their own website. In conclusion, you must reach the point where everyone adheres to a solid and stable standard. To do this, you can create shared assets or provide as much support as possible to your franchisees by strengthening the infrastructure of your website.

Tips for franchisees: for them, the stone along the way will be shared assets and overlap in SEO. In contrast, it is advisable to dedicate yourself to the creation of a microsite on which you can focus your efforts, so your optimization and monitoring will be in your hands. This can represent a good opportunity to show the company a new vision if you can demonstrate that your analysis and reports are coupled to it. In case you cannot implement this measure, you must invest in support channels such as social networks.

An impeccable local SEO is essential for a franchise to qualify, taking into account its multiple locations. First, you need to be sure that each location has a verified and optimized Google My Business listing. Additionally, you need to rely on both local SEO and the consistency of each location’s local directory listings and citations. We know that it is not easy, especially because of the inconveniences involved in local directories and crowd-level fact-checking but it is strictly necessary.

 What should franchisors do? Well, its biggest obstacle is to make all locations have a good rating and be consistent together. In some occasions, their franchisees do not understand their SEO plans, have their own ideas or simply prefer to choose local vendors. To deal with it, you must help each franchisee understand what a Google My Business list is and route them to the definition, claim and update of their own. Another option is to take control of all local listings. How can you do it? Well, through communication and understanding. If your franchisees are aware of all strategies and maintain good communication with you, this measure will surely work.

What about franchisees? The most common problem they face is the lack of understanding of SEO as well as being little involved with it. Do you know how difficult it is for a company to disagree with your marketing project, right? Well, now imagine that they just don’t understand what you’re talking about. Spend a few hours of your time educating them about digital marketing, the benefits that your strategic plan brings and why you want to take that route. If there is no progress after that, then bet on the results and optimize social media profiles and websites.

Social media are so important for franchise marketing that you shouldn’t even be wondering why. They turn out to be a very powerful tool for franchisees since they are usually under their power. However, this control can cause inconsistency in the brand and messaging; all this together with the disaster that can be generated by having many profiles managed by an exorbitant number of people.

How does it work, then?

The first thing you should do is to understand that the location pages branch out from the main page of the brand. This should only be intended to be the corporate level (so it does not have an address) while each location page can be managed exclusively by the franchisee and can only be accessed by the company or the owner.

What Franchisors should do: You can create a social media guideline manual. Its purpose? To provide franchisees with an explicit address on the brand and messaging. Similarly, it can serve as a practical guide on a successful social media strategy. Once this process is done, it is recommended that you enable the Facebook Locations page feature. It is a simple tool that you can understand how to use on your own or with the support of specialists like Franchise Alpha

What Franchisees should do: Make the corporate create location pages on Facebook! Once you reach it, well… Get the most out of this space! Here you can increase your audience through the creation of new content and the publication of videos. It is ideal that you take advantage of the channels where you can contact your target audience, such as YouTube or other social networks.

Do you know what Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is? It is one of the best forms of online advertising that promotes the visualization of a company before a high number of people at the exact moment in which they perform a search. The only problem that this technique can present is derived from the participation of “many hands”.

Tip for Franchisors: Take advantage of the benefits of display ads and search ads to promote both brand offers and local locations. Franchisees can increase their reputation and obtain more potential customers that eventually get loyal with the brand (and sales) if the strengthening of it is achieved.

Tip for Franchisees: Understand the importance of particularity. In this sense, each location must be personalized so that its ads are attractive and add value to the local public.

Some examples may be:

– Include local cities in keywords and ads.

– Adjust negative words in relation to common local searches.

– Differentiate each ad and offer from the local competition.

Have you considered Opt-in email marketing campaigns for your company? They are very effective when it comes to growing a franchise business, did you know that? Opt-in eMail Marketing consists of sending electronic messages to people who have chosen to receive them, being them current customers, potential customers, reference partners or suppliers. Do you understand the importance of it? A customer is much more likely to develop good responsiveness to the brand and to email marketing if they receive something they request instead of an unwanted message. Therefore, Email Marketing in which users subscribe voluntarily is much more effective when it comes to generate leads and increase sales as you are looking for.

Advices for Franchisors: the biggest obstacle may be to maintain the coherence of your messages and make them contribute locally in a positive way. We must consider that franchisees can have their own newsletter by email, in addition, their markets and locations can vary greatly, which makes being relevant to all chains at once a very arduous task (almost impossible, in fact).

To avoid this problem, it is recommended to adapt different email newsletter templates for each location, controlling, of course, the style, consistency and brand. Similarly, when you need to send a newsletter of the entire franchise by email, keep in mind that the content should be of interest to all areas of the market.

Advices for Franchisees: Be clear and precise about your goals before the franchise. This will prevent you from facing the most common problem in this sector, that is to say, consistency in messaging and brand. Base your decisions on your goals and create your own email list with form ads for leads on social networks. This can be used, later, as a very effective line of communication.

Another of the things that a franchise needs to classify is an impeccable analysis and reports. Its importance lies in the following: imagine that a company has 11 branches with 11 different owners (one can be you). Then, suppose you have implemented all of the above tips and have proved successful. Then, you can answer what is next…

– How many of the telephone contacts come from the different branches and what is the proportion of calls to leads that each one perform?

– Which branches have a higher volume of calls but fewer potential customers?

– What is the behavior of users when they become visitors to the franchise website?

– What exact part of the marketing funnel do you need to improve, both in each individual franchise and in general?

Exactly! The answers will help you know how each member branch is working.

Good monitoring and correct analysis will allow you to have a broader and more objective vision of how the company is doing compared to individual branches and how they perform in comparison to each other. It is appropriate to be aware that it is an arduous and tedious work but, at the same time, it is very necessary. Not having digital data analysts among your staff can be counterproductive since, without them, you will get only half of the information you could obtain otherwise. Trained analysts can be the key to success to achieve excellent results.

Tips for both franchisors and franchisees:

Don’t let data exchange and accurate tracking become a problem for you. It happens very often that, when franchisees maintain and independently develop their own analyzes and reports, these are usually very inconsistent. On the other hand, data is often not shared with the company to obtain reports of franchise accumulation, and they forget how much this can help to give an idea of ​​how branches are functioning compared to each other. In addition, they do not escape another problem: multiple pixels and labels of different vendors.

To avoid them, we recommend a label management solution such as Google Tag Manager with our full guarantee. It is very useful to lighten the load on your webmasters and developers, as well as to coordinate multiple tracking needs, address overlap and avoid conflicting code.

It is imperative that you know your competitors as much as your own company. For that reason, we offer a competitive analysis that is uncompromising and attached to reality. Remember that if your competitors outstrip your strategies, however good they may seem, then all your effort will be in vain.

Knowing your competition before developing your marketing plans can give you a level of advantage that you can’t even imagine! Furthermore, it will help you know the status of your franchise, understanding where you are and what you should do to improve and gain a step above your competitors. You can contact us for what you need! We wish you the best of luck on this road.