SEO for a franchise is easy. Simply local SEO times the number of franchise sites. Uncorrect! More sites translate into more challenges that call for a more sophisticated strategy than a basic local SEO project.
Table of Contents
The effective strategies I have used to scale SEO for both local and national franchisees are described in this book. It is split into three main parts. Whether your role is franchise owner, in-house marketer, or agency dealing with a franchise client, you will find all the information you need.
What is SEO for franchises?
SEO for franchises improves a company’s ranking and exposure in search engine results pages (SERPs). Local SEO strategies are utilized to improve franchise websites’ search rankings in specific locales.
The Franchise SEO Services You Need to Hit Your Sales Out of the Park
We can design an SEO plan that is specific to your goals, whether it is a nationwide strategy or a personalized approach for each business location. Our franchise marketing experts specialize in optimizing franchise websites by addressing technical, on-page, and off-page issues, as well as digital marketing.
1. Franchise Technical SEO
Any effective franchise SEO strategy depends on strong technical SEO foundation. We will use the technical SEO techniques that have shown to be successful for franchise companies from building a site structure that lets you rank for as many pertinent local keywords as feasible to including local schema to your pages.
2. Franchise On-Page SEO
Preventing duplicate material on franchise websites presents one of the toughest challenges facing the franchise marketing agency. Our highly regimented approach to content creation and on-page SEO lets us produce tailored material in a fraction of the time while keeping consistent branding throughout your franchise sites.
3. Franchise External SEO
Your B2B franchise SEO professionals have to widen their search engine optimization activities outside your website if you want to keep your dominant position on the local results pages of key search engines. Our method of external SEO guarantees that your brand will be visible anywhere your target audience searches.
4. Local SEO
If you want each franchise location to dominate its particular geographical search area, local SEO for franchises is the way to go. We not only improve the local search visibility of your listings, but we also ensure that your branding is consistent across your franchisees.
What are the franchise SEO advantages for franchisors?
SEO lets franchisees target the correct demographic for their e-commerce systems or actual physical franchise locations. Think about the identical smoothie company situation. Being a franchisee, you want to attract neighbors of your location, smoothie aficionados, and fitness buffs. Despite the several franchise locations, you should focus on keywords like “best smoothies in Santa Monica” or “smoothie shop near me”.
These keywords will raise knowledge of your business and items among potential local customers. They would also provide whatever extra information they would need to make decisions. This would feature specifics including food, price, customer feedback, business hours, and more. Local SEO for franchises can assist different franchise sites have better online presence. Every outlet will need a different approach to go after the terms or keywords local searchers usually employ.
For new audiences that discover your company on Google Maps, for instance, this will help to increase brand awareness, create leads, and foster trust. Should you neglect search engine optimization, Google is unlikely to rank the material of your website higher in search results. Local consumers are less likely to come onto your company listing the lower your content ranks in search results.
5 Best Practices for Franchise SEO
Knowing the value of franchise SEO now will get you interested in the processes needed to create an SEO plan and campaign. Our list of the four best strategies for improving your SEO and maximizing search engine results comes from experience.
1. Create location-based web pages to rank more in search engines
Building local landing pages for every franchise site is a fast approach to improving your franchise SEO strategy as long as you avoid duplicate content—that is, exactly the same content. With geo-targeted keywords, this can help you display better in searches.
Google, among other search engines, localizes results to provide searchers with pertinent and valuable information. Furthermore, helping you improve your local SEO results are location-specific pages. This is also true of more general terms devoid of local restrictions.
Add the following to your landing pages as part of any local SEO plan for any franchise owner to get the best outcomes:
- The physical location’s address, phone number, and hours of operation (if applicable).
- Reviews for a certain franchise location.
- Title tags and on-page text that is specific to that section.
- Links to useful external resources.
Structured data—coding—helps search engines to grasp the purpose or context of a web page. If you offer services in a certain area, even if your business does not have physical locations, you might still create tailored landing pages.
This will help you to inform a bigger audience of your products. Once more, if franchise owners have landing sites for many sites, we advise against publishing duplicates. Try your best to create the originality of every page.
2. Use local backlinks
Among the best local franchise SEO strategies available is link development. It can influence your domain authority, which controls search engine ranking probability of your website. Backlinks—that is, links between other companies’ websites and your pages—can assist franchise owners raise their local ranks on search engine results pages.
Remember that, although partnering with local companies is crucial, your local SEO strategy may not call for you to establish relationships with rivals. What then ought you to do? Assume for the moment you run a flower store. This qualifies you to work with nearby event planners.
Their next conference, wedding, or event will call for your items. Although you and the event planners operate in a related field, they are not direct rivals. For a free floral arrangement, you might ask them to create a blog article about your offerings.
In the same vein, if you run a clothes brand, you might work with a nearby charity to provide warm clothing to those in need throughout the winter. Including a link to your location-based landing page when they publish about the campaign on their website will help to boost local search results and website traffic.
3. Focus on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)
Google evaluates the possibility of giving users accurate and current information in deciding how to rank a website. As part of your local SEO strategy, maximize your on-page content for experience, knowledge, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness to show search engines that you offer premium information.
Here are some ways a business owner may apply E-E-A-T in your franchise SEO material:
- Instead of generic articles loaded with keywords, post material that contains actual information. For example, if you manage a pet store, you can do interviews with veterinarians or collaborate with a pet health journal to provide educational and interesting material for pet owners. To boost quality results, Google recommends publishing content from people with firsthand experience or in-depth understanding of the issue.
- Include connections to authoritative sites, as well as information about pertinent laws and regulations.
- Be trustworthy and update your stuff on a regular basis. Avoid using old data or information that is no longer relevant. Make sure to fact-check all of the data used and avoid linking to dodgy websites.
4. Setting up a Google Business Profile for local SEO
A list of franchise SEO methods should include Google Business Profile at or near the top. However, we have reserved one of the best for the time being. Google is the favored review source for 81% of users who evaluate local businesses.
Establishing and managing a Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is crucial. Your Google Business profile functions as a digital storefront. It contains important business listing information regarding your brand, including customer reviews.
It’s free to build a Google Business Profile, which can help you gain visibility across its services. If your local franchise SEO is done effectively, Google Business Profiles will often appear in the organic results, assisting users in identifying appropriate brands near them.
5. Get listed in business directories to improve SEO for franchises
However, local SEO methods extend beyond Google. Apart from creating a Google Business Profile, you should aim to get listed in as many directories as feasible. They’re often free and widely trusted, so why not? When seeking to boost local SEO for franchisees, business owners can look at both national and local business directories.
Conclusion
A strong franchise SEO strategy may help you build brand awareness, drive more traffic, and produce leads that translate into revenue. A strong reputation marketing approach is one of the most effective strategies to increase the SEO of your local franchise.
Vijay Sood is a seasoned digital marketer with a passion for driving online growth and innovation. With a robust background in developing and executing comprehensive digital strategies, Vijay excels in leveraging SEO, content marketing, and social media to boost brand visibility and engagement. His expertise lies in transforming data-driven insights into actionable marketing campaigns, helping businesses achieve their digital objectives.