August 12, 2024
Franchise businesses benefit from widespread brand recognition, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to visibility and trust in their local markets. When you want to drive local traffic and grow your franchise business, you need a solid local search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
The Importance of a Local SEO Strategy for Franchise Businesses
Like any local business, franchise businesses rely on search engines to drive much of their traffic. According to a 2023 survey, 98 percent of consumers in the US use the internet to find local businesses, with roughly a third of consumers saying they search for local businesses multiple times every week.
If your franchise’s overall brand has a great web presence, that’s a solid start, but it isn’t enough. Each franchise needs its target audience to be aware of its presence in the local community and needs to build trust within that community. What does building that awareness and trust look like?
When your potential customers are searching for businesses in your category near them, you want your business to be prominently featured. That means, ideally, ranking higher than your competitors and providing all the information a customer needs to convert—whether that means submitting an inquiry form, placing an order online, or visiting your business in person. If you want to attract and convert customers, a solid local SEO strategy can help you get there.
Key Components of an Effective Local SEO Strategy for Franchise Growth
What goes into an effective local SEO strategy for a franchise business? The exact blueprint for success will depend on the business, but a successful local SEO strategy employs a combination of the following building blocks.
Local Keyword Optimization
Determine what phrases your target audience uses to search for businesses like yours, and then work on ranking for those keywords. Tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner and Semrush can help you identify relevant keywords with a high volume of searches. Remember, phrases related to location—like “near me” or “in [City Name]”—play a crucial role in local searches.
You can include the keywords you want to rank for in your website content, meta tags, image alt text, URLs, and headers. You can also use this keyword research to inform your paid media campaigns.
Business Listings
Make sure online listings for your business are accurate and up to date. For example, this includes listings on Yelp, Facebook, and your Google Business Profile (formerly “Google My Business”). Be sure to optimize listings for individual franchise locations so community members have easy access to accurate business hours, great photos, and other helpful information.
Localized Content
Franchisors may create valuable content for the brand as a whole, but franchisees need content tailored to their local audience. This might include, for example:
- Location-specific landing pages
- A bio and photo of the local franchise owners and their team
- Blog posts about local projects
- Social media content tied to local events and updates
An effective content strategy informed by SEO can do wonders for a franchise, both at the franchisor and franchisee levels. For example, SmartBug helped Two Maids refine its approach to SEO and content marketing, leading to a 50 percent increase in organic traffic and a 45 percent increase in organic leads!
Reviews and Testimonials
It’s no secret that online reviews play a major role for any business in today’s marketplace. Consumers want the assurance that others have had a great experience before spending their hard-earned dollars. And reviews for the parent brand won’t cut it; customers want to know how their specific location is performing.
Encourage customers to leave positive reviews on Google and any online platforms relevant to your industry. SmartBug often helps franchises automate this process through a review generation platform so they can boost their number of reviews without much heavy lifting. Whenever possible, respond promptly to reviews to demonstrate your care and build trust. When you receive a particularly great review, consider featuring it on your website as a testimonial or on promotional materials.
Local Link Building
High-quality backlinks are another quintessential part of any SEO strategy. Consider which online sources are well respected in your industry or your community and whether you could build credibility by having those sources feature your business. Earning those backlinks typically comes down to relationship building; networking with local businesses, organizations, and influencers can expand your reach.
Monitoring and Reporting
As with any marketing strategy, one of the most critical steps is monitoring the results of your campaigns so you can continue to refine your approach. Track relevant metrics like:
- Keyword rankings
- Website traffic (including number of site visits and time on site)
- Google Business Profile views
- Organic call tracking
- Customer reviews
- Local backlinks
- Conversion rates
You don’t need to track all these metrics at all times; align the metrics you track with your campaign goals to ensure you focus on a specific and achievable target. A/B testing can be a great tool to help you see what works best so you can apply these tactics for future optimization.
Keeping the Big Picture in View
One of the great things about being part of a franchise network is that no individual franchise location is an island. The franchisor, or an agency like SmartBug, can leverage data and insights across locations to inform the marketing strategy for the brand and individual franchise locations.
Each location is unique, but the lessons learned in one location often translate (at least in part) to another. If a location is underperforming, we can look to the locations that are thriving to see what that missing piece might be. Conversely, if certain locations are excelling, we can capitalize on that success to help other locations reach their potential within their local markets.
It’s also important to note that SEO is typically just one piece of the puzzle. I consistently communicate to clients that SEO is a long-term investment that can pay off in dividends, but you may not see the return right away. If you want to see more immediate results, you should pair your local SEO strategy with paid advertising. Local SEO and paid media work hand in hand to grow your franchise business in the here and now and over the long haul.
Franchise businesses have unique advantages and needs when it comes to effective local SEO and a solid local SEO strategy. At SmartBug Media, we’ve earned our reputation as experts in franchise marketing, having worked with more than 800 franchisees across 15 different brands. Whether you need to promote new franchise locations, build your online presence, make messaging more consistent across locations, or grow your customer base, we’re here to help.
Take a moment to explore our franchise marketing solutions, and see whether we could help you take your local SEO strategy and other marketing efforts to the next level.
Innovators. Problem solvers. Go-getters. We handle all the nitty-gritty details of franchise marketing so you can focus on the big picture.
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