Learn the best SEO practices for franchises and discover how to optimize your pages to gain visibility and authority on Google. Explore local SEO strategies for each franchised unit and global SEO for the main brand, ensuring better positions in search results and attracting more customers.
SEO is the optimization strategy to achieve better search engine positions. But what to do when the company has franchises that are spread across the city, state, or country? Does the same strategy apply to the main brand and all of its franchisees?
SEO for franchises is a perspective of optimization strategies that meets the particularities of this business model. You should know how to gain authority, visibility, and clicks on Google, considering that franchising involves two levels of SEO: local, for each franchise, and global, for the main brand.
In this article, we will learn what SEO for franchises is and how to develop effective strategies for this type of business. Follow us to understand everything!
What is SEO for franchises?
SEO for franchises is a set of optimization strategies for franchised companies to improve their positioning in search engines.
Google is the most targeted search engine, with more than 90% market share. It offers a series of resources to increase the authority and visibility of franchises in search results.
In this business model, it is important to consider that the strategies must strengthen both the central brand and the local franchises. This is the main peculiarity of SEO for franchises about traditional SEO, which requires specific measures for this type of business.
Generally, SEO for franchises involves local SEO strategies to appear in searches for local businesses related to a specific city or region.
However, it is also important to master on-page SEO techniques, to optimize the pages of the franchise website, and off-page SEO, to gain citations and references from other websites that strengthen your pages in Google’s ranking.
The importance of SEO for franchises
The main objective of SEO is to reach the top positions in Google’s SERPs. But what is the advantage of reaching the top of the search engine?
This is the great importance of SEO for franchises: when you reach the top positions in search results, you gain visibility, which already generates greater brand recognition among an audience that is currently searching for solutions that you offer.
But the top positions in Google are those that also receive the most clicks. In other words, you gain not only notoriety but also traffic. These are qualified visitors who are interested in what you offer, in the form of content or offers, and who can become customers if you know how to strengthen the relationship with them.
SEO for franchises also has a particularity that favors optimization. Although many franchise SEO are small businesses, they gain authority because they use the main brand, which is generally better known. Thus, they gain trust, both with the public and with Google.
In addition, SEO for franchises, focused on optimizing local businesses, increases the visibility of franchisees in online searches throughout the city.
This way, when someone searches for a restaurant, pet shop, or market in their surroundings or a specific region, your business stands out among the competition and attracts more customers to buy.
SEO Tips for Franchises: Learn 6 Important Strategies
Next, we’ll look at some fundamental SEO strategies for franchises. Of course, you can follow the best SEO practices we’ve already shared here on the Rock blog. But now we’ve brought you some more specific tips for those who work with franchises. Check them out!
1] Optimize your Business Profile on Google My Business
Google My Business is the main tool for local SEO. It’s a search engine registration for local businesses, which appear in localized searches, even before the other organic and paid results on the SERP.
When a local business appears in these searches, it can display its information, such as directions, photos, videos, reviews, questions and answers, among other resources. In the case of franchises, therefore, it’s extremely important to register your business there and keep it updated.
To do this, it is important to register all your data (name, address, phone number, email, hours, products, services, etc.), include quality photos and videos of your company, and keep an eye on customer reviews and questions.
You can and should respond to them, always attentively and kindly, to strengthen the relationship, resolve any doubts or even problems that appear in negative reviews.
2] Keep your NAP consistent
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone. These are the basic data about a business that a person needs to know to access it and communicate with it. In other words, they are essential to attract customers to your business.
For Google, NAP is also important. The search engine’s robots look for this data to identify the existence and reliability of a company.
Therefore, it is important to keep them consistent across all your registrations and channels on the internet. Remember Google My Business, your website, social media, and other directories where your company may be registered.
Inconsistent information, on the other hand, can confuse potential customers and drive them away from your business, in addition to generating distrust in Google, which will not know which data is correct.
3] Use structured data for local businesses
Structured data is a standardized format of markup in a page’s code that identifies certain information. It helps Google understand and index the information to present it in the SERP, even before the user clicks on your link.
In SEO for franchises, you can explore structured data for local businesses. Information such as address, telephone number, opening hours, reviews, local events, whether you accept reservations, among others, can be inserted into the page through structured data.
This way, your customer can access your information more quickly and objectively in the SERP.
4] Have a localized Content Marketing strategy
Another way to strengthen SEO for franchises is to produce localized content. This means creating posts for your website or blog that speak to the neighborhood and local community and that, in this way, appear in searches for the region.
To do this, it is important to use keywords in the content that identify your region, such as your neighborhood, well-known streets, traditional events, and striking features. In the themes, you can explore local news and events, tips for getting to know the neighborhood, partnerships with local personalities and companies, among other strategies.
But always remember to create content that is relevant to your audience in the region, related to your franchise’s niche. Show your authority and explore topics that your company is an expert in, in order to strengthen the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) of your website.
5] Adopt strategies to obtain local backlinks
To understand the relevance of your franchise in the market, Google evaluates, among other factors, with whom your company has a relationship. And one of the ways to evaluate this is to analyze the backlinks you receive from other websites. If they are relevant and reliable, the search engine understands that it can also trust your company and increase its position in the ranking.
Therefore, it is important to adopt a local link-building strategy, focused on businesses and entities in your region, such as newspapers, associations, and well-known companies.
To do this, you can establish local partnerships, always with names that have a good reputation in the market and authority on the web. This will help Google to perceive the importance of your company to the public in that place.
6] Manage reviews and your online reputation
Online reviews help to build your reputation on the internet. Whether positive or negative, they directly impact the public’s perception of your franchise, their decision to buy from your business or not, and whether or not to recommend it to other friends.
Therefore, keep an eye on the reviews received online. You may have reviews on Google My Business, social media, Reclame Aqui, and even on your website, if there is a customer feedback area. Don’t leave people hanging: show that you care and respond to comments politely and thoughtfully.
In addition, reviews help your business improve. A negative review is often frustrating, but think of this comment as a way to identify and correct errors that may be driving other customers away.
So, encourage people to leave reviews about your business. You can offer discounts, exclusive offers, and points in loyalty programs when they submit a review.
Off-page SEO vs. On-page SEO Quiz: Do you know the difference? Take the test!
Franchisees and franchisors have a lot to gain from SEO strategies. If they act in a coordinated manner, ideally with guidance from the franchisor company, both the main brand and the franchises tend to strengthen on Google. This way, your business can gain much more visibility, traffic, and customers.
