Local SEO for Multiple Location,
Corporate or Franchise Websites
- Free SEO Analysis
On Page Optimization
This is the process of telling Google what it is that you do and where you offer your products or services by editing the code and content of your website. Google is simply a robot. By making sure your website “speaks Google”, you have a better shot to be found in search engines.
We do this by creating hundreds of pages on the back-end of your website. Each page is perfectly optimized for one location and one category of service.
We will continue to do this for as many products/services and locations that you have and we won’t charge extra for it. This creates a larger net to catch more people who are looking for you. We want you to get as many clients and customers as possible.
Secret Sauce: Use software to constantly update the landing pages every time Google visits the the website. This gives you a boost in rankings due to Google’s fresh content factor.
Secret Sauce: Get backlinks from sites that are powerful, have organic traffic and become even more powerful over time.
Link Building
If both you and your competitors do on-page optimization perfectly (step one above), how does Google choose which website to rank #1? Google must differentiate which website has more authority on the subject. Google uses backlinks to qualify which website is more important.
If website A is willing to give website B some of its’ online visitors via a backlink, then website A must believe website B is important and trustworthy. Google then attributes some of the value of website A and bumps up website B in regards to online authority.
Link building is the scaling portion of SEO. The more high quality links, the better. It is the only thing that will consistently get your website to show up more prominently in Google; especially for those hard to win search terms.
Map Optimization
Google map optimization (also known as Google My Business or GMB optimization) is the process of getting your local business to show up on the Google map section of search results. We do this by making sure your business name, address and phone number (NAP) are created and consistent on all the major online directories, data aggregators and voice search platforms (think Siri and Alexa). In doing so, you create an “online fingerprint” that is specific to your business. In doing so, Google takes your business more seriously, and thus ranks you for more local searches.
Secret Sauce: Use software and API’s to search all variations of your online business listing in order fix, remove duplicates and update existing listings.
Why You Should Be Investing In SEO As A Franchise
As franchise marketing goes, it is very important to position your franchisees for success. There are a lot of different reasons you will want to invest in SEO as a multiple location corporation or franchise.
Reasons To Invest In SEO For Franchises:
1. It’s Cost Effective.
One of the main reasons you are going to want to be investing in SEO within your marketing agency efforts is because it is one of the most cost effective marketing agency strategies that you can implement into your mix. Because a majority of consumers now utilize search engines in order to find products and services that they might be interested in, you are going to be able to reach a lot of prospective buyers by investing in SEO.
2. Long-Term Strategy.
Another big reason you are going to want to be investing in SEO within your business is that of the impact that it can have on your long-term success. Because SEO for franchises is something that can take a long time to implement, it is something that you want to begin implementing immediately. You want to invest in SEO as a long-term strategy within your business because it can help you achieve long-term success. Not only will it put your business at the forefront of the marketplace by getting your brand and business in front of more prospective customers, but it is going to help your franchise establish much more brand trust within the marketplace as well. Content marketing is also a big plus for link building.
3. Your Competition Is Doing It.
Another big reason you want to be sure that you are investing in SEO within your business is that your competition is doing it. You want to be investing in SEO because your competition is likely already heavily invested in it. By ignoring the power of SEO and by ignoring search engines as a marketing opportunity, you are bound to lose out to your competition. Your competition will gain a significant competitive advantage over your own business as a result.
There are a lot of reasons you want to be sure that you are investing in SEO franchise within your marketing mix. As a franchise, you want to put your brand in the forefront of the marketplace. As more and more consumers leverage search engines to find what they are looking for, it can impact the buying cycle significantly. Because of this, you want to be investing a lot of resources into your own SEO efforts to maximize your success and your franchisees success.
Reasons Why You Need Search Engine Marketing for Multiple Location Companies
Just about every business needs to be heavily invested in lead generation nowadays. You need to be investing in SEO within your content marketing mix to ensure that you are able to remain as competitive as possible within the industry that you are operating within. Below, we will discuss some of the reasons why franchises have to invest in SEO.
Reasons for Franchise SEO:
1. Organic Search Rankings.
Nowadays, more and more consumers are using their favorite search engines in order to find the different products, services, and businesses they want to invest in. Because of this, you want to be sure that you are attracting these potential customers through your search engine optimization efforts. Without an emphasis placed within your SEO efforts, you are bound to lose out on a lot of potential traffic that you wouldn’t normally lose out on. Being able to maximize your organic search engine rankings can propel your business in a significant way because you will have more people actively seeking what you are offering ready and willing to buy from you.
2. Build Trust With Online Searchers.
Another big reason every business needs to be heavily invested in franchise SEO and your online presence is that it can effectively build trust with prospective customers in your industry. Because you are going to be ranking high within the search engines for buying keywords and key phrases, it will allow you to build a good amount of trust as the prospective customers are going to see your brand name consistently when they search for keywords within your industry. Along with this, they are also going to see your brand name alongside your biggest competition which can effectively put you in the same category as them in terms of the brand trust you have. While franchises might already have established a level of trust, you are going to be able to increase it by getting your website to rank higher.
3. Better Overall Experience.
Search engines are placing much more of an emphasis than ever before on ensuring that their users have excellent browsing experiences. Because of this, having good SEO campaign implemented into your site is going to help you provide a much better overall user experience.
Overall, there are plenty of different reasons you will want to be investing in franchise SEO within your business. Investing in SEO can help you drive more buying traffic to your website, build trust within the industry, and even create a better experience for your visitors.
Citations and Business Listings
Businesses also need a good Google map optimization strategy for the best franchise SEO service. Contact our digital marketing & social media company to learn more about our SEO strategies and SEO for franchise tactics.
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Best Local SEO For Franchises
The very nature of a franchise business model offers up unique challenges when it comes to optimizing a website with the goal of improving a search engine ranking.
Do you treat each franchise individually or should the entire group be optimized relative to a single website? How do you face the challenge of optimizing for location when there are multiple locations? How do you deal with local, national and even international search directories? And what happens when the optimization techniques allows one franchise to infringe on the location of another franchise?
These are just some of the important questions that need to be answered when creating a comprehensive SEO strategy for a franchise with multiple locations. Each SEO technique that is integrated into the overall strategy needs to be tweaked and adjusted to meet the unique needs of the franchise business model.
At the end of the day, you need expertise, skill and knowledge to effectively implement a successful SEO strategy for a franchise-based business. Let’s take a closer look at some of the challenges and how the various SEO techniques can be employed to overcome these:
1. Universal Vs. Individual Website
The first important decision that needs to be made is whether each franchisee will have their own website and be in control of their own SEO or if it is better for the franchise to simply dedicate a page on one universal website to each franchise. Each has its pros and cons.
A universal website gives you ultimate control of branding, presentation, marketing and SEO strategy as well as other elements that are critical to establishing a strong online presence. Individual websites on the other hand provide a better platform to promote franchises locally.
Implementing both strategies allows for comprehensive optimization but comes with the pitfall of crossovers on some platforms and directories that can harm user experience and therefore search engine rankings.
A two-pronged approach that accounts for the various challenges is optimal. However, it is recommended for the strategy to be implemented expertly from start to finish in order to avoid problems down the line and provide solution for issues that may arise.
2. Content Addition
Adding optimized content on a regular basis forms the foundation of just about any SEO campaign. The content is used to allow a search engine like Google to constantly crawl a website and index new pages according to ranking. This process has an organic positive effect on rankings.
Content can also be used to focus a SEO campaign according to location simply by adding the location name to the keyword. For franchises, this can pose a unique problem where multiple locations exist. The main website will need to add new content for each franchise in order to promote them equally. However, content for each page must be unique and the same content with different location names will be penalized.
Individual websites will also need new and unique content added on a regular basis. The content cannot be the same as that posted on the main site or other franchise sites. It can become complicated to ensure that content is never duplicated in order to avoid penalties. It is recommended to use the same SEO agency across all franchises in order to manage content addition.
3. Keyword Identification
Identifying keywords that users are most likely to use when searching for your product, service or information is critical. Using these keywords and niche keywords that are unique are both important SEO strategies. Because franchises ideally optimize according to location, the keyword must contain the location.
The keyword should appear in the title, the first and last paragraph of content as well as throughout the body. It is however important not to overuse the keyword. Keyword loading will be penalized and it is best to use it sparingly – about once every 300 words should be sufficient. Long tail keywords or similar phrases are a good way to get around the penalties and optimize content according to relevance.
Relevance plays a key role in indexing and therefore rankings. Keywords must be relevant to the content and vice versa. The content should also be relevant to the products or services offered by the franchise. Although the same keywords can be used across the board, the title and content should differ for each page and each franchise.
4. Link-Building
Link-building is another important technique used to optimize websites and increase search engine rankings. Adding links to landing or other pages on the same website is called back-linking. When used correctly, this can be of benefit. However, rankings can be negatively impacted when overusing back-links.
Links to other websites are far more advantageous and provide spiders or bots that crawl the web with a path to new content. Links added from a main website to various individual franchise websites can be beneficial and vice versa and are in fact crucial.
However, it is important not to overdo it. One link per page of content to and from the main website is more than sufficient. These links should also not be trump links to other sites that could be of benefit. Once again, relevance is key here. Only add links to other websites that are relevant or add value to the content on the page or products and services. Links to authority websites provide strength to a link-building campaign and boost search engine rankings.
5. Directory Listings
One of the most important SEO techniques that are used to promote websites according to location are local directory listings. Every franchise should have its own listing with local directory sites as well as national and other directories. The description for each franchise needs to be unique. Contact details need to be added and the physical address.
It is very important to be extremely specific regarding location where multiple franchises exist in the same area. This will prevent confusion and cross listings. Listings add value to a search engine ranking but can have a negative impact if the listings are not detailed and well maintained.
Updating listings for each franchise on a regular basis and ensuring that all information is correct is critical. The main website for the franchise group should be listed as such or as a head office. No information regarding the various locations of franchises should be listed in the directory listing as this can create confusion. It is recommended to hire a professional SEO consultant to create and maintain directory listings for each franchise.
6. Social Media Management
Social media has become the main way for internet users to recommend and review companies, products and services. It is recommended for each franchise to create their own business social media profile on a variety of different platforms. Just like directory listings, social media profiles need to be managed and maintained. In fact, this is even more critical on social media.
Each franchise owner should manage their own profile and respond to queries, complaints and compliments as soon as possible. However, social media posts to the platform should preferably be performed by an agency or consultant in order to maintain unique content while promoting each franchise individually.
Once again, it is important for the franchise group to also have a social media page that users can turn to when they are not able to find what they are looking for on individual franchise profile.
Social media establishes a strong online presence and reputation. Multiple profiles for the same franchise group can be highly beneficial to improving online visibility but maintaining all the different profiles can become a challenge.
7. Location, Location, Location
Any estate agent will tell you that location is the most important factor when it comes to real estate investment. You want a property that is likely to increase in value as quickly as possible. This is no different to claiming a stake on the World Wide Web.
More and more people are making use of searches including the term “near me” and relying on search engine mapping technology to send them in the right direction. Listing each franchise on mapping tool such as Google Maps according to the GPS coordinates and physical address is therefore imperative to increasing traffic to a website.
Once again, it is important for each franchise to have a unique description as well as links to their website, social media profiles and search directories. All information should be maintained and updated regularly. It is just as important to manage a search engine profile and respond to comments, complaints and compliments. The higher the rating, the higher the search engine ranking.
Although SEO for multiple locations as part of a digital marketing strategy for a franchise group does present many challenges, these challenges can be turned into an advantage. Success lies in using skill and expertise to integrate the strategy across multiple locations using all the techniques that SEO has to offer. A comprehensive campaign that is well managed and maintained will reap rewards and a successful climb up the search engine ranking ladder for both the franchise group and each individual franchisee.