Franchise SEO Consulting Services

One of the most complicated organization structures for an SEO is the franchise model because brands do the franchise model so many different ways. Below you will find some of the questions you and your SEO consultant should be discussing.

What is Franchise SEO Marketing?

Franchise SEO is the process of optimizing a franchise website for the search engines. The goal of franchise SEO is to improve the visibility of the franchise website in the search engine results pages (SERPs), with the ultimate goal being to increase leads and sales for the franchise.

There are a number of factors that go into optimizing a franchise website for the search engines, including on-page SEO factors (such as title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags) and off-page SEO factors (such as link building and social media engagement).

The key to successful franchise SEO is to focus on the factors that will have the biggest impact on your search engine visibility. For most franchises, this means focusing on on-page SEO and link building.

Best Franchise SEO Reporting and Metrics

The most important aspect of any SEO campaign is to get aligned when it comes to the SEO reporting. What does that mean in reality? It comes down to which SEO metrics are the most important to the franchise owners, the brand leadership, which metrics the the private equity company is judging the CMO on, etc.

My job as a franchise SEO consultant is to each of the SEO projects we move forward with are working towards the meaningful SEO metrics that we identified with all of the key stakeholders. 

Best SEO Keyword Rankings Metrics for Franchise Businesses

It’s acceptable to also track positions #11-20 which are the keywords on page 2 of the search engine result pages (SERPs) and those positions are often referred to as “low hanging fruit”. However, page 1 is where the magic happens. The top franchise SEO results will see graphs like the one below, stready and consistent growth of their top keywords over time.

• #1 Position
• Top 3 Positions
• Top 10 Positions
• Featured Snippets

Best SEO Traffic Metrics for Franchise Businesses

In general, organic traffic is a staple SEO metric for franchise businesses to report on consistently. Keyword rankings can be a great indicator of success but traffic is what drives the business forward because traffic can turn into leads. What are the best SEO traffic metrics for franchise businesses to report on?

• Organic sessions (Google Analytics)
• Organic new users (Google Analytics)
• Organic clicks (Google Search Console)
• Organic impressions (Google Search Console)
• Organic CTR (Google Search Console)

If you are tracking those metrics you will be able to measure growth through various time periods which can help you make data driven decisions. 

What are the best time periods to use for SEO reporting for franchise businesses?

At the beginning of each SEO projects you begin you should start with a benchmark or baseline report which shows a snapshot in time before you start making changes. This will provide a clear indicator of success of these various SEO projects. 

After you have that established the other key time periods to measure and report on for franchise businesses are:

Year over Year 

Year over Year will be the most important timeline to measure in my opinion. There are many indusrties in which seasonality plays such a huge part in the numbers so Year over Year (YoY) will help account for those seasonality trends. 

Month over Month

Month over Month (MoM) is a great metrics for franchise businesses because it can show incrimental progress of your SEO campaign but keep in mind seasonality can play a big factor here as well.

Quarter over Quarter

Quarter over Quarter (QoQ) provides a nice snapshot in time that pairs well with the overall framework of an SEO strategy. Since SEO is a long-term investment and marketing play 90 over 90 provides a good clean high level overview especially when done Year over Year. 

Program to Date

Program to Date (PTD) is just comparing how the SEO program is making an impact since you started and is often best compared YoY as well. 

Common Ways Franchise Businesses Fund SEO

After figuring out what the quarterly and annual SEO goals are the next questions to consider are who funds the SEO strategy? Here are some of the most common types of ways franchise businesses fund their SEO strategies and initatives:

Shared Advertising Fund SEO

This if the most common way franchise businesses fund SEO, essentially a percentage of each sale a franchise location makes is contributed to the shared advertising fund. The brand then invests in various marketing channels with that shared advertising fund which often times includes SEO at least at the national level if not both national and local.

Franchise Owner Funded SEO

Another common method is the franchisee funding their own SEO campaigns through various SEO agencies or franchise SEO consultants. This can be tricky if the corporate office does not want franchisee’s to be able to choose their own vendors for SEO.

Other restrictions can come in the way of franchise owner funded SEO include:

• Lack of CMS access or website access in general
• Limited customization of websites
• The corporate office being unable or unwilling to let outside vendors make changes or suggest changes

Hybrid Model (Corporate and Franchisee Funded SEO)

Another common way franchise brands pay for SEO is a hybrid model in which the corporate office will take the shared advertising/marketing fund and invests that at the national level and the franchisee’s pay for local SEO themselves. This is the probably the most cost-effective way of having full SEO coverage but it also has it’s own nauances such as making sure both programs are not cannibalizing each other, that changes on the website are being made in the appropriate pages, etc.

Corporate Funded Franchise SEO

This is another common way that franchise businesses pay for SEO. This oftentimes happens when a private equity group owns a franchise business and they see an opportunity in the market by leveraging SEO more. The PE company or the corporate office themselves will foot the bill for SEO campaigns either at the national or local levels to boost traffic, leads and revenue.