John SammonAuthor:John Sammon
Updated on 6/12/2023

If you are looking for digital marketing help for your franchise business, let our team of search engine optimization experts, PPC managers, and designers advise you on how to get your company more qualified leads. Not only will our guide to digital marketing for franchises increase lead generation, but it will improve the online presence of your business and lead to an overall increase in sales and profitability.

What Is Digital Marketing and How Does It Work for Franchises?

Digital marketing uses internet-based technologies, like desktops, mobile phones, and tablets, to raise brand awareness as well as promote your products and services to your target audience.

When it comes to franchise digital marketing, different online channels are incorporated into your strategy to communicate with potential customers as well as existing customers. Depending on the number of locations your franchise has, you could have numerous digital marketing channels to appeal to each location, in addition to the surrounding areas they serve.

The Importance of Local SEO for Franchises

Simply put, local SEO is vital to the health of your franchise locations. This is the process of implementing a locally-focused search engine optimization strategy that helps both your website and Google Business Profile show up in more searches in your cities or regions of focus.

Think about the types of searches you make in Google when looking for a local business. You likely often see what is called the Google Local Pack, which features a handful of businesses in your area that are relevant to the service for which you searched. A successful local SEO strategy will help your franchise locations rank higher in Google’s Local Pack and ultimately drive more people to either call you directly or visit your website.

franchise marketing

It is also important to note that 86% of customers utilize Google Maps in order to find local businesses. If you want your franchise locations – no matter where they are located – to rank highly on Google Maps, be sure to follow our guide to learn more about how to rank in Google’s Local Map Pack.

“Yes, Sixth City provides great work and yes, they are up to speed on the latest technologies and trends but it’s the staff and their responsiveness that are first and foremost as to what sets them apart from other groups. John and his team are always ready for the next thing and willing to pitch in to execute.” – Greg Carlin, Play Adventure Parks

4 Digital Marketing Strategies We Implement for Franchises

There are several different approaches you can take to create a successful digital marketing strategy for your industry’s franchises.

Some specific approaches that our team considers include the following.

Local Content Creation and Link Building

If you have a business with multiple locations, it’s important to have individual pages on your site that reflect that. Publish pages for each of your locations and write unique, location-specific content that will help signal to Google where you are located and want to ultimately rank.

Having a blog is another great way for your franchise to showcase your niche and industry-related skills, as well as generate impressions for your website.

Along with your blog, it is important to write individualized copy for the blog to target specific and high-search-volume keywords for an overall increase in traffic and rankings.

Local outreach link building can also be extremely beneficial and influential on your local rankings as a business. With that in mind, we advise you to conduct local outreach to carefully chosen industry-related sites and organizations in your area to build brand awareness on a local level.

Competitor Research

Performing a competitor analysis will not only give you a better understanding of where you stand in the industry, but it can also inspire and innovate content and strategy. Simply look at your competitors to see what they’re doing and how they’re doing it to see what you can improve on your end.

Are they getting a lot of reviews to their Google Business Profile on a regular basis? What kind of content are they publishing on their site? Researching your competitors can spark all kinds of strategies you can ultimately utilize yourself.

User Experience

Did you know that 88% of users are less likely to revisit a website after a bad user experience? To ensure this is not the case for your franchise, you should invest in redesigning elements of your website to accommodate the needs of your audience.

Some easy strategies for improving user experience include:

  • Incorporating mobile compatibility – With approximately 84% of Americans accessing the internet through their mobile devices, your website should be optimized to be accessed on mobile phones, desktops, and tablets.
  • Create paths that are easy to navigate – Nearly 94% of consumers report that it is important to have an easy-to-navigate website. If you are wondering if you need to update the navigation on your website, consider incorporating a smarter search feature, or even utilizing images and videos into your content for engaging results.

Ultimately, increasing conversion rates should be one of your top site priorities, and improving the overall user experience is one of the best ways to do that.

Metadata Optimization

Metadata for your website is essentially data about data. It is important to include original and keyword-rich metadata on your website’s pages, so it is easier for Google to understand the main goals of each page. This will also make it easier for Google to crawl and index each page of your site.

Metadata is also used by search engines when choosing what to display on the search results pages for users:

franchise metadata

With that in mind, the presence of duplicate copy across a site can be viewed negatively by Google, and we often see websites that have the same metadata on all their pages.

Therefore, we encourage you and your team to scan the site for duplicate copy and write unique metadata with targeted keywords to bring the appropriate audience to each page.

Important Online Marketing Statistics for Franchises

To further illustrate how important it is to pay attention to your online presence, check out some of these statistics from Backlinko on how users interact with search engines:

  • The amount of users that make it to the bottom of the first page of the search results is only 9%, and only .44% of users go to the second page
  • It takes only 9 seconds for 50% users to click on a result
  • 19% of users typically click on paid ads while searching
  • When it comes to local search, 42% of users click on results in the local pack

Need-to-Know Answers for Digital Marketing

Allow us to help you get more educated on the ins and outs of digital marketing, industry lingo, and more. Here are some answers to common questions we receive to further help you with your digital marketing efforts.

Q: What types of SEO are there?

A: There are four main types of search engine optimization that you may hear us reference in strategy sessions and elsewhere. These are on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO.

Q: What is the difference between SEO and PPC?

A: Search engine optimization deals with organic listings that Google ranks based on their algorithm, along with the work you do on your website and across the web. PPC deals with paid ad listings that allow you to pay for placement on search engines, control when and where your ads show, and much more. You are then billed for every click your ads receive. This differs from SEO, where you do not have to pay for clicks you receive from the search engine results page.

Q: My website is hard to update. What should I do?

A: We work with numerous content management systems and have skilled developers on staff who should be able to help overcome any issues on your site. If we were to face real setbacks with your site, we will be transparent with our concerns and approach the next steps with you one-on-one.

Q: Do you have any advice about managing Google Business Profiles?

A: Yes! Our team has vast experience operating, optimizing, and updating listings for franchises to ensure brand consistency, optimal data tracking, and comprehensiveness compared to your competitors, all while adhering to Google’s guidelines. We also are able to report competitors who are breaking guidelines and spamming the maps.

The Benefits of SEO for Franchise Marketing

 

How SEO Can Help

Doing search engine optimization and other marketing tactics for your franchise’s website(s) can show great results in various areas. Digital marketing for franchises can help your business in the following ways:

  • Boosting where you rank in search results (Google, Bing, etc.)
  • Increasing exposure on Google Maps for local stores/locations
  • Improving user experience on your website
  • Improving response on web forms
  • Providing worthwhile data through Google Analytics tracking
  • Boosting traffic and visits to your website
  • And so much more

Our Franchise Digital Marketing Services

For the franchise industry, we can provide an array of services at our SEO agency, including:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Optimizing your website is an essential part of getting great results from internet marketing. By writing unique page copy, producing informative blog posts, incorporating calls to action, and more, we can give your website a needed makeover for franchise SEO. Not to mention, we can help optimize your local listings for better exposure for all of your franchise locations.

Online Advertising (Pay Per Click)

Our PPC management team is experienced with getting your ads seen by your ideal audience on Google, Bing, and various social media platforms across the web. We will monitor your campaign to ensure maximum exposure to the best potential customers. From designing landing pages with a high conversion rate to writing ads to monitoring your account on a daily basis, we can assure your campaigns will perform better with our expert team.

Website Development and Design

Since your site is the face of your company on the internet, having a unique website design that reflects your brand, but also encompasses good user experience and brings in qualified leads, is essential. Our in-house staff of designers and developers will work with you step by step through the website redesign process to give you a streamlined site that converts.

Social Media Marketing

Making sure your business’s brand has a presence online is more important than ever, and our franchise marketing experts have the ability to write posts, design graphics, and schedule out content on all of your preferred social media outlets. As social media is an ever-evolving industry, you can rely on us to keep up with the trends.

SEO Consulting/Auditing

We have worked as a consultant for a wide variety of businesses to help them boost their marketing efforts and traffic, which has included strategy suggestions, website evaluations, design recommendations, and more. We can offer your team valuable ideas for online marketing.

CRM Management

If you are currently utilizing a customer relationship management system or are interested in one, as a HubSpot-certified agency, we are experienced in helping our clients navigate through their CRMs to help funnel sales, monitor leads, and more.

Email Marketing

Alongside our other services, we also have the ability to help your company with writing, designing, and sending out monthly newsletters to your desired audience on unique topics related to your business. Email is a great way to make existing customers become returning customers and influence readers to make purchases, inquire about more information, and more!

What You Get: Custom Reporting

For all of our franchise digital marketing services, as part of your agreement, you will receive a monthly report showing all the important data connected to your campaign, which may include:

  • Search engine keyword positions
  • Form submissions
  • Website traffic
  • Ad positions
  • Phone calls
  • Social media followers
  • Social media page likes
  • Website conversion and response
  • YOY and month-month data comparison
  • Landing page traffic
  • E-commerce data
  • Cost per lead/conversion

We ensure that we can present your return on investment in our franchise marketing services, proving that what we are doing for your company is producing real results

Additionally, we will schedule a monthly touch-base to review the data presented in the report, as well as go over additional strategies and opportunities that we see for your business. We pride ourselves on having the ability to have meaningful conversations with our clients by showing the cause and effect of our digital marketing efforts.

The Types of Franchises We Serve

Being a knowledgeable SEO agency with vast experience in digital marketing for franchises, we have worked with a large variety of clients over our 12+ years, including businesses in the following industries:

In addition to the wide variety of industries we work with, we also operate out of various locations around the country, including:

No matter where you are located, though, our team will be able to work closely with you and give you the successful digital marketing strategy and exceptional customer service you value.

Why You Should Choose Sixth City for Your Franchise Marketing

One of the greatest benefits of working with our team here at Sixth City Marketing is that we dedicate time to conducting in-depth research and analysis to put together a fully customized strategy for franchises. This research includes digging into the online behaviors of your target market and looking at the overall health of your current online presence to set achievable goals.

Something that sets our agency apart from others is the fact that we understand the importance of results and return on investment. It is important that we can provide our clients with accurate and specific data to show positive results. And to highlight that, here are a few insights from our previous case studies showing what we have been able to do for other clients through SEO, PPC, and more:

  • SEO strategies and a new website design for one client improved search engine traffic by 540% and brought in 314% more leads on a monthly basis
  • In-depth analysis and strategy implementation for a client made it so 90% of their new internet submissions led to new business
  • PPC management and thorough SEO strategies for one client were able to bring a 129% increase in online leads, with a 632% increase in web traffic

To get details on each of these examples, head over to our case studies page.

“Sixth City Marketing has been our SEO and PPC company for almost a year now. We have seen significant increases in search rankings, domain authority, site traffic, call volume and most importantly revenue. Not to mentioned they are fantastic to deal with. They are always bringing new creative ideas to us to continue this growth. They have taken the time to learn our business and industry which helps enhance our 9 sites. I would highly recommend.” – Albert Atkins, SERVPRO

Interested in Our Digital Marketing Services for Franchises?

Are you ready to learn about the franchise marketing we can do for your company? Sixth City Marketing is the reliable and successful agency you’ve been looking for. Contact us for a free website evaluation today – we look forward to working with you!

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