Whether you’re the owner of a specific franchise location, or a corporate marketer overseeing the online performance of your franchises, you know that SEO is vital to success. One of the most easily-overlooked things is not “localizing” franchise landing pages.
Local buyers tend to gravitate towards small businesses engrained in the local community, as opposed to franchises that come across as a standardly corporate. Franchises that appeal to the local community better position themselves to win over their audience.
How do you create franchise local landing pages? There are many elements to consider adding to “localize” landing pages. Let’s take a look at the elements of a perfect landing page, together, in one image.
Local Landing Page Elements:
Below is a visual of the page elements to include on a local landing page. It’s important to note that the order of these elements doesn’t have to be in this exact order. The main idea is to include as many of these local landing page elements as possible.
Now that we have our sample local landing page, we’ll break down these local landing page elements one-by-one.
Hero Image
Your hero image should be a localized image of the area you serve. If you’re a brick and mortar franchise, a great starting point is an image of a storefront or location. For service area businesses, consider using an image of a popular spot that your local audience will instantly recognize. A few ideas: city skylines, well-known bridges, historic sites or statues, etc.
A great brick and mortar business example is Top Golf (this screenshot is from their Dallas, TX location):
NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number)
Adding the name, address, and phone number of a local branch is critical to local SEO success. By having the correct “NAP” information and making it unique to each location, you can match the NAP on the website to the NAP on the corresponding Google My Business listing, as well as other directory listings. When it comes to the online visibility of franchise locations, your NAP consistency across the web matters, so be sure to add this to each local landing page.
Tip: The phone number should also be clickable on mobile devices. Be sure to track mobile phone clicks through Google Tag Manager.
Geo-Targeted Header (H1 Tag) & Intro
The H1 tag is a great opportunity to target a geo-targeted keyword that includes both the location you serve, and the service you offer. The introduction paragraph is also important for keyword targeting while also providing an opportunity to present a high-level summary to your local audience.
Check out this header & introduction paragraph this example from Fast Signs:
“Services” Description
The “services” description is where you explain your services to your audience. If your location’s services or products differ or vary from other locations within the franchise, the “services” description is a great opportunity to go inform your customers on what all ways you serve customers.
List of Service Areas
Listing service areas on your franchise landing page has great SEO benefits, in addition to UX and user behavior. Listing towns, cities, and even neighborhoods clearly let people know the areas you serve. There’s an SEO benefit to match search queries that include geo-targeted searches that include the towns, cities, and neighborhoods you list.
Here’s a great example from Edible Arrangements‘ Boston location:
Here’s another example from Maids.com:
Staff Description & Images
What better way to localize your franchise’s landing page than to feature your location’s staff? Consider adding employee headshots, titles/position in the company, and short bios for your users to get to know staff members. For some industries, this will matter more than others. For example, a franchise yoga studio like Core Power Yoga will want to have images and names of yoga instructors.
See the example of Fenway’s Core Power Yoga:
Testimonials & Reviews
Testimonials
Testimonials are important for service-related franchise locations. Testimonials are the chance to brag about the quality of your franchise! It seems obvious, but testimonials build trust and credibility among your audience online, so don’t forget to add this to franchise pages.
Reviews
For larger brick-and-mortar stores that sell products, reviews help prove the quality of staff and service offered at your store.
Contact Form
This one is pretty straightforward, but it’s absolutely needed! Having individual forms from each franchise page provide another way for users to reach franchise owners. Franchise-specific forms, and thank-you pages after forms are completed help track the number of form fill conversions in the backend of the website and through Google Analytics.
Google Maps
Displaying a map provides your audience with a visual idea of where you’re located, relative to other nearby areas or points of interest. This doesn’t necessarily have to be Google Maps (however, Google Maps is commonly-used) – it could be Bing or another map widget.
See this maids.com example:
Additional Ideas:
Nearby Locations
Adding nearby locations can be helpful for users in the case that the location page user arrives at doesn’t serve his or her area. In that case, “nearby locations” can help these users find a closer location within their service area.
Does your franchise business need help with SEO? With my services, I can help your corporate office, and franchise leaders to see success with your local landing pages and local SEO.
Contact me, and we can get started!
