Problem #5: Individual Problems Pop Up Without the Power to Fix Them
Google is constantly making changes to how searchers connect with businesses. These changes can come suddenly, without much notice, and create the biggest challenge facing SEO for franchises.
Let's take the Google Hawk update, for example. This was an attempt by Google to crack down on businesses trying to cheat the local SEO system by creating multiple local listings for the same business to boost their ranking.
The Hawk update helped cut down on this but had a few unfortunate side effects. Namely, if you had a business name close to a competitor's, Google might assume you're the same business trying to hack the system.
A lot of businesses in the healthcare space will actually share a building with their competitors. You may find 2 dentists or 2 physical therapists in the same complex.
Now let's say you're a franchisee who's business suddenly vanishes from the Google rankings. You don't have any SEO knowledge, so you may:
Not notice the problem for months, and cost yourself a ton of business
Assume the problem is something you've done to screw it up, and make matters worse trying to fix it on your own
Report the issue to corporate, who will take some time to get back to you
The third scenario isn't great, but it is still the best one out of that list.
Now that we've identified all of the problems, let's discuss the solutions.
Whether your SEO for franchises strategy is being handled by an agency or an in-house team, you need to ensure whoever is responsible for communication to the franchisees has a firm knowledge of SEO and a complete understanding of everything you're doing.
You could have the agency communicate directly with the franchise owners, but that's not ideal. This information should always come from the company.
You need someone knowledgeable in place to ensure that they can answer any indonesia phone number list questions as they come up, without having to lose time going back to the agency for clarity.
This also builds trust at the top level in the eyes of the franchise owners. They will trust that this "expert" knows what they're talking about, and has each franchise's best interest in mind.
Solution #2: Ensure Franchise Level Buy-in and Understanding
Just sending a mass email doesn't count as training. So you can't really expect your franchise owners to know what they're doing if that's all they have to rely on.
You need to properly train them and offer them information as to why they need to do what they're about to do. Giving them an SEO for franchises checklist to follow is only giving them part of the equation, which is setting everyone up to fail.
Your franchisees need: