Franchisees owning their own profiles personally
The network cannot fix anything, and a departing franchisee keeps the reviews the brand paid for.
Guide
Local SEO for franchises
A franchise network has the multi-location problem plus a governance problem, and the governance problem is the one that usually does the damage. Somebody has to own the Google Business Profiles. If each franchisee claims their own with a personal account, the network loses the ability to fix a suspended listing, correct a wrong address or stop a departing franchisee from walking off with the profile and its reviews.
8 steps
Free to read, in the order it pays to do it. Nothing to sign up for and nothing to download.
At the same time, corporate control taken too far produces the other failure: fifty location pages that are the brand page with a town name substituted, which rank for nothing and give franchisees no reason to believe head office is helping.
The workable arrangement is a narrow one, and it is worth writing down before the network grows.
What franchises are actually competing for
These are the shapes the searches take. The words in brackets are whatever the searcher puts there, which is usually a town, a neighbourhood or a brand.
- [brand] [town]
- [brand] near me
- [service] [town]
- [brand] franchise [area] reviews
- is [brand] any good
The work, in the order it pays to do it
- 1
Decide who owns the profiles, and write it into the agreement
The usual answer is the brand owns them and grants the franchisee manager access. It survives a franchisee leaving, a suspension, and a change of ownership. Retrofitting this across an established network is painful, which is why it belongs in the agreement.
- 2
Standardise the parts that must be standard, and only those
Business name format, primary category, logo, brand photography, the services list. Everything else is local and should be.
- 3
Give each franchisee a page with room for local content
A brand-controlled frame with sections the franchisee genuinely fills: their team, their photographs, their opening hours, the services that branch offers, the neighbourhoods they cover. Without those sections the page is a duplicate.
- 4
Stop franchisees bidding for the same term
Two franchisees optimising for the same city split the brand’s own signal and each blames the other. Territory needs to be reflected in the SEO targets, not just in the contract.
- 5
Run reviews at branch level with brand-level oversight
Reviews attach to each profile and cannot be pooled. Head office can supply the request process and monitor the replies; the asking has to happen locally.
- 6
Keep name and address formatting identical across the network
"Brand Name Townsville" against "Brand Name - Townsville" against "Townsville Brand Name" is three different businesses as far as a directory is concerned. Pick one and enforce it.
- 7
Give franchisees something they could not do alone
Technical work, structured data, site speed, the page template, a review platform, reporting. It justifies the fee and it stops franchisees hiring a local agency who will undo the standardisation.
- 8
Handle openings and closures properly
A closed branch profile should be marked permanently closed, not deleted, and the page should redirect to the nearest open branch. Deleting loses the reviews and leaves the address floating.
What usually goes wrong
Location pages that are brand copy with the town changed
Ranks for nothing and convinces franchisees that head office marketing does not work.
Two franchisees targeting one city
They compete with each other, split the signal, and both lose to an independent.
Inconsistent business naming across the network
Makes every directory treat the branches as unrelated businesses, which is exactly the opposite of what a brand is for.
How to tell whether it is working
Rankings are not the measure. These are, and all of them come from accounts in your own name rather than from a report you have to take on trust.
- Profile performance per franchisee, ranked, so the weak ones are visible to head office
- Whether any two franchisees rank for the same term
- Review volume and recency per branch against the network average
- Enquiries per branch from the branch page rather than the brand home page
If you would rather not do it yourself
Everything above is work you can do without hiring anybody, and the profile half of it is worth doing whatever else you decide. If you want it done for you, this is the service that covers it, and we scope it on a call before anything starts.
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Questions about local SEO for franchises
Who should own the Google Business Profiles?
The brand, with manager access granted to each franchisee. It is the only arrangement that survives a franchisee leaving, a listing suspension or a change of ownership, and it is far easier to set as policy than to retrofit.
How much freedom should franchisees have on their page?
Enough to make it genuinely local: their team, their photographs, their hours, their services, their neighbourhoods. The frame, the naming and the categories should be fixed.
Two of our franchisees cover the same city. What now?
Differentiate the targets by neighbourhood or by service, or agree which one owns the city term. Left alone they split the signal and an independent takes it.
What happens when a branch closes?
Mark the profile permanently closed rather than deleting it, and redirect the page to the nearest open branch. Deleting throws away the reviews and leaves the address unaccounted for.
Book a call with us
A 30-minute call in your working hours. Tell us what you sell and where, and we will tell you what we would do first and what it involves. Prefer email? Send your website through the form and the Passieon Team will reply within two working days.