Can you launch a franchise and still do your own SEO?

Can you launch a franchise and still do your own SEO?

When people start thinking they want to own their own business, they usually go the franchise route because it's a proven business model that is already working, and they don't want to take a ton of risk in the first few steps of their journey.  Now, the problem with a franchise is that you don't always have control of your website or marketing, and to someone like me who has been doing SEO and branding online for over 15 years, that's something which could be a deal breaker when thinking about starting up a franchise.

Don't get me wrong, the franchise model is definitely a great thing to go with if you want to run a business, but you usually don't have creative control and you're at the mercy of the PR team employed by the corporation running the franchising.  Many people actually complain that there isn't much promotion being done online and offline for their franchises, and that's one reason people are afraid to get into them, so a lot of people will start doing their own marketing to pull in new clientele.  Depending on the franchise you're in, you might actually be breaking something in the agreement you sign when starting, which states something along the lines of "You can't do your own marketing online or offline because it could damage our brand as well as offset other franchises around you".  So, we'll be covering a few things to think about when you want to launch a franchise and still do your own SEO.

Franchises are pretty strict on what marketing you can do
When you own a website you can do whatever you want in the marketing and branding department because it's yours.  When you own a franchise, you don't really own the name or business, you're a franchise owner and are essentially making money off of the business someone else created.  Business owners who are franchising out their name to you don't want you to soil it with bad marketing, so they make you sign an agreement saying you'll let them do everything and not step foot in the marketing industry for your franchise.

This works out well for people who just want to run the franchise and make money day to day through the marketing that is done by the big corporation owning the name.  But, if you're like me, you might want to do your own marketing because you're actually pretty good at it and can localize it to target specific people in the area   This is one of the reasons I really don't want to get into any sort of franchise, I like to be my own marketing director and not let other people take control of my image.

Most franchisees make you pay for optimization
When you sign up for a franchise you'll be paying franchise royalties, which will cover marketing and optimization, which usually comes in around 8% to 12% of your net profits each month.  You can't really negotiate this pricing because if you get a different rate, everyone else will have to as well, and that's a lot of paperwork to just change a percentage lol.

You can't usually access the code of the business website, which means optimizing any sort of page or listing you're on is impossible, so you're hands off when it comes to SEO and your franchise.  Most corporations that are franchising their name don't want you to hurt their online image, so they will just add you to their main domain and that means you're just getting a single subpage for your website, which isn't much.  Yes, you can get listed on various directories online and show up in Google Places, but that's usually what the company is charging you for, so you don't have to focus on that much.

There are ways around franchise rules
Usually, you're not allowed to do any marketing for your own website or do any SEO, but normally there isn't anything saying you can't build up an online reputation through social media management of your own pages as well as building 3rd party websites that funnel in customers.

This is a tricky thing to do, but it can be done if you're strategic, so be sure to go over your plan of attack multiple times before you execute.  Set up a facebook page for your franchise, get thousands of people from the area to like your page, then copy and paste anything the big corporation is posting to their own pages.  If you can essentially mimic the big corporations business page on facebook, and all the other platforms, you can funnel people to your business and not piss off anyone in the meantime lol.

They expect you to run the business, not boost online traffic
When signing up for a franchise, the owners are expecting you to run the business and not try to boost traffic through promos and deals of your own.  You could actually put some other franchises near you in an awkward situation if you're giving out $1.00 off coupons for a cheeseburger and it's not a national promo.  The customer will get your coupon, go to a different franchise, and get turned away because it's not a real promotion and they will feel like they're being taken advantage of.  Some customers might argue with the other franchise, and that means it could come back to fall on you, and you could likely lose your franchise because you're breaking a rule in the agreement you signed when you wanted this franchise.

The franchisor wants you to feel like a business owner, but essentially you're just a general manager who is running the store and paying the big man, which isn't a bad deal because you're only giving away 8% to 12% to run under an already successful business plan and name.


In conclusion
Franchising is great for the majority of the world, but for select few like myself and possibly you, it might not be the right path because we want to run our own promotions and do our own SEO to bring in customers.  I plan on setting up a physical business in the food and beverage department, and I don't want to go the franchise route because I have too many ideas to act on, and if I have a franchise I won't be able to do that.  Franchises are a good thing if you want to run a business and have someone else do the optimization and marketing, so remember that if you want to be a franchise owner.


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Thanks!

Tommy Carey