When you are about to start a franchise, you know above all that location is extremely important. You want a location that drives the most foot traffic in your doors. Did you know location is also extremely important for the amount of organic traffic you can expect from Google? If the people living in your region aren’t a good match for your expected customer base, they won’t be searching for you.  Or if the number of people in your region is not large enough or you have too many competitors, you are going to struggle with your SEO.

So let’s take a look at a customer we recently worked with.

So as part of a larger SEO audit for Christian Brothers Automotive, Lumentis was used to help determine just what the local search potential of franchise locations could potentially be.  We looked at new movers coming into the region as well as population density.

What we discovered after looking at many franchise locations is that there is a clear correlation between population density (number of people living in the area) and the volume of local searches being done.  Of course, this makes perfect sense and is pretty obvious, but it was still interesting to confirm this.

When you are investigating locations to place your next franchise, or local store, be sure to check to determine if there is a strong population of prospective buyers in your region. This way, any type of marketing campaigns you do in the area will have a much greater chance of succeeding.

What Factors Impact Local Search?

So many of the usual things you might expect can impact local search volume from Google and the conversions you can expect.  When you are researching the potential, here are some things you want to investigate.

1. Size of the population.
2. Ability to people have to get to your location.
3. Matching personas to your brand.
4. Relevancy to what you sell.
5. Local brand awareness.

If the local market doesn’t know you are there, what you do or what you sell, they will not seek you out. If the local market doesn’t really need your service, they won’t show up at your door.  So get to know the people in your area, what the general demographics are so that you can do better messaging to the right audience.

Brand awareness is of course absolutely critical, especially for SEO. We’ve worked with some big restaurant franchises and auto franchises and found that local advertising, whether it was online or through TV, Radio or print, completely influenced search behavior. When people have heard about your business, and are interested, they may not remember the company name or exactly what they do, so people search to find you. The search on Google for your brand and for the types of services you offer.

So make sure people in your community are aware of your business, even when you have a big population density. We have too many distractions, so you have to be in front of them regularly.