Franchises and their franchisees often tend to have love/hate relationships—it’s the nature of the beast. Franchises tend to want their franchisees to focus on corporate priorities and to play by the corporate rules. Franchisees tend to want fewer restrictions from corporate and more support. In general it seems like the relationship works best when each side plays to its strengths and lets their partners play to theirs. So how does it work in the burgeoning field of search marketing, where it’s likely that neither partner has much experience?
As a search marketing consultant working with both national players and small local businesses, I have seen a noticeable trend of the franchises providing recommendations for the franchisees that aren’t always in either side’s best interests. For example, one client recently was referred by corporate to an “off-page SEO†company to do link building. The proposal was to submit the client’s site to 50 directories per month for $300 per month to help rank the client for three search phrases. The sales materials promoted link building as critical to the SEO process. They also offered to claim and optimize the client’s Google Local listing for an additional $500. Full post.
