SEO for franchises

[mtwelves]

I'm working with a client that's a franchise owner. His website is strictly controlled by the parent company, so no room to add unique content or optimize it for the area. I'm getting stumped for link building options. Anybody ran into this before? If so, any suggestions?

[ChaseMG]

We're running TV, radio, and print ads for them. The content for the TV and print ads come from the parent company, and we customize them to fit the local market. We also handle the local SEO for them and run their citations through Moz Local. They do PPC, but it's ran by the parent company. They're also pretty good about getting reviews for Google+ and other review sites.

[wilreynolds]

If these woodworkers can do it, you can!

First question, this franchisee - what other marketing do they do?

[ChaseMG]

Thanks, Wil! It's the furniture industry. Not super high end, but high end for their market here in Utah.

Also, the parent company is pretty strict on what they can set up outside of the subdomain. No separate Facebook page or Twitter account. Google+ is approved, since it ties into local SEO.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

[wilreynolds]

We've worked with a few companies who are the "parent company" we find it difficult for a whole different slew of reasons, might you be able to give us the industry and then maybe we can help you brainstorm?

[DennisSeymour]

That's always a challenging scenario.

You need to find ways to drive traffic to the site so you can start with their social pages or 3rd party blogs/your own set of domains/local magazine/forum posts/etc and put content and links to those.

[ColeLusby]

That's really unfortunate that you can't get access to the landing page to determine keywords / content.

But yeah, I'd go with Google Places for Business and fill out all the information and get 5 reviews to become rated with the goal of being at the top of Local Search Results. In my experience, you'll have to ask 20-25 people that you have done business with to get 5 reviews.

Good luck!

[mtwelves]

Thanks for the advice! They've got a subdomain, but it's strictly a landing page. All the links send them to the corporate site for actual orders. There's a little wiggle room for the on page content, but everything has to be implemented by the parent company. We've got zero control over what we can put on there.

[ColeLusby]

You can still do Google Places for Business and build reviews.

Often times the parent company will give you a subdomain, I'd try that. Or they have a page within the website dedicated to that location. There's several options here. I'd communicate to the parent company.

As far as link building, ideally you would want to send links to the subdomain (assuming they will give you one).