If a franchise wants to attract customers, it has to nail its website – research indicates that 78% of users consider a firm’s trustworthiness based on how good its site looks. This is where a franchise website builder comes in. It provides tailored solutions for the specific problems faced by franchise businesses, including how to create a consistent digital brand and bespoke websites for each individual franchise outlet. By having an easy-to-use design, information can be found quickly by potential customers – which should lead to more sales. A good franchise website will grab the attention of a user and make them want to find out more; known as ‘conversion through engagement’ in the trade.
How Does a Website Builder Help Franchise Business
Creating a franchise website isn’t simple. Costs can escalate quickly, and adhering to brand guidelines is paramount, leaving little room for customization. For those unfamiliar with web development, the fear of making mistakes may deter them from proceeding.
Thankfully, franchise website builders provide a solution. They offer customizable templates, allowing users to rearrange elements while ensuring compliance with brand standards. This offers some creative freedom while maintaining consistency.
The result is an engaging franchise website with features to attract and retain customers. Owners can quickly add pages, run promotions, and make updates without delays, ensuring the site remains dynamic and responsive to business needs.
Things To Tell You Website Builder While Building A Franchise Website
A well-crafted franchise website makes a lasting impression on potential customers and serves as a vital tool for franchisees to showcase their unique offerings. Here are seven essential practices to ensure effective franchise web design:
Organize Information Effectively
Ask your website builder to build separate pages with essential business details such as corporate history, franchise opportunities, product/service overview, news, contact info, FAQs, careers, and legal documentation. This structured approach ensures that all stakeholders—from franchisees to potential customers—can easily access relevant information.
Customize Location Pages
Creating dedicated pages or subsections for each franchise location to tailor content to local markets is essential. Ask your website builder to build a dynamic website showing special promotions, unique services/products, and location-specific information to provide visitors. This will offer a more personalized experience and improve local search rankings.
Maintain Brand Consistency
While designing a Franchise website, ensuring a cohesive brand identity across all website pages is important to strengthen brand reputation and drive customer trust. Ensure your franchise website builders pay attention to visual design, typography, tone, and product/service presentations. These reinforce brand recognition and foster customer loyalty.
Prioritize Mobile-Friendliness
Pay attention to optimizing your website for mobile devices to accommodate the increasing prevalence of mobile internet usage. With a significant portion of internet traffic originating from mobile devices, a mobile-friendly website is essential for maintaining search engine rankings and user engagement.
Simplify Navigation
Ensure your website builder creates intuitive navigation features to facilitate seamless user experiences. Your website must have logical menu structures, robust search functionality, breadcrumb navigation, internal linking, and footer navigation to help visitors quickly find relevant information and navigate your site effortlessly.
Showcase Social Proof
Leveraging positive feedback from customers and franchisees is essential to bolster credibility and trustworthiness. Ensure your website has sections featuring testimonials, case studies, user reviews, and star ratings.
Integrate Franchise Locator
Ask your franchise website builder to streamline the process of finding nearby franchise locations by implementing a franchise locator feature. This interactive tool enables users to easily locate nearby franchises by entering their zip code, city, or region, enhancing user experience and driving foot traffic to local franchise locations.
Conclusion
Given the intricacies of developing a fully functional franchise website, many franchisors delegate web design tasks to professional franchise website builders. However, before selecting a suitable web design agency, it’s essential to clarify your project requirements, including timelines and budget constraints. One practical approach is to draft a web design request for proposal (RFP) document. This document outlines your project’s specific needs and serves as a guide for potential agencies. Upon receiving your RFP, interested agencies will respond with proposals detailing their approach and pricing for the project. If a proposal aligns with your objectives, the next step involves scheduling a meeting with the agency to delve deeper into the details before making a final decision.
