Key takeaways
- Audit each location, not just the brand homepage. Problems hide inside a healthy brand total.
- Ask the franchisor for Search Console access to your location pages. You cannot check what you cannot see.
- The most common franchise problem is a location page that holds only an address and hours.
- End with a dated fix list split into what you can change and what you must ask the franchisor to change.
An SEO audit for a multi-location franchise website checks whether each location can be found, not just whether the brand site works. You can run a useful version in an hour with Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and your phone. It closes the gap between what you are told is happening and what you can see for yourself.
What an audit checks
An audit checks five layers, and the useful question for each is whether it is fixed once for the brand or separately at every location.
| Layer | What it checks | Fixed once, or per location |
|---|---|---|
| Indexing | Whether each location page is in Google's index | Per location |
| Page content | Whether the page says what this location offers | Per location |
| Speed and mobile | Whether the page loads fast and works on a phone | Usually once, in the template |
| Local signals | Profile link, matching name, address and phone, location markup | Per location |
| Tracking | Whether search results can be seen location by location | Both |
Template problems are good news: one fix helps every location. Per-location problems are where a single store quietly falls behind while the brand report looks fine.
What an audit checks
Google profile
- Categories and services
- Address, hours and directions
- Photos and review replies
Website
- Speed on a phone
- A page for each service
- Titles and descriptions
Reviews
- How recent they are
- Whether each one is answered
Listings
- Name and phone consistent
- Duplicate listings
Tracking
- Calls tracked by source
- Forms tracked to bookings
Run a quick self-audit
- Get access first (10 minutes). Ask the franchisor's web team to add you as a user in Search Console for the brand site, ideally on a property that covers your location pages (Search Console). If they will not, ask for a monthly export of your pages' searches and clicks.
- Check indexing (10 minutes). Inspect each location page's address in Search Console and confirm Google has it. A page Google does not have cannot rank.
- Read each location page on your phone (10 minutes). Does it name this location's services, show its hours, offer one-tap call and directions, and say anything the other locations' pages do not?
- Test speed (10 minutes). Run each location page through PageSpeed Insights and note the mobile results (PageSpeed Insights). Slow loading and jumping layouts are Core Web Vitals problems (Google on Core Web Vitals). If every location scores the same, the problem is the template.
- Follow the profile link (5 minutes). From each location's Google profile, tap Website. It should open that location's page, not the homepage or the store locator.
- Compare the details (10 minutes). Check the name, address, phone and hours on the profile, the location page, the page's local business markup (Google's local business markup) and Bing and Apple listings. Note every mismatch.
- Search like a customer (5 minutes). Standing near each location, search your service plus "near me". Write down which of your locations appears, and who sits above it.
Most common problems for franchisees and multi-location brands
The same handful of problems turn up across franchise systems, and most come from the way location pages are produced in bulk.
- Location pages that are a pin and an address. No services, no team, no photos, no reviews. The profile links to a page with nothing to rank on.
- Near-duplicate pages. The same paragraph on every location page with the town name swapped. Google may treat them as one page and show only one.
- Profiles that link to the brand homepage. A customer who already chose your location from the map gets sent back to the locator to choose it again.
- Old addresses and closed locations. A relocation updated on the profile but not on the page, or a closed store still listed in the locator.
- A separate franchisee website competing with the brand's location page for the same searches, and splitting the reviews and links between them.
- Heavy store locator maps loading on every location page and slowing the template.
- No tracking by location. Analytics shows the brand. Nobody can tell which location the visits went to.
What to do after the audit
Sort every finding into two lists with dates: what you can change, and what you have to ask for.
- Your list: profile fixes, photos, review routine, listings on Bing and Apple, the counter question that records how a customer found you. Put a date on each and do them first, because nobody else has to approve them.
- The franchisor's list: page content, template speed, markup, Search Console access, redirects from closed locations. Send them as one written request per location, with the evidence from your audit and the date you need each fix.
- Run it again. Repeat the same audit about a month after the fixes go live and compare. That is how you verify the work, whoever did it.
The local SEO checklist for multi-location brands turns the profile side of this into a routine. If the location pages need rebuilding, the website page for multi-location brands covers what we build.
How VETS Growth Marketing helps
We run this audit across every one of your locations, then hand you a dated fix list split between work we do in your accounts and requests we prepare for the franchisor. Everything stays in your name. We report the results in new customers per location, so the next audit shows what changed. Book a growth consultation and we will walk through the five fixes that matter most for your locations.
Sources
- Google Search Console, Google
- PageSpeed Insights, Google
- Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results, Google Search Central
- Local business structured data, Google Search Central