Unlocking the True Performance of Franchise Websites: Beyond Metrics To Meaningful Results

Tracking and enhancing your franchise website’s performance, from core web vitals to lead generation, is essential for driving both franchise development and local unit success.

By Morgan Wood1851 Franchise Contributor

7:07AM • 09/22/24

Tracking the performance of a franchise website often goes much deeper than counting how many times a form is filled or how much business a local franchisee gets. While the performance of a website is a key contributor to both franchise development success and the growth of local units, if the goal is to track the true performance of a site, franchisors need to look at both the performance of the site itself as well as its ability to create the output desired.

“We’re innovating out of the scenario where someone walks into a donut shop, home services brand, whatever it may be, and basically says, ‘Here are two sites. This one’s super pretty. This one will generate all the calls, form fills and clicks that you’re looking for. Which one do you want?’” said Mark Michael, co-founder, president and CEO at DevHub. “That conversation gets cut down to, ‘Well, this one will actually drive revenue. I’ll go with this one,’ instead of ‘What can I build for you today?’”

Peak performance starts at the beginning of the development process. Performance tracking is a thread that runs through the entire lifecycle of the site itself.

Monitor Core Web Vitals

“Everything that’s being built is built against core web vitals,” Michael said. “That is things like your site speed and if the page is structured correctly. It’s basically Google’s metric to understand where the site potentially ranks.”

Google cares about the user experience, and it will serve up better-performing sites to searchers. Google names three metrics that are considered:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures loading performance.
Interaction To Next Paint (INP), which measures responsiveness.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which measured visual stability.

A developer can review and monitor these, or they can be measured independently with third-party tools and extensions.

Good core web vitals encourage a high ranking in search results and support other site functionalities that may ultimately lead to better output. Michael explained that an optimized site can offer the ability to fill out a native form rather than clicking off to a new window.

For franchise development sites, this is another way to elevate and streamline the prospect’s experience and convey a commitment to easy operations and updated technology, potentially boosting the prospect’s confidence in the brand and support early on in their research process.

For consumer-facing sites, good optimization makes it easier to find or schedule services, essentially making it as easy as possible for the franchisee to capture business.

“If you’re on a mobile device, you’re not having to click off,” he said. “If I want to book an appointment right now because my house is flooding, I don’t want to get a pop-up and have to find the little ‘x’ or another button to get what I need. This helps increase lead flow when the site is performing.”

Analyze Organic Traffic

After measuring a site’s baseline performance, it’s important to understand whether that high-performing site is actually getting in front of anyone.

Michael explained that, if an audit shows a slow site, broken links and poor search engine optimization (SEO), organic traffic likely isn’t doing well, either. Whether these issues are present in the early stages of the build or links are broken and SEO degraded over time, they can have a big impact.

“Some of these brands will have 5,000 pages, and only like five of them actually get any traffic,” he said.

This metric is part of an ongoing evaluation cycle, and it’s a prime example of why a site should be checked up on relatively frequently. Poor site performance can lead to lower rankings in organic search results, making it less visible to searchers and reducing organic traffic. Additionally, if a consumer finds a brand’s home page through search but encounters issues such as broken links or a poor user experience, they may decide to click off, further hurting organic traffic.

Periodically evaluating the site from the viewer’s position will ensure the necessary changes can be made to best support strong organic traffic.

Measure Lead Generation

Once visitors land on the site, it’s important to hold their interest. Whether this means getting their contact information to the development lead or ensuring they’re able to access information for their local franchised business, a franchise site needs to reliably get information where it needs to go.

“Loading fast is cool, but most people, I think, are willing to wait an extra five seconds if they want something,” Michael said. “But are the leads being routed where they need to go? How much traffic is getting to the right place?”

Another performance measure to consider is how a site handles partial information. While it’s not exactly a lead, the ability to gauge interest — and act on it, when appropriate — can be another indicator of strong performance.

“One of the things we’ve solved for is partial form fills, which we are getting,” Michael said. “So, if someone partially fills out a form [and leaves the site], doesn’t hit ‘Go’ or something else happens [and the information is not formally submitted], we can still pass that information to the franchise, and maybe they can turn it into something.”

Benchmark Performance Before and After Website Optimization

Even if a website appears to be beautiful and impactful at launch, markets shift, consumer demands change and what’s important to highlight may change.

“A site should be optimized for five to 10 relevant keywords. Having a UTM parameter to understand where a click came from or where it’s going allows for attribution of the lead. Site speed, having the call to action above the fold and just the user experience … We always say around here, ‘It’s human. What would you want? And would the intended actions be obvious to you?”

Keeping an eye on all aspects of a site’s performance can tell you when it’s time to revamp, and watching performance after the site is optimized or updated will reveal the impact of the changes. With this information, franchisors can even better understand both the current performance of their site and what changes they should pay attention to in the future to continue optimizing the site and business performance.

For more information on optimizing your franchise website, check out these related articles on 1851 Franchise: