Want To Develop A Great Franchise Development Website? Avoid These Five Common Pitfalls

When potential franchisees are interested in your brand, what’s the first thing they do? Chances are, their first stop is your franchise development website—and first impressions can make or break visitors turning into leads.

People are naturally pre-judgmental. Their critiques are formed by the first impression they get after they land on your site, and it takes only one tenth of a second to form an opinion about it. They’ll judge your company and everything you offer based off that initial visit, and if it it’s a bad one, you’re probably going to lose sales from potential franchisees.

Over the past three years, No limit Agency has built and designed dozens of consumer-facing and B-to-B development website that all adhere to modern standards. We have a pretty good idea of what it takes to make your franchise development website thrive. We also have a pretty good idea of what takes to make them fail, too. If you’re struggling to drive candidates to your pages, here are a few reasons why your website isn’t working.

Poor Website Design

Your website design is the most important element that forms an impression as soon as the visitors land on your URL. People are naturally attracted to beautiful design, simplicity and symmetry. Subtle colors, clean buttons, non-flashy stuff, high-quality images and good fonts are just a few features of modern design, and all of these together help ensure a better chance of your visitors sticking around. If your website looks like it’s stuck in the dark ages of GeoCities or made from a cookie cutter Wordpress theme, you’re immediately telling people that your brand is irresponsible and out of date. Times change and technologies change. There are inherent benefits in overhauling your website every two to three years to stay current—so don’t fall behind.

There’s Too Much or Not Enough Information

There’s a delicate balance between providing too much information and not enough. It’s best to break down the most important information in easily digestible bits of data. First, explain why a visitor should consider franchising (highlight that the brand has great territories available or solid unit level economics, for example), briefly explain what makes your product unique, lay down the numbers to show that it’s a worthwhile investment (number of locations or same-store sales growth) and then offer a few meaningful testimonials.

Your Website is Hard to Navigate

These days, people prefer the easy-to-navigate, single page websites (for example, check out Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club’s website). All of the important information should be structured in a way that can be quickly found with a scroll through the landing page. If a visitor has to click too many buttons or jump through too many hoops to get the information they need, chances are they’re going to lose patience, get discouraged and give up before you even had the chance to reach them with your content.

Be Transparent About the Cost

One of the first things franchisees want to know is how much the franchising process will cost. Devote an entire section of your website to this, and provide as many details as possible. Highlight your franchise fee, minimum working capital requirements, minimum net worth requirements, minimum investment and the royalty fee. When you’re as up front and as open as possible, people will be more willing to trust you and consider making the investment.

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