Top Franchise Development Website: Number 3 — N-Hance Wood Refinishing

1851 Franchise’s Franchise Development Website Awards are back once again to celebrate the most effective and engaging development sites in franchising. This year, a panel of eight expert judges evaluated each franchise development site according to three criteria: first impressions, quality of content and ease of use. Sites were scored on a five-point scale in accordance with these three criteria, with the overall website rankings based on a composite average of the judges’ scores. 

Ranked at number three is N-Hance Wood Refinishing, which received an overall average score of 4.6. The cabinet refinishing concept’s franchise development website secured an average score of 4.3 for first impressions, 4.7 for content and 4.7 for ease of use. 

The first impressions metrics for each franchise development site are broken down into five subfactors: usability, UI/UX design, site performance, SEO and mobile accessibility. As its high score suggests, N-Hance offers visitors a sleek design, easy accessibility, as well as user-friendliness from a design and technical standpoint. 

“Upon first impression, the N-Hance site is branded very nicely,” said Liane Caruso, senior vice president of Entrepreneur Media and one of this year’s judges. 

The content metrics are determined by the presence and strength of three subfactors: motivating content, calls to action and reasons to buy now. Franchise sites that excelled according to this criteria told compelling stories that are specifically designed to drive action. 

“I thought the N-Hance site could have used a few more ‘before and afters,’ but it did have specific sections that are used to attract different types of franchisees,” said Caruso. “For example, they have one section that is for ‘Family Business Owners’ and another that is for ‘Home Flipper/Contractors.’”

In terms of content, a franchise development website should provide high-level details of costs so that under-qualified candidates don’t waste the franchisor’s time and qualified candidates know the specifics of what they are getting into. The N-Hance site presents analytics, numbers and information in a clear and consistent format, while also dividing it up into designated sections based on each individual ownership model. 

The N-Hance site also features a branded podcast, high-quality graphics, introductory videos and video testimonials from franchisees, as well as a section specifically dedicated to blog posts and press articles where prospects can read more about the brand’s latest news. 

“This is a clean site that outlines lots of information to show transparency, including awards won, reasons they are a strong system, franchisee video testimonials and a podcast,” said Michelle Rowan, president and COO of Franchise Business Review, another one of this year’s judges. “This is all great content to help candidates get to know the brand.”

Lastly, the ease-of-use metrics score was determined in relation to location, depth and ease of application. The development website should provide a simple, navigable form so that prospects can quickly tell franchisors that they are interested. The form to request more information should be easily accessible on every page and easy to view, which the N-Hance website does well.

A franchise development website is an essential part of any successful franchise development marketing strategy today, and the three metrics of first impressions, content and ease of use offer a simplified way to analyze the effectiveness of a website. As N-Hance’s website shows, when these three factors come together, the website can become the starting point of the franchise development process and serve as the primary entry point into the brand.