"Subway near me" gets 368,000 searches a month on Google UK. "Subway franchise" gets 590. For Winkworth, the estate agency network, the pattern is the same on a smaller scale: 1,000 searches a month for "winkworth near me", 320 for "winkworth london", 20 for "winkworth franchise" (DataForSEO data, Google Ads, United Kingdom, October 2026).
For a franchise network, the traffic that matters comes from the brand followed by a town or by "near me", and it's the individual branch that wins it, provided head office has built proper pages and Google profiles around it. Recruiting new franchisees is a far smaller market, up to 600 times smaller, and page one belongs to the directories.
Below are the numbers for six networks operating in the UK, how Winkworth fills page one in London, who should own the Google profiles and where prospective franchisees actually look.
The biggest search is your brand followed by a town
People who already know the brand look for the nearest branch. These searches have high volumes and a low cost per click, because there's almost no competition: nobody else has a reason to bid on a chain's name. "Subway near me" costs about £0.47 a click, "dominos near me" about £0.22.
| Brand | "[brand] near me" | "[brand] london" | "[brand] franchise" |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subway | 368,000 | 2,400 | 590 |
| Domino's | 201,000 | 3,600 | 390 |
| Anytime Fitness | 40,500 | 1,600 | 110 |
| Toni & Guy | 6,600 | 1,300 | 20 |
| Mail Boxes Etc. | 4,400 | 170 | 20 |
| Winkworth | 1,000 | 320 | 20 |
The ratio between the first and last column runs from 50 to 1 (Winkworth) to 624 to 1 (Subway). For all six networks, London on its own gets more searches than every prospective franchisee in the country put together.
These searches are captured by the branch, not by head office. But a branch can't do it alone: it doesn't control the website, often doesn't control the Google profile, and doesn't choose its own name. It's a network-wide job, and it gets set up from the centre.
Winkworth fills page one in London with its own offices
We read Google's first page for "winkworth london" on 10 October 2026, with the location set to London. Almost all of it belongs to the brand. At the top is the local block with three offices: West End (4.7 stars, 105 reviews), Paddington & Bayswater (4.7, 50) and Pimlico & Westminster (4.7, 127). Winkworth is a franchise network, with offices run by local owners under the same name.
Of the nine organic results, eight carry the Winkworth name: seven pages on winkworth.co.uk or its social accounts (a South East regional page, the Ealing & Acton, Dulwich, Tooting and Finchley office pages, the lettings listings) plus two Instagram accounts, one for the North West London offices and one for the national brand. The only outsider is Trustpilot. Four of the office pages show stars right in the snippet, from 4.6 with 267 reviews (Dulwich) to 5.0 with 233 (Tooting).
Three choices make this possible:
- every office has a Google profile that follows the same naming pattern, "Winkworth" plus the area plus "Estate Agents", which tells branches apart without stuffing in keywords;
- every office has its own page on the main site, under winkworth.co.uk/estate-agents/ followed by the area, with its own listings, team and reviews, so no two pages have the same content;
- the central site has regional pages and listings pages that rank for the broader searches.
Winkworth uses subfolders on its main domain. Other networks give each branch a subdomain (in Italy, Tecnocasa does this with sites such as milano12.tecnocasa.it). The technical choice matters less than the principle: one page per branch, with an address, opening hours and content that exists only there. Two hundred identical pages with only the town name swapped rarely rank. The basics are in our guide to local SEO.
Google profiles belong to head office, reviews to the franchisee
A common problem in networks is ownership. The Google profile of a branch was opened by the franchisee years ago, with their own account and a name they chose. When the franchisee leaves or changes brand, the profile and its reviews stay with them.
The fix is for head office to own every profile and for the franchisee to be a manager on it. Google offers bulk verification for businesses with ten or more locations, which makes the handover easier. From there head office sets the name, primary category and the structure of the description; the franchisee updates opening hours and photos and replies to reviews. How to set up a profile is covered in our guide to Google Business Profile.
Reviews remain each branch's own job. In Winkworth's local block in London the offices have between 50 and 127 reviews, all rated 4.7. That's the bar to reach to compete with other branches of the same network, before you even get to the competitors. A network can help with a shared method for asking for reviews and a monthly check on the branches that fall behind. The rest is in our guide to reviews.
People looking for a franchise find directories, not networks
"Franchise" gets 9,900 searches a month. Page one opens with an AI-generated answer that explains what a franchise is and cites a directory, Franchise UK. Then come franchise-uk.co.uk, Wikipedia, Franchise Direct, Investopedia, the British Franchise Association, Start Up Loans, FranchiseInfo, Franchise Brands and BBC Bitesize. The only franchisor on the page is Franchise Brands, a listed group that owns several franchise brands. No single network makes it.
The directories have numbers that a single network can't match: franchise-uk.co.uk ranks for 1,107 UK keywords with an estimated 10,300 visits a month, Franchise Direct for 911 with 7,100 visits. They make their money from paid listings for networks, and that's a legitimate way to find candidates.
Sector searches are small: "estate agent franchise" 390 a month, "cleaning franchise" 260, "restaurant franchise" 260, "most profitable franchises uk" 260, "coffee franchise" 210. They do follow a clear calendar, though. "Franchise" reaches 12,100 searches in September 2025 and January 2026, against an average of 9,900. "National franchise exhibition" goes from an average of 110 to 590 in September 2025, and "franchise show london" from 140 to 590 in April 2026. People thinking about starting a business think about it in autumn and at the start of the year.
Where a network does win is the search with its own name. "Winkworth franchise" costs about £9.80 a click on Google Ads, against £1.20 for "winkworth near me", and "kumon franchise" £6.35 against £2.12: the person searching is weighing up an investment (DataForSEO publishes CPC in US dollars; we converted at the Bank of England rate of 7 October 2026, $1.3220 to the pound). The "become a franchisee" page has to be the first result for that search and answer what the candidate wants to know: initial investment, franchise fee, management service fee, premises size, requirements, time to opening, available territories. If those numbers aren't there, the candidate looks for them on a directory or a forum.
Recommended reading: how to keep your name, address and phone number consistent across directories.
Frequently asked questions
Usually a single domain with one page per branch works best, because each page inherits the brand's authority. Some networks use a subdomain per branch and it works too, as long as each branch has its own listings: what matters is that every page has content that exists only there.
Head office, with the franchisee as a manager. That keeps names and categories consistent across the network and, if a franchisee leaves, the profile and its reviews stay with the brand. For ten or more locations Google offers bulk verification.
It depends on the sector and the town. In the local block for "winkworth london" the three offices have between 50 and 127 reviews, all rated 4.7: that's the benchmark every new office in the network is measured against.
Not much. "Franchise" gets 9,900 searches a month, but page one shows that many people are looking for a definition. Sector searches such as "cleaning franchise" (260 a month) and searches with the network's name work better: they cost more, but they come from people already weighing up the investment.
In autumn and at the start of the year. "Franchise" reaches 12,100 searches in September and January, "national franchise exhibition" climbs to 590 in September and "franchise show london" to 590 in April. In July searches for "franchise" drop to 6,600, a third below the average.
Where to start
Pick up a phone and search your brand followed by "near me" in three towns where you have branches. For each local block, note the branch names, the category and the number of reviews: if the names follow three different patterns and the reviews range from 5 to 300, you've found your to-do list for the next six months. Then search "[brand] franchise" and see whether the first result is your page or a directory. If you want someone to set the system up across the whole network, see how we work on SEO and lead generation, or get in touch.
