The FBA Consultant website is a fully customizable solution to getting your business online with accurate and current information. When you enroll in this program our professional designer will work with you on building out one of our templates to fit your businesses look and feel. Since the templates are so flexible you can be assured that yours will stand out from others and be unique.

 

The benefits of using the FBA template as opposed to "going it alone" and building your own are clear. First, this program saves you the trouble of creating and maintaining accurate data from your franchise inventory. Second, the programming and features are already developed saving you thousands of dollars in website build-out. Third, you have a dedicated staff ready to handle any  of your ongoing demands and support. And last, you can control and edit your website all on your own using an easy to use admin panel accessible through your FBA Member account.  Below are a detailed list of features available to you through this program.

 

The costs for initial website are $1,000 to customize the design, setup your account and activate your hosting. After the initial setup you are good to go. Only a monthly charge of $27/month for hosting and maintenance is required. Compare this to the costs of developing your own site with the same features as well as maintaining all your own data and you are saving thousands of dollars. Those who participated in the Beta Program or went through FBA intro to Franchise Consulting Course are exempt from the initial setup costs.

 

If you have any questions contact Chris Wall at the FBA office. 888-317-7429

To view the base templates click here.

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Customization

When designing the FBA Consultants Website we knew it would be important to be able to customize the look and feel of each of the templates.  To this end we have a very dynamic system that will allow us to personalize colors, fonts and graphics. When we setup your website we worked with each of you to develop the look and feel that fits your business. This also includes emails accounts. If you haven't already, let us setup your email accounts so your emails aren't coming from AOL or Hotmail!

For those of you who would like to have an additional edge Developmental Marketing LLC is available on a per quote basis to develop company branding and create custom website features. This includes having an integrated BLOG directly into your site. You dream it, we do it. As an FBA member there is an excellent package available to develop your company’s essential materials. It is called the Marketing Start-Up Package. Check it out here in the Resource Center.

 

Content Editing

Your site's list of franchises is always current with the information that is available on the FBA servers. As soon as a franchisor edits or adds their information to the FBA server it is automatically and instantly updated on your site. This feature alone saves you countless hours of maintenance and headache.

Over the course of the beta we have introduced a comprehensive wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editor allowing you to edit your content and integrate pictures throughout the site. A great site to store and edit your photos is a free services from Google called Picasa. To load an image to your site just post the image to Picasa and add the link to that photo in your content editor.

Due to popular demand we have also included three major forms (Initial Qualifying Form, Fact Finder & Request for Consideration) to help expedite and provide new ways to collect lead information.

Franchise Searching

The franchise search tool has also been revised. First, we modified the way a user sees the basic search and advanced search.   Instead of having two tabs we have put them all into one page.  The basic search will include franchise searching based on category and minimum investment. The purpose of having the two search terms is to involve the user to do some minor research on concepts, but whenever they are looking for specific details we want them to contact you.

A basic search will only reveal a logo and franchise description. Once they have submitted the contact form you will be able to send them an unlocked link to your website.  Once unlocked they will be able to view a franchises background information and training. After a 4 weeks of being unlocked the site will lock up again and they will need to submit another inquiry to you. We will soon be unveiling a new feature which will allow the user to rate their preferred franchises from 1-5. Thereby giving you even more information to develop a suitable match. Development for this is underway and we will let you know ASAP when it is ready. 

Search Engine Optimization

In regards to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) the site has been built in compliance with industry best practices and gives you the ability to customize your own Meta data.  This includes Keywords and Description.  The best thing you can do to increase your ranking with search engines is to get linked to! The more links coming to your site the better.  The FBA will link to your site through our "Victories" tab on the FBA Member Befits page so if you have a testimonial for the FBA please just send it to myself, Sabrina or Andrea and we will post it on our public site. 

A great way to generate exposure is to use Social Media Networks and BLOGs such as Linked In, Facebook and Twitter, WordPress & Blogger.  The FBA Resource Center (Legal section) has a webinar detailing some best business practices using these methods. The important thing to remember with these methods is to use them wisely. Include useful data and information that will inspire, help or direct people to own and maintain their own business. Not only will this help your SEO but it will set you up as an expert in the franchise consulting field.  

Another great way to increase your ranking is to think in keywords with everything. For example, if your website domain name has franchise relevant keywords in it that will help. Also, having paragraphs of text speaking about franchise relevant keywords will help. Because search engines scan your entire site for content having paragraphs of text will tell the search engines that your site is relevant to a person's search. If you would like to discuss some other means of increasing your ranking please call me at the FBA office (888-317-7429).

Ongoing Support

We are here to help you! If you have any questions, concerns or comments let us know.

In conclusion, I hope this helps to clarify the FBA Consultant Website and gives you an understanding of this useful tool!