Why we run this as a franchise, not a branch network
Local SEO is local work in the most literal sense. The client is a business owner in a city who wants to talk to someone who knows their market and could, if it came to it, run into them in person. We cannot have that conversation from Amsterdam for twenty cities at once, and we do not want to: a call centre phoning business owners is exactly the opposite of what this trade needs.
What we are good at is the execution, the methodology and the visibility. Those three scale well. That is why the formula is built this way: we supply the brand, the methodology, the training and the enquiries; you supply the market, the conversation and the relationship. The franchise runs in Dutch: your territory is a single Dutch city or region, and the conversations with clients there happen in Dutch, not in English.
The territory is exclusive — and that is the whole point
We work with one franchisee per city or region. That is not a courtesy but a condition: the city page for your territory has to lead to one party, otherwise the enquiry that comes in through it is worth nothing. A lead sent to three parties at once is a quote request; a lead sent to one party is a conversation.
We agree the size of a territory together. Sometimes that is one city, sometimes a region covering several cities — the Stedendriehoek, Twente, Zuid-Limburg or West-Brabant are areas that make more sense as a whole than split apart. What matters is that the area is contiguous and that you can handle it.
What you get
The formula has five parts, and it is worth looking at all five before deciding — some people come for the leads and stay for the methodology; for others it is the other way round.
The brand and the city page. LocalSEObureau.nl with its own page for your territory, which we maintain, measure and adjust. The enquiries that come in through it go to you.
The methodology. The full working method: profile setup, review style guide, citation protocol, templates for local pages and the measurement protocol for AI visibility. Including the Dutch-language handbooks in which that methodology is written out.
The training. You are trained in the trade, not just in our procedures. That also means you learn why something works, so you can hold the conversation with a business owner without needing to call us back.
The back office. You can leave the execution to us. You then buy in on the same terms as a white label partner and keep your hands free for sales and client contact.
The ongoing development. The trade changes every quarter. We test new Google features and AI developments on our own sites and test locations and pass on what held up — and just as much what did not.
What you do yourself
Sales and client contact in your own territory. That is the largest part of the work, and the part nobody can do for you. A business owner in Zwolle does business with someone who knows Zwolle.
Beyond that: following up enquiries within a day, keeping the appointments you make, and using the brand as agreed. That last part is less strict than it sounds — we do not police house style — but one thing is fixed: no promised positions, no bought reviews and no figure without a source. That is what this brand stands for, and what it is judged on.
What it costs
We set the fee and the entry terms per territory and discuss them at the introductory meeting. We deliberately do not put a figure here as long as it is not the same for every territory: Amsterdam and Deventer are not comparable in market size, competition or the investment required.
What we can tell you in advance: the structure is built around recurring revenue per location per month, not around a large up-front sum. If you want to know whether this works financially for your situation, bring your own figures to the conversation, and we will work through it together using the rates on the pricing page.
Who this works for, and who it does not
It works well for someone who already runs an agency or a practice in their own city, who knows the local market, and who wants a service that recurs every month. It also works for an experienced marketer starting out on their own who does not want to build a proposition and a methodology from zero.
It does not work as a passive investment. No revenue comes out of a territory where nobody has the conversations, however well the city page is built. It also does not work without fluent Dutch: the client conversations run in Dutch, the territory itself is a single Dutch city or region, and there is no English-language version of this formula. Nor does it work for someone who mainly promises fast results: this is a trade where the honest answer is often "that takes months", and anyone who cannot sell that will struggle in the client conversations.