How Search Science Drove 351% More Phone Calls for a 170+ Location Sports Medicine Franchise

About the Client

The client is a national sports medicine franchise. When we started, they ran fewer than 100 locations across markets that ranged from 250,000-population suburbs to metro areas topping 2 million. Their paid advertising was producing returns they saw as unsustainable, and leadership wanted a more cost-effective way to acquire patients through organic local search. The catch: corporate budget limits meant Search Science had to deliver on a basic Local SEO tier rather than the premium multi-location plan most franchises get of their size.

The Challenge

SEO at franchise scale brings a specific set of hurdles, and Search Science had to clear all of them before any ranking work could even begin:

• Technical SEO issues across multiple sub-pages, location pages, and franchise template structures.
• On-page inconsistency where some location pages had been optimized and others were left as template defaults.
• Backlink graph imbalance, with link equity concentrated on a few corporate URLs and starving the location-specific pages that needed authority.
• Citation inconsistency across 100+ locations, with NAP variations that broke entity matching.
• GMB listing issues across the franchise footprint, including filtering and category misalignment.
• Content gaps where competitor sports medicine providers had cornered specific high-volume informational queries.

The single biggest challenge was budget. The Basic Local SEO Plan that fit the franchise's available marketing dollars was not the tier most agencies would recommend for a high-CPC healthcare franchise. Search Science had to choose the highest-leverage levers and skip anything that did not directly support either Map Pack visibility or commercial-intent organic ranking.

Search Science's Approach

Phase 1: Technical SEO and on-page audit

Search Science ran a deep audit spanning technical SEO, on-page gaps, the backlink graph, citation health, NAP consistency, Google listing problems, and a content-gap comparison against competitors. It pinpointed the highest-impact issues at each location, so the Basic plan could be aimed at the work that would move the needle first.

Phase 2: NAP and citation cleanup at scale

Multi-location NAP consistency is foundational. Search Science systematically cleaned NAP variations across primary citations for all locations, ensuring every location's name, address, and phone number matched perfectly across Google, the franchise website, and major data aggregators. This had to happen before any ranking work could compound.

Phase 3: GMB optimization with category and service alignment

Each location's Google Business Profile was rebuilt with proper primary category (Sports Medicine Physician or equivalent), aligned secondary categories, complete services list with descriptions, products, and Q&A. Posts and photos were standardized across the franchise to support brand recognition while keeping each location distinct.

Phase 4: Content depth on location pages

Each location page received content depth: local service descriptions, location-specific insurance information, hours and contact, embedded maps, and reviews. This addressed the franchise's biggest competitive disadvantage compared to independent sports medicine practices that had stronger location-specific content.

Phase 5: Strategic link building

With budget constraints, link building had to be precise. Search Science focused on local citation building, healthcare-niche directory placements, and a small set of authority placements targeting the corporate brand to lift all locations through brand authority.

Results Narrative

By month 6 to 7, the franchise was ranking in the Map Pack for high-value sports medicine keywords across most of its footprint. The average call increase across all locations hit 351%. Some locations came in higher and some lower, with the variation tracking starting position, market size, and competitive density rather than any difference in effort per location. Leadership saw the data, recognized the ROI, and approved expansion. Search Science now manages more than 170 active locations as the franchise continues to grow.

Lessons & Takeaways

1. Multi-location budget constraints are solvable if the work is prioritized correctly. The Basic Local SEO Plan worked here because NAP and GMB foundations were chosen over expensive link building.
2. Average campaign metrics hide per-location variation. A 351% average means some locations did 500%+ and others did 150%. Report both the average and the distribution to set leadership expectations.
3. Healthcare franchise SEO compounds. Once 20+ locations rank, the brand authority signal lifts the remaining locations faster than a single-location campaign would.
4. $17.97 CPC means organic rank #1 is worth 1000x the campaign cost over 12 months. Healthcare verticals with high CPCs are the highest ROI use case for franchise local SEO.