How a 50-Location Franchise Doubled Foot Traffic with a Better Store Locator

When you operate 50 restaurant locations across three states, getting customers from your website to your nearest store is critical. For one fast-casual franchise, their outdated store locator was silently costing them thousands of visits every month.

Here’s what happened when they decided to fix it.

The Problem

The franchise’s existing “Find a Location” page was a dropdown menu. Customers selected a state, then a city, then scrolled through a list of addresses to find the closest one. There was no map, no search, and no way to filter by features like dine-in, drive-through, or catering.

The page had decent traffic — around 8,000 visits per month — but the drop-off rate was brutal. Analytics showed that 65% of visitors left the page without clicking on a single location. The experience was simply too frustrating.

What Changed

The franchise replaced their dropdown system with a modern store locator that included:

• Instant zip code search — results in under a second
• GPS auto-detection — mobile users saw the nearest stores immediately
• Smart filters — drive-through, catering, late-night hours, online ordering
• Branded map markers — custom icons for different location types
• Individual location pages — one page per store, optimized for local search

The migration took three days: one day to upload all locations via CSV, one day to customize the design, and one day to test and go live.

The Results (90 Days Later)

The numbers spoke for themselves:

• “Get Directions” clicks increased 112% — from ~2,800 to ~5,900 per month
• Page drop-off rate decreased from 65% to 28%
• Average time on the locator page increased 3x — customers were actually using it
• Location pages drove 1,200+ new organic visits per month from Google search
• Three underperforming locations saw a 40% increase in walk-ins — attributed to better online visibility

The Surprise Insight

The most valuable outcome wasn’t the traffic increase — it was the data. For the first time, the franchise could see exactly what customers were searching for.

They discovered that “late-night hours” was the most-used filter, which led them to extend hours at 12 locations. They found that customers in two zip codes were consistently searching but had no nearby stores — data that directly influenced their expansion planning.

They also identified that their catering-enabled locations were being searched 4x more than expected, which led to a targeted marketing campaign that increased catering orders by 35%.

What Made the Difference

The old system treated the store locator as an afterthought — a utility page with minimal investment. The new system treated it as a conversion tool: the critical bridge between “I’m interested” and “I’m walking through the door.”

The lesson? Your store locator isn’t a feature. It’s a revenue driver. Treat it accordingly.

Key Takeaways for Your Business

1. Measure your current drop-off rate — if more than 40% of locator visitors leave without clicking a location, there’s a problem
2. Enable GPS auto-detection — mobile users shouldn’t have to type anything
3. Add filters for your most common customer questions — if people call to ask “Do you have a drive-through?”, add a filter for it
4. Build location pages — free organic traffic is the best kind of traffic
5. Check your analytics monthly — the data will tell you things about your customers that surveys never will