Whether you’re just opening your first, small-time flower shop or your tenth large-scale operation, the skills and know-how to create a successful marketing campaign are just as essential. Like any other business, the ability to market yourself and reach new customers first is key to reaching ever-greater financial success. The task can seem daunting at times, and it is, but in this article, we’ll be looking at how you can use search engine optimization (SEO) to your advantage. More specifically, we’ll be looking at a strategy called local SEO, and how to tailor your SEO and marketing efforts to fit the florist industry.
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What Is SEO?
Before we get into the specific strategies, we need to first clarify: what is local SEO? Or better yet, what is SEO? SEO describes a series of marketing choices you make, usually on a website or webpage, that help the page rank higher in the search results when people look for related topics. SEO is an organic means of promotion, meaning that you are trying to get your page to rank highly without giving Google money to artificially inflate its placement. If you’re wondering how important this really is, then consider that over 47% of people click on one of the first three links on the search results page. That’s a considerable amount of customers lost, just by virtue of not being among the first businesses Google shows them.
Local SEO for Florists
Local SEO is a narrower form of regular SEO. While normal SEO strategies try to get your page to the top of the search results no matter where the user is, local SEO takes into account the user’s location for its strategies. It tries to get people within only a certain area to see your business as the first result.
Local SEO is beneficial for florists for a number of reasons. First off, you aren’t fighting against global, often larger competitors for the top spot, just the local ones. Second, it enables you to leverage your unique knowledge about the area you exist in. While many marketing campaigns are often impersonal by necessity, you can ingratiate yourself to your target audience with considerably less difficulty. Third, and perhaps most importantly, 46% of all Google searches are concerned with local information. Simply by existing where you are, your page is more readily exposed to anyone in the nearby area.
Local SEO Starts With Your Website
So, how do you go about conducting local SEO? It starts with your website design. Creating a website is almost essential generally speaking, with over 70% of customers investigating businesses online before making a purchase. Having a website is also what makes local SEO possible. After all, what would you want to be directing potential customers to other than your website? If you’re worried about how to go about making a website, no worries, SEO Design Chicago has you covered.
Structure and Keywords
When going about making your website, your primary concern should be how it’s structured. In other words, your concern should be its metadata. The content on the webpage itself, as well as its formatting and use of links, is largely what Google uses to determine your relevance. Be sure to use lots of words that pertain to your business, also called keywords, on the text of the page itself. Think of words that people in your area would commonly use to talk about flowers. Be sure to use those words frequently on the page, as it will make Google more likely to rank it higher. If you’re struggling to find the right words, look at your competitors. Just a cursory look at their websites will often give you what you need.
Headings and Links
Another consideration in local SEO for florists is the formatting of the page, especially your use of headings. You want your headings to contain keywords. This will attract the attention of both Google and any potential site visitors. Finally, be sure to use links, both internal and external, on your website. Google values websites with many links over those with few. While external links are useful for adding credibility, internal links are arguably more valuable. This is because it turns the traffic of one of your web pages to contribute to the traffic of others. It goes without saying that website traffic is another important metric that Google uses to rank websites.
Florist Advertising
To aid your visibility online, there is a surprisingly high number of offline strategies you can use as well. As mentioned earlier, traffic is important for making you and your business more visible. However, even indirect traffic, such as people talking about your flower shop online, helps with SEO! Thus, any and all digital advertising helps. Offline, traditional forms of advertising also get people talking about you, and with 4.62 billion people being regular social media users, it isn’t hard to see that offline communication translates into online communication.
Visual Appeal
Something to keep in mind when advertising your flower shop is your visual appeal. You’re selling flowers after all! When people think of your shop, they want to imagine beautiful flowers arranged in visually stunning and creative ways. No matter how you advertise, make sure to use images. Show your best arrangements and maybe even consider hiring a professional photographer to make sure the images come out perfect. As long as the customers can see what they’re getting, however, you should be in good shape.
Time of Year
Another consideration is how the time of year plays into your advertising. Flowers come in and out of stock with the passing of seasons. You don’t want customers to come in, desiring a type of flower they saw in your ad, only for you to tell them they’re out of season. Be sure to constantly update the visuals in your ads to reflect what you can provide. The seasons also play into the popularity of certain events, which have huge influences on the demand for flowers. Oftentimes, your busiest seasons will be late spring through early fall. For example, marriages are a big reason, being most common between May and October and peaking in June and September.
Types of Florist Advertising
If you’re looking for some ideas on what formats to use when advertising, consider the options, below:
Digital Advertising
This includes social media marketing, banner ads, online content creation, sponsorships, email marketing, and influencer/celebrity endorsements. Some of the benefits include a quick turnaround time for campaign reception and ease of editing and removal. It also provides clear and usable metrics and is highly cost-effective for its level of exposure.
There are also a few drawbacks. If the campaign is poorly designed or insensitive, online reactions can quickly spiral. Before you know it, you could have permanent damage to your business’s reputation. Digital advertising can also contribute to advertising fatigue.
Newspaper or Magazine Advertisements
This is a great type of advertising to reach your local area. Plus, ads can be saved by interested customers, for their future reference. Like digital advertising, this is a cost-effective type of advertising for its level of exposure.
Unfortunately, newspaper and magazine ads can be easily drowned out by all of the other ads. In addition, sometimes you are unable to use colored photos, which is not ideal for a flower shop.
Television Advertisements
Television ads provide very good exposure. You are also able to take advantage of pictures, videos, colors, and sound all in one advertisement. These ads can also be easily adjusted to match your target audience.
TV advertisements are an expensive form of advertisement and also involve a short message. Unlike other types of advertisements, these are not able to be saved very easily by customers.
Radio Advertisements
Radio ads are one of the most effective ways to reach your local area. You can easily adjust these ads to fit the target audience and they are very cost-effective.
With these ads, you have a short amount of time to reach your audience, with most ads being just 15 to 30 seconds. Like TV ads, these are not able to be saved by customers to refer to later. Finally, there are no visual elements whatsoever – it’s all down to audio!
Digital Marketing for Florists
Another tool that you should absolutely be aware of for marketing your flower shop online is Google My Business. This in-built set of functions from Google is a must-have for people to easily see and research you online. To start, you can correlate your location on Google Maps to your flower shop’s name, address, and contact information. You can also link your website, which should provide many of the benefits mentioned earlier. You can also make posts from the associated Google account and allow customers to leave public reviews more easily. This account is another place where you can use keywords to drive up traffic and even talk directly with customers. The process also gets you officially “listed” with Google, which only aids your SEO goals.
SEO Design Chicago Works for Florists
At this point, you should be a professional in knowing what local SEO is and how to go about doing it. If you want to optimize your digital marketing and online presence with expert consulting services, keep SEO Design Chicago in mind. We have extensive experience improving local SEO for florists all over the country.
FAQ:
- What is local SEO?
- Why is your website important to SEO?
- What considerations should you make when advertising your flower shop?
- How do you personalize Google My Business?
- What are the benefits of TV advertisements?
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