During the course of the pandemic, online sales rose at least 50 percent for most flower shops with websites, estimated Dan McManus of TeamFloral, a company that specializes in helping florists grow online business. Now is the time to learn more about how SEO can increase your bottom line.
SEO: Think Inside “the Box”
Florists are among those who benefit from a change in the way Google displays results, since the change is in favor of local businesses. When consumers use Google to search a generic term like “flower delivery,” Google knows where they are located, and it displays a map of flower shops nearby.
On any page of Google search results, the top three listings will be paid ads, clearly indicated as such. Right below the paid ads come three listings known as the “map pack,” or “the box.” (Below the map pack you see the so-called “organic” listings, an area that Joe Vega, co-founder of Lovingly, a portal and website host for independent flower shops, describes as “the wild, wild West” — anyone can get listed here, but the rules are unclear, and trying to figure them out brings little reward.)
Curious to see how your shop ranks in a typical search? If you check from your own shop location, the proximity factor will bias the search rankings in your favor. You can make a more telling assessment with a scanning tool available on the TeamFloral site (TeamFloral.com). Click on the link at the top of the home page that says Local Search Ranking. The tool gives any florist (even if you are not a TeamFloral client) three scans for free.
SEO: What You Can Do
Besides proximity, what other factors feed into the ranking algorithms, and how are they weighted? SEO analysts constantly offer educated guesses. Among the factors presumed to be operative, two are the most influential: your shop’s Google My Business listing and reviews.
Fortunately, it’s not terribly difficult to tweak these two factors. If you haven’t done this already, type your shop name and “Google My Business” into the search field on Google. A page comes up with your listing with a link, “Manage this listing.” Investing the time to manage it is well worth it. Beyond simply making sure that the basic information in the listing is accurate and consistent with other listings across the internet, you have many options for continually updating it.
Managing reviews may seem more daunting, but the trick is simply to do it. “I always answer my reviews, good or bad,” said Elizabeth Seiji, AIFD, of Edelweiss Flower Boutique in Santa Monica, California. “If it’s bad, state your side. Then let the person reading the reviews decide.”
To Pay or Not to Pay?
There’s SEO, and then there’s SEM: search engine marketing, which includes SEO, but also any paid strategies that you might use to improve the chances that customers will find you on the web, including Google Ads, with its pay-per-click pricing model.
If you are doing a good job with SEO, do you still need to consider SEM? Maybe, say the experts. But it’s helpful to have a savvy service provider guiding you. Social media can still be a valuable marketing tool, too. But what it won’t do, these days, is boost your ranking on Google.
Read more in the May/June issue of Floral Management.
Molly Olson is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.
