An eye-catching window display to drive-by traffic, a website with strong content will capture Google’s eye, and a video will turn heads on social media.

Those content strategies can drive more visitors to your website and convert them into customers, resulting in extra revenue, said Renato Cruz Sogueco, AAF, PFCI, vice president of digital strategy and education for BloomNet, who gave a presentation on optimizing websites at the Society of American Florists’ 1-Day Profit Blast in Albany, New York.

“What rank really means is money — money that you’re either getting or you’re not getting,” he said. “More clicks equate to more traffic … and more traffic leads to more conversion.”

Develop a FAQ Page

Sogueco suggested using Google Trends to learn what questions people frequently ask about florists, then create a page on your website to house those answers. These can include basic questions, such as days and hours of operation, contact information, coupons and other discount codes.

“These are the questions customers are asking, and they’ll type this into search or they’ll talk into their phones and ask these questions,” he said. “Your site literally has to have these jotted out somewhere with a question mark so Google says, ‘Oh wait! This person is asking the exact same question as ’…so it will post that FAQ right back to them.”

One tool to uncover those questions, Sogueco said, is to use a site such as AnswerThePublic.com, which provides a free data visualization on the latest questions people ask, such as “What are November birthday flowers?”

“This is a good way to format the language, not only in FAQ, but just the language within your website,” he said, adding that using keywords can indicate relevance to search engines, which could result in a higher search result ranking.

Blog to Build Traffic

If you aren’t already blogging, now is the time to start. Sogueco suggested writing blogs that are 1,000 to 1,200 words and use keywords to boost SEO. If the thought of writing a blog seems intimidating, think again. Consider hiring a freelance writer to create blog content.

“Think of this as like an investment,” Sogueco said. “That’s what SEO is all about: You’re investing in keywords and content so you’re found easily in search. Thus, you rank higher. Now, do you think that’s a worthy investment, to go from ranking eight to ranking two or one? I think so.”

Sogueco recommended blogging at least once a month about a variety of topics, including product categories, seasonal products or product trends. Blogs don’t have to be limited to floral products; they can be about tools and information, Sogueco said, citing a recent blog Petal Talk, by 1-800-Flowers.com, which wrote about how to choose tulip bulbs and where to plant them.

“We a blog about it, and you wouldn’t believe how much traffic it attracts,” he said.

An effective way to organize the content is to outline a handful of tips within that blog post about a unique aspect of that topic. Then, you can repackage those tips into social media posts.

“That’s an educational piece of wonderful SEO material,” Sogueco said. “That’s a content strategy that corporations use.”

If you don’t have a way with words, hire someone to blog for you.

Engage with Video

In addition to the behind-the-scenes work, you need to get in front of the camera, or at least start recording. Sogueco said video increases website conversion rates by 34 percent, according to the research company Aberdeen Group.

“People would rather watch a video than sometimes read or visit a link,” he said. “The younger demographics are all about video. Video is the marketing language of today and going into the future. Videos are the language you need to communicate with your present customers, which are now millennials, and in the future.”

Keep videos simple, Sogueco said. Introduce yourself and your business, promote your social media channels, make two or three points, then close by repeating your and business’s contact information.

The length of that video will depend based on the platform you’re publishing on and type of video you’re creating, such as news, promotion or teaser, explainer and how-to tutorials. It can seem overwhelming, but Sogueco said the beauty of capturing video is that one segment can be edited, sliced and diced or reused for different social media channels.

“It’s marketing for the entire demographic of the whole world,” Sogueco said to chuckles from Profit Blast attendees. “You can laugh about it, but Facebook is used by old people like me, older people than me and older millennials. Who’s on Instagram? All the younger millennials. Who’s on TikTok? Your customers in two to four years.

“I know all of this sounds hard, but it’s a matter of habit,” he said. “Get that secret sauce — your content strategy — in place.”

Nicole Stempak is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.