How to Use Google My Business to Engage your Customers

Keep your customers up-to-date on what’s happening at your shop

As florists we know it’s almost impossible to keep up with all of the marketing opportunities available. Constant changes and new ways of using digital marketing channels that have been around for a while is enough to wear anyone out.

We wanted to take an opportunity to highlight an important feature Google has available that does not get enough visibility. The feature is called Google My Business (GMB). Even though it has been around for awhile, its power of is often overlooked.

Google My Business (GMB)

This is one of the Google features that gets very little recognition as a powerful tool to gain visibility for your shop’s “3 Pack” on Google’s search engine results (SERP) page. Think of GMB as the “account” that you can control and through that account you can manage information that will show up in the Google 3 pack.

Do you target local consumers?

Based on what people are searching today, if your business does business locally, appearing in Google’s 3 pack and keeping your company’s information current is crucial.

The 3 pack is a widget on Google’s SERP that highlights businesses that offer products and/or services that match up with the search phrase that someone typed into Google’s search box. It’s called a 3 pack because the widget displays what Google considers to be the top 3 most relevant websites. Users can click a link to show more businesses, but most users won’t click the link to see the rest of the businesses listed.

Page 1 on Google search results

The other very big benefit to the 3-Pack is that it is displayed on the first page of the SERP. The first page of the SERP is critical for visibility. Google’s 3-pack is on the first page of Google’s SERP. So by showing up in the 3-pack you are on the first page of Google for the search phrase that the user is using to find what you do or what you sell.

Why Local Search Matters

Google reports that around 46% of all US searches are “local” which means people are using the phrases “near me” or “where to buy.” So, what are the features of GMB in today’s context?

Are you open?

The first feature that you must keep current in your GMB account is your company’s current availability. What days of the week are you open? What time of the day are you open. These are the first things that your customers are checking before they leave the house. With all of the upheaval they want to know if you’re going to be open of if you’ve altered your hours of operation.

Is the information listed current?

Another feature of Google My Business is the ability to post to your account. You may be doing a very good job of keeping your information up-to-date, but your customers doesn’t know if you’ve updated it recently. In fact, because so many businesses don’t keep their listing information current, it would be helpful if you posted to your GMB the last time that you updated your hours of operation. This will build confidence in your customers that the information that they are looking for is current.

Start asking questions

With Google My Business, your customers can ask a question right from your 3-pack listing. How much more simpler can it be! You can setup your GMB to allow for questions and when it’s setup properly you can get an alert on your smartphone as soon as someone submits their question. At that point you can promptly reply with an answer to their question, making you a customer service superstar!

Set up appointments

Many businesses are moving to an appointment system. If an appointment system is right for your business, you can setup your GMB to give your customers the ability to schedule an appointment with your company.

Let them know you are safe

Many people want to know what you are doing at your place of business to keep them safe. Use the posting feature of GMB to keep them up-to-date on your policies and activities that will give them the peace-of-mind to do business with you.

Do you need help with your online marketing campaigns? Bloomerang Solutions can help! From Google My Business to websites and social media, we're here to make you look you best. Give us a call today at (941) 806-1911 or drop us a line here to find out what we can do to make your business bloom!

The Value of Reviews is Skyrocketing and Bloomerang Has You Covered

Let's look at where digital is going and how fast it's getting there...

Where? To the moon! Remember the Honeymooners? Well, reviews are just out of this world. It's so valuable and getting you covered is what we plan and have been doing for our clients at Bloomerang.

You see, the biggest problem is, It's NOT EASY to get a review! Think about it, you complete a job and now your client wants to say THANKS and leave you a review…but where?

It's not always easy for your customers to find a place on your website to leave a review if they want to, and some websites make it extremely confusing to the customers as well.

Imagine if you had a BloomNation website! For example, let's try this one - just watch the video below and see for yourself!

Make it easy

The Bloomerang Difference

At Bloomerang, we manage and MANUALLY reply to EVERY REVIEW for our customers and always have. We will contact you to discuss any issues BUT, we continue the manual process. We are not like the rest. Bloomerang clients expect more and they get more!

This information was made public by Birdseye for all to know and be aware. Remember, digital allows you to take responsibility of your brand and show people why you deserve their business. It's all about trust and exceeding expectations!

Please reach out to us if you have any questions.

-Art.

Don't Blame the Wire Services if You Leave Money on the Table

On average, a typical florist makes between 8% and 12% in profit. If that number creeps higher into the 13% to 14% range, you would consider that a terrific year!

But what if I told you that you could make over 50% commission on a $50 order?. Would you do it? The good news is, you can! Here’s how:

For more tips on improving your floral business - along with other advice from experienced flower shop owners, please drop us a line below or give Bloomerang Solutions a call at (941) 806-1911.

Just Add Water

Building your brand is like planting seeds to start a garden.

As a florist, the goal is for all your local consumers to see your business name synonymous with buying and/or sending flowers. When I owned Beneva Flowers, we were recognized as having 70% of market share in Sarasota based on flower buying credit card purchase data. But how did that happen? 

One of the most important things we did was  partner with area schools and charitable organizations. We considered many items the schools needed and even started an initiative to have a classroom named after our business.

Every year we would be asked to participate in fundraisers and to run ads in yearbooks. Not only did I participate, I took it one step further…

Understanding we both need each other to survive, I came up with a program called Helping Hands. The way it worked was the school became responsible for getting the word out that Beneva Flowers would donate 5% of every transaction that the sender mentions the school or organization. It worked well for  baseball teams trying to raise money for trips, marching bands, you name it. If the community was making an effort, we wanted to be a part of it. 

These were the seeds we were planting and before too long, sending flowers and Beneva went hand-in-hand because local shoppers thought of Beneva every time they thought about flowers. Around town, the brand became synonymous with flowers.

Here is another example…

Most grocery stores still offer paper or plastic bags at the checkout, but an increasing number of climate-concious customers are opting for environmentally-friendly reusable bags instead. Publix is one of many supermarket chains that sells reusable shopping bags to consumers for 99¢. Because they are able to buy them in bulk, they probably pay about 5¢ for each bag. 

Many people will look at those bags as insignificant little 99¢ products to sell, but a better way to look at it as an opportunity.

Using Publix as a hypothetical example, encouraging the use of reusable shopping bags not only helps the environment by cutting down on waste, but it is also an excellent opportunity to build their brand image as a respectful neighbor.

Just by having the Publix logo on the bag along with Earth-friendly reminders of working together to make a difference, you create positive brand awareness at an amazing value for just 5¢ per bag. 

The simple fact that the bags are reusable give them marketing value even beyond the doors of Publix because people use the bags everywhere they go. What a great deal for a 5¢ investment. 

This is how it should be looked at. Do you think that Publix sells enough 99¢ bags to offset the value of giving them away to customers as a 5¢ advertisement? It depends on the value you place on branding. Giving away these bags is unique and outside the commonly used channels.

I like the message they would be sending out as well as the intentions they would be supporting. Publix already has a brand that is known for offering a clean environment, excellent services, supporting the community - and yes, they even sell some groceries too. 

Today, we are limited in ways to get a message out. Newspapers are not what they used to be, and television continues to lose market share to the internet. The best option now for most small business owners is online digital marketing targeted at consumers browsing the internet and WAZE advertising for people searching on maps.

Bloomerang Solutions can help you with both! We have solutions for every sized business from websites to Google pay-per-click advertising and SEO that will boost your web ranking. We can help you interact with your customers through surveys and social media. Call us at (941) 806-1911 and let’s get started today!

Bloomerang's Guide to Geotagging

Climbing to the top of the first page on a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, is a tough task for any business. But there are some things you can do to improve your rank and give you and advantage over your competitors.

One simple thing you can do right now will dramatically improve your chances of ranking better in local search results is making sure all the images on your website are geotagged and have all their important metadata information included.

Above is the metadata field for the image on the left. Geotags and other image metadata can be found by right clicking on an image and selecting Properties from the list. The Details tab (as shown above) allows you to view the metadata and edit it manually in the Value column.

What are Geotags?

Geotags are important metadata that show the exact coordinates where the image or video was taken. The visitors to your website will not see this information, but search engines do when they’re crawling the web and analyzing your site. Search engines all use their own proprietary algorithms to assign rankings to websites based on a number of different criteria. Their goal is to give their users the best and most accurate results for each search, so they all place a heavy emphasis on accuracy and repetition.

How do I Geotag images and videos?

If you took a picture with a GPS-enabled device like a smartphone or digital camera, the image will be geotagged by default and will automatically embed GPS coordinates along with the name of the location if available. If you turned that setting off or have an older image, the information may still be stored among the Exchangeable Image File Format (EFIX) data. You can also add data manually or edit data that may be inaccurate or need updating.

Why are Geotags so important?

Geotags are not new, they have been around for more than a decade and most people never noticed. The importance of geotags, however, has evolved from a novelty into a necessity as more and more consumers search for local results on mobile devices. The location information of a photo that matches the physical location of your shop will help increase confidence from the search engines that your site will enhance the results it produces.

Metadata is the core of what search engines use in their algorithms to determine ranking and results. Since most people do not pay very close attention to the metadata of the images on their site, a little bit of work will go a long way towards giving you a substantial advantage over the competitors in local search results.

Another big advantage you gain by making sure your images are properly geotagged is improving the likelihood of them ranking higher when people search by image. This is especially true for local searches. If someone is searching for flower delivery, geotagged images in closer proximity will generally rank higher since they provide more relevant results to the consumer.

What else can I do to improve my ranking?

Geotagging the images and videos on your website is one important aspect of search engine optimization, but there are a few other things you can customize that will help improve your ranking.

• Change the Image Title (file name) – Since repetition and consistency are important to search engines, it is important to make sure all your image titles also include the name and location of your business because each instance, or citation, improves your ranking.

• Use the Image Alt-Text field to briefly describe the image – This field is often overlooked but provides a valuable source of information to search engines. It also serves a purpose on your website by providing descriptive text when you hover over the image.

• Add a Caption to provide even more detail – Captions are small block of text located under, or next to the image that describe the image to the visitor of your site. Search engines also use this field to learn more about the relevance of the image regardless of whether the caption is visible on your site or not.

To learn more about Geotagging and other aspects of SEO that will give you a substantial advantage in your search engine ranking, give Bloomerang Solutions a call today at (941) 806-1911. Our team of SEO specialists is ready to help you identify deficiencies that may be preventing you from ranking higher and make them work to your advantage instead.