In this 6-minute read:
- Claim your store’s Google My Business listing
- Get new customers reviews, respond to them
- Add your retail business to more online directories
- Start some basic SEO efforts
- Use Google Ads
Google is the place that your retail business needs to be. With more than 90% of the search engine market share, Google is the number one place that consumers go to when looking for a new place to shop locally.
Attract new customers and keep them loyal with reputation management software. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!
Make sure your retail business is gaining these valuable opportunities to earn more customers by promoting your store on Google with these 5 tips.
Claim your Google My Business Listing
If you want to promote your store on Google, you first need to have a Google My Business listing. This allows your store to show up in Google Maps searches so customers can find you. This also gives you the capability to receive Google reviews from customers, which, in turn, can convert even more customers.
Use this quick guide to help you get your store on Google: How to claim your Google Business listing
Once you’ve created and claimed your Google listing, be sure to include all of the following information to help maximize your conversion rates:
- Store name
- Address
- Phone number
- Category (what type of store is it?)
- Open hours (including any special holiday hours)
- Website
- Description of your store
- Price range
- Photos of your products, location, and branding
Go deeper: 5 things every small business should include in their Google listing
Get more Google reviews and respond to them
Now that your Google My Business listing is all set up, you can start getting Google reviews. Online reviews are so important for enhancing your store’s online reputation, so we’ve provided a few ways that you can get new reviews for your store.
1. Ask for reviews
Happy customers don’t always think to leave reviews, so sometimes the best way to get a new Google review is to simply ask for one at the opportune moment.
2. Place “Rate us on Google” signs in your store
Let your customers know that you are on Google and would love their feedback. These reminders are perfect for planting the idea for someone to leave a review. Just make sure your customer service is stellar so they only think to leave a positive review.
3. Try review invitation software
Most of the time, just asking someone to leave a review isn’t enough. By the time they’ve left your store they’ve forgotten and may need additional reminders. Reputation management software can help with this by sending a text message with a reminder and a link for customers to leave your store a review.
Once the reviews start coming in, it is super important to respond to them promptly. Give each positive review a nice “thank you” and take some additional time on any negative reviews to really address the problem and respond in a professional and friendly way.
Check out our guide on responding to Google reviews for some deeper insights.
Replying to reviews isn’t just polite: Womply research shows that businesses that regularly respond to reviews earn up to 49% more revenue!
Add your retail business to other online business directories
Alright, your store is on Google, but there are tons of other online directories out there that you should list your store on in order to help your listing rank even better in Google’s local map pack.
Google checks these other online directories to verify that they are providing the most up to date information about your store to their users. If there is a lot of inconsistency and inaccurate information on other directories about your store, then Google is less likely to show your listing to consumers.
Follow these guides to add your retail business to some reputable online directories:
- How to claim your Yelp business listing
- How to create and claim your Facebook business page
- How to create and claim your free business listing on Manta
- How to add your business to Citysearch and claim your listing
- How to get your business listed with the BBB
- How to create and claim your Bing business listing
- How to create and claim your free business listing on Yahoo
Get even more listings for your retail business with this article: 21 free online listing sites you should add your retail business to
Use local SEO to boost your store’s Google rankings
Beyond adding your store to other online directories, there are several other ways that you can boost your Google rankings through search engine optimization (SEO). We’ve included a couple of great tips here to get you started.
Write great content on your website
Valuable content on your website is so important to achieving good rankings on Google. You need to be sure that you provide all of the necessary information for your customers to find you—contact information, address, etc.—and plenty of additional content to keep your website fresh.
Here are a few ways to keep fresh content on your website:
- Add location pages. If you have multiple locations for your store or retail business, add a page for each of your locations that has information relevant to that store.
- Keep new promotions and offerings updated on your website.
- Write a blog. Offer advice for finding the best deals, how to use your products, and other valuable content for your customers.
Get links to your website
Once you have some well-written content on your website, it’s important to get other websites to link back to yours. These “backlinks” are a huge ranking factor for Google’s search engine. They show Google that other websites trust you enough to pass their traffic along to your website.
A couple of ways that you can get links for your website:
- When a local news story is done that involves your store, ask the news source to link to your website in their online article.
- Get involved in the community. Sponsor local sports teams, help non-profits, volunteer at community events. All of these things provide opportunities for different organizations to link to your website.
Go deeper: 15 free tips for better search rankings
Use Google Ads for your retail business
Google Ads are a great way to promote your retail business. When you pay for these ads, you immediately get a listing that shows up near the top of the search results on Google. This is the perfect short-term strategy to get more customers to your store.
On Google, the way their advertising platform works is that you pay for each click that your ads receive. And with some powerful targeting capabilities, you can show these ads only to those who are most likely to shop at your store.
Before investing heavily in Google Ads though, it’s important to get an idea of the cost versus the return that you will be getting. Not every click on your ad will result in a new customer.
Let’s say that your ads cost $1 for each click that they receive and you only get a new customer for every 20 clicks that your ad gets. That’s $20 to convert a new customer. So if your customers spend an average of $10 at your store, it’s probably not a great long-term strategy. But if your customers typically spend an average of $100 each visit, this might be well worth it.
Determine what your costs and conversion rates will be like with some testing and see if Google Ads are a good strategy for you to promote your retail business.
Go deeper: Google Maps advertising for small business
There are tons of ways to promote your store on Google, and sometimes all of these different strategies can get a little overwhelming. If you feel like some of these are too much for you to handle on your own, there are plenty of solutions out there to help.
Womply’s reputation management software was designed specifically for small businesses to save time and increase revenue with listings and review management. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!