This article tackles the topic of local SEO and addresses the food retail industry. It provides you with real life figures collected through our clients from this field. From digitalisation to optimisation of your online visibility, we give you some tips and best practices to increase your online performance.
Increase of online actions
Customers’ habits have changed over the past decade. Desires and needs evolve and companies have to keep up with it. To understand the ever growing importance of digital in this industry, we gathered data provided by Google My Business (GMB) between 2018 and 2019 on our current customers from this field.
How digital has transformed the food retail experience
This table below focuses on the food retail industry and highlights the sharp increase in different key elements. This data basically depicts how people are looking for you, and thus why it is important for your business to present updated and consistent information throughout the Internet. It sends a positive sign to customers looking for you, and influences them in their decision making process.
Some vocabulary to all be on the same page:
- Indirect searches: Searches not directly targeting your store.
- Direct searches: Searches clearly mentioning your brand.
- Itinerary requests: Internet users clicking on the “Directions” button to get itinerary from google maps.
- Phone calls: People calling from the phone number on your GMB listing.
- Click on the website: How many people clicked on your website pages.
Additionally, as for every industry, reviews are becoming increasingly important for both customers and businesses. Customers check online reviews, average score and so on before deciding to go to a business or not. Businesses use GMB as a showcase for their shops, spread their values through answering reviews, or even communicate better by having thorough information.
The figures above prove our point: people write more reviews about their experience in your local businesses and pay more attention to your own reviews and rankings. The number of reviews left per supermarket has doubled between 2018 and 2019. Therefore, managing them seems mandatory for your business’ e-reputation.
Increase your online visibility
In order to increase your online visibility, you have to follow different steps. But know that creating listings for each of your shops and providing basic information such as your business’ name, address, phone number and a few pictures is already boosting your online visibility.
In case you don’t have listings for all of your businesses, you should:
- Request the ownership of a business profile if someone else is owning it, or if no one owns it.
- Create your missing GMB listings so that each of your local businesses has one.
- Delete any duplicates you can find.
Moreover, you should diffuse your information on as many platforms as you can, such as directories and GPS (Waze), Social Media (Facebook) and search engines (Google, Bing).
- Categories
In order for your businesses to appear higher on search results, you need to add your main business’s category and up to 9 other sub-categories. That way, if a user types in “Supermarket”, they will find you if you provided this information.
2. Attributes
Attributes allow you to describe your business, its services and facilities. You can quickly inform your customers if you have a wheelchair accessible car park, or if you have a fresh food market for instance.
Attributes also have an impact on local SEO – It allows your business to appear on indirect search results. For instance, specifying an attribute such as ‘Wheelchair accessible lift’ will dramatically improve your chances of appearing on searches for ‘ Supermarkets with wheelchair accessible lift’.
Moreover, think of adding secondary URLs on your GMB listings. They are really helpful and time-saving for customers if they want to place an order, for example.
Finally, the last step in the process of optimising your online presence is to include your department stores and secondary hours in your GMB’s listings. That way, you provide your customers and potential ones with more accurate information. Check out our article to understand why it is interesting to do so.
Get found …. online!
