We have said it before and we’ll say it again – holiday shopping season is here! That’s obviously big news if you’re a retailer, a business owner, a marketer or an SEO professional because now is the time when the pressure is on to create campaigns that really rack up the sales.
To help you along, Google has just launched its new Small Business Holiday Hub with lots of resources for better Search, Shopping and Google Maps visibility. Citing research which confirms that 71% of US adults plan to do more than half of their shopping for the festive period online, Google says its hub will take the guesswork out of the holiday season and help small businesses – many of which have been crippled by the pandemic – make more sales in the run up to Christmas.
The Holiday Hub contains:
• Recommendations for ecommerce stores
• Recommendations for bricks and mortar stores
• Lessons on tasks such as product listings and how to make it easier for shoppers to shop with you
• How to create a strong social media plan
• Live streams
• Two new tools including Grow My Store and Local Opportunity Finder
Lessons from Google
The Learning tab shares practical lessons, best-practise guides and tips to help small businesses make the most of every chance that comes their way this holiday season. Delivered via short videos, each lesson lasts from 4-16 minutes and offers an easy way to brush up on subjects such as SEO basics and how to be more visible in search and maps, how to reply to reviews and how to get more reviews from clients.
Tools
The Small Business Hub is home to two brand new tools. The first is Grow My Store, which provides personalised support for online store owners. This tool analyses your site’s customer experience in line with that of competitors trading in the same category. The report, which takes a number of hours to generate, will provide tailored recommendations for actions to take to improve your site and offer visitors a better customer experience.
The second tool, Local Opportunity Finder, is currently only available for US-based businesses and helps those with a physical location to attract more foot traffic to their store.
Live Streams
Google’s team will also put on a series of Live Streams between now and December. The first one, which is scheduled for 14 October will focus on the use of Shopify with Google Merchant Centre.
To explore the Small Business Holiday Hub, click here.