A lot of garden centres are using their webshop as a showroom for their physical store. The customer journey starts online but ends offline in a brick and mortar store. But how do you make sure that you are easily found via Google? Here are 5 practical tips to improve your local findability.

1. DON’T FORGET THE META-DESCRIPTION

The meta-description is a short text that will be visible in the Google search results and, as such, rather important.

If you want to make sure to be found in your own region, you will have to make sure to communicate your place name within the meta-description. Of course, you can enter this in the Garden Connect CMS.

The meta-description field is skipped very often, though we urge you to make use of it as it is very important!

2. REFER TO YOUR STORE IN YOUR PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS

The product description is a good place to refer to your garden centre. It is meant to explain what the product is about, its benefits and user options, but also refers to your garden centre. Examples of how to do this are:

• Would you like to learn more about this fruit tree? Visit our garden centre in Nottingham for personal advice.
• If you would like to test the comfort of this lounge set, don’t hesitate to do so by visiting our garden centre in Nottingham.
• Are you going to pave your garden? Visit our garden centre in Nottingham for a tailor-made quotation.

This way, you explicitly refer your visitors to your garden centre to test products or get quotations.

3. CREATE A TAB WITH INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR STORE

Approximately 50% of your visitors are not visiting the homepage of your website. All the information you give there will thus not be seen by these people. If you look at well-performing websites such as Booking.com, you will see that a lot of information is repeated on the product pages. Add a tab to your product pages with information about your garden centre:

• A short explanation of the route, for example: ‘Only 5 minutes from the motorway’
• The opening hours or a link to another page with the opening hours. This way people can always directly see when you are open. Especially bigger purchases start during the week when people prepare themselves online, after which the actual purchase is made in the garden centre, during the weekend.
• If you have extra facilities, name them! Such as a playground, then parents will know that they can take the children with them.

Don’t think ‘’this is already on the website’’, repetition is key!

4. MAKE CLEAR THAT YOU’RE DELIVERING REGIONALLY

If you have a webshop and aren’t delivering nationally, make clear you’re delivering regionally. It’s very easy to enter postcodes into the Garden Connect CMS of where you do and don’t deliver but make sure to explain this on the website as well. Mention it in your product description and via icons on the website. This way it’s clear at first glance that you’re locally active when it comes to delivery.

5. MENTION PLACE NAMES NEARBY

When people search for something, they often combine this search with place names nearby. For example, someone living a smaller village such as Kegworth or Quorn probably combines their search with place names of bigger cities nearby such as Leicester or Nottingham. They rarely search for “garden furniture Kegworth” because that doesn’t make sense in such small village.

Not only use the place name of your garden centre or nursery in your texts and descriptions but also mention place names of cities and regions nearby. In general; the more expensive the purchase, the further someone is willing to drive.

People easily drive 30 - 45 minutes for garden furniture, but not for a bag of flowering bulbs. You can choose your own area depending on your assortment and target group.

These 5 tips can help potential clients to find the webshop in your own region. This ensures visitors both online in the webshop and offline in your garden centre. Would you like to know what Garden Connect can do to improve your findability, please contact your account manager or send an email to info@gardenconnect.com