Search Engine Optimization tips for florists

Site: Boulder Blooms, Boulder, CO

Boulder Blooms scores many points for their efforts to personalize their web presence. You can’t leave this site without feeling like you’ve connected even a little bit with the shop team. At the same time, the personal touches can leave the site feeling a little rough around the edges.

The home page real estate is mostly occupied by a large picture of the smiling staff members in an empty field with a mountain in the distance. It doesn’t hurt that the staff are easy on the eyes, too. Personal? Yes! Colorado? Heck, ya! Floral? … Sadly, no. It’s not until you scroll down past the staff image, the “Best of the Knot” text and the large statement about same day deliveries that you finally learn about the business: “Boulder Blooms is a Boulder florist specializing in incredible floral designs and fresh flowers!” Nice intro - it’s just a shame it’s located at the bottom edge of my 22″ monitor. [click to continue…]

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For many internet users “search” = going to Google or Yahoo! and typing in a few words or a question about what they are looking for. Despite more having internet access commonly available at home and work, many users also “search” for a website address, not understanding the difference between the search box and a browsers address bar. (Hence the evolution of browser address bars allowing some search capabilities, and the new all-in-one Omnibox from Google’s Chrome browser.)

It’s no wonder, then, that users are often surprise to learn of different types of search. Search = search, right?

Vertical search refers to searching a certain type, theme or medium of content. Vertical search engines are nothing new, and major search engines offer various types of vertical search. Some examples include travel search engines and news aggregators. Google offers a variety of specialized vertical searches to deliver different themes and types of content like news, blogs, books & finance. They even have a search restricted to Linux content!

Over the past year Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Ask have been trying to deliver more relevant results (and deal with the slow user adoption of vertical search) by introducing blended results that serve to mix some vertical search content into the traditional ten text results. Often called Blended or Universal results, this new display offers florists an incredible opportunity to appear multiple times in the search results by providing different types of content on the web.

In this new series we’ll look at some of the verticals that are most relevant to florists: Local Search, Image Search, Video Search and Blog Search.

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Thanks to Rich from the Bloomery, a florist in Butler, PA, for submitting this photo of a pair of Poppies about to open. Rich says:

I call this one “Morning Breath”.  It’s a pair of poppies shortly before they open.

This is Rich Dudley from The Bloomery Florist Boutique in Butler, PA. I’m an avid photo hobbyist, and have plenty of material through the shop.  The Bloomery is one of the most popular wedding and event florists in the North Pittsburgh area.  The Bloomery is known throughout our area as leaders in design and quality. 2008 is The Bloomery’s 10th anniversary!

Thanks, Rich! “Morning Breath” will be placed in rotation immediately.

Remember, the Florist SEO blog wants to display your images. If you have photos of your work that are worthy of display to the world, please submit your image for a mention on the blog.

Submitted by The Bloomery of Bulter, PA

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In an effort to get caught up on my RSS reading, I’m blitzing through some older blog posts, like the recently mentioned article on big chains. Here are a few more items that are worth mentioning:

• Copywriting Tips For Resellers - Florists aren’t exactly resellers, but most are selling the same product images. How can you set yourself apart?
• Why the good ones Don’t Promise Guaranteed Rankings
• Does your website text Get To The Point?
• What does Create Good Content really mean?
• SEO Newbie Mistakes
• Why Reputation Management matters even for small business

Now you’re well equipped for some weekend reading!

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Since I still haven’t gotten around to selecting more images to rotate in the top area of this site, I’m opening the floor to you the readers.

If you are a florist, photographer or in some other way the owner of a nice picture of flowers, preferably your own work, please submit the picture to us. Once or twice a week we’ll select an image, give a quick write-up of the source and link to your site. The selected image will go into rotation for all the readers to enjoy.

To submit an image email me at ryan at striderseo dot com with your image, a quick description and some background on you / your business. Please include a link to your site so that we can give you the link love!

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Chances are, if you’ve been on the internet for more than a few days, you’ve come across sites that use Flash. Flash technology is used to deliver rich media and interactive experiences, and can be very visually compelling. Is understandable, then, that Flash is a very popular choice for florist websites. After all, if you’re presenting a visual product, having the ability to create an impactful visual experience can be helpful! Many of the sites listed in the FlowerChat “Cool Flower Shop Websites” discussion (an epic thread spanning 4 years, 263 posts and nearly 15,000 views!) are Flash-based sites.

Flash requires a plugin or add-on for most browsers, which is available as a free download from Adobe.com. Google’s new browser, Chrome, is the only browser I can think of that comes with the Flash player pre-installed.

As with most things, there are pros and cons to the site owner in using Flash. Today we’ll examine a few of the benefits and drawbacks to using Flash, in the hope that you’ll be better equipped to decide if you want to employ Flash on your site. [click to continue…]

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It’s just over a week old, but this article from the WSJ on independent coffee shops thriving despite Starbucks is still worth mentioning. It speaks directly to the environment and circumstances facing many retail florists in today’s market as they try to compete with big chains and supermarkets. [click to continue…]

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From the negative to the positive – now that we’ve spent more than a week covering the problems caused by duplicate content, lets look at a few ways to create some unique content on your site.

Write About You

It’s your site – at some point, a visitor to the site is expecting to learn something about you. Whether it’s a detailed company history, a clinically written document or an informal introduction, let the content be created in your voice. By the time someone has read through your site they should be starting to feel like they know you, or at least have an idea of your personality. [click to continue…]

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This is the sixth article in a series on the perils of Duplicate Content. We have previously covered the problems of repeating Title tags and Meta tags across your site, using standard product descriptions and bad URL habits.

Having previously examined the problems of duplicate content, both on your site and on other sites, it’s now time to look at how to examine your site to look for duplicate content. Or, more importantly, does Google think that you have duplicate content! [click to continue…]

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