Frosty the Snowman, was a jolly happy soul… and so is Google if you make your list…and check it twice. In order to not get kicked out of any reindeer games this season, here is an organized checklist of key things you should do to ensure you’re still in the game January 2nd.
Listings Accurate for Local Business
No one wants potential customers ending up in the wrong place. Utilize Moz Local to ensure the accuracy of key platforms. Quickly seek out inaccurate listings and fix incorrect data. Continue to do so until it’s perfect.
Close Duplicate Listings
If Check Listing is indicating you have duplicates in November, you’ll be hard-pressed to clear them by the holidays. It can take months to get things squared away. Clear them as quickly as you can and vow to nail the task completely before jingle bells ring next year.
Google My Business Special Hours Added
This one should have been checked off your list a while back as many businesses extend their hours during the holidays. Extended hours equates to extended revenues and you want to ensure customers know they can come earlier or later to your business. Need a tutorial on adding special hours? JINGLE BELLS.
Website Pages Updated
If you plan to feature holiday specials while extending hours, ensure all pages – home, contact, landing – also display those hours. You can also highlight specials that are specific to different business sites.
Be Ready for Complaints
Online or in person complaints should have a direction you control. Holiday shopping, cold weather and many other things only add to the phenomena known as Seasonal Affective Disorder in the winter. Ready your staff and management with training on how to manage those complaints rather than reading about them on social media or your company website.
Google Posts
Google Posts can instantly highlight your sales/specials/deals or other holiday events worthy of attention. Serious sites should utilize this feature. Want more information about it? JINGLE BELLS.
Other Social Media
Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook customers rely on your messaging for last minute ideas and offers. You should have a clear and planned layout of posts – defined down to the last character and pixel. Seriously.
Analytical Tracking
If you’re inviting a love interest to your New Year’s Eve party, you better have mistletoe hanging from every doorway. It’s called being prepared for a certain outcome. In the SEO World, do you have Google Analytics in place to assist you in evaluating conversions and traffic? Do your socially-promoted URLs contain UTM codes added to the links? GMB Insights? Moz Local? Call tracking not interfering with NAP consistency? The end-game when the clock strikes midnight is to have good data to use in analyzing strategies for the New Year. Mistletoe.
Empathy Engaged
There’s no better way to engage customers than by persuading management to donate a portion of profits to benefit on-going rescue efforts for recovery and relief in affected communities. Let people have the opportunity to feel as though they are helping out while helping your company’s image as well. Also, ensure it’s on your websites and social media listings.
Put an effort into uniting all of the things on your checklist and you can watch them total up to an increased volume of customers that help to brighten a local business. Efficiency in digital marketing means truly following the old adage – make a list, check it twice… ensure your business does not make the naughty list.