How ‘Near Me’ helps us find what we need, not just where to go
A near me search begins with an entity such as beachwear near me. This query comes from voice or text query. The query relies on IP location and/or GPS tracking data sent to browser. It’s clear that expectations for finding exactly what people want, exactly when they want it, are growing well into the next few decades.
You’ve probably done a variation of these searches on your own? And when you type in something like “open now near me,” what you want is hours, a specific location, and available inventory, not a slow-to-load website that buries the relevant information.
The challenge for marketers and code writersis to make sure you’re giving people the answers they’re looking for as quickly as possible with structured data. And the opportunity is capturing their consideration—and the sale—by doing so.
Step One: Checking Your Local Map Listing
Check your local listing! You can change your location with a very interesting tool at Google Location Changer Keywords can be beachwear, sportswear, retail, souvenir shops, sales, etc.
Step Two: Claim Your Retail Maps Listing
SIGN OUT OF YOUR BROWSER if you are not the owner! Over in the far right, you’ll see your photo. Add or sign into the owner’s google account email and password or a google sign on created for the company via google gmail for business. You DO NOT want to claim this as your personal google account. It’ll cause issues in the future if an employee quits the company. You essentially lose control over the map listing!
Apple Maps
Here’s how to add your company to Apple Maps in eight quick steps:
- Go to https://mapsconnect.apple.com/
- Select your relationship to your business.
- Enter your basic business details.
- Verify your business phone number.
- Confirm your business location.
- Confirm your hours of business.
Step Three: Fill In The Data For Your Retail Business!
Fill everything out! Make sure your categories are true to what you do! Take photos of the business from the outside angles in BOTH directions. One front facing view and a few more inside! Put people in there doing stuff and shopping. Boring photos bring boring results. As the retail store owner google account page account that I mentioned in STEP 2, click on Google My Business
I use Canva to create all my artwork, my social media post and blog articles. It can do so much more for your company. you should give them a try!
Step Six: Get Customer Reviews For Your Retail Store
Go to https://www.grade.us/home/labs/google-review-link-generator and input the name of your company as listed on google maps. Enter the zip code or city and it will create your link. I like to use https://bit.ly/.
Use the link in thank you emails, create buttons on your website and use the shortened link to garner more reviews.
If Google, Bing and Facebook see a record number of reviews and check-in’s you’re going to get very popular in local search for things you sell “near me”.
