That sentiment comes from vSplash and its DigitalScape, which offers a relatively bleak assessment of the digital health of most small, independent florists in the US. A majority are ill equipped to deal with search-enabled, social and mobile consumers.
Below is a section of a much larger “infographic”:
According to vSplash, based on an an analysis of thousands of florists’ websites in the US, most fail at the basics:
- Search visibility
- Social visibility
- Contact and location information on their websites
- Mobile readiness
For example, 40% of the florist websites examined had “no local contact” number and 45% had no address on their homepages. Further, 41% had no Google presence.
Regardless of the estimate, spending on Valentine’s day is worth many billions of dollars in the US. The vSplash data above argue that most of the local florists are losing out or “leaving money on the table” by having such weak online and mobile assets.
Neal Polachek and I will be presenting a broader cross section of the vSplash data, as well as SMB survey information, during our “SMB State of the Union” at the Local Search Association conference on April 15 in Las Vegas.
February 13th, 2013 at 11:30 am
Florists, like other local businesses, should not only be taking advantage of basic online profiles for their businesses – that’s a given. They should also be thinking about content marketing. It doesn’t have to be anything too serious, just making a YouTube video and blog post once a week and tweeting that post to followers will have a big impact on ranking in the search engines.
An example of what a florist might be able to do: Create a series of short videos, teaching viewers novel ways of arranging for flowers, or perhaps a video series on improving the longevity of your flowers. These are just some thoughts. Check out this post for some insights on content marketing.