6 easy but powerful SEO for wineries tactics (or any small business seo)

If you own a winery / liquor store (or any kind of store), chances are majority of your customers who live nearby your store are searching for their favorite wine or beer online, and buying from the businesses found via their smartphones or computers. These businesses may not have the best products but they are able to get high sales and profitability. That's the power of SEO for wineries or any small business.

In fact, 50% of consumers who do a local search on their smartphone and 34% of consumers who search on a computer or tablet visit a store within a day. So, its pivotal for your business to have a SEO strategy especially, local SEO strategy in order to drive more traffic and sales. Even if you are selling online via platforms, the likes of Drizly and Vivino, you must remember that you are competing with other brands there as well and hence, need to stand out.

Let's explore 6 such ways to accomplish this for your business. But before that let me explain in layman's terms one important question you might be contemplating.

What is SEO?

Imagine you want to buy a bottle of wine and there are 10 wine sellers right in front of you and the rest of the sellers are standing behind them away from your sight. There is a greater chance that you would buy from one of those 10 sellers as they made sure they presented their products first, before anyone else while you were searching.

Now again imagine you were trying to buy that same bottle by searching on google and typed something like " buy wine online". Google would show you some search results and there is a 75% chance you won't go past page one to buy, by clicking on one of those results, as like those 10 sellers these results have the first mover advantage by being on page one.

Hence, in a nutshell modern search engine optimization (SEO) is not just ranking higher in the search results rather it's the art and science of utilizing good helpful content and user experience on a website that impels anyone who sees it to click, stay, engage and ultimately buy (if selling product/service). Yes, SEO entails ranking higher in search results and get non paid (or organic) traffic, but nowadays only ranking higher does not guarantee higher click rate and engagement.

Going back, If all the above mentioned wine sellers belong to a local area it is called local seo which is of course, a part of SEO.

1. Use Google My Business

If you search on google, for instance "wine shops near me" you will observe there is a map at the top followed by local 3 listings beneath it. That's called the local pack. That is how your potential customers are going to find you and you want to make sure that you seize that opportunity by being there.

So, set up your business account on Google My Business and ensure you enter correct updated information there such as the name of the company, address and phone number.

Also double check that the data is consistent everywhere online, be it be on yelp, trip advisor or on your website. That will increase your odds of ranking at the top in google search results.

2. Use Local SEO optimization

In addition to the local pack you can also be present in the organic listings of the search results pages. So, use localized terms on your website and ensure that the name of the company, phone number and address are present on all the major pages on your site such as the menu and contact pages to rank higher.

You can visit Moz Local or better yet, use Yext to get more local links by utilizing its list of localized directories.

You can also visit the Chamber of Commerce website within your city and see which other companies in your field are present there. You can ask them to link to your site and mention your business as they promote business in various cities, which could include your city as well. The more links you generate within your region, the higher you are going to rank.

3. Enhance your Click through rates (CTR)

To increase your traffic and sales, it's crucial to have a decent click through rate. Click through rate means in simple terms, the number of people who actually click and visit after seeing your website.

To accomplish that you will have to generate more reviews for your business from your customers whether they buy from you consistently or are first time buyers. Ask them to review your products whenever they visit your store.

More positive reviews will earn your business more credibility and people will be more apt to click and buy from you but be honest in it and don't be scared if you have any negative reviews.

Try resolving them tactfully with your unsatisfied customers and critics. The best solution to negative reviews is listening to your customers and offering great value and service to them. Some negative reviews are bound to happen and Google is not going to penalize your business for that.

Also, remember different websites have their own rules and regulations pertaining reviews. For instance businesses cannot ask for any reviews from customers on Yelp, doing so they can be penalized. You can however tell your customers about your presence on Yelp. It is their volition to leave a review or not. So, be a little circumspect regarding this.

4. Use Schema Markup

Utilizing the schema markup enriches your web pages display in the search results by enhancing the rich snippets underneath the page title.

 It provides all the information about your localized business to the search engines. Google shows you how to use the code on your website and if you are using WordPress you can simply use Yoast plugin to accomplish that for you, without being technical.

You should also improve your title tag and meta description and make sure they comprise of all your important keywords that are crucial to your business.

5. Top Seo for wineries tip - Create engaging content

It is important to create engaging content especially that is related to your local area such as events, festivals etc. to attract more visitors and convert them into your loyal customers. So, produce amazing blogs and videos related to your products, recipes, food pairings and share them on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and Pinterest.

You can combine all the above tactics with Email marketing by collecting emails of your leads. So for example, whenever you share an article on Facebook or Twitter you can use the read more feature to direct the reader to your website and collect their e-mails (You can use a pop up form on your site for instance for mail collection)

It’s a great cost effective way of building audience, narrow cast and nurture it by sending quality articles, videos, promotions, offers, creating scarcity etc and has a higher ROI too.

By creating all this content you are more likely to rank for all the wine and beer terms within your city and surpass your competition.

6. Utilize Google search console

And finally, you should sign up for Google search console. Google search console is an amazing tool that provides valuable information such as issues, errors, performance etc for your site and by gaining knowledge about them you can easily fix them to improve your local rankings.

You can submit your sitemap, there a lot of free tools available online to help you in this process that will help you rank better and grow organically.

Also, along with search console you can keep track of data on your website using Google Analytics tool. It helps you to learn more about your traffic demographics, how much time they are spending on your site or just bouncing off. It tells you which product landing pages are getting more engagement or sales and which are not. So you can know where the leakage is and fix it easily.