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How to Promote Holiday Offers Free on Your Local Google Listing

Did you know you can post expiring coupons, videos, and update posts on  your company Google My Business listing?

Did you know that you don’t have to pay for online advertising to benefit from local search traffic?

Your Google My Business listing is the ultimate key to driving more local traffic to your store. It’s free to have: you’ll soon notice a rise in online traffic when you create your online listing.

The best thing about your local Google listing is that you can change it whenever you want. That means you can use it to make the most of seasonal promotions so that anybody looking for your services in the area will immediately be tempted by your offers!

This quick guide will show you how to get your free listing – and how to use it for seasonal promotions, too.

How to Claim Your Google My Business Listing

There are just a few quick steps to claim your free online listing:

1. Visit www.google.com/business and select the Start Now button.

2. Create or sign in to your Google account for your business.

3. Follow the instructions step-by-step to create your listing.

4. Verify your listing to make sure you appear in local searches.

When you’ve completed the above, your free local listing is live!

Everybody Loves Something for Free

The great thing about using your local Google listing to run holiday promotions and offers is that both you and your customers benefit!

Your marketing budget is kept low and your customers will receive money off (or free gifts) when they make a holiday purchase. It’s a win-win situation!

Some businesses feel that running offers can devalue their product offering. This can be true if your shop always has some discount area or constant sales.

However, irregular seasonal offers can be a great way to tempt back wayward customers as well as finding new ones. Customers feel they’re getting a bargain when they see discounts or special offers and that can be enough to help them choose your shop over another.

With that in mind, let’s look at how to boost your holiday offers without spending any extra money on marketing.

How to Promote Seasonal Offers on Your Local Google Listing

Now you’ve got your online listing it’s time to make the most of the free marketing opportunities.

1. Add a Post About Your Seasonal Promotions

You can add an offer in your post as an update, or specifically as an OFFER.   Update your Posts by going into your Google Business account and selecting “New Post” on the left-hand menu and choose the “Offer” tab in the new pop-up.  Add an image, and in “offer title” and “details” give information that is memorable and grabs attention as this is the first thing people will see of your offer.  You can add a start and end date, an optional coupon code, terms and conditions, and a link to your offer redemption page.

If you do a regular update post instead of offer, it’s similar. Add in a short amount of text and an image that shows off your related promotions. For example, if everything is ‘buy two get one free’ in a certain range for the holidays, include this in your post. You may also include coupon codes for your online store.

Once the post is published it will show up under your Google My Business listing when a related search is made.

2. Promote Your Holiday Event

Are you open late for a special evening shopping event? Do you have a special networking dinner for your business customers?

You can use the Posts function to add a new event, too. In the pop-up, just choose the “event” tab. Add the details, such as date, location, and start time, and hit publish.

Users will be able to click on this promotion to book their place on the event. This will help you to manage your attendee list so that you know how many to expect.

You can also create a list from those who have expressed an interest in the event to send further targeted marketing communications about the event and related products.

3. Shout About Your Seasonal Products

There’s one more function of ‘Posts’ on your listing: the What’s New section. This is the perfect place to shout about your holiday-related products.

Add a post as above: the What’s New posts have more space for additional information, images, and even videos. This is a great way to tempt local shoppers to visit your website and your bricks-and-mortar store during the run-up to the holiday season.

Ask an Expert to Help

If you’re having trouble setting up your local Google listing to make the most of free seasonal marketing opportunities, it’s time to speak to an expert.
free offer in GMB
A GMB and local SEO expert will be able to use the perfect keywords, based on customer psychology and keyword research, to make sure your free online promotions are effective in boosting sales. Get in touch with our team today to find out more!  Need help?  I will post your offer FOR you – not cost or obligation.  Just book a call time here.

Here’s a sample of a posted offer in GMB.  Take advantage of our special offer we posted on our GMB listing.

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Getting Started with SEO

Some ask me how to do SEO themselves and where to learn SEO online.

Of course, you can do it yourself – just like almost any profession out there. You can even be your own lawyer in court if you want to – there’s nobody saying you HAVE to pay an expert $400/hour to use their knowledge for much better chance of success – but most people don’t.

I’m not saying search engine optimization is that complicated, but most professionals that know what they’re doing, only know that from thousands, I mean 1,000’s of hours beyond the basics of SEO, of reading all the latest Google updates, experiences of others, experimenting and testing themselves, learning from past mistakes by self and others, spending lots of dollars on tools and tips.

Of course, you can do all that yourself to reach where other professionals are at.
Why not?  Start today.
Here are the best online resources to start your learning: (I will be gradually adding to this list).

  1. Download and read the latest from Google’s own starter guide on search engine optimization, which includes Mobile sites.
  2. Follow this mini SEO course on searchengineland.
  3. Be sure you are a member of LinkedIn, and join some of their industry Groups, like SEOMoz, and SearchEngineLand.
  4. Bookmark those two sites.  SEOMoz and SearchEngineLand.
  5. Download a handy free SEO tool for Firefox plugin here:  SEObook
  6. Get started with free software to research keywords, track your ranking, etc.  Google Analytics and Search Engine Console hooked up to your site is a must to track – but it can get complicated.  Good data in an easy-to-read and follow format isn’t free anymore, so the only real valuable search intelligence tools are paid subscriptions like SEMRush or ProRankTracker.
  7. For local businesses that need to show up in Google Maps better, learn how to optimize your Google My Business listing for best visibility with this constantly updated GMB tutorial.  It’s a thorough step by step course, so it’s not free – but it’s valuable practical knowledge.

More coming.  Stay tuned.

Of course, getting your website optimized for search and getting found in Google can be boring, tedious work for most business owners just trying to keep on top of their day to day business activities.  It’s not a typically enjoyable activity for the extrovert or person not wanting to go through a whole new learning curve.

Let Found Online Solutions do it for your.  We will.

  • get your local business found in the Google Maps 3-pack in most cases for various search terms
  • get your local or national website discovered on the first page of Google for your targeted terms.
  • help you build and keep tabs on your online reviews and reputation.

Book an appointment today with Duane- I’m sure you will learn something. I’d love to get to know your business and do a visual audit of your web presence and where it can improve to reach your goals.