Find Your Local Florist:Everything you want to know about flowers!
Did you know that when you shop small and local, more than 50% of the money you spend stays in the community? A movement away from impersonal big-box stores has lead to more customers trusting their local small businesses and communities experiencing economic growth.
Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of a florist looks like? Sometimes it’s not as glamorous as you may think. Step into the life of Keira Lennox, a florist who shares what it is really like to run a flower shop.
SEO means Search Engine Optimization, or optimizing your flower shop’s website to best be found in search engines, like Google, Bing or Yahoo Search. Now, this may seem like a daunting task, but it’s really quite easy to get started and I bet you’ve already done more for SEO than you realize!
First off, I know local florists are not web developers, and most use a hosting service with ecommerce store templates, which is great! Most developers include basic SEO into their sites, especially on the backend and in the code of their templates.
For this post, we are going to look at basic SEO strategies on the front end of your website, which is something any florist can do without having to call up their webmaster every 5 minutes. I want this post to be helpful for all levels of users, so I won’t go into meta tags and code speak this time.
What are keywords? Keywords are those words or phrases you type into search boxes to find what you are looking for on the web.
If you want to find pictures of rose arrangements, what would you most likely put into a search box? “pictures of roses, rose pictures, rose photos, rose arrangements” … the list can go on and on. Those words and phrases are all keywords. All of those are going to get you to web pages with pictures of roses.
Will searching for “photos of rose arrangements” get you to that website’s home page? Probably not. Remember this: not everyone who comes to your website lands on the home page.
Think of all of the pages on your website as their own little landing pages. If you were to look at each page individually and ask, “What would I have to type in a search box to get to this page?” Those words are your keywords. Now, before you go adding the keyword “photos of rose arrangements” 200 times on your page, remember this: search engines are very smart and can somehow tell if you do add “fluff” on your pages and will sometimes penalize for it. Just write your page copy naturally and with your customers in mind, they ultimately are your actual readers… not the search engines.
For SEO, your pages should have at least: [Read more…]
Contrary to popular belief, a local florist’s work can be exhausting and stressful at times, especially for the owner. When is the last time you and your great employees really cut loose and had some FUN?
Research shows that the more FUN you have in your shop, the happier and more productive your employees will be. Here are a few tips you can use to shake things up a bit…
Start small. Make a list of all your employee’s birthdays, and really celebrate their big day when the time comes! Here at FSN, we post a flyer of upcoming birthdays in our break room. This is a great way to show you care and make your employees feel special (because they are!)
Have a cookout! For lunch one day, plan a cookout! Bring a grill from home and make burgers or chicken with chips. (For your vegetarian employees, you can get a small 2 or 4 pack of pre-made veggie burgers and grill just like regular patties) If you’re not a fan of grilling, have it catered. Either way, little events like these really bring the team together!
Start a “Fun Budget”. It doesn’t have to be much, but the rewards can be fantastic! Save up a little bit and look for things you and your employees would like to do.
Having fun at work is important. Just look at Google, one of the biggest corporations in the world, inside their headquarters they offer: Foosball, pool tables, volleyball courts, assorted video games, pianos, ping pong tables, and gyms that offer yoga and dance classes. They also conduct grassroots employee groups for all interests, like meditation, film, wine tasting and salsa dancing. Of course I wish all of our local flower shops could install pool tables and offer salsa dancing, but for now a cookout and a few small adventures together will be just fine!
One of my favorite treats we were surprised with at Flower Shop Network was a masseuse! During our most stressful season, our awesome management brought in a masseuse to do chair massages (head/neck) during our break times. We each got a 15 min 
pick-me-up and were able to push through the day with a much, MUCH better attitude. Talk about brilliant!
Some companies plan outdoor excursions like hiking, rafting, floating or canoeing. Outdoor activities can be fairly inexpensive and a lot of fun!! Just getting together for a bonfire and roasting marshmallows will increase your teams bond.
While on these “fun” trips, take LOTS of pics and even video share on your Facebook Page. This will help your followers connect on a personal level with you and your team. It’s a great way to advertise the unique culture of your flower shop.
