Google’s new small business holiday hub is full of resources marketers can use to prepare for the busiest shopping season of the year.
The mini-site contains personalized recommendations to assist businesses with reaching shoppers across Google Search, Google Shopping, and Google Maps.
Reaching customers online is especially crucial this year, as Google points to a study showing 71% of US adults plan to do more than half of their shopping digitally.
Those shoppers say they’re open to buying from new retailers, especially local small businesses.
To be exact – 66% of people in the US who plan to shop this holiday season say they will shop more at local small businesses.
Google is helping to ensure customers can find those local businesses online by putting together a hub of holiday marketing resources.
Let’s take a look at what’s available so far and how marketers can use the resources to enhance their online strategy this holiday season.
Google For Small Business Holiday Hub
Google’s holiday hub contains two powerful new tools, as well as lessons, livestreams, and how-to guides.
First, here’s a look at the new tools.
Tools For Marketers
Grow My Store
The Grow My Store tool will analyze your site’s customer experience, and show how your site performs relative to others in the same retail category.
Simply enter the URL for your online store and Grow My Store will return tailored recommendations for improvement.
It takes several hours for Google to generate a full report, so be aware of that before starting.
See a video demonstration of the new tool below:
Google does not ask users to verify ownership of the site before creating a report, which means this tool can be used for competitive analysis as well.
This tool is designed for businesses that have an online store. If your business only sells goods at a physical location there’s a separate tool for that.
Local Opportunity Finder
Google’s Local Opportunity Finder is designed for small businesses looking to attract customers to a physical location.
The tool is created to help local businesses get the most out of their Google My Business profile.
Similar to the Grow My Site tool, Local Opportunity Finder provides personalized suggestions for making improvements to your Business Profile on Google.
See a video demonstration below:
Local Opportunity Finder can only be used by US businesses at time time.
Marketing Lessons From Google
Google’s small business holiday hub contains a number of short lessons for marketers ranging from 4 minutes to 16 minutes in length.
Lessons include:
- How to list products in Google for free
- Making it easy for customers to find you
- Creating an effective social media plan
- SEO best practices
- Five options for getting your business online
The holiday hub also links out to many existing help guides on how to utilize different features within Google My Business.
Live Streams
The holiday hub links out to at least one live stream scheduled for October, with potentially more to come between now and the holidays.
On October 14, Google is holding a one hour live demonstration on how to use Shopify with Google Merchant Center.
The stream will also cover how to use the new Local Opportunity Finder and Grow My Store tools.
Marketers can register for free here.
For more information about everything discussed in this article, visit the Google for Small Business Holiday Hub.
