A BIA/Kelsey study shows 97% of consumers research products online before making local purchases with 58% using coupons in their local area and 19% making appointments online for local best IT services company. As a result, many e-commerce merchants and multi-location brick & mortar businesses have expanded their online presence.
The most frequently searched-for data are nearby store locations (address/phone), store hours, products/services offered, directions, coupons/offers, in-store pickup info, etc. All this information can be provided through store location finders.
A Store Location Finder represents multi-location businesses online. Each store location is represented by a store location landing page that users see when they search for your business on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and business information directories like YellowPages.com, SuperPages, Yelp, etc.
When you manage and enhance your brand in the above engines and directories, displaying all of your business data with consistency, the results are twofold: (1) the engines and directories deliver accurate information to users and (2) you achieve higher search rankings, more traffic, and more conversions.
Killer Store Location Finders Boost Ecommerce
Scalable optimization using a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform allows you to increase search traffic through local and organic search results. Shoppers see your store location finder data without the need for constant IT labor and upgrades on your part.
Without an optimized Store Location Finder, you get fewer conversions and lower customer satisfaction while diminishing the value of your brand. You also significantly reduce the market opportunity for each store/office location or dealership.
Currently, mobile is the preferred device for consumers conducting research and buying goods online in the U.S (2013 Mobile Path-to-Purchase study). Since 40 percent of mobile searches are local (20% on desktops), why miss the traffic and conversions?
It’s important to optimize your store location finder displays, which you can do manually or by using a store finder SaaS platform. (Disclosure: I advise firms that provide and/or distribute store location finder software.)
Good Examples of Poor Performing Store Location Finders
Most retailers currently do not optimize their store finders for traffic and conversions; thus, their listings are missing many of the informational components users are looking for. For instance, check the examples below displaying a poor store locator with unsatisfactory results for “Coach” and “Michaels.”
The Coach store finder is missing search by current location, search by city, search by neighborhood, enhanced localized data, microdata markup, local store images, registration, rich media (video), local promotions, links to circulars, social check-in’s. The Coach store finder has no individual store location landing page with localized content and no SEO best practices. Coach is missing 70% of its local market online.
