Are you the owner of a health food store or natural grocer looking for an online marketing strategy? If you answered yes, let me ask you a question. Do you feel pressured that to succeed online, you must open an ecommerce online store?
If you answered yes to the second question, let me help relieve some of that pressure. While product pages are the correct strategy for some health food retailers, this step comes much later in your digital marketing journey. The first step is focusing on SEO and optimizing current pages where people see your business and those unseen pages that are important.
SEO For Health Food Stores
If you want an education on SEO for your health food store, you’re in luck. This article will discuss some of the best ways to increase your search engine rankings. First, let’s set our intentions correctly and put ourselves in the right mindset.
Creating high-quality content is at the forefront of any SEO strategy. SEO content marketing means more than just writing blog posts, articles, and other informative pieces. It means any website content written to describe your business, explain your service, and communicate with potential customers.
Health food stores with an omnichannel presence are thriving! But there’s much information that people want to know, from product names and health food categories to different recipes and meal ideas.
Ranking for every search term within your business category is unrealistic. So it’s crucial that you have the correct SEO strategy focusing on search terms that bring you, potential customers.
What is SEO For a Health Food Store?
SEO for a health food store is optimizing your directory listings, map listings, and online website to increase rankings in search engines. This way, you have the most visibility within your community.
A further definition for health food SEO is ensuring your company has maximum exposure to natural food shoppers. Any consumer looking for a local store, specific food category, or an exact product.
Key factors that go into SEO for a health food store include:
- Optimizing keywords.
- Showcasing expertise with helpful content.
- Building links from other relevant websites.
We will learn how to accomplish these as we move further along in this article.
You can also improve your SEO by promoting your website online. A list of online promotions includes building local mentions, social media campaigns, and PPC advertising. The more traffic your website pages receive, the more relevant they appear to the search engines.
SEO Tips For Health Food Stores
Looking for the meat of this article and don’t feel like getting a complete education? Here are some tips to help you get started.
- Create Content With Local Intent: As we mentioned above, one of the best ways to improve your SEO is by creating informative and engaging content. As you create content, integrate your geographic location into the conversation.
- Optimize your website: Make sure you use the correct keywords and tags and that your website is easy to navigate. We call it a technical SEO website design, and it helps search engines find your site and rank it higher on the results pages.
- Promote your website: Get the word out about your health food store by promoting it online. Online mentions produce backlinks that are an SEO ranking factor.
- Setup online directories: An inexpensive way to improve your SEO is by setting up online directories. We can do this by creating profiles on popular sites like Yelp and Google My Business. Doing this can improve your visibility and attract more customers to your store.
- Get involved in the community: Another great way to improve your SEO is community involvement. We can do this by joining local online groups and discussion forums. You can build relationships with other businesses and individuals in the community by getting involved.
7 Steps For Healthy SEO
These 7-steps are specific to what most health food stores are lacking.
Step 1: Setup All Directory Listings
We usually suggest the top 25 or 50 but in this case, go all out. The more brand mentions you have; the more confident Google is regarding the information you post on your business profile.
Step 2: Be Active On All Social Media Profiles
No matter how you feel about social media, it is helpful for SEO. You don’t have to be an influencer, but search engines notice an active presence. If you pause your social media activity, hit the play button.
Step 3: Optimize Your Google Business Profile
Your GBP page is more than just an online directory. Setting up your Google Business Profile is a secondary website for your health food store. You will increase your visibility and reach more customers online by correctly filling out all the information.
Here’s How To Properly Set Up Your Google Business Profile
The first step is creating a Google account if you don’t already have one. Once you have created an account, you can create a Google Business Profile. To do this, go to google.com/business and enter your business information.
Be sure to fill out all fields accurately, including your business name, address, phone number, website, and hours of operation. You can also add images and videos to help showcase your business.
Once you have created your profile, verify it by entering a verification code sent to you by mail or phone.
Once you have verified your profile, be sure to complete the following tasks:
– Add a description of your business
– Add keywords that describe your business
– Add links to your website and social media pages
– Add photos and videos of your business
– Respond to reviews from customers
By completing these tasks, you can improve your SEO and attract more customers to your health food store.
Step 4: Request Reviews
SEO and reputation management are two essential aspects of online marketing.
- SEO is optimizing a website to rank higher in the search engine results pages.
- Reputation management is managing the online reputation of a business.
Both are important for a health food store, as they can help improve visibility and attract more customers.
The good news for local SEO is that online reviews help your SEO with the Google Map Pack. Google considers your website’s reputation the second most important ranking factor after content. This means that having a positive online presence is vital if you want to rank higher in search engines.
Getting positive reviews from customers is not an option. By requesting reviews from your customers, you can show potential customers that you are a trusted source of information.
Step 5: Get a Website Audit
An SEO website audit helps you discover any potential issues your website may have. Identifying and fixing these issues can improve your website’s visibility and rank in the search results pages.
At 805 SEO, we offer a free website audit that will identify any areas of your website that need improvement. Our team of experts will evaluate your website and provide a report with recommendations for fixing any SEO issues.
Contact us today to learn more about our website audit service if you want to improve your SEO.
Step 6: Ask For Backlinks
Backlinks are an SEO ranking factor that few websites consider. With a little effort, you can outperform the competition.
A health food store can get backlinks in several ways. Here are a few.
Industry Websites
Another great way to get backlinks from industry websites is to take part in industry discussions and forums. You can share your thoughts and experiences on various topics and then ask other participants if they would be interested in linking to your website.
Local Food Bloggers
Food bloggers are an untapped source of traffic for health food stores. For a health food store to tap into this traffic, they need to have some high-quality content on their website. This content can be as blog posts, recipes, or product reviews.
Once you have some quality content on your website, reach out to food bloggers and offer them something in return for a link back to your site.
Guest Post On Local Websites
Guest posting is a great way to build brand recognition and increase backlinks to your website. Submitting high-quality content to other websites can increase your visibility and reach more potential customers. It’s also a value add for the website owner and a great way to start a link-building relationship.
When guest posting, be sure to target local newspapers and online news. These publications are often interested in content relevant to their local audience, especially when it’s food related.
Once you have found a few target publications, reach out to their editorial staff and pitch them your idea for a guest post. Be sure to include a sample of your writing so they can see the quality you produce.
If they are interested in your idea, be sure to work with their editorial team to get the post published. Promote the post on your website and social media pages once it’s published.
Step 7: Begin Blog Article Content Marketing
One of the best ways a health food store can use content marketing to increase its rankings is by creating blog articles focusing on relevant topics. Consider writing articles about local produce, meal preparation, and health-related activities.
To enrich the experience, you can include videos and photos on your website pulled from social media pages.
Step 9: Email Marketing
Sending regular email newsletters keeps customers informed about your store and its products. But you know this, right?
Besides store updates, you can use blog articles within your email marketing campaign. Including blog articles in your email newsletter increases the number of visitors to the page, which Google monitors.
Email marketing and blog articles synergistically increase your website traffic and improve your search engine rankings. Please do it!
SEO Strategies For Health Food Stores
Before we let you go, let’s give you some health food store-specific strategies that pertain to SEO.
Strategy #1: Consider Each Category As Its Own Business
Your health food store includes a lot of internal categories, such as healthy snacks, ready-to-eat meals, and fresh produce. When you think of your SEO strategy, create an action plan for each product category.
Strategy #2: Make Your Food Items Enticing
We live in a visual community, so make sure every page on your website looks appetizing. Where most businesses prioritize their home page, give just as much effort to your product and blog article pages. Images can include meta information (title and description), which is another way to show up in the search engine.
Strategy #3: Take Your Market To The Community
It might not make sense to spend money selling your food outside of the place where you pay heavy rent, but from an SEO lens, it does. Your time in the community creates backlink opportunities and is an excellent way to get visual content for your website. Visual content then gets placed on your Google Business Profile and your website with meta information helping you rank in image searches.
A Natural Approach to SEO
At 805 SEO, with 20 years of experience in the health food and supplement space. We owned health food and sports nutrition stores for most of those 20 years. We’ve been in your shoes and can help you scale your business with local SEO.
Receive a free website audit and strategy session by filling out the form below.