Search “florist near me” on your phone right now. Before any website, you get a map with three shops on it. Here is the good news about that box: the national wire services cannot be in it. They do not have a shop in your town. The map is for real businesses with real doors, and that is you.
That box is run by one thing: your Google Business Profile, the free listing that shows on Google Maps. Most florists claimed it years ago and have not touched it since. Here is how to finish it.
1. Fill in every field
Business name exactly as it is on the sign. Address. Phone. Website. Hours, including the holiday hours you will set later. Then the fields most florists skip: a description in plain words, the service area (every town you deliver to), and attributes like “delivery,” “in-store pickup” and “same-day delivery.”
2. Pick the right categories
Your primary category should be Florist. Add Flower delivery as a second, and Wedding florist or Flower designer only if that is real work you want more of. Do not add “gift shop” or “garden center” to look bigger. It tells Google you are not a specialist, and specialists win the map.
3. Add products with prices
Google lets you list products on the listing, with a photo and a price. Florists almost never do this, and it is the single easiest win on this list. Add your ten best sellers: a dozen roses, a sympathy standing spray, a birthday arrangement, a desk plant. Real photos of your work, real prices. A buyer scanning three listings on a phone picks the one that already shows her what she can get and what it costs.
4. Photos of your work, every week
Google rewards listings with lots of real photos, and a florist makes something beautiful every single day. Photograph it before it goes out the door. The arrangement on the counter. The cooler, full. The delivery van. The designer at the bench. One or two a week, with a caption that names the occasion. A listing with hundreds of real photos beats a listing with twelve, every time.
5. Reviews that name the occasion
Reviews are the biggest single factor in the three-pin box. Florists have an odd problem here: the person who paid is often not the person who saw the flowers. The reviews guide shows how to get both. The best reviews name what and where: “sympathy arrangement delivered to the funeral home in Brandon, it was exactly what we asked for.” Reply to every one.
6. Set holiday hours now, not the week of
Valentine's Day and Mother's Day are the two days a year your listing gets the most looks, and the listing that says “closed Sunday” on Mother's Day loses every one of them. Set special hours for the holidays as soon as you know them. Google will ask you to confirm; answer it. The holiday guide has the full timeline.
7. Post like it is social media
The listing has a posts feature almost nobody uses. A photo and two sentences once a week: what is in the cooler, a wedding you just did, the same-day cutoff for the holiday coming up. It keeps the listing alive in Google's eyes and gives a buyer something from this week to look at.
8. Turn on messaging and the order link
Let people message you from the listing and put your own ordering link on it, not a wire-service link. Google sends you the order free. Do not pay a cut on it.
9. Match everything to your website
Your name, address and phone number must be identical on the listing, your website and every directory that mentions you. An old phone number from before you moved, still floating around on a wire-service directory, splits your trust in two. Boring, and it matters.
How to check your progress
Once a week, search “florist” plus your city on your phone from a few spots: the shop, a hospital parking lot, home. See who is in the three pins. If it is not you, go back through the nine steps and find what is missing. Usually it is reviews or products.
Want this done for you?
The Google listing is the first thing I fix for any florist, because it is the one place the wire services cannot follow you. If you want me to look at yours, the audit is free.