12 Tips to Prepare Your Local Listings for the Holidays (+Free Checklist!)

The holidays are right around the corner…and so are your customers! If growing your small business is on your holiday marketing wish list, look no further than your local listing profiles.

This is how your customers might look when they’re searching around for your holiday local listings. 

Preparing your Yelp, Google Business Profile, or other local listings for the holidays is a surefire way to drive more revenue. We’ll walk through how to optimize your local listings with the latest 2022 updates just in time for the holidays and provide all the answers you need to questions like:

• How do I add holiday hours to a Google Business Profile or Yelp lising?
• How do I get more Yelp business reviews or Google Business Profile reviews this holiday season?
• What platform updates can help me with my local listing holiday marketing?

Plus, read on for a downloadable checklist with all our tips so you can make sure your local listings are on the nice list this year.

Yelp updates and tips for your 2022 holiday marketing

In 2022, Yelp is a necessary component of an effective local search marketing strategy. Yelp has certainly been busy this year to make the holiday season bright for small businesses. Here are some Yelp updates with tips to make your holiday listings brighter this season.

1. Try Yelp Ads

If you’re not already using Yelp Ads, the holiday season is the perfect time to start. In fact, Yelp Ads received updates earlier this year that can be put to use this holiday season.

For example, its new “keyword boosting” technology allows you to optimize around terms that are most important to your business during the holidays. Plus, the platform has upgraded the number of historical data cues used to provide your business with budget recommendations. Smarter budget recommendations in Yelp Ads mean you can stretch your marketing budget further over the holiday season.

2. Review your pricing and quote information

Regardless of your industry, over 60 business categories now have access to Yelp’s request a quote feature that was introduced back in 2020. If you haven’t opted to use this feature yet, it can help drive leads for your business by allowing potential customers to fill out an inquiry questionnaire right from within the platform.

Additionally, don’t forget to remind any current service customers to leave you a review. Yelp has also created a new review guide that has pre-set prompts to make reviews quicker and easier to create.

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3. Check out Yelp’s trend forecasts

In November 2022, Yelp released a trend forecast for some of the most popular industries on the platform: food, beauty, and home.

The comprehensive forecasts include interviews with industry experts and suggestions for the types of content that will position your listing as an industry leader. For example, if you’re looking to build out your home services marketing strategy you check out the Yelp home trends report to decide what types of photos of your work you could include on your listing.

Google Business Profile tips for better holiday marketing

To have a well-rounded local strategy this holiday season, not only will you want a strong Yelp presence—you’ll need an optimized Google Business Profile listing too.

Google Business Profile optimizations are an easy way to maximize visibility and lead-driving tactics for your holiday marketing strategy. Here are our tips to make the most out of your Google Business Profile holiday marketing:

4. Add seasonal products or service offerings to your Google Business Profile

Over the last few years, Google has observed huge jumps in the popularity of certain searches. For example, searches that include the queries “who has” and “in stock” have grown over 8,000% year over year. Meanwhile, searches for “support local businesses” grew by 20,000% back in 2021. This means your local audience will be looking specifically for what your type of business has to offer this holiday season.

Google Business Profile is recognizing this by now providing the option to list out services, products, menu items, and any offerings in between, right on your Search or Maps Business Profile. By including your key items, you’ll enable searchers to view your holiday offerings without ever having to click away.

This Google Business Profile includes pictures of holiday menu items.

5. Try Google Business Profile posts

We know the holidays are the prime time for small businesses as people look to support their local economy. However, with a peak season comes peak competition.

Google Business Profile posts are a fantastic way to stand out in a saturated search result space since you’ll be giving your audience something fresh to look at within your Business Profile. Treat them similarly to holiday social media posts. You can use Google Business Profile posts to announce upcoming holiday events, highlight limited edition holiday products and services, update holiday hours, or share how your business is celebrating the season.

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6. Respond to your Google Business Profile reviews

Get ahead of holiday customer service woes by starting to respond to reviews on Google Business Profile now.

Reputation management is a must-have year-round, but even more so around the holidays as consumers decide which brand to do business with. Google Business Profile makes it easy to respond to reviews. It’s a quick and simple prompted process that allows you to deal with bad reviews and turn them into a positive tool your business can leverage just in time for the holidays.

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Even more local listing tips for the holidays

Still looking for other ways to check local listings off your holiday marketing to-do list? We’ve got you covered! Regardless of whether you’re on Angi, Yelp, Google, Facebook, or other local listing sites, these holiday marketing tips can apply to you:

7. Get creative with your business description

Stand out from the competition this season by using festive language in your business description. Brighten up your business description for the holidays with a winter marketing slogan or a holiday anecdote. Show off your seasonal spirit by discussing how your business traditionally celebrates. Or, encourage your customers to do business with you for a unique holiday experience.

8. Double-check your profile’s holiday hours

Is your business closing, changing shipment times, or altering hours for certain holidays this year? If so, be sure to double-check that the standard information across all your local listings is accurate.

Your customers will have hopping holiday schedules, and they’ll want to contact or find your business quickly and easily. Ensure that your phone number, address, operating hours, and shipping information are consistent across all your listings.

You can find out how to update your Google Business holiday hours here. And, you can follow the steps to update your Yelp holiday hours here.

Here is an example of updating Google Business Profile holiday hours.

9. Try other channels to boost local searches

Your business’s local listing is only as strong as the traffic it gets! Getting your listings ready for the holidays is just half of your local marketing battle.

In order to drive more traffic to your Yelp page, Google Business Profile, or other local listings, people have to know about your business first. Investing in a multichannel marketing strategy can help with this. For example, local PPC ads can boost searches for your business that will lead people to your Google Business Profile.

You can also increase brand awareness with holiday social media posts that will lead your audience to your local listings in the future. (Check out December social media post ideas here!)

10. The more photos, the merrier

It’s been proven that local listings with multiple images bring in more website visits, direction requests, and calls. Plus, consumers retain 95% of a message when it’s in media format.

Since holiday messaging can be fleeting, this is the perfect time to add more photos to your local profiles since you have plenty of material to work with.

For example, you could add pictures of your decorated storefront, an employee holiday party, a limited-edition holiday offering, or even a holiday-themed video. This will spice up your local listing to draw attention and make your brand more memorable.

This local restaurant features a picture of holiday decorations on its Google Business Profile.

11. Incentivize your local audience

If you’re struggling to get traction on your local listings, a little bit of holiday incentivizing never hurts.

For example, you could pull in new searches by running a referral program through the winter. Or entice your current audience by posting pictures or promotions of holiday happenings your business is running.

Alternatively, you could try gently asking for reviews after holiday purchases via an email campaign to boost your directory listings long after the New Year’s celebrations are over.

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12. Connect your local listing holiday updates back to your website

There should be a strong correlation between your audience’s experience on your directory listings and your small business website this holiday season. Research has shown that on Google Business Profiles alone, 56% of actions taken from listings are website visits. This means that viewers of your holiday local listings are likely headed to your website too. Connecting your website back to your local listings ensures a smooth and cohesive buyer’s journey throughout the holidays.

Aside from checking that your website links are accurate and working correctly on your listings, you’ll want your holiday content to be buttoned up on both channels as well. For example, if you’re promoting a holiday special on your local listing pages, your website should include that same holiday promotion.

You’ll also want to ensure that your website is ready to handle any traffic generated from your updated holiday listings. You can use free, online tools to check that your website’s key components are functioning at the highest level. Our free website grader makes it easy by giving you an instant score that identifies any areas of your website that may need to be looked at before the holidays kick into gear.

An example of how the LocaliQ website grader can help you improve your online presence during the holidays. 

Check local listings off your holiday marketing to-do list

Local listings are important throughout the year, but holiday-themed profiles can take your business to the next level this season. With new updates in time for the holidays, refreshing your Yelp listing, Google Business Profile, or other listings will be a piece of cake. Be sure to save the checklist below to make your small business’s local listing the gift that keeps on giving!

PS: Looking for more holiday marketing tips? Download our 2022 holiday marketing guide packed with new data to win big this season.

Use our free business listings grader to make sure you’re acing every item on this list!