This is the second in a three-part series on SEO for UK florists. If you haven't already, start with Part 1 on Google Business Profile. When you're done here, Part 3 covers delivery pages, reviews and free tools.
Short on time? Right-click your homepage, hit "View Page Source," and search for <title>. If what you find says "Home" or doesn't mention your town anywhere, that one line of hidden text is probably costing you more customers than you'd think. Change it to something like "Fresh Flower Delivery in [Your Town] | Same Day | Your Shop Name." While you're at it, check 5 of your product images - if the alt text is blank or still shows a filename like IMG_4392.jpg, write a quick description for each one. Both of these take about 20 minutes total.
In Part 1 we covered your Google Business Profile - the single most important thing for showing up in local map results. But your actual website matters too, and most florist websites are undermining themselves in ways that take minutes to fix.
This isn't about code or technical wizardry. It's about the text Google reads when it tries to understand what each of your pages is about. Most florist websites have this text either set to something meaningless or left completely blank, which means Google is basically guessing - and usually guessing wrong.
Title tags and meta descriptions
Your title tag is the blue clickable text in Google search results. Your meta description is the grey text underneath. Together, they're the first impression someone gets of your business before they've even visited your site.
Most florist websites have never had these set up properly. Check yours now - right-click anywhere on your homepage, choose "View Page Source," and search for <title>. If it says "Home," "Welcome," or just your business name without a location, that's the problem.
Each page needs its own title tag describing what that specific page offers, where you are, and why someone should click.
Here's what the difference looks like:
| Page | What most florists have | What actually works |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage | Home | Fresh Flower Delivery in Manchester | Same Day | Your Shop Name |
| Bouquets | Products | Handtied Bouquets | Order Online | Manchester Florist |
| Weddings | Weddings | Wedding Flowers Manchester | Free Consultation | Your Shop Name |
| Funerals | Funeral Flowers | Funeral Flowers & Tributes | Same Day Delivery | Manchester |
| About | About Us | About Your Shop Name | Independent Manchester Florist Since 2008 |
Keep them under 60 characters so Google doesn't cut them off. Front-load the important words. "Fresh Flower Delivery in Manchester" beats "Your Shop Name - We Deliver Fresh Flowers in Manchester" because the thing the customer actually searched for appears first.
Meta descriptions don't directly affect your ranking position, but they massively affect whether someone clicks your result or the one below it. Think of them as a tiny advert. Under 155 characters, mention what the page offers, your location, and a reason to choose you:
"Order beautiful handtied bouquets from your local Manchester florist. Same-day delivery available. Order online or call us today."
Nothing fancy - just tell people what they'll get if they click through.
Keywords - less complicated than you've been told
Keyword research sounds like something you'd need specialist software for. For a florist, it's actually the most intuitive part of SEO, because your keywords are just the things your customers type into Google. You already know what those are.
If you've ever answered the phone and heard "Do you deliver to Clapham?" - that's a keyword. "Flower delivery Clapham" is what they'd have typed into Google instead of calling.
Your core keywords almost always follow the same pattern: what you sell + where you are.
- Florist Birmingham
- Flower delivery Birmingham
- Same-day flower delivery Birmingham
- Wedding florist Birmingham
- Funeral flowers Birmingham
Start there, then expand by thinking about every area you deliver to. Twelve towns and neighbourhoods? Twelve keyword opportunities. "Flower delivery Moseley." "Flower delivery Edgbaston." "Florist Harborne." We cover how to build pages around these in Part 3.
Once you know your keywords, use them in the places Google looks hardest: your page title tags, your main heading on each page, your body content, and your image alt text.
The pub test: Read your page content out loud. If it sounds like something you'd say to a customer who walked in, the keyword usage is fine. If it sounds like you're being held hostage by a marketing textbook, you've overdone it. Google's been good at spotting keyword stuffing for over a decade now, and it does more harm than good.
Image alt text - the 30-second fix most florists miss entirely
Every image on your website has a hidden text field called alt text. It was designed for screen readers - software that reads web pages aloud for people who can't see the screen. Google also uses it to understand what your images show, because search engines can't look at photos the way we can.
The problem is that most florist websites have alt text that's either completely blank or still showing the camera filename. "IMG_4392.jpg" tells Google absolutely nothing about what's in the picture, and every blank alt text field is a missed chance to reinforce what you do and where you are.
Writing good alt text takes about 30 seconds per image. Describe what's in the photo. Include relevant details where they fit naturally.
| What most sites have | What you should write |
|---|---|
| (blank) | Pink rose handtied bouquet with eucalyptus, same-day delivery in Birmingham |
| IMG_4392.jpg | Funeral wreath with white lilies and chrysanthemums |
| bouquet | Spring mixed bouquet with tulips and daffodils |
| shop photo | Our flower shop on the high street in Birmingham |
Don't force keywords in where they don't belong. "Pink rose handtied bouquet with eucalyptus, available for same-day delivery in Birmingham" is both an honest description and useful text for Google. That's the sweet spot.
Worth knowing: about 2 million people in the UK live with significant sight loss, according to the RNIB. Proper alt text means your website actually works for them too - screen readers can describe your arrangements instead of just reading out "IMG_4392.jpg" over and over. It's one of those rare cases where doing the right thing and doing the SEO thing are exactly the same action.
What to do this week
The first thing to check is your homepage title tag - right-click the page, View Page Source, search for <title>. If it doesn't mention your town and what you actually do, rewriting it is the single highest-impact change you can make. Then do the same for your 3 or 4 most important pages: bouquets, weddings, funerals, contact. Any that just say "Products" or "About Us" need sorting.
After that, write a meta description for your homepage - keep it under 155 characters, mention where you are and what you offer. Then pick 5 product images on your site and look at their alt text. If they're blank or showing filenames, write a proper one-line description for each. Finally, read your homepage content out loud and ask yourself: does this mention my town? Does it say what I do? Would it sound normal if I said it to a customer standing in the shop?
In Part 3, we cover the strategy that separates florists who rank for one town from florists who rank for twenty - delivery area pages - plus reviews, page speed, and the only four free tools you actually need.