Downtown St Albert
Perron Street
St Albert, Alberta
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 Building a strong local economy is the sum of many parts. Perhaps one of the best natural examples of many moving parts working in harmony to achieve a common objective is that of a honeybee swarm.
Duty Bound
These intuitive creatures rely on teamwork to survive. Individual bees all have a specific role to play from male drones to females and finally the queen. Segregation of duty allows each member to understand clearly their assigned role and responsibility in relation to the good of the swarm, of the hive and this increases efficiency and boosts productivity!
The lesson?
Downtown business owners benefit when they work together toward both short and long-term goals. Building a network can take on many forms: associations where regular meetings take place for brainstorming and collaboration, social media groups, and online communities such as this one.
Shared Branding
Bees belonging to the same hive share the same pigmentation and this serves a valuable purpose namely it provides a colour code to distinguish from other colonies. This feature enhances defense capabilities.
The lesson?
Building a collective brand as a downtown core of businesses identifies the association as unique and helps all who are part of the ‘colony’ to stand out from the crowd.
Managing Threats or Disasters Potential predators produce hormones and thankfully bees can sense these; they can literally ‘feel’ them. When a threat is sensed, signals are sent throughout the colony to prepare for an attack.
The lesson?
As a collective group, downtown businesses in St Albert benefit greatly through clear, consistent communication with one another so that collectively they can be prepared to weather stormy times or other attacks on the economy and stand united to survive.
How ShopStAlbert.com can help!
Today it has become clear that the way consumers as a whole choose to locate and eventually shop with local businesses for products and services has forever changed and continues to rapidly evolve.
One striking feature that our post-COVID world produced was a massive reliance on what is commonly called ‘local search’. In reality ‘local search’ is online searches via search engines to quickly locate, contact, and shop with businesses and service providers ‘near’ them.
In fact, since the pandemic struck in March of 2020, research reveals that worldwide online searches for local products and services increased by over 900% and this has not revealed signs of falling back; it has shaped both consumer behaviour and response.
Google, being the world’s most widely used and trusted search engine, has modified much of its algorithms in response to this consumer-led shift. Businesses (small businesses in particular) are being urged to take a long hard look at where they rank on local search. Why?
The sheer volume of local searches is a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t want to show up on page 1 for these types of searches? Another reason is that it facilitates a high potential for new customer growth which in turn fosters more consumer loyalty. Lastly, if they are not finding local businesses, who are they finding? Edmonton businesses? Amazon?
ShopStAlbert.com is one of thousands of sister platforms spanning Canada and the U.S. with a 20-year history in Search Engine Optimization or as we call it today, Local Search Marketing!
The platform is a magnet for Google to index content and has a proven track record of helping local businesses get found on Google searches for the keywords representing the products and services they offer. ShopStAlbert.com has something for everyone, both consumers and businesses alike. For consumers, it helps them locate all the great businesses right here in their own ‘backyard’!
As for St Albert businesses, they benefit from having their business information available for Google indexing as all businesses in St City can use their free business profile page to post information, sell electronic gift cards, and more.
The goal in creating this dedicated association profile for the Downtown core is to build a sense of community online and to eventually have all the businesses associated benefit from the thousands of residents performing online searches each and every day!
Some businesses have chosen to ramp up their exposure through our Local Search Marketing packages with excellent results. Each business would do well to request complimentary keyword research from us so we can determine where any gaps may lie in your business’s visibility on local search. How a business chooses to address any gaps is ultimately up to them but we are happy to provide some transparency around this often overlooked aspect of a business’s online marketing strategy.
The platform represents only one aspect in addressing the issue of how to make Downtown thrive, yet it is a very important aspect, one that we are super-stoked about since we have been yielding great results for nearly 6 years now. We encourage all businesses to claim their free business profile page, add loads of content to their bio, and take advantage of unlimited posting to the ShopstAlbert news feed. All information and activity on this platform serve to benefit not just your individual business rather, like the honey bees, it benefits the hive.
It’s ‘Time for Business!’
Kind regards,
Bryan Merrill | City Manager ShopStAlbert.com
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