SEO for Traverse City businesses

Traverse City had 15,678 people at the 2020 census. The four-county metro area had 153,448, and it’s the largest city in Northern Michigan. In July the numbers change. The National Cherry Festival draws about 500,000 visitors a year, and summer tourism drives retail and restaurant sales across town.

Those two groups don’t search the same way.

• Visitors plan from home. Someone in Detroit or Chicago searches “Traverse City wineries” or “fishing charter Grand Traverse Bay” before they pack. They read reviews, open three websites and book one. Your site has to rank in regular results for those searches, because Maps proximity doesn’t help when the searcher is hours away.
• Visitors decide on the spot. Once they’re in town, the search becomes “breakfast near me” or “brewery open now.” That’s a Google Maps search, and your hours, photos and reviews decide it.
• Locals search year-round. Hospitality employs about 14% of the Grand Traverse workforce. The rest of town still needs plumbers, dentists, accountants and roofers through a winter where snow can fall from November to April. Those customers search the way locals do anywhere, and they pick the business they trust.

A plan for your business starts by deciding which of these you depend on, then building for that first.

Traverse City sits at the head of Grand Traverse Bay, where the 18-mile Old Mission Peninsula splits it into an East Arm and a West Arm. The Leelanau Peninsula separates the bay from Lake Michigan. Two wine regions recognized by the federal government, the Old Mission Peninsula and Leelanau Peninsula AVAs, sit right next to the city, and there are more than 50 wineries nearby.

Most of those wineries, orchards and inns have addresses outside the city limits. So do the stores and restaurants in Garfield Township, the city’s southwest neighbor and the largest municipality in Northern Michigan by population. Customers call all of it “Traverse City.” Google is more literal. It reads the address on your profile and compares it with your site and every directory listing.

That’s why I set up your pages to say both things clearly: the town or township on your address, and how far you are from downtown or Front Street. Visitors searching “Old Mission winery” and “Traverse City winery” should both find you.

How do I keep Google right about my hours when they change every season?

Wrong hours cost you twice. A visitor drives out to a closed tasting room, then writes a review about it. Google Business Profile lets you set regular hours and separate special hours for holidays and one-off dates. Most seasonal businesses only change the regular hours, late, and the old ones keep showing on Apple Maps, Yelp and the rest.

Before each season turns, I update your hours on the profile, your website and the main directories at the same time, so every listing says the same thing. If you close for the winter, I mark it properly instead of letting the listing go quiet. Then the profile stays alive with winter posts and photos, so it isn’t starting cold in spring.

What can I do in the slow months that pays off in summer?

The winter is when the work gets done. Pages written in January have months to get indexed and picked up before visitors start searching. That means a page for each thing you sell, written for the person planning a trip: what the charter includes, what the tasting room offers, which rooms have a bay view, what’s walkable from Front Street.

It’s also when I fix the listings, chase the links from local tourism sites and event pages, and add answers to the questions visitors ask most. By the time the Cherry Festival crowd arrives, the groundwork has been in place for months.

What will I see in my report each month?

Maps rankings checked from points across town, the peninsulas and the township, so you can see where your reach stops. Search rankings for the trip-planning terms that matter to you. Calls, direction requests and website visits from your profile. Bookings or form leads, with last month and the same month last year beside them, because a February to July comparison tells you nothing in a tourist town. Then what I worked on, why, and what’s next. If a number went down, it’s in the report with my read on why, not buried. You can reply with questions and I’ll answer them on a call or by email.