Can you believe that the typical company gets over 1,000 searches every month? Any marketing approach must include both Search on google and local SEO. In this case, Google My Business comes in handy.
Google My Business is a free tool from Google for businesses of all sizes, from large corporations to small businesses. Businesses can improve their online presence by creating better local search strategies, utilizing Google reviews, and displaying their business location on Google Maps with a GMB account.
How to Improve Your Google Business Profile Ranking
1. Verify your website with Google Business Profile
If your company has been on the market for a while, the listing is likely already online (if you’re not sure, try Googling yourself). That’s true even if you didn’t make it yourself. However, you won’t be able to optimize it until you’ve claimed it. To begin, it’s critical to understand the distinction between a Google Business Profile and a Google My Business account. The second is used to obtain entry to and optimize the former. To make the changes, you’ll need to create a Google My Business account and afterwards tell Google to link it to your Google Business Page. Go to Google.com/business and sign in with your company’s regular Google/Gmail account to get started.
2. Complete your profile completely and accurately
Provide all pertinent information to your potential customers, including:
- Your company’s name
- Industry category “Marketing consultant,” for example. This is critical if you want to be found in relevant discovery searches, which are searches for a specific product or service in your area rather than your company name. And it’s from there, that the vast majority of Google Business profile views originate.
- Physical location
- Business hours (if applicable, particularly if you have a physical location that people can visit rather than just an address for your online business, as I do). Google will also inquire about it).
- Ensure both weekday and holiday hours are always up to date.
- Your area of expertise (if you provide your services outside of your physical location).
- Contact information, including phone number and website address (remember that, while helpful, your Google My Business account is not a substitute for your actual website.)
- Links to appointments
- Products
- Services
- To make your profile even more relevant, add attributes. For instance, “Identifies as a woman-owned business” adds “Online appointments” to the service options.
- Your company description (up to 750 characters)
- Photos. Please make sure they’re of good quality and portray you in a positive light (quite literally). Photos have been shown to attract more customers: According to Google, people are 42 percent more likely to request driving directions to a business with photos in its Business Profile and 35 percent more likely to visit its website.
- If you run a cafe or restaurant, for example, photos of the food (and drinks) and the interior are a must.
- Date of debut (if relevant)
- Remember that Google verifies all of the information and updates, taking up to three business days.
3. Add photos of your business and its products or services.
Uploading photos to your Google My Business account dashboard is crucial for three reasons:
- Check for quality. Because anyone can upload photos to your Business Profile, the quality will vary. You can improve the appearance of your profile by including great photos.
- Take some action. Adding photos on a regular basis shows Google that you are active with your profile and that it is up to date, which boosts your ranking.
- Images will be displayed in the results. Google is improving its image recognition technology, and photos are now appearing in local search results.
- Raise interest. As per Google, users are 42 percent more inclined to seek location information for a business with photos on its Profile Page, and 35 percent more likely to browse through its webpage. Moreover, as per DailyStory, enterprises with over 100 photos receive 520 percent more phone calls, 2,717 percent further navigation queries, and 1,065 percent more web searches than businesses without.
4. Respond to reviews- both good and bad.
90% of your customers are reading reviews on the Internet before engaging with a company. Google is also aware that customer reviews significantly impact consumer purchases. There is no better form of advertising than positive word-of-mouth from your customers. Both positive and negative reviews can be displayed on your listing. Your company’s responsibility is to generate as many 5-star reviews as possible
5. Include search terms in the name of your company, address, and website URL.
Although search terms aren’t needed for ranking, including them in your URL aids browsers in understanding your page’s content and improves user engagement by maintaining URLs brief, centred, and applicable.
6. Claim your listings on other directories such as Yell
An online business directory is much more than traditional directories like the Yell. When they are the most relevant result for what they are searching for, they can be ideal for potential customers to find and learn about your business online. This makes a local business directory a valuable resource for attracting new customers.
7. Create location-specific pages and add those pages to google my business
Location pages can be a great way to improve your website’s SEO. For SEO purposes, location landing pages are pages that indicate cities or areas where you:
- Have a physical location for your business
- Serve your customers
Most companies believe they can only create landing pages for specific locations if they have a physical presence there. That is incorrect. Location pages for your physical addresses, on the other hand, are crucial.
8. Add regular posts on google my business
You can communicate with your customers via the Google My Business profile, just like you’d on social media. This could range from a public official statement to short-term discounts or special offers, blog entries, and more!
Taking full advantage of your posts, rest assured to do the following:
• Post consistently (some post categories expire each week, so frequent engagement is essential) • Line up your advertising strategies with your posts for better results.
• To entice more customers to your company, include hyperlinks and calls to action (CTAs).
Posts appear as “Updates” somewhere below your Business Profile panel. They may also show up in Maps-based search results. You can get all these done by your local SEO expert from local SEO services available in London.
Finally, when it comes to attracting foot traffic to your business, an optimized Google My Business listing is your best friend. Google will rank you based on geographical proximity and relevance when someone searches for local businesses like yours in the area.
However, it will consider your Google My Business profile activity and the quality of the information you provide, both of which are Google ranking factors for local search results.
If you kept your Google My Business profile active and full of high-quality, relevant information for your potential customers, it would rank higher.
We, at Algo Digital, do the research of your website, analyze all the data, and also build some strategies that should be good for your website.
Take advantage of our expertise and connect with us for a free SEO evaluation. Your website will be thoroughly reviewed and then we will tell you what could be your initial campaign for SEO. We will then move forward once we get your approval. Get in touch with us now.
