Google My Business: Why You Need To Know The Local SEO Hacks
Take a moment to ponder this: 5.6 billion Google searches are made daily, yet a whopping 91% of websites still receive zero organic traffic.
Reading stats like this, it couldn’t be clearer – to get websites to rank prominently in relevant search results requires us to be on our absolute SEO ‘A Game’.
Yet so many businesses right across the spectrum – from larger legacy corporates to smaller entrepreneurial start-ups – continue to neglect, and often overlook entirely, one of the key pillars of any successful search strategy: local SEO.
While core items on any SEO checklist – including optimised website content, images and metadata, back-links, page speed and mobile optimisation – all remain vital, if you can carve out time to show your local SEO some love, it has the potential to pack a serious punch for your business.
The kingpin of local SEO is Google My Business. Optimise your listing here and you can start to dominate some of Google’s most prominent search listings, like the Knowledge Graph (the box displayed top right of search results) and the Local Pack (results that are linked to a Google map).
With the potential to bring new local clients and customers knocking, souped-up Google My Business profiles can ultimately increase revenues and provide invaluable insights about those engaging with you. Essentially, this makes it an element of your digital marketing strategy you simply cannot afford to ignore.
So, what are the hacks you need to know to fully optimise a Google My Business profile?
Once your account is set up featuring the basic, essential information – contact details including map locator, website link, opening hours and you’ve optimised your business description with your top-performing keywords – here’s what you need to prioritise to stand out from competitors, boost your ranking and capitalise on new revenue streams:
Multiple categories and services
This is such a simple way to boost your search ranking which is all-too-often missed. When you first create your Google My Business account you are asked to select one category relevant to your business and then list services under that. Together, these provide essential metadata that Google uses to help determine your rank for local searches. But despite Google initially limiting this to just one category on set-up, once your account is created you must then add as many as you feel hyper-relevant to your business via your dashboard. The more you add, the more search results Google will be able to rank you for – but relevance remains essential.
Geotagging images
You’ll already fully appreciate the marketing and branding power of images in telling your business’s story, but did you know they can also significantly ramp up your local SEO? Images depicting your business – including logos, team photos and then shop fronts and interior shots for retail and service providers – are essential on Google My Business to build trust. But add geotags to every image you upload (do this for your website too!) and you further indicate your authenticity within that local area, giving Google’s algorithms a stronger sense as to the local searches you should rank for.
Reviews
Businesses are ranked for Google’s Local Pack results primarily using three factors: relevance, distance and prominence. The latter makes reviews a critical part of your local SEO armoury. Positive reviews on your Google My Business profile not only help engender trust with potential clients and shoppers but will also be ‘read’ by Google as a key ranking factor, boosting you up the search results above local competitors. The key is to be proactive: ask loyal clients and shoppers to leave reviews, add links to your Google My Business profile on e-receipts and newsletters to encourage more, and always respond whether positive or negative.
Posts
You’re no doubt already crafting informative posts for your social channels and blogs, but now it’s time to add Google My Business posts into the mix too. With the ability to flag your latest products, services, offers or business updates to anyone entering a relevant search, requiring just one click to access the information, these posts act like free ads for your business. Whilst helping to convert potential clients or shoppers, they also succinctly demonstrate to Google your business’s relevance and authority on particular topics, teaching the algorithms what you should rank for. And the best bit is that Google has now removed the 7-day expiry setting for posts, so they will keep performing for you longer-term.
Consistency
With access to such a wealth of information across an estimated 1.8 billion websites, Google is a real stickler for consistency. This means it’s essential that the information available online about your business and products is consistent across all touchpoints – including your Google My Business profile. If the information you add to your profile doesn’t tally with what Google can find elsewhere, you lose authority in the eyes of the algorithms, damaging your local SEO potential.
This post was kindly written by Kat Spybey, Spybey Digital
