Local SEO: How to Optimise your GMB profile
Here are the best tips to increasing online conversions in 2020.
If you are looking to:
– Generate more sales
– Increase basket values
– Gain customer loyalty
Then you will love the new actionable techniques covered in this guide.
Let’s get started.
Are you running a local business and eager to become one of the popular businesses in your locality? If so, then you need to look no further.
All of you would agree that picking the right tool plays a crucial role in completing any type of task. Similarly, when it comes to successful marketing, you need the right tool for the job.
Google My Business (GMB) is the right tool for local businesses seeking success in their localities. Google My Business is a free service from Google that allows local businesses to create their profiles and manage their online presence on Google search engine result pages.
Before going into ways to improve your Google My Business ranking, let’s take a look at types of information that appear on the knowledge card.
- Name of your business
- Type of business
- Google map locations
- Customer reviews & ratings
- Contact no.
- Website link
- Popular hours to visits
Ways to optimise
your Google My
Business profile
If you want to improve Google My Business
ranking, then ensure to follow all the
provided tips. Local SEO plays a defining role
to improve My Business ranks.
Completely provide your business
information & write a description
The first thing in local SEO that helps to improve Google My Business ranking is a complete profile. Make sure you have not left any box blank. You should write your full business name, complete and precise address, phone number, operating hours, and precise business category.
Providing incomplete or false information is not going to do any good for your business and won’t improve Google My Business ranking.
The next part is writing a description of your business. Like most business owners, don’t just write a single line or few words about your business, but go on to take full benefit of the 750 characters limit. Use this space to write a concise yet compelling description that tells a story about your brand, its core values, and distinguish achievements.
Besides, make sure to place long-tail keywords naturally within the description to appear in search results.
Add visually appealing photos
You must avoid this common mistake of neglecting the photos section in your Google My Business profile. Adding several photos of your shop, restaurant, hotel or whatever your business is; helps a lot.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so take full advantage of that, post sharp and appealing photos of your business.
Visitors can also add photos to your business profile to share their experience with your business. You can ask your visitors to share their pictures on your profile and leave feedback as well.
High quality and appealing photos can help drive traffic to your site and potential customers to your business as well.
Choose your business category
and subcategories carefully
Google lists your business based on your category and shows you in related results. Let’s say you are a local restaurant and also have a driveway and accept credit cards, then make sure to choose accordingly. Google takes into account all the things when displaying search results.
Sub-categories or secondary categories are also important and don’t ignore them. Let’s say you’re a restaurant, but only offers a particular cuisine, then choose your sub-category as well.
Regularly post to GMB
Google My Business allows you to make new posts like social media platforms. There are plenty of ways to utilize the post feature like making announcements, creating an event, sharing some interesting information about your business/industry, or even offering promotional offers.
Make sure to make regular posts because this increases your engagement with consumers and builds your reputation as a credible and mindful business.
Create FAQs list and monitor
Q & A section regularly
It is an essential local SEO strategy that helps to improve Google My Business ranking. You should provide a proper answer to each question asked by the users in the Q & A section. Try to regularly monitor this section and instantly answer any query posted by consumers.
You can create a FAQ list after finding a few questions that are frequently asked by users on your Google My Business profile.
Generate and respond to reviews
Reviews could play a decisive role in improving your Google My Business ranking. You would agree that reviews have the potential to influence anyone’s buying decision. A bunch of negative reviews on your GMB profile can potentially tarnish your reputation and ranking as a local business. On the other hand, a bunch of positive reviews can influence buying decisions positively and improve my business ranks as well.
Some people naturally leave a review on your profile and for others, you’ll need a review request process. You can use review request email templates to ask your previous customers for reviewing your services on your GMB profile. Make sure to stay within Google policy on review requests.
Your job doesn’t end here. You need to respond to the reviews as well. For positive reviews, you can just thank them for their visit/purchase but respond to negative reviews with empathy. If someone has left a bad review for no reason, then you should write an explanatory response to the review so people may know the truth.
Track how customers are finding your GMB profile
Google has a built-in tool where you can find some really helpful insights. You need to track paths through these insights. These insights include:
- How customers are finding your business
- Whether they are finding you through Search or map
- Geographic location
- etc
All these insights help to find consumers’ conversion paths and give a base to build your strategy upon that.
Wrap up
Your customers can find your business in various ways and Google My Business profile is one of the ways.
Optimising your Google My Business profile improves your local SEO and provides potential chances to improve your Google My Business ranking.
Neglecting this important local SEO strategy is like saying ‘no’ to someone offering a free marketing campaign. So, optimise your Google My Business profile now using the above strategies.
Dean Lynn
Managing Director
Dean is the Founder of Trusted Media and has over fifteen years experience of commercial business marketing. If you ever meet Dean, you’ll quickly realise how honest and straight to the point he is; something his clients love about his marketing approach. When Dean’s not at Trusted Media providing marketing consultancy to clients, he can be found at home with his daughter, who loves creating (breaking) things. Dean never sits still, enjoys eating food (part-time #instafoodie), and finds his happy place in the kitchen baking or in the garden.
