Google Business Profile Optimisation
Google My Business | Google Business Profile (GBP)
Google Business Profile (previously called Google My Business) is a free service that Google provides where local businesses can list details about their business. The search engine prepares a knowledge panel from the details you give and from other information about your business on the web. You may have noticed these when you search for a business.
If you run a local business, then having a GMB listing is a must for Local SEO. It helps you achieve a better chance of appearing in search results such as the local map listings. It also helps you give potential customers useful information if they search for your business name. The business profile in the search results contains things like business address, opening hours and contact details. A listing also offers you the chance to do much more than list your basic details such as add photos, videos and regular posts.
GBP features are regularly rolled out to make your business listing even more useful.
GBP, Ecommerce and Google Search
I do not recommend you create a local GBP listing if you are an online-only business. In fact, it can hurt your traffic and is against Google's guidelines.
If you consider who are your customers this will guide you:
- Do you have a physical location that customers can visit? It might be a small home studio.
- Do you visit your customers at their location? This could be, for example, a service business.
- Do the search queries from your website typically include a suburb or city name?
If you answered yes to one of the questions above, then it will be worth claiming a local GBP listing. Remember it is telling Google that you do most of your business in that particular area. For example, an online florist who delivers locally and also has a home studio where brides can meet for a consultation will want a GBP listing.
An Auckland-based online quilt store that operates out of a home studio delivers Nationwide and does not want customers visiting will not want a GBP listing. And having one could, in fact, decrease the rankings for searches from locations further away eg Wellington.
If most of your customers do not live in your city, then the local listing could end up costing you search traffic.
Download our free guide to learn how you can improve your Local SEO and help your business to stand out from the crowd. Increase your online visibility to help local customers to find your business in Google
Listing features
Question and Answer section
The GMB Q&A section gives your customers the chance to ask questions which anyone can answer. These can be anything from a specific question about a product or information about opening hours.
To make the most of this, you should monitor your listing regularly. Make sure you answer these questions before anyone else does. This way, you make sure that the answers are correct and offer the information you want.
Google users can vote for these questions, which will help determine which ones show the highest within the section.
As a business owner, you may want to consider asking some family or friends or trusted customers to ask some questions. Then you can answer them to get this section off to a good start. You can even ask and then answer your own questions.
Business description
Google reinstated the business description feature.
The description shows when a customer uses a mobile device to search for something and clicks on your business in the Google Maps results.
While you should not stuff your business description with keywords, it is important to write it carefully to include the right information. Describe what makes your business stand out from the rest and what services or products you provide.
The description can change only by a maximum of 750 characters, so you might need to complete a couple of drafts to make sure you include everything within word limits.
Google Reviews
Don't forget the importance of Google reviews. These reviews from your customers are displayed on your listing and can encourage new customers to use your business. It is worth settings up a procedure to encourage your customers to give you a review. Within your GBP, there is a place you can copy a short link to the Google review form which you can use to share with your customers.
This video series from SEMRush is a thorough introduction to GBP
GBP posts
Although google posts for business have been around for a while, not all businesses take advantage of them. Posts allow you to share snippets of information with your customers and potential customers. They appear just under your business details and include a photo.
You can also use them as a link back to your website or give information about an event. If you are running a special offer or limited discount, you can also add this information in an offer post with the coupon code or link for details. Use them as a powerful Call-to-Action.
Posts are live for seven days, after which they expire. However, you can post as often as you like.
More about Google Posts for Business
Taking the time to add posts each week could effectively use your marketing budget. It is a little like micro-blogging on your GMB Listing. Google posts help your Business Listing stand out and can improve your conversion rates for Local SEO. They also give a mild boost to your overall ranking.
They show in local searches and on maps. There are no restrictions on words in the images in the posts like there are on Facebook advertising, so you could use that space to highlight your business offering with a call now image.
Download our free guide to learn how you can improve your Local SEO and help your business to stand out from the crowd. Increase your online visibility to help local customers to find your business in Google
Google My Business Optimisation Services
We offer services so you can take advantage of the GMB listing and reach more customers.
Initial GMB Set-up/Optimisation $250 + GST
- We claim/create/improve your business listing on GMB.
- Assist you will verifying your business with Google
- Optimise your settings, including adding hours, address, phone number, photos, business details for Local SEO.
If you would prefer to set up your GMB page yourself, here is a great guide from Whitespark.
Posts and ongoing improvements $75 + GST per month
There is some indication that weekly posts for Google Business help you rank. This service includes a weekly post with a photo and call to action. We also work with you to improve your GMB page including customer outreach for reviews. These services are included in our SEO Plans for businesses where local search is important.
Should you use Google posts?
About 17% of businesses have ever created a GMB/GBP post, and only 4 % in the last week.
Here are 3 reasons to give posts a try. Firstly, the post will stand out from the crowd because so few businesses are adding posts. Secondly, the cost of the effort is small. It is certainly worth trialling for a couple of months. And thirdly, with the changes in the Facebook algorithm for Facebook Pages, you might find it better to switch some of your efforts to GMB.
At Kitchen Table Web Design, we offer a weekly Google post for $75 a month. They are also included in our Basic SEO plans.
If you want to add GMB posts:
How to add a GMB Post
At present, you cannot schedule posts ahead of time through Buffer or a similar social media poster. However, it is more time-efficient to prepare a few posts at once and store them in a folder on your PC. GMB posts are shown for 1 week only. Therefore, you can recycle any of your posts, especially those with a high engagement, by adding the same image and text to make a new post at a later date.
Step 1: Prepare your images.
Example of how to use words in an image for a GMB post
The ideal post image dimensions is a minimum size of 720 pixels wide and 540 pixels tall or larger in that ratio. (At the time of publishing this article but you may have to experiment as Google does change the image size).
The image will be resized to appear on the knowledge panel. For example, on a desktop, the image shows as 187px by 140 px so bear that in mind when selecting font size if you incorporate words on your image.
Step 2: Write some call to action sentences.
Or write something that will pique someone's interest in your core services or products, around 100 to 300 words for each post.
Step 3: Publish a post each week.
Go to your GMB dashboard and click on “Posts”. Upload your image, add your text and select a link option. Add a UTM parameter if you want to track the clicks. UTM parameters are tags you add to a URL — the tags are sent back to Google Analytics and tracked. An example is https://buildyourwebsite.co.nz/website-care-plans/?utm_source=gmb. I can tell if the person came from GMB post or another source, i.e. the ?utm_source=gmb. Preview your post, check and then click the publish button.
More about the content
It is worth bearing in mind that Google indexes Google posts.
According to Mike Blumenthal:
“...That would be consistent with what we saw with my tests and Joey's tests that if there are very long-tail phrases, where the ability to increase relevance isn't up against so many headwinds then this is a signal that Google might recognize and help lift the boat for that long-tail phrase. My experience with it was it didn't work well on head phrases, and it may require some amount of interaction for it to really work well. In other words, I'm not sure just the phrase itself but the phrase with click-throughs on the posts might be the actual trigger to this. It's not totally clear yet.” Source: https://localu.org/
Mike suggests that it might be worth focusing on long-tail phrases, i.e. 3-4 word keyword phrases that are very specific to your company rather than something broad that has high competition. Adding product posts is an excellent idea.
Read more
Do’s and Dont’s
Do be accurate and clear about the offer you are making. Make the content friendly and timely. Don't use commercial slang and excessive sale pitch. It is best not to include more than one offer.
Next Step
In this article, I have explained why using GMB Posts for your Local Business effectively uses your marketing budget both in time and effort. I have also included some tips to get the most out of your posts and some brief instructions showing how to create them.
The next step is to start adding posts to your GMB Listing.
If you would like to delegate this, Kitchen Table Web Design offers a weekly GMB post service. Weekly GMB posts are also included in our Basic SEO plans.
Google Reviews
Google uses the reviews and ratings on your GMB Listing (as well as other factors) to decide your small business web site's value to its customers, i.e. the people using Google Search and maps. These reviews are especially important for "local search" results.
If you have a nice amount of four-star and five-star ratings, Google considers you a more valuable result on their search result pages, which contributes to better rankings for your site. Source https://yoast.com/get-local-reviews-ratings/
What is a Local Search
A local search is a search where Google determines that a person is searching for businesses near their location. The search does not need to contain a location. For example, I searched for “hairdresser”. At the top of the search results, are local hairdressers. See below. I did not need to search "hairdresser" and my location. Google determined by my search "hairdresser" I was looking for a local business. If I search "Advice hairdressers" I am not given local results. The results included top salons around the world.
Google reviews need to be genuine.
Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased ~ Source
When you’re searching on Google, we aim to provide the most useful results for your query. Today, around one in five searches on Google is related to location, so providing locally relevant search results is an essential part of serving you the most accurate information. {emphasis mine} ~ Source
Ask your customers for a Google review.
Google encourages business owners to ask their customers for reviews and gives guidelines. Google suggests that business owners remind their customer to leave reviews. Do reply to reviews and make sure our business listing is accurate and verified on Maps, Search and other Google services. Go here for full details of Google's guidelines for best practices.
Read More:
How well are you doing with your GMB Page?
Head over to Local U to use their Google Brand Page Score Tool
Record your score and then take some steps to improve it over the coming months.
Download our free guide to learn how you can improve your Local SEO and help your business to stand out from the crowd. Increase your online visibility to help local customers to find your business in Google