Increasing visibility using Google Business Profiles

How to get your business to show up using Google Business Profiles (GBP- formally known as Google My Business or GMB)

Increasing visibility using Google Business Profiles

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

What is the easiest and least expensive way to get your business to grow like crazy?  Show up at the top of search!  How do you do it?

There’s 3 ways:

1. Paid ads
2. Search Engine Optimization
3. Google Maps

Pretend you own a restaurant.  When someone searches for you, the ideal situation is to show up here (on Google Maps):

How do you get there?  By optimizing your Google Business Profile! Here’s the specific listing for the top restaurant:

How do you optimize your Google Business Profile?  Historically, it’s been based off Business Listings (volume and accuracy) and reviews (volume and consistency…NOT score). 

But there’s more to it- and there are recent changes that can help you reach the top 3 in a local search.

Add services to your GBP

A recent study showed that local businesses that have verified their information with Google Business Profiles are now seeing the benefits in terms of local rankings. This is because Google has now started to uncover business information in search results, giving these local businesses a boost in the rankings. 

They may even boost your SEO efforts!

Pre-defined services show up as an option in the Google Business Profile dashboard, but you can always add your own customized services.

To see the list of pre-defined services, you need to click first on the services tab in the Google Business Profile dashboard and then “add another service.”

Takeaway:

Add your services to your GBP!  Note: the ranking impact does seem to vary based on the industry and market.

Reviews: dos and don’ts and how to use them to your advantage

How it used to be: people pick businesses that have good reviews, and more is better.

How it is now: lots of good reviews is still the goal, but it’s not as “simple” as it used to be. 

1. Photos enhance reviews!

A recent study showed that reviews with pictures tend to appear in the top ten for way longer as compared to others. 

It is suggested that reviews backed with photos stay on top for longer because they tend to be more engaging and can easily grab viewers’ attention. Moreover, photographs add to the quality and credibility of a review.

The study also showed that adding a picture to an older review can also lead to significant changes in the rankings! 

Takeaway: request reviews with pictures!  Asking a loyal client that previously left a review to add a picture will boost their review in the order they are shown to people

2. Reviews with upvotes last longer!

Takeaway: first make sure you have at least 10 reviews! While asking your customers to leave a review, it would be great if you ask them to upvote the helpful reviews they find on your listing.

3. Fake reviews are getting removed…so are real ones

Google introduced an automated system that removes local reviews.  You may have already noticed that some reviews aren’t getting posted to your account.  It’s already happened to us three times! 

Here are things to look out for along with some suggestions for when a real review gets blocked or removed:

• It may be related to the review content. See prohibited and restricted content. Ask the reviewer to delete it and then write a new review.
• It may be due to a problem with the reviewer’s account.
• Ask the reviewer to try again, leaving a 4-5 sentence review, and add specifics about the services provided and, if pertinent, the location at which they were provided. If that fails, ask them to leave a review from another account.
• You can request a human review by filling out a form if your review has not yet been reinstated. Here is the link to it –> Click here.

Takeaway: unless you are swimming in 5-star reviews and already rank significantly ahead of your competition, don’t let a good review get removed!  A good Reputation Management service will notify you of reviews that aren’t getting posted so make sure you have something in place. Reach out if you need help with this.

Conclusion: Increasing visibility using Google Business Profiles

I tell everyone that digital marketing isn’t rocket science…anyone can become a pro if they want to spend the time on it.  Of course, you can hire someone like UAscend to do it and we’d be happy to save you the dozens (or even hundreds) of hours that it takes to get your marketing to deliver you more business than you’re paying for!

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