Hello everyone, my name is Lucas Dantas and today I will show you how to do SEO for your Google Business Profile. The information I share here will help your business to rank on Google. Being listed in Google searches is one of the most important things for new people to find your business and today you will learn the SEO techniques to make your Google Business Profile rank more and higher on searches.
Google My Business changed its name a few months ago and it’s now called Google Business Profile.
The only reason why I use Google My Business in this blog article it’s because the number of people searching for Google My Business is a lot higher than searches for Google Business Profile.
Since the title of the blog article is a very important ranking factor on Google, it was a much wiser choice if I want my blog post to rank higher and attract more visitors. Consider this your very first SEO lesson.
If you want to rank higher on Google, it’s important you understand what actually works.
Don’t follow shortcuts, this strategy I am sharing today has been researched, tried and tested across of several of Google business listings by the top experts in local search who share their findings in the annual search ranking factors report.
This is the bible of anyone who wants to rank number #1 on Google maps. Click here to check the report before you start working on your Google Business Profile SEO.
This report is one of the things I have been using year after year to consistently improve my clients rankings on Google Maps top spots. The other tool I have been using is a free Google chrome extension.
Google My Business Everywhere – GMB Everywhere Chrome Extension
I recommend you to download a Google chrome extension called GMB (Google My Business) Everywhere, which helps a lot with Google Business Profile SEO. This is a simple tool you can add to your Google chrome browser that will provide valuable information about your competitors that you can use in your favor.
To download the extension, use this link.
How To Install GMB Everywhere
Access the link I have provided and click on Install Chrome Extension.
Then click on Add to Chrome.
And now click on Add extension.
Once you have downloaded and enabled the extension, go to Google Maps. Conduct a search for the services you provide and see how the screen looks like now.
GMB Everywhere will overlay the information about all the listing in the results. That is the information we will use to boost your rankings.
Let’s take another look at the most important ranking factors.
As you can see in the screen above, the report shows there are 20 factors you should consider if you want to improve your positions on Google Maps rapidly. This post was created focusing on the changes with the biggest impact in the shortest period of time with minimum effort.
Are you ready to start? Let’s go!
Primary Business Category
The primary business category is the #1 influential factor to improve your business listing in Google Maps.
Even though choosing the primary business category looks like something pretty straight forward, it might not be as simples as you think for some businesses.
Let’s say you own an venue that provides corporate events, weddings, graduation parties, dinner rehearsal, etc. Should you choose Event Venue, Wedding Venue or something else?
When we conduct a keyword research using Google Ads Keyword Planner, you can see the volume of searches for those keywords in your region.
As you can see in the image above, the number of searches for wedding venue is much higher than for event venue. So choosing wedding venue as the primary business category would be a smarter choice than event venue.
If you are not sure which primary category you should choose for your business, spy on your competitors. Use the GMB Everywhere extension by conducting a search for the keywords you want to rank for on Google Maps and see which ones they are using.
The primary business category is the one with flagged with a star in front of it.
The other ones listed are secondary business categories. If some of the categories you have found are relevant for your business, add them to your business listing as well.
Secondary business categories are the 5th most influential ranking factor to rank on Google Maps.
Whichever primary business category you decide to choose, make sure it’s aligned with the content of your website. For instance, if you own an event venue that does mostly weddings, use wedding venue as the primary category and make the content of your page about wedding venue.
The title of the page and meta description should also include the keywords you want to rank for.
How To Change Your Categories On Google My Business (Google Business Profile)
To change your business category, make sure you are logged in with your Google account that has access to your Google My Business profile. Go to Google.com and click on the menu icon on the upper right corner of your screen. You should be able to see an option called Business Profile.
If your business has several locations, you will see them all listed if you are using the same account to manage them all. Choose the one you want to update. If you only have one listing, jump to the next step.
Now click on Info.
In this screen you will see all the information in your business profile. The category of your business is shown right below your business name.
A new window will pop up and there you will see you can change the Primary Category and also additional categories.
Use the information you have found out using GMB Everywhere and Keyword planner to choose your primary category and don’t forget to list additional categories if they are applicable for your business.
The Google My Business Profile Name
Your business’ name has a significant role in the ranking of your listing on Google Maps. This is the second most influential ranking factor in the annual report. Including the keywords you want to rank for in the name of your business listing will help you tremendously to rank higher.
I have improved rankings of some businesses in less than 96 hours using this Google Business Profile SEO strategy.
Be careful though, Google has some rules about this so make sure you do not include unnecessary information to your listing name. Check out some examples of how I have added the service to their listing names.
Google Reviews
If you look for local businesses, what is the very first thing you will be checking before calling them? The reviews of course! As you have seen in the ranking factors, reviews are present in three of the top 20 factors for ranking a Google profile.
- Review ratings – Getting positive reviews will give you a clear advantage
- Relevant keywords in reviews – If customer include keywords in reviews that will boost your ranking
- Number of reviews – The more reviews you have, the better
Contact every customer you have done business with and ask them to submit a review. This is recommended by Google by the way so don’t feel bad about it.
Send your customer an email that will encourage them to include relevant keywords in the reviews. To help you, I have put together an email template that you can use to get reviews in a very subtle way.
Download it here.
When you send your review request, do not forget to include the direct link to make it easier for the customer to leave a review.
How To Get The Review Link From Google Business Profile (Google My Business)
Go to https://business.google.com and choose the business profile you want to get reviews for.
On the Home section of the profile, look for Get more reviews and click on Share review form.
Copy the link and paste it into the email you will send for requesting reviews.
Make sure you respond to all reviews, positive or negative, and make them personal. Avoid copied and pasted answers.
How To Find The Best Keywords For Your Reviews
Ideally, you want to outrank your competitors to get your listing above them. To see how well they are doing and to find the keywords your customers should be including in your reviews, use the GMB Everywhere extension to pull out this data.
Look for your competitors on Google Maps and find the ones with the most reviews.
Click on Review Audit.
The report will show you how often they get reviews.
And the most commonly used keywords in their reviews.
Use this information to adapt to your own strategy. GMB Everywhere provides 5 reports per month in their free version.
Local Backlinks
Google has always used links to rank websites in search results. For example, you run a wedding photographer business and your friend who is a writer wrote a blog post about your business and included a link for your website, that is considered one backlink.
Since Google considers these links a very important ranking factor, the more backlinks your website has the higher it will rank on Google. But when it comes to Google Maps, the links the matter the most are local backlinks. Links from your local chamber of commerce, local bloggers, local journals, local schools.
These links will clearly show Google how relevant your business is for your local community. The more local links your website has, the higher it will rank on Google.
To get local backlinks, engage with your local community, especially who are website owners and ask them to mention your business in their website.
This will make a huge difference on your listing on Google Maps. Backlinks are listed twice in the top 20 most influential ranking factors of Google Maps.
Based on my experience, I also believe that most of your competitors won’t take the time or will not be willing to do the work making your life easier to reach the top spots on Google Maps.
Check your progress
Check your results regularly to see if your efforts are paying off. One of the ways you can check your progress is by checking the insights on your Google My Business profile.
Go to your business profile and click on Insights.
In this page you will see things like:
How customers are looking for your business.
Where they see your listings:
The actions people take when they see your profile:
Where people are when they request directions for your business:
The days of the week where you get most calls:
Or the time of the day you get more calls:
Information about your most popular times for each day of the week:
And how many times people see your photos compared to other businesses:
GMB Everywhere also has released a new feature called Teleport, which simulates a search from a nearby location. To do that follow the instructions below:
Search for your business listing on Google Maps and click on Teleport.
You will see a page similar to this one:
Type in the keyword you want to rank for.
Click on the location of the map where you want to see if your listing ranks and click on Teleport Me Here.
It shows where your listing ranks when someone searches for the keyword at the precise location and who ranks above you.
If you are interested on finding more information about how to improve your business rankings, stay tuned in my blog!
For today that is all and I really hope you find this content useful. I want to help small businesses and entrepreneurs who do not have the resources to hire digital marketing agencies. The reason why I share the best content possible is to help you.
If you have a request, you can leave a message to me using this link.
