Local SEO: How to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

What is a local SEO strategy?

As your business grows, you may wish to expand your local marketing strategy beyond what you’re currently doing. Local SEO strategy allows you to target audiences that are searching for services or products within a specific radius of your physical location. Because it’s so tied into search engine rankings, local SEO has become an increasingly important aspect of digital marketing. This step-by-step guide will show you how to develop a localized search strategy for your business.

Why do you need Google My Business?

Google My Business is a free business listing service offered by Google. It’s part of your company’s online presence, and if you choose to do so, it can appear in local search results alongside your website URL. It helps customers find you on mobile and desktop devices—and its direct answers are an effective way for people looking for services like yours to immediately get in touch with a business.

The data that is available in your GMB listing can be invaluable for local search optimization—meaning it will tell you exactly what consumers are looking for nearby, allowing you to adjust your content and strategy accordingly.

Benefits of having an online business card

An online business card gives you immediate access to a huge customer base, but not all business cards are created equal. You can easily use your business card to build an email list, promote events, share coupons and sales, showcase products and services, collect customer feedback and reviews, manage social media profiles—and that’s just for starters. Also the card:

• increases the chances of acquiring new customers,
• facilitates contact,
• helps to locate the company in stationary,
• supports building a positive image,
• increases click-through rates.

Positioning Google business cards - the most important elements in a nutshell

The Google My Business card is an example of off-site activities. Local SEO is growing in strength every day – remember what you have been looking for recently? 50% of searches from the entire Google network are local queries. The business card is closely related to the Google Maps service, so using geolocation data it increases the number of searches “near me”.

Current data

The first step in any strategy is to gather up all of your important data and evaluate it. This includes your physical location, website address, business hours, images and more. If any of the information changes, you need to update your listing so as not to mislead users.

Description

The description can contain up to 750 characters. It is important that the first 250 characters contain the most important information. In such a situation, the best solution is to saturate them with keywords that are valuable to us and to provide the name of the city where the company provides its services. The first 250 characters are always visible after displaying the company’s profile, the rest of the content is displayed after clicking the “more” button.

Attributes (Rich snippets)

This is additional information that distinguishes you from the competition. If you have free wi-fi, parking, disabled facilities, etc., let us know. Often these are the features that prevail when choosing. Adding the appropriate attributes to your business profile will help you impress new users who are viewing your listing. The types of attributes depend on the business profile.

Photos

Adding photos to your business listing is essential. If a potential customer lands on your page and sees a big, empty space where they’re expecting an image, they could easily click away. You don’t want that—so make sure you have at least one photo of your business in every listing you control. And if you own multiple locations or operate in different industries (or both), be sure to add photos for each category/location so customers can find what they need quickly and efficiently.

Reviews, stars, comments

It’s a huge part of determining whether potential customers will choose you over your competitors when looking for local businesses. With a little bit of work and consistent effort, there are three ways you can increase your ratings and reviews—and ultimately, make more money.

Remember that they are a ranking factor for Google as well as a form of modern word of mouth marketing that allows you to build a lasting relationship with your customers. Do not be afraid of negative evaluations – there is no hopeless situation. Remember that even if something goes wrong, you have a chance to explain it and solve it to improve your image.

NAP alternative – what is it all about?

NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number. The NAP is a cornerstone of local SEO. It’s one of three components that make up your local listing on Google (the other two are description and photos). In order to have a complete business profile, you need all three pieces of information in place.

Conclusion

If you are a local business and want to be found, there is no better place than a verified Google My Business page. Start by filling out all available information about your business, including opening hours and address. Make sure that it’s easy for people to find your GMB listing by using keywords in your business name and category. Next, claim your listing on other sites. If you don’t have a business card yet, make one today!