For example, if you are a restaurant in New York, specifically on Broadway, you would want to rank on the top-3 spots when people in Broadway is searching for “restaurants near me”.

In the past, Google shows 7 results when people are searching for Google Maps-related queries (queries with specific location and “near me” queries), or when people are directly searching on Google Maps. However, as we can see today, Google only shows 3, and we would need to click “more results” to see the others.

Obviously, the businesses on these top-3 spots—or the 3-pack— will get more exposure compared to those below them. The audience will perceive that these businesses are more credible, more relevant, and hence are more likely to purchase from them.

Since more and more people are now using “near me” queries—whether by typing or using voice search— on their mobile devices when looking for local businesses, appearing in this local 3-pack is very, very valuable. Let us take a quick glance of key benefits in ranking on the top-3 spots of Google Maps.

Key Benefits of Ranking in the Google Maps 3-Pack

• 88% of consumers who searched for a local business on their mobile will visit that business within 24 hours.
• According to Google’s report, 28% of these local searches result in a purchase
• People are now making purchase decisions based on whether they can easily find/contact/visit your business and whether others are saying positive things about you. In a Google Maps listing, the audience can easily find these pieces of vital information
• Google Maps results are interactive, where people can find the directions to your business with just one click and make a phone call directly from the search results. According to Google’s study, 70% of mobile searchers use this click-to-call feature.

Key Factors In Determining Google Maps Ranking

Since Google Maps results are mainly based on the searcher’s location, there are two main factors in determining how high your listing will rank:

• Visibility and Credibility

The more credible your business is, the more likely it will rank higher on the Google Maps listing. There are many factors that can determine your local visibility from mentions from other sites, mentions on social media especially from influencers, etc. Having more citations on local directories (Google Maps itself, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook Places, other local directories according to your niche) will also play a big part.

• Positive Reviews

Google took account of the number of positive reviews you have as a strong ranking signal, and we should encourage more positive reviews not only on Google Maps, but also on other important platforms like Facebook Places and Yelp among others. Positive reviews can also build your credibility to encourage more conversions, while negative reviews can ruin your reputation and might give a significant damage to conversion rate.

Top-3 Spots VS Paid Advertising

Technically, the 3-pack is not the topmost results we see on a Google Maps results page, but rather the paid ads (when there are actually businesses paying for the advertised spots). So, we can cut through the local SEO efforts and get these top results instantly.

The question is, which one is more beneficial?

To answer this, we should understand the very basic principle of any marketing efforts. Local SEO, which is ranking organically on Google Maps listing, is an organic marketing effort. Meaning, you will need to spend less money to execute this campaign.

The thing with organic campaigns from blog posts (content/inbound marketing), SEO, and others including local SEO is that they will take more time before you can see any significant results, while a paid campaign will get you to the same place in less time. So, you are technically buying time.

In general, paid vs organic campaign is usually a case of time vs costs. Paid advertising will obviously cost more, but will guarantee short-term results. However, is that also the case with organic Google Maps ranking vs paid ads? The thing is, more and more people are resisting Google ads, especially on the search results page. According to a report by Search Engine Watch, 60% of local searchers prefer the top-3 results, and only 10% trust paid ads. Again, here we see an advantage if we can get that 3-pack spot.

Pair that with the fact that search ads can be extremely expensive when not managed well, and the average CPC (Cost-Per-Click) of Google Ads is increasing with each and every year. Popular keywords in popular location can cost you more than $50 per click, and pair that with the fact that Google Ads has a pretty low CTR of 2% and below, it is hard to maximize ROI. Simply put, this average CTR of 2 to 3% will translate to just 2 or 3 visitations or phone calls in 100 clicks, a pretty abysmal number.

What about ranking in the 3-pack? What’s the average phone calls per 100 views? The good news is, the average conversion is very high at 44% according to a study in 2015 by Moz. We can see that getting that top-3 spots is far more valuable.

There’s also another factor causing this phenomenon: in Google Maps results, we can directly see the star rating on the result, which as we have mentioned above, a huge factor in influencing conversion rate. Businesses with more positive reviews and a higher star rating will simply get more views and clicks. There are cases where the number 3 spot get more calls and views than the topmost, simply because the business in the number 3 spot has more reviews and a higher rating Let us discuss this a little deeper.

The Importance of Positive Reviews

In this age of social media and transparency, everyone is checking for online reviews for just about anything. Your online reputation and especially the number of positive reviews your business has can literally make or break your business.

72% of customers don’t take any action—much less making a purchase decision— before they read reviews. So, a lack of positive reviews on your Google Maps listing, as well as other important aggregators like Yelp or TripAdvisor, can hurt your revenue. On the other hand, 40% of customers go to competitors when they read bad reviews, another important fact we should notice.

So, how can we leverage online reviews to our advantage? Here are some key principles:

• Encourage positive reviews from your existing customers. If necessary, you can offer incentives like special offers or discounts when they leave a positive review.
• Understand that there are two different types of negative reviews: those coming from actual customers with real issues, and those coming from fake customers with malicious intents. Noticing the difference is the key.
• If the negative review is valid, handle it quickly and politely. Don’t deliver false promises, yet on the other hand, don’t give the impression of unprofessionality. If you don’t have the answer, you can simply say “we will get back to you as soon as possible” (and do get back to them).
• If the bad review is fake, you can report it to Google Maps or the respective platform, provided you have sufficient proofs. You might want to take legal actions depending on the severity of the case.
• Bad reviews can be rooted on actual issues within your product/service or even your business. In these cases, you will need to treat these underlying issues as a long-term solution, or else, you’ll keep getting the same negative reviews related to this issue.

We have also mentioned that the number of positive reviews is an important ranking signal for Google Maps, so by having more positive reviews, you are killing two birds with one stone. On average, a customer reads between 2 to 10 reviews before making a purchase. However, 7% of customers can read between 11-20 reviews while 6% will read more than 20. In short, aim for at least 11 positive reviews, since 13% of the total buying population will read that many before making any purchase decisions.

Higher Star Rating=Higher Conversions

Above, we have briefly mentioned how a high star rating can dramatically improve the conversion rate of your Google Maps listing.  On average, a listing with a 5-star average rating will get 69% of the total attention on the 3-pack. The number will drop to 59% for those with a 4-star rating, and 44% for those with a 3-star average.

Importance of Reviews on Third-Party Aggregators

While Google never really confirmed it, there is common speculation that reviews on other review aggregators (Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook Places) and local directories will also affect your ranking on Google Maps. This speculation is partly confirmed by a Forbes article, stating that Google do use information from third-party aggregators and directories.

Google uses third-party reviews to determine trending businesses, as well as social media mentions. We should also remember that the more reviews we have on all kinds of sites and the more mentions we have on social media, the more people are aware to your business, and hence it can increase conversions. Reviews are time-stamped, so Google’s (and other search engine’s) crawlers can easily track customer engagement and trends.

We definitely can’t neglect the importance of user reviews for both the benefits of improving your Google Maps ranking and conversion rates. As mentioned, online shoppers nowadays always check for reviews before making a purchase. The more positive reviews you have, the better the chance you’ll also rank in organic SERP and Google Maps ranking (even better, the 3-pack).

In the early years of the internet bloom and e-commerce, people are relying on websites to decide on an online purchase. Back then, we can simply have a good, informative website, push it with SEO and the sales will come. Now, in the era of social media and online transparency, that is no longer possible, as more and more people will first turn to online reviews.

Here are just some of the stats showing the importance of online reviews;

• According to Spiegel Research Center, displaying reviews can increase conversion as high as 270%, while displaying reviews for higher-priced products can increase conversion rates by 380%
• According to 3D Cart, with available reviews, 71% of customers are more comfortable in making a purchase decision
• Zendesk concluded that 88% of buyers are influenced by reviews
• According to BrightLocal, 87% of American consumers will only buy from businesses with three or higher star rating.

How will this affect your local business? You will need to encourage more of your existing customers to leave positive reviews. Also, if you are working with (or looking to work with) a digital marketing consultant, make sure that the agency understood the importance of online reviews and social proofs. Many digital marketing companies are focused on ranking high in the organic SERP or placing Adwords, but they won’t bring much value when you don’t have enough visibility, trust, and attention that are provided by local reviews and ranking in the 3-pack.

End Words

Ranking in the top 3 spots of Google Maps—or the local 3-pack— is a very important step to attract your ideal prospects: encouraging people to make a call, request for directions to your business, and in the end, bringing more revenue to your business.

So, it is very important to develop a local online marketing strategy or hire an expert or subscribe to local SEO services that are focused on getting that Google 3-pack presence, as well as getting more positive reviews from your consumers.

The post Why Ranking On Google Maps Is Important For Your Local Business appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

So, this guide will attempt to answer that question, specific to local SEO strategy. As with general SEO, there are hundreds of factors that will affect your local SEO ranking. However, the principle remains the same: it’s not about doing every single thing right, but making the right priorities.

Thankfully, there are several respectable studies that have discussed the relevant local search ranking factors, such as this one by MOZ, and this one by Local SEO Guide.

Below, we will discuss several factors you should prioritize on, and how to optimize each of them.

Let us begin with the first one.

Google My Business Factor

Not surprisingly, several factors related to Google My Business are crucial for local SEO rankings. According to MOZ’s report discussed above, these signals account for 19% of your local SEO success.

There are many important factors related to Google My Business, from proximity to keyword inclusion in your business name. Yet, here are the top three most important ones:

1. Be a Verified Account

Although this is seemingly an obvious step, creating a verified Google My Business account can be tricky, causing many business owners to neglect this step.

Yet, if you are a brick and mortar business, you definitely need to invest a little time to figure out the process and get verified. Here are several things you will need to focus on:

• Write the right description for your business. Not only the description must be unique and thorough, the length must also be proper.
• Upload at least 5 unique photos
• Make sure all the details are correct and up-to-date
• Choose the right categories. Be as specific as you can. This tool by Mike Blumenthal can help.

2. Proper Photos

The number of photos on your business page matters a lot to your local SEO ranking. Invest a little bit of your time to take proper pictures, or hire a photographer if necessary.

What kinds of pictures should you focus on? Here are a few ideas:

• The location itself, including the retail area, parking lot, the building of your business (if any), etc.
• Your products or services. If you are a restaurant, you should know the importance of beautiful food pictures
• Key staffs, and depending on your approach, you as the owner
• Your customers

3. Reviews

Off all other factors, the number of your Google reviews matters the most to your local SEO and Google Maps rankings. Let me repeat: reviews are the most important ranking factor for local SEO.

You will need at least five reviews before Google start showing them on your Google My Business page, and you should focus on growing the numbers (as well as tackling bad reviews).

How to attract more reviews? Here are a few ideas:

• Before anything else, read Google’s guidelines for reviews thoroughly
• Ask your customers for reviews, and offer incentives when necessary. For example, you can offer discounts to your restaurant customers
• Make it easier to land a review, such as generating a direct link to your Google My Business page.
• Reply to negative reviews, as fast as you can
• Focus on delivering the best customer experience. This might seems like a cliche, but it is still the best way to gain positive reviews

Links

One common misconception is that for local SEO and Google Maps rankings, backlinks aren’t important. However, after the Pigeon algorithm update, links and other traditional SEO factors are now also important.

So, what should you focus on out of all the backlink factors? Here are the most prominent ones:

1. Number of Linking Domains

As with traditional SEO, the quantity of your link is the most important factor regarding backlinks. So yes, you will also need to do link building for your local SEO.

2. Link Quality

Again, as with traditional SEO, not only the quantity that matters, but also the quality of your links. Try to get as many relevant links as you can, and remember that Google won’t account repeated links to their Maps ranking. This guide will help you to assess and build high-quality backlinks.

Notable Local On-Page Factors

Keyword

Although both traditional and local SEO isn’t solely about keywords anymore, they still matter. Keywords occurrences in your content, as well as HTML tags, will also help you rank in local SEO.

A common myth in local SEO is that you will also need to focus on the name of the city and state as keywords. However, studies suggested that using the name of the city and state in title tags, URLs, and body of the pages won’t make any significant contribution to your Google Maps ranking.

Instead, focus on natural keyword occurrences that will also appeal to human readers.

Word Count

The length of your content will also matter, the longer the content, the better for your ranking. In fact, it is one of the most important on-page factors for local SEO.

However, that doesn’t mean you can simply stuff more words on your pages. Your content will also need to appeal to human readers. As a general rule of thumb, do a little research on how high-ranking competitors fare with their content length. Aim to have a similar length, and you should be good to go.

Tools like SEO Powersuite will help with comparing keywords and the respective content analysis.

Notable Local Off-Page Factors

Citations

Consistency in citations, especially in Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) plays a significant role in your local SEO ranking. Focus on getting citations from reputable directories, both from your local side and niche side.

Total Number of Reviews

Google loves not only Google reviews, but also looks at other sites and directories. Refer to the tips we have discussed above on how to attract more reviews and respond to bad ones.

Bottom Line

As with general SEO, the most important thing with local SEO strategy is consistency and tracking your progress. The principles behind traditional SEO and local SEO remains the same in a lot of ways, you just need to focus on different things.

Ther are many tools that can help you track your progress, BrightLocal, Whitespark, and SEO Powersuite being some of the good examples.

In a very competitive brick and mortar business, doing your local SEO strategy right can be the major differentiator from your competition.

The post Local SEO Ranking Factors to Help Your Business Rank on Google appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

Local SEO can be an effective solution for that problem: by ranking high on Google Maps, we can get more traffic, prospects, and ultimately, visitors. Yet, how can we effectively implement it? In this guide, we will learn how, from registering your Google Maps listing to optimizing your listing.

First, however, let us begin by discussing the concept of local SEO.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO, in a nutshell, is optimizing your business listing on Google Maps. Quite recently, Google implemented a major change on their Google Maps search results page: while previously Google listed 7 top results on the first page, now they only show 3.

Meaning, if your listing is outside this top 3 results for your specific industry and location, you will get significantly less visibility.

Is local SEO different than “traditional” B2B SEO then? Yes, and here are the main differences:

• First, obviously “traditional” SEO is targeting the Google search engine as opposed to Google Maps for local SEO.
• While traditional or organic SEO relies on backlinks or inbound links, local SEO relies on citations (we’ll discuss it more below)
• Traditional SEO is mainly about developing content, while it’s also true to local SEO, it’s less prevalent

A common misconception we should first address is that local SEO is not about targeting local keywords like “restaurants, Toronto” on your content. It’s a common practice in the past, but no longer relevant nowadays.

Why? Because for keywords that are tied to locations (try searching for “restaurants in Toronto” now), the Google Maps results will be on top of any other sites, usually followed by list articles like “Top 10 Restaurants in Toronto”. So, optimizing your site to rank organically for this keyword is very difficult.

Local SEO, in a nutshell, is optimizing your business listing on Google Maps. Quite recently, Google implemented a major change on their Google Maps search results page: while previously Google listed 7 top results on the first page, now they only show 3.

Why Is Local SEO Important?

We all know how more and more people are now using mobile devices as their main way to search and browse the internet. We should also consider the rise of smart home assistants in recent years from Amazon Alexa to Google Home to Apple HomeKit, among other products.

With these devices, near me” queries became more common,, especially when we are using voice search. If you are a brick-and-mortar business, not optimizing for these queries simply means missing out on a huge market.

Also, a Google Maps listing can effectively encourage prospects to purchase from your brand, with Google Maps reviews being very relevant social proofs nowadays.

Long story short, if you rank high on Google Maps, more people will be aware of your business and more people will trust your business. In turn, this will translate to more traffic to your listing and more visitors to your actual location.

Let’s use a fictional restaurant, the X Bistro as an example. If X Bistro can get the top 3 spots for the “restaurants near me” query when someone is near Toronto, there is a high likelihood this person will click on the X Bistro listing. If the review for X Bistro listing is also good, there is a high chance this person will visit our restaurant.

How To Rank on Google Maps

There are two main factors driving your ranking on Google Maps listing: proximity and relevancy. Before we can optimize our listing to rank better, we should learn these two different factors.

• Proximity

In a nutshell, the closer you are to the searcher’s location (or the location specified in the search query), the better you will rank.

• Relevancy

If the X Bistro is deemed more relevant than Y Restaurant by Google, X Bistro will rank higher. Yet, how does Google determine relevance? There are three main factors: how complete and up-to-date your listing is (including photos), your reviews, and your local citations.

So, Google Maps ranking is based on these two factors. Obviously, we can’t optimize proximity (unless somehow you have an unlimited budget and can build a location on every inch of the planet), so our main focus to rank better in Google Maps is to optimize the relevancy of our listing.

For the rest of this guide, we will learn how with a step-by-step approach.

Implementing Local SEO: A Step-By-Step Guide

Above, we have discussed that our local SEO efforts will be focused on optimizing the relevancy of our listing. Yet, how can we do that? Here, we will discuss how in just five simple steps.

Step 1: Register and Verify Your Google My Business Account

To optimize your listing, you should first have a listing. It’s fairly obvious, but still a very important step. There are also several details you might have missed when you registered your Google My Business account, and so make sure not to skip this part.

Here are some important considerations in this step:

• Make sure your address is complete and accurate. A good approach is to use the exact same address used by the USPS
• Specify your service area, if you can deliver your product/service to nearby towns or even cities, you can specify it in your listing
• List all possible categories related to your business. For example, since our X Bistro is specializing in steaks, we can list “restaurant”, “steakhouse”, “steak restaurant”, and so on. The more information you can provide Google, the better, but make sure they are all relevant.
• Optimize your introduction. You can include the relevant keywords here (i.e. “restaurant in Toronto”, but your main focus is to make sure this section is well-written for human readers.

Also, make sure to verify your Google My Business listing. Usually, Google will mail a postcard containing a unique PIN to your physical address, where you can use the PIN to verify your listing. Verifying your listing is very important, so don’t neglect this step.

The main principle of this step is, the more complete and accurate your information is, the better it will be for optimization purposes. Take your time to fill out all the necessary information including business hours, payment forms accepted, and so on.

Step 2: Optimizing Photos in Your listing

Google My Business and Google Maps are essentially visual in nature. What’s the first thing you see when looking at a Google Maps search result? Most likely it’s the photo(s).

Including and optimizing photos in your Google My Business listing has two different benefits:

• Obviously, having nice, well-photographed photos on your listing can drive more customers
• You can optimize your listing with photos, in relations to local SEO

With that being said, consider including at least one professional-looking photos in your listing. If ambiance or design is a crucial aspect of your business, you might want to include more pictures.

So, how can we use photos to optimize our listing? the answer is by optimizing the EXIF metadata of each picture. You can use various third-party tools to do this, some of them are free. Here is some metadata you might want to add to your images:

• Your geographic location tags (city, country, etc.)
• Your physical address
• Latitude and longitude details
• Your target keywords
• Details about services offered by your business (business category data)

Step 3: Building Local Citations

This step might be slightly more complicated than the previous ones, and so we will first explain the concept and main principles of local citations.

A local citation, in a nutshell, is an online mention of your local business which must include three important aspects: your business Name, Address, and Phone Number, which is often abbreviated as the NAP. There are three different types of local citations:

1.Major Local Business Platforms

These platforms include Google My Business (which we have covered), Infogroup, and Acxiom among others. Major social review sites like Yelp! or Facebook can also be included here.

2.Location and Industry-Specific Directories

There are sites and online directories that are focused on listing businesses in a specific location or businesses that belong to a specific industry. For example, Toronto Business Directory is focused on Toronto area, while the Toronto Dining Channel is focused on listing restaurant businesses in Toronto.

3. Other Citations

Other citations such as mentions from publications, blogs, relevant sites, and relevant apps can be valuable. In this case, the approach is similar to building backlinks for traditional SEO.

Our focus in this step is more about the first and second type of citations, while for the third type, we will discuss it further when discussing content development below.

Now, your main job in this step is to find all the relevant directories (both major and local platforms) according to your industry and location. Let’s go back to our example, the X Bistro. In this case, we would want to find local directories for Toronto (location) and restaurants (industry).

A quick Google search will help you find these relevant directories, and here are the important principles when building your citations:

• Make sure all your information are complete and up-to-date, as complete as your Google My Business listing discussed on step 1
• Pay special attention to NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number), make they are always consistent across all your listings
• The more the merrier, but the more listings you have, the more you will need to invest your time and resources, especially if the citation also features reviews. We will discuss this further below.

Your citations are one of your most important assets when talking about local SEO. Pay extra care to the effort in building your local citations, and evaluate your listings regularly.

Step 4. Driving Positive Reviews

In this era when social proof is extremely important,, soliciting positive reviews have two major benefits: first, obviously the more positive reviews you have, the more credible your business will be perceived by customers. This will translate to more prospects and eventually, more customers.

Also, positive reviews on your Google Maps listing, as well as relevant review sites like Yelp!, TripAdvisor, and Facebook, are a strong ranking signal for Google Maps.

So, how can we get more reviews? One of the most effective ways is to incentivize your existing customers. For example, you can offer discounts, freebies, or other special offers for those who leave positive reviews on your Google Maps listing.

Here are some important considerations for this step:

1. The best way to get more positive reviews is to offer service excellence and delivering an excellent product. There’s no shortcut around this.
2. You can use various monitoring tools to keep track of your reviews, as well as your competitors’. This can act as an effective market research method.
3. Also, an important factor is how you should handle negative reviews. If it’s a valid negative review from those who have purchased your product/service, handle it quickly and politely. Don’t ever deliver false promises.
4. For negative reviews coming from fake users, especially those with clear malicious intent (using harsh languages, etc.), you can ask Google Maps or the review platform to remove this review with sufficient proof. Consider taking legal actions if the attacks are serious.

Step 5. Developing Content

Content marketing is a pretty broad subject on its own, and we won’t give it much justice discussing it here. However, here are some key principles in implementing content marketing for local SEO purposes:

• The most important part here is targeting the right keywords (i.e., “restaurant Toronto”). Find keywords with enough search volume but manageable competition. However, focus on writing for human readers: write naturally, don’t overstuff keywords, and make sure the content is unique, valuable, and relevant.
• Aim to get more backlinks from relevant sites, which can act as a citation. Promote your content with social media, influencers, and other channels.
• Guest posting for relevant sites can be a good approach if you do it right.

Conclusion

While local SEO can be terrifying at first, it is actually quite simple once you’ve got the hang of it. With the five steps we have shared above, you can start working with local SEO consultants and see your listing climb higher on Google Maps ranking.

The key to a successful local SEO is consistency: local SEO, as with traditional SEO, is a long-term game, and you should expect to invest at least 6 months before you see significant results. Monitor your progress, constantly evaluate and optimize, and be patient.

Getting that top spot on Google Maps can dramatically improve your growth. So, although the process can be long, it will be totally worth it in the end.

The post How to Create a Successful Local SEO Strategy appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

Google Maps results are based on Google My Business listings, and on this guide, we will learn all the ins and outs of optimizing our Google My Business listing to rank higher. Without further ado, let us begin with the first one.

1. Make Sure to Include Complete, Up-To-Date, and Comprehensive Information

The pieces of information you put on Google My Business will be used by Google to determine your business’s relevance and credibility. Make sure to input accurate and up-to-date information at least for these:

• Your business’s Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP), the most vital pieces of information not only for Google My Business, but for all business directories and listings.
• Your website address, Google will “crawl” your site to determine your Google Maps listing’s relevance, so this is also very important
• Description: remember that this should be a description about what your business do, and not what you sell (i.e. “a bookstore” not “books”). Your description serves two main purposes: you can include your focus keywords here to optimize your ranking, and you can also optimize it to attract human audience. Provide clear, engaging information about your business.
• Category: similar principle to the above, your categories should be about what your business does. You can use more than one categories, and this can be a good opportunity to tap into all the possible markets.
• Attributes, here you can inform your customers about your business’s special attributes, for example, if you have “outdoor seating”, you can check the available attribute. This can be useful to highlight unique values of your business.

You will especially need to pay extra attention to your NAP information. Google will index your NAP across the web. If someone mentions your NAP on their site, it will be regarded as a local citation, which has the same value as backlinks in regular SEO. So, make sure your NAP information is consistent with what is currently listed on your site, as well as what’s listed on other listings and directories.

Information inconsistency can significantly impact your local ranking negatively. If you have any changes to your NAP, make sure to update it not only on Google My Business, but also on all your listings and citations.

Also, here are some tips and tricks you can use when optimizing these pieces of information:

• Make sure your listed address matches the correct coordinates on Google Maps. Also, check your zip codes and make sure they are consistent across all your listings. For example, if you use 5-digit zip code on one of your listing, use it on all. The same will apply if you use 9-digit code. However, most listings will only allow the 5-digit zip code, so it’s a safer bet overall.
• For phone number, it is actually better to have a local number listed instead of your national or regional number.
• Description, category, and attributes are good opportunities to optimize for keywords. However, make sure they are not over-optimized and make sure all these keywords occur naturally for human readers.
• For business categories, this is a great guide listing all the different categories available, and you can use it to determine the proper category(s) for your business.
• For both categories and attributes, the aim is to be as specific as possible. If you are a pizzeria, specify that you are a pizzeria instead of just “restaurant”. If you offer outdoor eating areas, specify it in attributes.

In short, take some time to optimize the basic information on your Google My Business listing. Now, let’s move on to the next aspect.

2. Optimizing Reviews: Encouraging Positive Ones and Handling Negative Ones

Reviews are a really important aspect for local SEO, as well as for your business’s growth in general. Not only good reviews are an important ranking signal for Google Maps, positive reviews will attract customers to your business while negative ones can significantly hurt your revenue.

Nowadays, 86% consumers read reviews before making any purchases, especially when considering local businesses. So, if your business doesn’t have a lot of positive reviews, you can miss out on a lot of opportunities.

So, the big question is: how can we get more reviews? It is actually fairly simple. Ask your existing, happy customers. Google Maps and Google My Business actually encourage you to get positive reviews, as you can send your customers a link with just a few steps.

To encourage your customers, you might want to offer incentives, which actually is a common practice for many local businesses. For example, you can offer a special discount or even a freebie for customers who left a review for you, or posted something positive about your business in their social media.

However, we shouldn’t only focus on reviews on Google Maps. Although it is never confirmed by Google, many have agreed that reviews on third-party sites—especially major ones like Yelp or TripAdvisor— are also accounted by Google as ranking signals. In fact, quite recently Google encourages placing reviews from Yelp and other sites on your site.

In short: encourage as many positive reviews as you can on as many platforms as you can.

Now, how about handling negative reviews? The basic principle here is to respond to ALL reviews, both positive and negative ones. A lot of consumers prefer businesses that respond to negative reviews, but obviously we will need to respond properly. Here are the key considerations when responding to negative reviews:

1. Understand that there are at least two different kinds of negative reviews. First are the valid ones coming from real customers with real issues. Second are the ones coming from fake customers, often with malicious intents. Recognizing these two will be very important here, so you won’t make any false accusations.
2. Don’t ever deliver false promises when responding to negative reviews. If you don’t have the solution for a specific problem, simply tell them “we are working on it, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible”. If you say you’ll be back with them within 24 hours, do so.
3. If you have sufficient proofs that a negative review is fake, you can ask Google Maps (or other review sites) to take it out. Depending on the case, you might also want to pursue legal actions to discourage similar cases.
4. Remember that for valid negative reviews, there are always the underlying issues. For example, if you received a lot of negative feedback about the long queue on your premise, there might be actual issues with your queuing system. Unless you address this problem first, you’ll keep getting similar reviews.

3. Optimizing Images and Photos

The first thing that should be addressed is that images and photos are not direct ranking factors for Google Maps. However, according to Google My Business itself, businesses with photos get 40% more direction requests. In short, you’ll get more conversions, which can indirectly affect your ranking (when a lot of people request for directions to your business or call your number directly from Google Maps result, Google will see your listing as relevant, which can boost your ranking.

Your profile photo is the first thing a prospect will notice when they are searching on Google Maps, and in Google My Business, you can upload four kinds of images:

• Regular photos: you can upload any kinds of photos here, but Google may review your photos for quality. Your customers can also tag your listing with a photo, which will be under “Photos tagged of your business”.
• Profile photo: self-explanatory, you can choose one photo to represent your identity. You can also choose photos tagged by other people as your profile photo.
• Cover photo: a landscape photo on the very top of you page. You can use it to set the mood of your listing, or to show interesting qualities of your business (i.e., your restaurant’s ambiance)
• Videos: everyone is streaming videos nowadays, and this is a great opportunity to attract customers by investing in engaging videos.

To optimize your images, here are some quick tips to follow:

• The image’s format should be in JPG or PNG, with a size of between 10KB and 5MB
• 720px tall and 720px wide minimum resolution
• Make sure your photos are in-focus, well-lit, and don’t use excessive filters. Google prefers images that represent reality, and as mentioned, Google might review your images for quality
• Optimize the metadata of your images by optimizing the EXIF data, and you might want to check out this tool to help you.

4. Use Google Posts To Engage Your Customers

Google Posts is a fairly new feature of Google Maps and Google My business, and was just introduced in late 2017.

As the name suggest, with Posts you can post content related to your business such as:

• Informing your audience for new products or services, complete with interesting photos
• Inviting people to join an upcoming event
• Announcing various news, for example, if your business just received an award or even a good review from reputable reviewer
• You can use interesting gifs to attract your audience.
• You can also include CTA buttons like “Buy”, “Learn More”, “Sign Up”, and so on.

Again, Posts is not a direct ranking signal, but the more engagement you get, the more Google will perceive your business as relevant and credible.

Creating a Post is fairly simple, the “Posts” option should appear on the left-hand side of your Google My Business sidebar. If not, probably you haven’t verified your Google my business account, and you can check here to learn how.

You can then add texts and images to your post, and here are the important things to consider:

• When adding images, keep in mind that Google uses a 4:3 ratio (so your minimum size should be 400×300 pixels). Google will crop your image to fit the aspect ratio, but make sure it’s high-quality, a proper representation of your business.
• The maximum words allowed in a post is 300. However, if you use a CTA button, only around 70 characters will show on mobile devices. The entire texts will be shown if you don’t use any CTAs.
• Content is everything. Don’t always aim to sell, but you can engage your audience with various creative ways. Your goal here is engagement.
• Google offers a very useful insights feature, so track your posts’ performance and adjust your tactics accordingly
• A post will stay for seven days, but you can set a shorter time period. A week is not a long time, so it is very important to be very specific and time-sensitive with your posts.

Posts can be a very effective way to engage your audience on Google Maps, so you might want to plan ahead and create a content marketing plan specific for Google Posts.

5. Building Local Citations

Local citations are the equivalent of backlinks in regular SEO. A citation, by definition, is when an online entity (website, blog, social media profile) mentions your NAP. The more citations you have, the more relevant your business will be perceived. According to a report by MOZ, citations account for 13% of ranking signals.

The most important thing to consider when building local citations is consistency. Your NAP information must be consistent at all times. Not only inconsistent NAP won’t bring value to your business, Google might downgrade your ranking if there are too many variations of you NAP.

So, how can we build local citations? We can start by listing our business on major business directories like Yelp, Facebook Places, TripAdvisor, and so on. Then, we can continue building citations on specific online directories according to your industry/niche and location. A simple Google search can help you with this, for example, if you are a restaurant in Texas, do a quick Google search for “Texas business directory”, “Texas restaurant directory”, and other similar search phrases. You can also check these lists to help you further:

• Moz’s top local citations list (by category)
• Moz’s top local citations list (by city)

So, the keys to success here are quantity and consistency, and there will be a lot of hard work involved. Not only you will need to build as many citations and possible, you will need to check whether all citations are consistent. Then, in cases when your business change address or phone number, you will need to update all listings manually.

This can be a massive work, so it might be a good idea to hire a local SEO service especially to help you with building your business’s local citations.

End Words

The keys in optimizing your Google My Business listing are accurate information, quantity of local citations, and consistency. It is technically not difficult to execute, but will require a significant time investment as well as hard work.

This is where an SEO expert/consultant can help you, especially to maintain consistency in building your local citations.

The post Tips To Optimize Your Google My Business Listing appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

To answer this question, first we will need to define the term “SEO” and “local SEO” respectively, understanding their similarities, differences, and different benefits.

First, SEO—or Search Engine Optimization—, in a nutshell, is optimizing your site to rank higher on Google’s (and other search engines’) result page for specific keywords. For example, if your business is a pizza restaurant, if you can rank for the “best pizza” New York, it will bring several key benefits including but not limited to:

• You can attract those who are searching for the “best pizza” query
• Since this is a positive keyword associated with credibility, this audience will perceive your business as trustworthy and credible
• If the “best pizza” keyword has a high number of search volume (which is, the number of searches in a given month), you can get a lot of traffic to your site, which can then translate to more people visiting your business and purchasing from you

How can we implement SEO? While SEO is a very, very broad and complex subject, it will boil down to mainly three things:

• Creating and publishing high-quality, relevant content pieces that include the target keyword(s). The keywords should be included naturally with optimal density.The main focus here is to develop content pieces that are valuable for your ideal readers.
• Optimizing your site so that it can be easily indexed by Google. This aspect will include things like ensuring your site is mobile responsive, ensuring fast load speed, and so on.
• Getting other sites, especially high-quality ones to link your site (and your content). These links are known as backlinks, and simply put, the more high-quality backlinks you have, the better Google will perceive your business as relevant (and so you will climb up the rankings).

SEO efforts are mainly centered in these three factors. So, what about local SEO? Local SEO is, in essence, attempting SEO to target the local audience: ensuring your business’s local presence to the audience within your geographic proximity, or the audience located within your service area.

In the past, this is mainly achieved by targeting “local keywords”, which are mainly keywords that include location names (i.e., “restaurants in LA”,”bookstores in NY”, and so on). While the same practice is still effective nowadays, today Google uses Google Maps’ results for location-related keywords and “near me queries”.

Try typing for “restaurants near me” on Google, and you will get a result page with the top 3 of Google Maps results just below the paid advertising (if someone places an ad for your area and for this specific keyword).

So, with this phenomenon, for local SEO we should aim for two different things:

• Ranking on organic search results page for location-focused keywords, as we have discussed above. This is mainly done through the same efforts we have discussed for organic SEO above.
• Ranking on Google Maps. Google Maps only display three of the top results before you have to click “more places”. So, ranking on this top-3, or the 3-pack is the ultimate goal.

Now, ranking organically for the local-focused keywords will produce the same benefits as organic SEO—which we have discussed above—-, but what about ranking on Google Maps? Here are some important takes:

• Google Maps result is interactive, where you can call the business directly with just a single click or get a Google Maps’ directions to the said business. Meaning, you have many opportunities to ensure conversions
• Fewer people will click on the “more places” button to check on results below the top-3. On the other hand, a lot of us simply don’t trust paid search ads although it’s placed above the Google Maps results. Simply put, by ranking in the 3-pack, you are generally perceived as the most credible business among your local competitors.

As we can see, there are a lot of benefits tied to local SEO, both by ranking on the organic search results page and by ranking on the top-3 results of Google Maps. Especially if your small business is targeting local audience, you will miss out on a lot of opportunities if you don’t work with SEO experts and consultants on optimizing your site and listing.

So, How Can I Implement Local SEO?

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits and importance of local SEO, the common question here is: a) What should I do to implement local SEO?, and b) Do I need to get help from a professional or a marketing agency? In this section, we will mainly try to answer these two questions.

First, above we have mentioned that there are two main goals of local SEO:

• Ranking for local-focused and location-related keywords on Google’s organic search
• Ranking on Google Maps’ results

Both of these will require different technical approaches, so we will discuss them separately. First, let us learn the key steps of ranking on Google Maps.

Ranking On Google Maps’ 3-Pack

Before we can optimize our Google Maps (or Google My Business—more on this later—), we must first learn about the key factors that can affect Google Maps ranking.

Although there’s always the debate surrounding Google Maps’ (and Google’s) ranking signals, generally experts agreed that there are three main factors affecting the ranking of your Google Maps listing:

• How complete, comprehensive, and optimized is the information on your Google My Business account (again, more on this later)
• The number of positive reviews on your Google Maps listing, as well as on third-party sites (Yelp, Facebook Places, TripAdvisor, other local business directories)
• The number of citations you have, which is, the mentions of your Name, Business, and Phone Number (NAP) on the internet. Citations have a similar effect to backlinks in regular SEO: the more sites (especially high-quality ones) that mention your NAP, the more credible Google will perceive your business.
• Last but not least, the searcher’s location. If another business with similar optimizations and authority is closer to the searcher than yours, it will rank higher.

Based on those three factors, here are the key steps in improving your Google Maps ranking:

1. Register and Verify Your Google My Business Listing

To have your business listed on Google Maps, you will need to register for a Google My Business account, which is totally free.

The registration process itself is fairly simple, and you can click the link here to get started right away. However, here are some key considerations when registering your Google My Business (GMB) account:

• Your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) are the most important pieces of information in your GMB listing. Make sure they are accurate and up-to-date, and if you have previously listed your business on other online platforms, make sure the information is consistent.
• If you deliver your products/services to your customers, check the corresponding box under the location tab. There’s also the option to hide your address (i.e, if you are operating your business from home). However, your address information is a very important ranking factor, so it is not advisable to hide it from public unless it is absolutely necessary.
• Choose your business category carefully. Remember that it is about what your business is, and not what you sell/provide. You can choose several categories (which will translate to attracting different types of customers), so think very carefully about how your business will fit in within categories, and optimize this aspect.

The next step is to verify your Google My Business account. There are several features that are locked from you unless your listing is verified (i.e., Google Posts), and obviously getting verified will affect your ranking.

To verify your account, you can simply click on the verify now button after you sign in to your Google My Business account. Generally, Google will send a postcard to your business’s physical address containing a verification PIN. Verification via phone and email are also available for certain business types.

2. Optimizing Your Google My Business Listing

Now that your GMB listing is verified (or at least, in the process of verification), it’s time to optimize your listing.

The main principle here is to add as many accurate information as you can about the business. The thing is, people (yes, even random people that hates your business) can “suggest an edit” to your listing. Sometimes, Google will approve these changes without notifying you.

So, it’s important to make your listing as complete and accurate as you can to discourage people from suggesting an edit. Also, regularly check your GMB dashboard and monitor if there’s any change.

Here are some key areas where you can optimize your GMB listing:

Service area

Remember that Google Maps ranking is based on searcher’s location. So it is important to accurately provide accurate information about your service area. You can check Google’s guidelines on this topic here, but here are the key areas to focus on:

• If you are a brick-a-mortar business serving your customers at your place, check the box “I serve customers at my business address”. This will show your complete address on Google Maps
• Similarly, check the box stating that you deliver goods and services to your customers if you do so.
• Make sure to put in accurate business hours. You can also include customized hours for holidays and weekends if necessary.

Including Keywords

Similar to regular SEO strategy, Including the target keywords to our listing is an important ranking signal. The first step to do this is obviously a proper keyword research: we should find relevant keywords according to our locations, with enough search volume, yet manageable competition.

The main principle here to find the optimal keyword density. Don’t worry too much about the density percentage, but instead focus on including the keywords naturally so the content is comprehensive for human readers.

Including Photos and Videos

According to Google’s reports, businesses that feature photos will get significantly more clicks, requests for driving directions, and phone calls. Remember that Google Maps is essentially a visual platform, and we should make full use of the fact that searchers can directly ask for directions to your business, call your number, and visit your website from the Google Maps search result.

Your photos should be at least 720px by 720px in size, and make sure your photos are properly taken, well-lit, and not altered too much (filtered, photoshopped, etc.). Google might review your photos for quality from time to time, and Google does prefer photos that represent the reality of your business.

You can also add videos that are 30 seconds or shorter. Use this opportunity to highlight unique values of your business (interesting interior, product showcase, etc.).

To further optimize your images and videos, you can use metadata to ensure easier indexing.

3. Encouraging positive reviews and managing negative ones

As mentioned, the quantity of positive reviews is a very important ranking signal. If your Google Maps (and GMB) listing has a lot of positive reviews, Google will perceive your business as credible and relevant.

Obviously, there’s another significant benefit of having a lot of positive reviews. A lot of us will check for reviews nowadays, before making any purchase decision. A good number of positive reviews will encourage higher conversions.

However, it’s not always about having more positive reviews, as how you respond to bad ones is also important. Recently, Google confirmed that they do prefer businesses that respond to reviews, which might directly affect ranking.

Responding to reviews will also encourage more people to leave a review. They will feel that their voices are being heard, and that the company will respond when they have issues.

When responding to reviews, here are the key considerations:

• Respond quickly and politely, avoid giving promises you can’t deliver. If you don’t have an answer for a specific issue, just say something like, “we are investigating the issue and will get back to you as soon as possible “.
• There are always cases of bad reviews made with malicious intents (from those who never bought your product/service, non-existent issues, etc). If you have sufficient proofs, you can ask Google (or other review platforms) to remove this review. If it’s a serious case, you might want to pursue legal actions.
• For valid negative reviews, remember that there’s usually an underlying issue(s). If you don’t tackle this issue, you’ll keep getting the same bad reviews.

Another way to encourage more positive reviews is to offer incentives. For example, you can offer discounts and even freebies for those who have left positive reviews on your Google Maps listing or posted about your business in social media.

What about reviews on third-party sites like Yelp or Facebook Places? Google strongly suggested that they will indeed affect ranking. Besides, the more positive reviews you have, the more people that will purchase from you, so you might as well encourage positive reviews on as many platforms possible.

4. Building Local Citations

Local citations, as mentioned, are any mention of your business’ NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) in the internet.

In local SEO and especially improving your Google Maps ranking, citations have a similar value to backlinks in regular SEO: the more citations you have, the more relevant and credible Google will perceive your business, and so the higher you will rank.

There are generally two main approaches in building your local citations: getting relevant sites, bloggers, social media personalities, and others. The second approach is to list your business on online local directories according to your niche.

To start, list your business on major platforms according to your industry. If you are a restaurant, for example, you can list your business on Yelp and TripAdvisor among other platforms. You might want to check out this list by HubSpot listing these major online directories.

Besides these platforms, a quick Google search will help you find local online directories according to your niche and location.

The main principle in building local citations here is to maintain information consistency, especially your NAP. Your NAP should be consistent across all of your citations. Information inconsistency won’t only lead to confusion for your customers, but can also hurt your Google Maps ranking in the long run.

Ranking on Organic Search for Local-Focused Keywords

Now, we shift our focus to organic local SEO, and as we have mentioned, there are three main factors affecting organic ranking:

• The technical aspect of your site, which affects how easily Google can index your site.
• Your content and how it includes your focus keywords. Google will crawl this content and determine whether your site is relevant for the said keyword
• The quantity and quality of backlinks. The more quality sites that link to your site, the more credible Google will perceive your site.

So, as before, here we will focus on how to optimize our site according to these three factors, starting with the first one.

1. Website Optimization

Website optimization for SEO is by itself, a pretty deep subject. You might want to consult this technical SEO checklist to plan your site optimization according to its current state.

However, especially for local SEO, here are a few key areas to focus on:

2. Mobile-responsiveness

It’s no secret that quite recently Google implemented a new update to prefer mobile-friendly sites for ranking purposes.

If your site is not yet mobile-friendly, Google might opt not to include it in the SERP. To start, you can use Google’s mobile-friendly test tool to check your site’s current state.

If your site doesn’t pass the test, here are a few areas you can optimize:

• Make sure your content, images, and other site elements are properly displayed on mobile devices
• If you include forms, don’t use too many fields and make sure users can easily fill in on their mobile devices
• Pay extra attention of your NAP information. Make sure it’s displayed properly even on mobile devices’ smaller screens
• If you include reviews on your site, make sure it’s easily readable

Remember that besides for SEO purposes, not having a mobile-responsive site can significantly affect bounce rate and conversions.

3. Load speed

Similar to mobile-responsiveness, load speed can also affect bounce rate. Make sure your site has a fast enough load speed, and you might want to check out this guide on improving your site’s loading speed.

4. Optimizing Keywords

You should include your target keywords at least in these areas on your site:

• Site URL
• Title Tags
• Headers
• Meta description
• Your site’s content

Google nowadays is being quite sensitive about heavy-optimizations, and so there are two main concerns here:

• Use semantically-related words instead of exact-match keywords. For example, instead of always using “best restaurant in Toronto”, you can use similar phrases like “restaurants to visit if you are in Toronto” and other similar phrases.
• Focus on providing comprehensive content for human readers. Include your keywords naturally and don’t overstuff your content.

5. Location pages

Since this is especially about local SEO, including location pages, especially if you include a Google Maps snippet can significantly improve your ranking.

If your business has more than one location, create specific pages for each of these locations. Again, make sure to include accurate NAP information for each pages, and avoid using duplicate content pieces across multiple pages.

6. Local-focused content

Google’s algorithm is now much more advanced compared to the early days of SEO. In the past, we can get away with shallow content with a high keyword density. Nowadays, your content should bring value to your human readers, and Google can recognize this.

Your main goal here is to build credibility as the local expert or thought leader according to your niche, so you should focus on relevant local keywords to attract your ideal audience.

For example, if you are a home remodelling company, you can go beyond the usual keywords like “home remodelling tips” and similar ones. You can help newcomers get well-acquainted with your city, like providing a content covering important local service providers. These types of content can help attract new audience.

End Words

While local SEO might seem like a complicated concept at first, it is actually quite simple once you’ve got the hang of it.

However, since one of the main elements of local SEO efforts is citation building where quantity and consistency is the keys, the process can be long and tedious.

Getting the help of a local SEO services can tremendously help especially in maintaining consistency across all your different listings.

The post The Small Business Guide To Local SEO appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

Google Maps results are based on Google My Business listings. So, one of the main considerations in improving your Google Maps ranking is by optimizing your Google My Business listing. Here are the steps provides by SEO consultant Mike.

1. Including Optimized and Complete information

Google My Business is essentially a place where you can list information about your business, and these pieces of information will be used by Google to determine your business’s relevance, credibility, and ultimately, ranking.

So, the first thing to optimize on your Google My Business listing is your business’s information, especially these areas:

• Your NAP—your business’s name, address and phone number. These are the most important pieces of information about your business on the internet.
• Your site’s URL. Google will crawl your site to determine its relevance in tandem with your GMB listing.
• Description. There’s an ongoing debate whether optimizing your description for keywords will actually benefit your ranking. However, there’s no harm in doing so as long as you include these keywords naturally. Focus on attracting and engaging your human audience.
• Category. Choose the primary category that best represents what your business does. You can also choose other relevant sub-categories, this is a good opportunity not only for ranking purposes, but to attract a wider audience
• Attributes. Use attributes to highlight unique features about your business. For example, whether your restaurant offer outdoor seating or vegetarian menu.

Pay extra attention to your NAP. Make sure it is up-to-date and accurate, and if you have any mention of your NAP on the internet (local citations, more on this below), make sure to maintain consistency.

Here are some extra tips you can use to optimize this aspect:

1. Make sure your listed address matches the proper Google Maps’ coordinates, same for zip-codes.Again, aim for consistency.
2. It’s better to list a local phone number instead of a national or regional number.
3. Don’t over-optimize category, attributes, and description. Again, make sure they are natural and comprehensive for human readers.
4. Use this guide to help you in choosing your categories.
5. Remember to be as specific as possible when choosing categories and attributes.

2. Soliciting Reviews and Handling Negative Ones

The quantity of positive reviews is a very important ranking signal for local SEO. However, there’s also the obvious benefit of boosting your conversions and revenue: more and more people read reviews before making purchases, especially when considering local brick and mortar businesses.

Studies suggested that up to 8ryh6% of consumers nowadays read reviews before deciding on any purchases. So, if you don’t have enough positive reviews, it will simply hurt your conversion rates significantly. Yet, how can we get more positive reviews? There are at least three main approaches:

• Just ask. Sometimes, all it takes is simply to ask your customers to leave a review. The key here is not only to ask politely (and as engaging as possible), but also to find the right timing. For example, send an email asking for a review for customers who just repurchase your product (indicating they are indeed happy with your brand), or if you track online engagement, send an email for those who frequently visited your product listing page and blog.

• Incentives. Pretty self-explanatory, you can offer incentives to existing customers in exchange of their reviews (and social media mentions). You can combine this with the first approach to optimize your chances.

• Responding to existing reviews. If you frequently respond to existing reviews (yes, even the bad ones), your audience are more likely to leave their own reviews. They will have the perception that their issues will be responded quickly, and similarly, their positive feedback will be appreciated.

As you can see, managing negative reviews is also a significant aspect of soliciting more positive reviews. You might want to check out this guide on online reputation management to get started. However, here are some quick tips on this aspect:

• Differentiate between valid negative reviews coming from real customers and fake reviews with malicious intent. If you have sufficient proofs, you can ask Google Maps (or other review sites) to take down fake reviews. You might also want to pursue legal actions depending on the severity of the case.
• Respond quickly and politely, and don’t offer promises you can’t deliver.
• Remember that for valid bad reviews, there is usually an underlying issue(s). If you don’t fix these issues in the first place, you’ll keep getting the same negative feedbacks over and over again.

3. Engaging Your Customers Through Google Posts

Google Posts was introduced in late 2017 as a feature of Google My Business. As a side note, only verified Google My Business listing will get this feature, so if you can’t access Google Posts via your GMB dashboard, chances are you haven’t verified your listing.

With Google Posts, you can post content about your business, such as:

• Announcing new products or services with engaging images
• Event invitation, both for online and offline events
• Using gifs and other engaging media to attract your audience
• Announcing various business-related news.

You can include CTA buttons (“Buy”, “Learn More”, etc.) with your posts. But remember that if you use a CTA button, only around 70 characters will be displayed on mobile devices, compared to 300 characters without.

Engagement is an important ranking factor for Google Maps ranking, so take advantage of Google Posts to attract more audience. Besides, there’s also the benefit of attracting more prospects and improving conversion rates.

4. Using and Optimizing Images

According to Google themselves, business listings that include photos get up to 40% more conversion rates from requests of directions to phone calls to actual visits. Again, the more people engaged your listing, the higher it will rank.

When optimizing for photos, here are some key areas to consider:

• You can use all kinds of images and photos, but Google can review your photos for quality and appropriation. Generally, Google prefers photos that can represent the reality of your business, so avoid using too much filter and editing.
• The image format should be in PNG or JPG with a size between 10KB and 5MB
• The minimum resolution should be 720px x720px.
• Take photos within (or nearby) your business location, Google will crawl your photo location metadata and this can affect your ranking.
• You can also upload videos up to 30 seconds long. Use this opportunity to highlight unique qualities of your business.

5. Building Local Citations

Local citations refer to any mention of your business’s NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) information on the internet. Citation is a very important ranking signal, and there are generally two main ways to get citations: build relationships with authoritative press, sites, blogs, and social media profiles. The second approach is to list your business in various online directories:

• Google My Business is technically an online directory, and the most important factor in implementing local SEO.
• Start with major online directories like Facebook Places, Yelp, and so on depending on your niche. Check out this list to help you out in this aspect.
• You can then continue with smaller online directories depending on your location and industry type. Use this list for top local directory by category, and this list for citations based on city.

The key in building local citations is to maintain consistency, especially for your NAP information. If, for example, you just changed your business address, you will need to update all of these listings. Inconsistent information not only can mislead your audience, but can significantly hurt your Google Maps ranking in the long run.

End Words

To optimize your Google My Business listing, the most important factors are accurate and up-to-date information, quantity of local citations, number of positive reviews, and consistency of information.

The post Effective Strategies To Improve Your Google My Business Ranking appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

With this phenomenon, more and more people are using “near me” queries to find local businesses. This doesn’t only include queries like “restaurants near me” or “bookstores near me”, but will extend to queries like “where can I buy flowers near me”.

For local businesses, optimizing your presence online to target these queries will bring significant impact to conversion rate—and thus, revenue—. These optimizations come in the form of local SEO, and in this guide, we will learn all of its ins and outs.

What Actually is Local SEO?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the efforts to optimize your site, as well as its external factors to rank higher on Google SERP for your target keywords.

So, based on that definition, what is local SEO? Local SEO is SEO that is specifically tailored to target local-focused keywords—keywords that are searched by people when they are looking for local businesses—.Most of the time, these keywords are “business name” followed by “location” like “bookstores in Los Angeles”.

In the past, there are  not many differences between ‘regular’ SEO and local SEO, with the main differences being the content and target keywords. However, nowadays there are two major changes we should observe:

• Nowadays, many people use “near me” search queries, including when using voice searches when searching from mobile devices.
• Google now feature results from Google Maps on the very top of the search results page just below the paid ads. Google Maps’ results will require different optimization approaches.

Since Google Maps’ results are very significant for local SEO, let us dig deeper on the concept.

Understanding Google Maps Results

Let’s try searching for local keywords, for example, “restaurants in Toronto”. You will see a result page like this (it might vary depending on your current location)

As we can see, there are clear differences compared to the standard results page. We can see the business hours of the featured businesses, review ratings, and photos. We should also notice that there are only three businesses featured on the results page before the searchers need to click “more places”.

To be featured on this “3-pack”, you will need to list your business on Google MY Business. Google My business will play a very significant part in local SEO, so again, let us dig deeper.

Understanding Google My Business

Google My Business was previously known as Google Local (and for a time, Google+ Local). Basically, Google My Business is an online directory where you can list your business profile.

Registering for a Google My Business account is totally free, and you can click here to get started. You can then follow the steps instructed, and you are good to go.

Also, you will need to verify your business listing. Usually, Google will send a postcard containing a PIN which you can use to verify your business address. Depending on your business types, you might be able to verify your business through an email or phone call.

There’s also the matter of optimization. The more optimized your GMB listing is, the higher it will rank. We will discuss these important optimizations further below. First, let us learn about the factors affecting your Google Maps ranking.

Google Maps Ranking Signals

There are obviously a lot of different factors that can affect your Google Maps ranking. However, according to a study by Moz, here are the top six factors that will affect your Google Maps ranking:

1. Your location. When there are two businesses with similar optimizations, same target keywords, and similar level in all other factors, the business that is located closer to the searcher will rank higher.
2. Google My Business listing optimizations. Many factors are included here from how complete and accurate your information is, photos and videos optimizations, keyword density, to optimizations on attributes and categories.
3. Backlinks. The quantity of inbound links to your website (since your website URL is also listed in GMB, and therefore indexed by Google). The quality of the backlinks also matters.
4. Number of positive reviews. Google will take account of the number of positive reviews you have both on your Google Maps listing and on third party sites (Yelp, TripAdvisor, other business directories depending on your niche).
5. On-page optimizations both on your website and your GMB listing. This will include keyword density, NAP information consistency, mobile-responsiveness, page load speed, and so on.
6. Local Citations. Citations are any mention of your business’s name, address and phone number (NAP) on the internet, which is mainly achieved by listing your business on various online directories.

Based on these six factors, we can summarize that there are three most important elements of Google Maps ranking:

• Position: how close your business is to the searcher’s location
• Credibility: what other consumers say about your business, and how many consumers are talking about you
• Relevance: how relevant is your business, product, and/or service for the search query

More About Local Citations

If you are already familiar with the concept of SEO, you might have realized that local citations have a similar principle to backlinks in regular SEO.

As we have mentioned, a citation is a mention of your business’s NAP information on the internet, and both the quantity and quality will matter in determining your Google Maps ranking:

• Quantity: the more sites and directories that mention your NAP, the better
• Quality: the more relevant/authoritative the platform/site that mentions your NAP, the better

There are generally two different types of local citations: structured and unstructured.

Structured citations are citations that appear in business directories and listings. Usually, you will need to fill out a form to claim a listing on these platforms.

To build structured local citations, you can start by claiming listings on major business directories like Yelp and Facebook Places. This list by Hubspot might be helpful in this process.

You can also look for various local online directories according to your location and niche/industry. Again, check out these lists to get started:

• Moz’s list for top local citations by category
• Moz’s list for top local citations by city

What about unstructured citations? By definition, unstructured citations are any mention of your NAP information in social media, blog posts, or social media posts among others. In short, if it’s not on a business listing, it is unstructured.

To get unstructured citations, you can use similar approaches to influencer outreach. Build relationships with press, authoritative blogs, and local social media influencers in your area, and ask them to mention your business (with the NAP information).

While building local citations is not a difficult process—technical-wise—, it can require a tedious process especially since you will need to maintain consistency in information. Your NAP information should be consistent across all of your listings, as misinformation can significantly hurt your Google Maps ranking.

On the other hand, local citations are really important in improving your ranking. This is likely the area where you’ll need the help of local SEO services.

Key Steps In Improving Your Google Maps Ranking

Based on the factors discussed above, here are the key steps required if you want to improve your Google Maps ranking:

1. Local optimizations for your website

When claiming your Google My Business listing, you will need to include your business’s website URL. Google will then use this information and crawl your site to determine whether it’s relevant and credible for your local audience.

The process of “localizing” your website can vary between businesses according to their needs and current assessments. However, generally here are the key areas to optimize:

• Including the name of your city, county, or region as keywords, where these names are mentioned naturally throughout your site with an optimal density.
• Depending on your target locations, this process might require creating specific pages for each individual location.
• Another popular tactic is to include local-focused content on your site. For example, including articles about local community events, local tourism spots, and so on.

This step will also require the usual technical optimizations for SEO. For example, ensuring your site is mobile friendly, optimizing the internal linking structure, and improving the page’s load speed, among other optimizations.

2. Claiming, verifying, and optimizing your Google My Business listing.

Above, we have covered how you can claim and verify your Google My Business listing. Google will use the information you’ve put on this listing to determine your business’s relevance and credibility.

So, here are the key areas where you can optimize your Google My Business listing:

• NAP information

We can’t stress enough how important your NAP information is in local SEO. Your NAP will be your business’s main identity on Google Maps, as well as on other third-party sites.

Make sure your NAP is complete and accurate. If you’ve recently made any changes to your business’s address, for example, make sure to update this information.

• Optimizing descriptions

Remember that your GMB description should be about what your business is, and not what you sell. Include your target keywords here naturally, but make sure this content is comprehensive for human readers.

• Optimizing categories and attributes

Similar principle to descriptions above. Choose the relevant categories according to what your business is. You can choose more than one category, so pay extra attention to choosing all the possible categories you can, as long as they are relevant to your business.

You can use attributes to highlight unique values of your business, for example, if your restaurant has an outdoor area, you can put this information as an attribute.

• Optimizing images and videos

Using well-taken photos and professionally-made videos won’t only help your listing’s relevance for ranking purposes, but can also boost conversions. According to Google, businesses that display photos on their Google My Business listings get 42% more request for directions and 35% more site visitations.

You can also upload videos up to 30 seconds in length. Use this opportunity to attract more audience by posting engaging and informative videos.

You can also use EXIF metadata to further optimize your images for easier indexing.

• Business hours information

It is very important to display accurate business hours at all times. Again, Google simply doesn’t like misinformation, and when you put wrong information, it can significantly hurt your ranking.

Whenever you made any changes to your business hours, make sure to update your GMB listing. Also, people can suggest changes to your GMB profile, so check your dashboard regularly whether someone suggested any changes as Google can approve it without notifying you first.

Google does offer the feature to customize business hours for holidays, weekends, and special events. Use this feature to your advantage.

3. Citation building

As mentioned, there are two main focuses when building local citations: quantity and consistency.

Citation building is a very important step not only in improving your Google Maps ranking, but also to help more customers in finding your business.

4. Encouraging positive reviews

The quantity of positive reviews both on Google Maps and (major) third-party sites is one of the most important ranking signals for Google Maps results.

On the other hand, more and more people nowadays will check for online reviews before making any purchase decisions. This is especially true for local businesses. So, if you can get more positive reviews, it can significantly boost your conversions and thus, revenue.

There are two main approaches to encouraging more positive reviews from your customers. First, is to offer incentives. This is a relatively common and effective strategy, you can offer discounts and even freebies for existing customers who are willing to leave reviews.

Second, is to respond to your reviews, even the bad ones. This way, people who see that you responded (properly) to past reviews might want to voice their own concerns or even show appreciation through a positive review.

5. Link building

Although not as prominent as in regular, organic SEO, backlinks are still very important in local SEO as a ranking factor.

While link building can be a pretty broad topic on its own, here are some common approaches you can implement:

• Build relationships with local press, local influencers, and authoritative sites. Sometimes, all it takes to get a backlink is simply asking for it.
• Content marketing. If you can produce relevant, valuable content, people will naturally link it.
• Guest posting. When done properly, guest posting can be a very powerful link building tactic. Remember, however, that the key is to build relationships and not solely focusing on getting backlinks.
• Utilizing influencers. If you can work with the right influencers, you can get relevant backlinks while they can also help in promoting your business.

For local SEO, links from local press, local authoritative blogs, and business associations are the most valuable. Citations can also act as high-quality backlinks, so make sure to focus on both citation building and link building equally.

End Words

The trends surrounding local search are really strong today, and are still growing strongly for the years to come. In fact, the internet will continue to be a more localized place, and Google will continue to focus its efforts on a better local experience.

So, local SEO, in the near future, will no longer be a luxury, but a necessity for businesses that are trying to attract local audiences. If you haven’t already, there is never a better time to start investing in SEO consultant.

The post How to Improve Your Local SEO and Rank on the First Page of Google appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

No matter how much you think you know about local SEO, you’ll always find more to learn. It’s why you should always work with an expert when using local SEO. They’ll show you more of what’s possible so you don’t overlook anything.

What you’ll discover is that there’s a lot more local in local SEO than you perhaps knew. These techniques are going to help round off the edges of your local SEO campaign to assure your business is always found during searches.

Take a look at these seven steps you’ve maybe ignored until now.

Optimizing for Google My Business

No doubt you’ve used a lot of Google tools for local SEO, but have you ever used Google My Business? Even if you have, you perhaps haven’t optimized there in a way that gives you a stronger local presence.

So what practical methods are there to optimizing your profile on the site? You’ll be glad to know Google My Business is a free service, saving you on any charges adding pertinent information about your business.

Some things to optimize:

• Uploading your business logo and photos of your staff can do wonders for your SEO and give more visuals to your brand. It also helps personalize your business more by showcasing the photos of your employees. The same goes with uploading a photo of your office building.
• Include your business category as well so you can better identify your business niche. Perhaps you haven’t thought enough about what your business category really is. Take some time to analyze what industry you represent so you’re easier found.
• Don’t forget to include contact information in your profile. Far too many businesses neglect to add simple contact info, like a phone number. Be sure to keep this updated if you make any changes to your contact methods.

Hyper-Localizing Your Location Pages

With all your location pages spread throughout the web, how many of them look alike? It’s easy to get complacent and think you can design the same page for use across the web and gain successful SEO results.

In truth, you’re hurting your SEO if making each page the same for multiple business locations. If you have multiple locations, you need to make each location page unique since franchises aren’t all uniform.

You may use slightly different procedures or use different branding in your other businesses. Reflect this by taking time to optimize each location page you have posted.

As Forbes notes, don’t just replace your city name. You’ll need to make your pages useful and engaging to enhance your branding.

Make Your Title Tags More Localized

Title tags are still relevant in local SEO, and you shouldn’t ignore what kind of local keywords you can use in each one. The danger is in using overly basic keywords that don’t pinpoint exactly where your business is.

A good choice is to use your business’s city in the title tag using a little creativity. The most common method is to place your city after the business category in the title.

Think of other localized terms you can place in the title tag that identifies your geographic location. When you get more specific, the faster people can find you on Google Maps. After optimizing correctly, you’ll show up on Google Maps for those searching on mobile devices.

Create Relationships With Local Journalists

Sometimes improving your local SEO means doing overly practical things in the offline world. To balance things out in your SEO, it helps to do a combination of online and offline activities that help get you into the minds of potential new customers.

One of the best offline opportunities is to link up with local journalists and other media. If you’ve already spent time nurturing relationships with prospects on social media or through marketing emails, it’s time to do the same thing with your local TV stations, radio, or newspapers.

To do this properly, you’ll want to start building relationships with local reporters in your area first. They’re always looking for human-interest stories, and if you have a good story about your business, they’ll want to cover it. However, make sure your business story has good timing. Considering reporters work on tight deadlines, you’ll want to contact in advance to allow time for a quality story.

Some other tips for building media relationships:

• Keep interacting with local reporters or media outlets on social media so they’ll keep you in memory for future stories.
• Send local media pertinent information related to your industry. When you help them out, they’ll appreciate your insights. If they haven’t done a story on your business yet, they may when you prove your clout.

Using Google’s New Virtual Tour

It’s gratifying how Google keeps coming up with new tools that help businesses improve themselves. If you didn’t think they have anything left to add, they’ve recently added Google Virtual Tour to help bring virtual reality to your local marketing.

Now you have an innovative way to further improve your local SEO. The tool allows you to create 3D tours of your business that automatically show up in search results. Most importantly, these virtual tours show up automatically on Google Maps, giving more incentive for searchers to click on your business link.

These tours work very similarly to the Street View function on Google Maps. Arrows allow users to move throughout various floors or departments, including 360-degree control.

It’s possible to go off the grid for further business tours, and it’s perfectly capable of taking on large venues.

You can do all of this for free through Google My Business, giving you further inspiration to stick with Google to improve your local SEO campaign.

Keeping Your Business Information Updated On Local Directories

Yet another practical method for improving local SEO is to update your business citations and information on local directories. Managing these should come after you’ve claimed your stake on Google My Business, Yelp, or Bing Places. All of these should become first priority, but so should claiming your business with local directories like Info Group or Factual.

You may think leaving your business information there is enough to keep your local SEO results solid. With so many local directories out there, you may forget how much information you have there that’s outdated.

All businesses update information over time. Perhaps you’ve moved your business to another location, changed your phone number, or updated your site’s URL.

Forgetting to update just one of these could end up costing you in your search engine rankings. Check out all local directories where you have listings and update each one.

As Forbes reminds, if you don’t update in one place, it could trickle out into other citations on the web. It just goes to show how much of a chain reaction you create when you don’t handle local SEO tasks correctly.

Optimizing to Claim a Local Area in Your Town or City

The point of local SEO is to dominate in your local area so you can overcome your nearby competitors. While this might seem easy enough based on the unique services you bring, only proper SEO is going to help you be found above competitors.

Once again, proper optimization is the key to success, and it’s going to involve being found on Google Maps as just starters. This also relates to your website where using meta tags with your local city keyword helps Google Map placement.

Citations and local listings are also a huge part of the optimization process to claim a local area.

Remember, going simple with your local SEO campaign isn’t going to help you rank and claim a local area for yourself. It’s going to take quality content, and hard work with an SEO expert to assure effectiveness.

Conclusion

With these seven steps, you’ll enhance your local SEO results exponentially, even if it sounds overly daunting. What’s important is to work with someone who knows how to approach local SEO, including understanding the latest trends.

Mastering local SEO also takes more than seven steps, and if you need help with improving local visibility of your business hire me as your SEO expert. The more you learn, the better the partnership. Plus, knowledge helps your entire business staff understand the important role local SEO plays.

The post Bringing More Local to Local SEO: 7 Further Steps to Your Business Being Found appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.