So do you know that Google My Business best practices go hand in hand with SEO?
It’s true if you are prepared to put the work into the following Google My Business best practices and tips you can boost your rank and leapfrog your competitors. But what does Google consider the current best practices?
After several months of research, I’ve now put together what I would consider the perfect list of Google My Business tips to improve your local search results. To accompany the list I’ve put together a downloadable infographic and video explaining each tip. If you have any questions, then feel free to comment on the relevant Youtube video or comment below. So let’s jump straight into these 7 GMB ranking tips.
To jump to the relevant tip click below:
- Location registration in Google My Business
- Categories are always changing, so keep ahead
- Citations are always essential for Google My Business
- Photos and Videos for improved traffic
- Links should be regular and reputable
- Reviews are often misunderstood
- Regular updates are always GMB best practices
- Conclusion and What Next
The Infographic For Optimizing Google My Business
So let’s look at my favourite 7 best practices for Google My Business. As I take each one I will show you through tips and tutorials exactly how to do each suggestion so you have a total understanding as to why and where you input these optimisation tips.
To help you I’ve provided a downloadable infographic PDF or you can link through to this article if you want to share the tips and videos or just print it off for reference.
Use this HTML code to add it to your website.
<a href="https://zanet.co.uk/google-my-business-best-practices/"><img style="width:100%;" src="https://zanet.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zanet-7-info-scaled.jpg"></a><br>Google My Business Infographic By <a href="https://zanet.co.uk/">Zanet Design</a>
7 Best Practices For Google My Business Download
Video: Google My Business Best Practices
Boost local search results using these 7 GMB ranking signals timestamps
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:45 Location
- 2:08 Video link Google My Business Steps to unlock quotes: see Service Area or Shop
- 3:00 Categories
- 3:42 Citations
- 5:05 Photos and Videos
- 6:00 Video link to Geotagging images
- 6:25 Video link to the free 360 degree video
- 7:43 Links
- 9:09 Reviews
- 10:40 Video Link reviews and ranking video
- 12:25 Video Link Free infographic here
“7 of the best”, wasn’t a reference to a GMB download when I was at school, but that’s what we have here, so let’s take the first one in more detail.
“Boost local search results using these 7 GMB ranking signals” – the infographic every business owner should print off and follow.
Zanet.co.uk
There are so many suggestions out there as to what you can and can’t do to improve your listing. With millions of businesses competing against each other in a local boxing ring, you need to make sure your blows count and every so often you train to go the distance ready to deal a knockout punch.
Location registration in Google My Business
Location, location, location. Often a saying for moving house, but also the most common reason small businesses find a suspension from Google. If you register an incorrect address or change it too often, before you know it you receive a soft suspension.
Google has several situations within the location and address setting that can trigger a suspension and it can be tough to get it removed. So it’s really important to understand how location works and the importance of being extremely honest during the setup process.
You can register your business without a clear and areal location. Once registered you can choose whether the business location shows publicly eg a storefront or if you want to be considered a service covering an area where you go to the customers rather than them come to your location.
Do you want to know how to change the address on google maps or how to add a service for your Google My Business listing?
Categories are always changing, so keep ahead
Google uses categories to narrow down a search. Sometimes these categories can overlap so it’s really important to make sure you chose the right category and not lots of categories. I would suggest choosing between 1 to 3 categories based on how many you need to give an accurate description of your business.
Google does update the categories quite often so do take a look at the complete list here, Google My Business Category List and add any that fit your business well.
Choosing a secondary categories isn’t always necessary in Google My Business.
Citations are always essential for Google My Business
This has been one of the biggest changes to Google My Business ranking in recent months. Not only does it appear your business citations are included in the Google My Business algorithm, but they are also beginning to appear in your knowledge panel.
So do take a close look at your other external citations and your NAP – see this article on NAP called Google my business nap consistency Look at your indexes and social media references. Check your listings on Yell, Yelp, Facebook, Bing, Yext and so on. All these areas are impacting your credibility as a business. Add to that the importance of NAP (Name Address, Phone) and any inconsistency could damage your rank and reputation.
Google My Business NAP listing (3 Questions Answered)
Photos and Videos for improved traffic
When did you last take a look at your Google My Business insights? Take a look at where your traffic is coming from and most of my clients see its not from the website or maps. It’s from images or photos. These images are even showing the standard search within the Google mobile results see this article for a full explanation of Google my business images showing in SERPs. Not only is Google showing them more often these days. But photos and videos bring in the most traffic by far because visitors like a visual appreciation of a product or service.
So what best practices do I recommend for adding images, photos and videos? All images can be Geo-tagged and use text on images where it makes sense. Finally always upload the mandatory images like logo, staff and the free 360-degree video.
and the Local Seo Benefits of doing so.
Links should be regular and reputable
Links are an old staple diet for SEO gurus, but after so much manipulation and black hat farm linking, this is an area I’ve avoided. Can you succeed without proactively link building? Is it possible to build inbound quality links from reputable websites? I believe the answer is yes. Yes if you grow an honest brand.
If you are providing great value, and have articles, videos and graphics that are helpful, then surely overtime your content will naturally have external links. Visitors will naturally share it via their social media accounts. This will happen on a regular basis which gives Google the signals of a reputable authentic brand.
Do you encourage reputable links by having great content and a strong brand?
Reviews are often misunderstood
According to Google My Business Support, there is nothing wrong in asking customers for reviews. In fact, they encourage it. Though that is pretty easy to understand, what is more, surprising is the way reviews are used. It’s become clear most business misunderstand how reviews help you rank. It’s not really to do with the score itself. See this article to explain the details of this theory It’s called Local SEO for small business ranking
So you have reminded your customers to leave reviews and you now want to know what to aim for the above article shows that we want diverse, regular and a good quantity of reviews. Don’t overly worry about the score. A study showed that aiming for above 4.3 average is about right.
Improve the amount of reviews with this link tip
Regular updates are always GMB best practices
Update your posts on a regular basis. GMB provide a lot more than just whats new posts. You can add products, event posts, services and updates relating to special holidays. Additionally you can update holiday hours and add special hours. Google likes to see regular updates Nothing gives better signals than Google My Business Posts on a regular basis.
if you want to see an increase in business enquries.
Conclusion and What Next
In summary, you can boost local search results by implementing these 7 GMB suggestions on a regular basis. What you are trying to achieve is this:
“Having one physical location is essential per business, though a service area can work well. Make sure the most accurate categories are chosen. Don’t underestimate the power of external citations and the power through NAP and a variety of reviews. Focus on post consistency and update regularly events and photos and you won’t go far wrong.”
Zanet Design
So I hope these videos and suggestions have been really helpful. please let me know below if you have any questions.
What Next?
Do you need an experienced professional to manage your website and help your small business grow on the web?
If you want a pro to look after your Google My Business then send a message on my contact page and we can take a look at some great solutions together.