This article will look at what you should be focusing on when you optimise your Google My Business listing. Most users tend to focus on the wrong things. It’s easy to want to do everything and succeed at nothing at all. So today my video along with this article is going to sharpen your focus on tips for your local business, so it can grow long term.
Sometimes its good to analyse your focus and put effort into the area that will give most results. Its a case of using the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule. You know what that is right? Amazingly most of the business, sales, customers, marketing, stats, in fact, any business-related trend tends to fit in this ratio of 80/20
Focus on how you help customers. Use social media, your website and Facebook to focus on improving your authority in Google. Remember it’s not about you it’s about them, the customer when you are writing.
If you want to locally connect, then you need to talk their language. Use their expressions, use their questions (see https://answerthepublic.com/) Be where your customers are, so you don’t need to be everywhere, eg Instagram, Facebook is big in Google ranking.
Find out what they want by asking, have community and feedback forms and remain approachable. Notice where the focus is.
Did you know that Google themselves are clear that you cant focus on everything? They are very clear that 2 out of 3 things are out of your control. So it’s worth taking a few minutes out and thinking about all the things you can control about your local business.
Google says you can’t control everything in Google My Business. So surely its best to focus on what you can change and control. The basis for today’s local business tips and tutorial.
If you want to read Googles article and video in full you can find it on https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en-GB
On that page, it reveals how Google determines the local ranking. It says it primarily on relevance, distance and prominence. A combination of these factors helps us find the best match for your search. So can you control these?
Google is semi-transparent on its map ranking. So taking each of the 3 main areas it ranks your GMB on , do you think you have control on the main 3 factors? Does it fit into the 80/20 pareto principle? Almost.
Relevance refers to how well a local Business Profile matches what someone is searching for. Add complete and detailed business information to help Google better understand your business and match your profile to relevant searches.
72% of clients using a local search, visited a business within 5 miles. Can you control this though? Distance considers how far each potential search result is from the location term used in a search. If a user doesn’t specify a location in their search, we’ll calculate distance based on what we do know about their location.
Prominence refers to how well known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels or well-known shop brands are also likely to be prominent in local search results. Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business, from across the web, like links, articles and directories. Google review count and review score factor into local search ranking.
I use the analogy of “You can’t expect to boil the ocean” it’s just not going to happen. You will just boil yourself. So the idea behind this is to make your effort count.
Why not write a list of all the things you can control and a list of the things you can’t. So for example more reviews and positive ratings can improve your business’ local ranking. You could increase that probability by asking more people for reviews. So here are a few things that will get you.
If you then want more support videos and learn how to really push your listing up another level head over to the Zanet YouTube Channel
Zanet Design Ltd is based in the Bournemouth. If you want a reliable web design manager or just need some type of benefit from my experience, then book a consultation with me and I will do my best to give you the best advice tailored for your business.