What’s a key factor in getting your business noticed? It’s not just relying on the best SEO strategies like E-A-T. Nor is it only using sterling social media campaigns (though they’re also indispensable to your business). Instead, it’s location, location, location! So, location will always be a critical factor in having a business. After all, you have to start somewhere! So even if you’re a freelancer with little more than a laptop or a big shot in an established company, a business will always take up space. So you need to capitalize on that space by Improving Your Local Business Ranking! Google can help you out with that. Specifically, Google My Business can help your Local Business Ranking.
Google My Business
According to Google, Google My Business or Google Ads Help “lets you create and manage free business listings in Google Maps.” It’s how local customers can find you! Google is beneficial to businesses if they want to boost their visibility on Google. In addition, it’s pretty easy to set up a Google My Business account too!
How does Google come up with its rankings for Local Businesses anyway?
Let’s say you want to get some milk tea with boba. So, you turn to your phone and type in ‘‘Milk tea,’’ and then the Google Map with pinned milk tea shops pop up. Then, you take your pick! Nowadays, the beauty of Google is that users can simply type in keywords for a particular product or service, and they immediately get results from the surrounding area!
However, Google does not uplift all businesses equally. For example, if a business owner, by any chance, searched for their kind of business, they might not see their own business in the results! This is because three factors go into ranking: Relevance, Distance, and Prominence.
- Relevance
First, Google will check whether or not a business is what the user needs. Then, Google will prioritize companies that match search terms, depending on their Relevance to the profile details.
- Distance
Physical location is also a factor! It all depends on the proximity of the business a user is searching for. If a user doesn’t state the location, then Google will rely on the user’s location for Distance.
- Prominence
A business’ popularity is another factor that Google relies on. Offline popularity is also a factor in terms of how prominent a company is on Google. Prominence doesn’t just involve online popularity — word of mouth is far from obsolete even today!
Though these are key to making your business more popular, as stated before, Google does not uplift all businesses equally. Therefore, to get your Google Local Business ranking high, you’re going to need to do a bit of legwork!
Here’s how to improve your Google Local Business Rankings:
Be thorough when adding information about your business!
Google will match relevant information from businesses depending on the information you add to your business. So, maximize your business profile and add as much information as you can! So, make sure you update your business info regularly. You have to specify:
- Business type,
- Products or services offered,
- Location and address,
- Contact number,
- Business email address, and
- Hours.
Speaking of hours —
Be detailed with your business hours, as well.
It’s great to be transparent, so you should let your customers know when you’re open for business! Likewise, your customers will appreciate knowing when they can come around to do some business with you! Also, when inputting business hours, don’t forget to consider holidays too!
Also, add some images of your business!
60% of consumers are more likely to consider a business that has images attached to it in search results pages. Thus, customers will consider you more seriously if you have images or pictures of your business! In addition, 67% of consumers agree that a high-quality product image is “very important.” So, appeal to potential customers by putting your business’ best image forward! Whenever applicable, take pictures of your physical store and/or its products and possibly graphic materials to boost your branding!
Confirm your location(s) on the map.
You also have to be clear about where you are on Google Maps. Once you’ve verified your location, it’ll show up all across Google platforms! A business should be careful with its address. One might end up losing out on great customers because someone forgot to double-check if the location was correct!
Don’t forget to reply to your reviews!
Customers love to have a brand hear them out. So, field reviews for your business as soon as you can! Acknowledge the clients who took the time to put their strong feelings about you into the comments. Great reviews are perfect for inviting new customers to your client base! But also, don’t count bad reviews out either. You can always turn things around by apologizing and promising a better experience next time. So whether it’s positive or negative, you have to deal with them appropriately. Replying to comments is also good to show how involved you are with customer and user experience.
Your Google Local Business Ranking may need a bit of elbow grease.
When you’re a small business, you need all the help you can get to be visible to customers. So, you should rely on Google for local business rankings! Google needs your business to be relevant, close to users, and famous! Of course, one can always advertise a company with Google Ads. But, small businesses can get their big break by having a good relationship with Local Rankings.
Regardless of size, a business should play to its strengths while pleasing the algorithm. Then, Google can do the bulk of the advertising for you! All you have to do is input a decent amount of business info, such as images and location! Also, you need to engage with customer reviews.
