CLAIM & OPTIMIZE “GOOGLE MY BUSINESS”
It is very important for every local business to claim their Google My Business. Don’t worry, this platform is free, and you can get incredible exposure if you have optimized your business to show up in Google’s local listings.
If your business is previously on Google My Business page, you can always claim your business. There will be a verification process that you will need to go through where Google will send a postcard with a PIN to your physical business location. After that, you just log in and key in the PIN to verify your business.
Once you have claimed your “Google My Business,” then comes the optimization part for local SEO Marketing.
Google favors businesses that categorize their listing under the most relevant category. For example, if you are an Italian restaurant, you should pick the category “Italian restaurant” instead of just “restaurant.” When optimizing Google My Business, don’t skip to:
- Write a solid description of your business.
- List your business in the right category.
- Update your business operating hours.
- Types of payments accepted.
- Upload the logo or the photo of your business for people to recognize it.
- Add at least ten quality photos of your products or services.
- Check the most popular times of the day and consider Google Adwords or freelance to work organically to drive visitors.
- Use the new Google Posts feature to stand out.
If you’re unfamiliar with online marketing, search engine optimization or SEO and social media marketing is a significant part of any digital strategy for your business. If you are serious about attracting leads and business online but don’t actively do SEO on your site, it’s time to get the start.
Why Consider Local SEO?
It is an opportunity for businesses in a city, town or community to get found when searchers are looking ”locally” for their products or services. Local Search can drive a tremendous amount of website and in-store traffic which can positively impact a local business’s bottom line.
What does Local SEO look like?
Normally, when you search via mobile or desktop & laptop, for a product or service that is location-specific, the search engine results pages or SERP’s will serve a result similar to what you see in the following screengrab:
Local Search Results
Local search results are top of the page (below the Google PPC ads) and include a map, business name, business category, distance & directions to the business from your current location, address, phone number… including a click-to-call feature on smartphones, business hours, and reviews. Your Google My Business profile will also provide you with insights on local engagement, including site visitors, phone calls and more.
How long does Local SEO take?
Local ranking can take 3-5 months. Google spiders rely on a variety of signals such as local citations, number, and quality of local directory listings, NAP’s (name, address & phone) consistency, duplicate profiles, and more. Image file names and images are also a huge factor when it comes to ranking in local search results often referred to as a map pack listing or Google map listing.
Our SEO Company Germany loves Organic and Local SEO because it is the single most cost-effective (ROI) way of driving traffic to your website. Fact is most clicks (65% to 75% – based on industry) on Google and other search engines, occur in the Organic & Local search results (non-paid advertising). Additionally, Conversions (clicks to leads) is significantly higher via Organic & Local SEO services because of the correlation between high ranking and TRUST!