Google My Business is a dark science for many business owners. Everyone wants their GMB listing to be positioned on the first page of Google, however most business owners have very little idea on how to achieve this….

Well just like SEO it’s far from black and white. You’ve probably heard that you need to ask your customers for reviews and post regularly but there’s much more to it….

What Can I Do To Boost My Listing?

Here are the fundamental requirements in order to rank your listing within the Google 3-Pack (the top 3 Google My Business listings that appear towards the top of Google’s search results) –

Setup

Let’s start with the basics… Don’t rush through the setup of your listing, make sure you take time to ensure that your listing truly reflects your business –

Description – Include a well-written unique description – don’t copy and paste this from your website.
Service Area – Include all of the suburbs, states or countries that you’re willing to service. Note that Google only allows you to enter 20 locations – If this is less suburbs than you service include the suburbs that are on the border of your service area.
Products / Services – List all of the products or services that you provide, along with a unique detailed description and price where possible. A ‘starting from’ price is best if your prices are variable. Note that Google will often try to add more products or services to your listing based on your website copy and citations. If you accept these changes, make sure you include a new description and price where possible for each new items.
Photos – Upload your company logo and cover photo, along with at least one unique video, and photos of your team, identity and staff members ‘at work’.

Citations

Google is also scanning the web to verify that the information on your GMB listing is genuine. They’ll start at your website, so make sure the contact details match, but they’ll also scan business directories to verify this information. Try to target business directories –

Whereby your business listing page will be indexed by Google
That have a relevant category for your business
Have good metrics – Domain Authority, Domain Ranking, Traffic etc
That are free to list your business (Google can frown upon paid submissions, particular if the backlink does not include a “rel=sponsored” tag)

It’s important to note that citations don’t always have to link back to your website, although try to focus on directories that do include a o-follow backlink, which will also help with your organic rankings.

Links

Some local directories will also allow you to submit a link to your social profiles, so try to include a link to your GMB listing where possible using this format – https://g.page/r/Cbl2TeoF6ol5EAE. You can find this link on the ‘Home’ tab of your GMB listing where is says ‘Share Your Business Profile’.

Further to this, you can also add a link to your GMB profile from your website and gain links from other third party websites, in addition to local directories, that will link back to your profile.

Reviews

Reviews are an extremely important factor not just to help boost your profile, but to entice potential customers to click on your profile. From an optimisation point of view, Google will not necessarily favour profiles with a more positive rating, but they do typically focus on profiles with more overall reviews.

We encourage our clients to send customers a link to their GMB profile (see above under ‘Links’) upon completing a purchase or service, which will prompt them to write more reviews. As well as writing a review, you can also ask them to upload photos of the job or project, which will also help to boost your listing.

Posting

We also encourage our clients to post at least twice every week and try to mix it up… Rather than just posting photos of your projects, you can post Offers, COVID updates, Events and more. If your post includes a photo or video, make sure you also upload this to the ‘Photos’ tab.

Turn Messaging On

We’ve found that more and more customers are starting to message customers via their GMB listing, so make sure you turn this ON from the ‘Home’ tab of your profile. When you do receive a message, try to reply in a prompt and professional manner. This may not help to boost your listing, although it should help you pick up a few more leads here and there.

Local Business Schema

Local Business Schema refers to the types and properties within the schema.org vocabulary that are used to define and categorise information about businesses. The LocalBusiness type, or one of its associated types, should typically be used to markup your homepage. Adding Local Business markup to your website translates your human-readable content into the machine-readable language of JSON-LD. One way to test your website’s Local Business Schema is by using the Rich Results Test from Google.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing refers to adding keywords within your company name in an attempt to rank for that keyword. This tactic worked well many years ago, and we still see companies try this and find some success by doing it these days. However, it’s generally short lived and their listing will eventually get penalised or drop off the 3-pack to never return. This is considered to be a ‘black hat’ technique that tries to cheat the system and should be avoided at all costs….

Let’s Get Started – Boost Your Google My Business Listing Today

Well that’s it in a nutshell… Is it easier or harder than you anticipated? Either way, you may not have the time or patience to deploy all of these tactics yourself, particularly if you’re a small business owner. So why not leave it to the professionals…? At Adrenaline, we have assisted heaps of local businesses throughout Australia to appear within the 3-pack “cost effectively”.

Check out our Google My Business Optimisation service or contact Brad today to discuss your requirements. We’ll take the time to learn your unique business objectives and deliver a broad strategy to make sure you receive the best return on your investment.

Boost Your Google My Business Listing