Local SEO Secret: Dominate with Google Profile

favorite topics today, and that is Google Business Profiles. We are on day 5 and chapter 5 of your amazing Itty Bitty Visibility book, 15 Chapters to Marketing Made Easy, and chapter 5 is one of my favorites. We have Google Business Profiles. Now before I even start this chapter, I know what you're saying. You, you're in one of two camps. Either you already have your profile and you're not really using it, or you're like, I don't want to put my home address on Google, and I'm never getting a Google profile. Almost everyone I talk to is one or the other. There's a few people that that already have it and they're using it. So for the 90% of you that don't, this chapter is for you. A Google Business Profile, also known as Google My Business, and they had like 5 other names for it over the years, is the single most crucial profile for your business to have. And here are a few reasons, and I have personally proved this out over the years. Your access to Google Maps can drive new traffic to your website and your business. Okay? If you don't have a Google Business Profile, you're not represented in Google Maps. A GBP is robust enough The people will buy your product or contact you directly from your listing. They may never go to your website. You can put enough information in there that they can make a decision to call you or contact you without going to your website. There is a reason that that is important. We'll get to it in a little bit. And number 3, Maps, which is Google Business Profile, appears before organic listing in any search result and usually in the first spot on mobile. Occasionally there'll be a sponsored link above it on mobile, but generally it's the first spot. And on mobile you see 2 positions before you have to hit See More, which a lot of people don't do. So not only do you need a Google Business Profile, you need to be in position 1 or 2, or it really doesn't matter as far as mobile is concerned. Startup That's interesting. Everything just went away. Try that again. Startup businesses should create their Google Business Profile before their website is completed. You heard that right from a website designer. Get this set up before your website. Customers can buy directly from your Google Business Profile. And here are a few more facts. It is crucial for your search engine optimization, and that is true. We did talk a little bit about Google Business Profiles in the search engine optimization, which I think was Chapter 3, if you want to go back and listen to that. It allows, or it lets you list your products and services. And most people aren't doing that. Products and services can get listed independently there, and it is more effective than your website. It's the most effective platform to collect reviews for your business. You heard that directly from a website designer. It can be more eff— than your website. And let me tell you why I say that. As a website designer, I test a lot of things. I hear a ton of things about search engine optimization, a lot of theories, a lot of this'll work, this won't work, all of that. And I test it and I test it on my website. I don't test it on a client's website. That would just be wrong. So on my website, you might see it be organically ranked in my local area in position 1 through 4. There's really only 4 of us around here locally, um, that have been around long enough to ma— to matter. Um, anyway, I'm usually between 1 and 4. Bounce. We all trade positions, bounce back and forth, and we're all good with that. At least I'm good with that. I guess I can't speak for them. Occasionally I'll be gone. I'll have tried something, experimented with something, and it didn't work. Google hated it, whatever it was, and I tanked my organic listings. And the last time I did that It took me almost a year to get it back. So it's not like you can instantly retrieve after you've done some grievous thing. So important to know that search engine optimization can destroy you in a day and it can take you a year to get it back. So don't think even as a website designer, I will never promise you to get you first page ranking in a month. It generally does not work that way. So while I was not on page 1, and we're talking like page 10 and, and higher numbers than that, like, have you ever looked past page 2? When you're doing your own searches to find something? Probably not. And you probably wouldn't call somebody, especially in my industry, that's not on page 1. So you can imagine, I had zero calls from my organic listings for an entire year, which would kill most businesses. However, I am always position number 1 in Google Maps in my local area for my main set of keywords. Google Maps has an entirely different ranking system, an entirely different, um, database that they pull from, their index, everything is different. So if you don't have a Google Business Profile, or I didn't have one back then, I don't know what I would have done. My phone kept ringing, and I, I really honestly, I didn't hardly notice a difference in phone calls from not being on page 1 organically as long as I was number 1 in Maps. So, so important. So anyway, that is my story as to why you want a Google Business Profile. Google Business Profiles are important for local search. Getting back to the book here, if you are a local business serving your local community, it's not optional. You need a Google Business Profile so your business appears in the near me searches. Near me, zip code searches, all of those types of things, even your city really depends on a map. Those are map-driven. And so if you're not in Maps, you're really losing out for all of that kind of stuff. And here are just a few more interesting facts. Google only considers you a legitimate business once you have more than 10 reviews. Now, when you start your Google Business Profile, you're going to be put into some automated system that they have for sending you tips on setting up your profile. And one of those tips directly from Google tells you you need 10 reviews. So that is the magic number for for reviews. But then people always say, hey Dotty, what is— how many reviews do I really, really need? Well, beyond that 10, you need to look at your competition, because however many your competition has, you need more, whatever that number is. I have roughly 80 to 90 right now on mine, and that's been a 20-year thing. So I'm not like buying reviews, never do that. And, um, it's just been a gradual increase, but my competition is down between 20 and 30. So I just have more and I constantly ask my clients to provide a review. The top 3 businesses in Google Maps get over 90% of all the clicks. And if we're talking mobile, it would be the top 2 because 3 are not shown on mobile. On desktop and laptop, you'll see 3. It's best to have more reviews than your direct competition. We just covered that. Let's see, Google provides many business tools for owners to use. Businesses using those tools are ranked higher than those that don't. So what does that mean in, in reference to your Google Business Profile? Do everything that it allows you to do. Fill out every spot that it allows you to fill out. You get 750 characters for your description. Why would you only use 200? I see this so often. Use the whole allotted amount so that you can get your description optimized for your keywords. I mean, that's one big thing that a lot of people don't do. Here's another big thing. They allow you to list your services. Why aren't you listing your services? A lot of people don't, and it's obvious. It says products for a big icon, services for a big icon. List your services, and I believe you get 300 characters, I think, for description of your services. And you can do a price, you can leave the price off, or you can do a price range, whatever fits for you. So you don't— those people are saying, oh, I'm not gonna list my prices. You don't have to. You can still list your services. Get those keywords in there. It really, really, really does matter. And And the last thing I wanna say is some GBP tools, including adding articles and events, uploading images and short videos, and adding products and services. So let's go back to the events thing. Do you have webinars? Do you have any online events? Oh, do you have an physical in-person event that you do. You could even make an event the next time you go live. You can post that. You can make an event the next time your blog is scheduled to come out. All of those are events. Google doesn't care. Use the tool. And the cool thing about events is you get to put a date— well, you have to put a date, a beginning and an ending date. And so when that event is over, it automatically comes off your account. You don't need to remember to go back and do that. I would never remember. They make it easy for you. Use the tool. Are you blogging on your website? We talked a little bit about blogging, and I believe that's going to be coming up in a future chapter. If you're doing that, you already have the article. Why not come to your Google Business Profile, do a snippet because you're limited on characters, and oh, it provides a way for you to link right to the article. Not only is this using one of their tools, which Google loves, it is also giving you a trusted link from Google to your website. Remember that backlink chapter? You can add that as a tactic. Add backlinks from Google to your website. I'm sorry, you can tell I'm passionate about the fact that a lot of people will not use a Google Business Profile. And although it's not in this book, I'm gonna add one more reason that I hear, and that is it's so hard to get verified. And yes, compared to the old days, of, I don't know, 5 years ago before COVID it was easy because you just put in an address, they mailed you a card or they called your phone, they gave you a code, you went back, you put the code in, super easy. Now it's not. Now they want you to submit a video and people are very nervous about this video. There's one, one thing that people think that is not true is that this video gets put somewhere. It doesn't. You will never see it on your profile. No one will ever see it. It's not gonna hit YouTube, nothing. It goes nowhere other than the person that is reviewing to see if you are a legitimate business. So they watch this video, they're looking for some things. They're looking for an address, like if you're in your home or even, you know, any, any business location, they're looking for the address, which is usually right on the door, next to the door, something like that. They're looking for cross street. So a street sign that says, yes, we're on this street. This is the address. You walk into the office. They're looking, is it an office? Does it look like an office or does it look like a spare bedroom? If you're working from home. So you stage it to look like an office. You've got your computers up, you've got your website up on the computer, you got your business license hanging on the wall. Anything that you have logoed up is on display within your office, and you can meet people there. Two chairs, people. One for you and one for your potential client. And it would be nice if you even had a friend that would pretend to be a client and they hear everything on this video, cuz it is, it is video. So watch what you say. What they're looking for is, are you a legitimate business? Can people come to your office and meet with you? Now, you and I both know if you're working from home, the chances are People are not coming to your office and meeting with you. You're probably meeting with people online. At least I am. However, Google wants to know that they can come and meet with you. So that's what needs to be in the video. And get this, it needs to be like under a minute or it won't upload. Now Google will tell you that it can be, I think up to 3 minutes is what they say. However, The feedback I've gotten from clients that have gone through this process, anything over a minute will never upload. It just sits there and spins and it doesn't upload and blah, blah, blah. So under a minute, which is quick, and you have to use their system. So it's through their app. So it's, it's a process, it's planned out, but it's so worth it. So, so worth it. So that is my rant. Sorry, on, on Google Business Profiles. Tomorrow we will be doing Chapter 6, and that is all about reviews, another one of my favorite topics. I will see you tomorrow.