Google Business Profile Hacks to get you leads - Local SEO Secrets 2022

Okay, so today we're talking about how to dominate the first page of Google. But we're going to focus primarily on your Google my business profile. This is going to be about all the hacks that people don't see, see, or don't know about that help your Google my business profile be even more engaging. I'm going to show you some examples and we're going to walk through some things. It won't be real long because we're not covering all five pillars. This is pillar number two. Pillar number two is to optimize your Google my business profile. So let's get started. As you can see on the screen, Googled myself. And it's always, it always feels good when you Google yourself and your business pops up. So we're gonna dig into some of the things that I've done to my profile and then we'll go look at some realtor profiles, which will make more sense to you and give you an idea of the things that you can do to hack your Google my business profile. So first and foremost, let's just talk about the setup. There are three kinds of Google my business profiles. Number one, there is a brick and mortar business. So if you have a retail store, then you would have your address for your store. And that's one kind. The next is called a service area business. So for instance, with me, I work out of my home. I don't want people coming to my house. So I set up what they call a service area business where I had to give an address which is my home, but then I had the ability to hide the address so they that no one sees it, and then add a service area. So I'm not the typical local business. I'm, I'm. My service area is North America. So you'll see that where I put in all of our local counties, but then I put in the whole United States. And what you typically see when you do this is a big circle around your service area that's actually missing today. I'm not sure why, but there's usually a circle around all of North America to represent that's my service area. So if you're working out of your home, if you're an exp agent, for instance, this is a perfect situation for you. You is you would just clear your address and then change the areas that you serve. Then beyond that, the best profile is a hybrid where you have a brick and mortar business and you have a service area. So this is the ideal situation for a realtor is that you have some address that you can work out of an office where clients could come even though they never will, you would never send them to that office. But having that brick and mortar business gives Google a lot of trust. And then beyond that you, then you can create your service area to serve the whole county or multiple counties or multiple states. So there's other opportunities when you do a hybrid business. So that's the first thing that I wanted to hit when you're setting this profile up. Now after this, you know this is, this is where people pretty much stop. They create their business, they put in the specifics, their hours of operation, their website and then they stop. There's so much more that can be done here. I call it crossing the T's and dotting the I's. Google looks for people who want to participate and want to get business from these things because they know, I would dare say 96% of the Google my business profile is out there are not built to do anything except provide directions and a phone number. That's really all anybody wants when they set up the Google profile because they don't understand that so much more can be done. I used to say these were set up like a Facebook page and they were. Now I would say they're set up more like an E commerce page because of a very specific reason. Say that for a very specific reason. Google is investing a lot of money into E commerce. Like it or not or believe it or not, they think they can compete with Amazon where Amazon can't compete with them. Google owns all the local businesses. If you're a local retailer, you have a Google page. You need to sell your products locally. So they are putting money into E commerce for local businesses. That's their way of competing with Amazon is to take a piece of that market. And where you benefit is you can sell your products locally directly from your Google my business profile. There's actually a new piece of software they've created that makes that happen. Okay, so I don't sell products. You're a Realtor, perhaps you don't sell products. So why would I tell you all this? It's because Google is investing in it. It's putting it right below your business information. This is the number one thing. Below your business information are the products that you offer. So it's valuable real estate. That's how I look at all of this is, it's digital real estate. So this valuable real estate I like, I liked it before they even started pumping money into it because I liked how they presented everything. A great looking photo I mean, I provided the photo, but it's featured very well. I get to put a title with some keywords in it and then I get this long description where I can put in even more keywords and then that link can go wherever I want it to go to my website, in this case, get an offer. It's very engaging. It's built in a very nice way. So I already liked this before they started pumping money into E commerce. And I'll tell you another reason why I like it so much. So in my experience doing Google Screen for Realtors, when you set up your Google Screen account, there are services that you provide. For instance, buyer's agent, seller's agent, luxury properties, relocation. Those are the services provided to optimize a Google profile. If you, if you had me do your Google Screen, then I created services on your profile to match your ad. I thought it was a great idea. Where are the services? Where are. They're there. You just can't find them easily anymore. So it's very smart. It behooves you to take your services and turn them into products and then you can even create categories. So in my case, lead generation local SEO, those are two categories that I created. Let me show you a realtor who does this really well. Actually show you a couple of them. All right, this is a company in Texas and when I go to their products, they actually have a TV show or a podcast or something. So they advertise that through here. So that's not a product, but it's prime real estate. So why not take it? Then if you're a home buyer, they will do a free home buyer consultation in office virtual phone and then a link to their website. And then another product that they created was their listing services. Free listing consultation. So real basic, just three products. But they are thinking like I'm thinking, this is valuable real estate. Let's go and, let's go and get it. Now let me show you something really cool. Let's see if it'll work. I have to look at one of my clients here. They did something pretty neat. All right, let's see. But let's see if it still looks like it did. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Can you see that? All right, so look at the products. So this hack I thought didn't work anymore. And then they went and did it. It still works. This has been going on for like a month and a half. Can you tell their photos are actually GIFs. Gifts aren't allowed, Gifts aren't allowed. So how do they do it? So you Want to know the secret first, let's look at their products. Let's give them their due and look at their products. But I'll tell you how they did this. It's super, it's super funny. Okay, so great photo. Again, there's the gif. I mean, tell me your eyes don't go to that. And then they filled up the description of that house that they're selling. And then there's the price. So they're using it for listings only. There's so much more you could do here. I think you could get creative for sure. So here's their homes for sale. And then here are their professional real estate consultations. The category of the product. And so they're doing a free smart seller seminar. So he does that. He does eventbrite virtual seminars where he presents how to sell your home. So there's a product. And then the other one was. Yep, a free comparative market analysis. Could use some sales copy there. They just took a screenshot from their website which is great. But there you go. Great looking photos, easy to understand categories. And so we quickly left the idea that products, we don't have products to. Oh wow. This is like a really smart thing to do. Okay, so then how did they load a gif? So go ahead and try it. If you have a gif, try to upload it. It'll tell you that.gif files not supported. All you have to do is change the file name. So let's call it, let's call it House. The name of the file is house.gif. change the name to house.jpg. that magically works magic. Everybody give me $5 for that because that's a great hack. I mean it's shocking to me. So just think about it. If you're doing some real, some research and you're looking for a realtor and products are there at the top and your eyes, I mean this looks classy. This looks classy. All right, Cindy. Yes. This is recorded. Okay. That I got so excited about that I got off track. So let's back up a little bit. Back to products and my profile. Okay, so the next thing is crossing T's and dotting I's. Has anybody ever booked an appointment with a realtor through calendly? Probably not, but this is a, an opportunity that Google's giving you that can grow. So having an appointment link, it could be as simple as the contact us page of your website. So I highly recommend at a minimum you do that calendly, there are free accounts. So you can easily sign up for calendly. But what this sets you up for, and I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but I. I'll tell you a story. I needed to get a haircut and I didn't want to go to the place I was going anymore. So now I'm shopping. And that's for a guy. That's one of the worst things. Trying to find a new place to cut your hair is just. It's just a nightmare. So I'm on Google doing my research. I'm looking for places and I'm like, well, let's try these. This niche of hair salons or hair barbershops or whatever that focus on men only. I kind of like those. I went to one where they served you beer while you got your haircut. Thought that was interesting. So I was looking for someplace like that. I'm doing my Google research and I find one and well, I know how these places are. You know, I can't just walk in today and get a haircut. It's not great clips that I'm looking at. So I was trying to figure out how to make an appointment. In that appointment section. It asked me if it would like. If I would like Google to make me an appointment. My mind was blown. So I told Google I'd like an appointment on this day between these two hours. Let's see what happens. Not thinking it would work at all, Google called the hair salon and got me that appointment at that time. It was amazing. So this is the kind of thing it sets you up for. Did they sign up for some magic service that does that? No, because of the engagement on their profile. Because people go to their profile looking to book appointments. From that link. They decided, we'll help. We'll have Google AI jump in and help. It was the. What's it called? The Google Home like Siri, whatever the Google product is, it was that AI that I was talking to on the phone to set my appointment. And then that AI called the haircut place to get me my appointment. So these are the kind of things that are in the hopper with Google and you only get access to them when you're engaged with your profile and when other people are engaged with your profile. So let's continue on. But this is an important thing to do. I'm telling you a very long story to tell you. It's important to have all these things done after. After products is another hidden place. And I just started doing this myself. The Q and A questions and answers. And so let's actually go back to these guys and look at theirs and they actually inspired me to get more because they had. I never thought anybody would have 63 Q&As, but look at what's in here. So what we do with our clients and our agency is we'll write a blog article. So is now a good time to buy a home? That's a great blog article. We'll take the first paragraph and then put that as the answer you can ask and answer your own questions. As you can see, we don't know who asked that question. We only see who answered it. So it's okay. But what you get here is a chance to answer questions that people Google and be the answer. So this should be full of keywords and then they even put links to their website in here as well. Do I pay capital gains when selling in Texas we have a webinar. Click here to go and watch it. What are the top three features to include in a luxury home build? The top three features focus on our laundry room, double home office with views and large utility closet with plenty of storage. And here's a link to that article. But you see what I'm saying? And these are, these are like media. I'm sorry, these are blog type questions. They could be. I've seen some really good interaction from what time? What are your hours tomorrow? What are your, are you working this weekend? What time do you open in the morning? Things like that. But it's engaging stuff. It helps people engage with you and your profile. Google likes that. Google will reward you for it. Okay. After Q and A, there's your business description. Always fill that out. I believe you get 750 characters. Use every, every piece of it because people read it. But here's where the Google profile changed from being like a Facebook page to being more of an E commerce page. What made it a Facebook page were the posts. I think posts are amazing, but Google's hiding them. They're at the very bottom. So a post is something like this. What's this? Motivation Monday. Probably from. There's a hashtag. So they're probably sharing that from Instagram. See a shout out to one of their realtors to a bio. What they're not doing right is there should be a link to her bio or to her website. Top 10 safest cities in America. So they're, they're putting some infographics in here. Yeah, this isn't great, but you see what I'm saying? These are like Facebook posts. They're totally. Yeah, they're just sharing from Instagram. These are hashed Instagram hashtags. But what they're not doing, they're not putting any call to action or any links in here. So I think that's a mistake. But at the same time, Facebook posts are at the very bottom. So I tell everybody, if you're trying to find time to optimize your profile, you can't do everything. I'm talking about save the posts for last or never. They are important for my clients. They get one every week, but they're at the very bottom. They get very little engagement. You know what gets the most engagement? Let me just have you ponder that on your profile. What gets the most engagement? Probably the buttons, website directions, save and call. It's probably what you think, right? Nope. What crushes our photos? Photos. Absolutely crush. I have seen. I have seen. Let's look at my photos here. I have seen a picture of a yellow house get 3,000 views. I have seen a Realtor in the middle of nowhere in Ohio get 20,000 views of a photo. I have seen Realtors in metropolitan areas like Toronto get 50,000 views of a photo. Photos are so legit. First, if you look at your profile on mobile, which I highly recommend you do, over two thirds of searches are on mobile. So what that looks like on your phone, you should know. And when you do that, what happens is the photos are at the very top. So I'm actually going to do that right now. I'm going to Google Google myself. Greg Tressler. Yeah, I love it because it doesn't even, like, give any information about me. Go straight to my business. I like that. Anyway, the photos are here at the very top. Can you see that? Can you see that? Those are the photos. Many times they're already displayed on mine. It has a. It has a container for the photos, but when I go into them, here are my photos. You won't be able to see the photos, I guess, but I can quickly. I can quickly scroll through my photos. And so what Google is reading is me swiping through. They're reading that engagement and that's why they're able to get thousands of views. So, yeah, should you be impressed that a picture got 20,000 views? Yeah, you should be impressed by that. But did that lead to a sale? Who knows? But did it lead to Google reading that engagement? The joke I like to tell is people go on your profile and they're swiping on their phone like they're on Tinder looking for a date. They're swiping through photo after photo after photo. So my elites, they have to have 100 photos on their profile. 100 is a lot, but you can quickly look at all 100 of those. A client can quickly get an idea of the houses that you buy and sell. Like your demographic your ideal client will see. Okay, that's the kind of house I like. This realtor handles those kinds of houses. Pictures of you, pictures of you doing things, involved in your hobbies, your family, whatever. But it helps me to connect with you. And because I'm swiping so much, Google's reading that as well. So you're making two people happy, your potential client and Google. And when you do that, it helps to elevate your profile. So just imagine how highly ranked the profile is. They got 20,000 views of a photo and I believe that photo was a picture in the title company on closing day. It wasn't the most spectacular photo ever. He got 20,000 views. And guess whose profiles number one in that town? It's theirs. So I like to call photos the biggest hack in Google. It's the biggest hack there is because it's free, it's easy and it works. Right now there's really no restrictions I this photo here, how to dominate the first page of Google. There's too many words on this photo. It's. It violates Google's guidelines but they let me post it. That happens all the time. Too many words like this is an infographic. This is against Google's guidelines, but they let me post it. A little bit about video. Video is great. I have experimented with different links. 8 to 30 seconds. I've seen some people put out minute videos from their YouTube channel. Don't necessarily recommend that short videos are best. 30 seconds or less is best but it really is a game changer on your profile and it's free and it's easy. Okay, we've been going about 20 minutes. I want to wrap up on this topic on how to optimize your Google my business profile by again talking about reviews. I will always talk about reviews and I'm going to again today. Alright, so you know if Google likes you if they summarize your reviews. So if you have the people often mention box they're reading your reviews. So when they read mine they summarize the keyword business. Alright. And so I just got this one and I haven't responded yet. Oh yikes. I'm a bad example. I was going to talk to you about the importance of responding to reviews. It looks like 6 days ago I got some More I need to respond to. Let's just go to one. So here we got Team Cookie. Very short review here. Very knowledgeable recommended services. The advice I give to people is they reviewed you and you can't really control the quality of their review. You know, if they're going to use a lot of great adjectives, adverbs and all that, or not, or if they're just going to get straight to the point. So you have to review them. And by reviewing them, I'm not talking about, you know, reviewing them, they were good or bad. I'm like talking about your side of the story. So Team Cookie was five months ago, I barely remember. But let's look at what I wrote. Thank you so much for the recommendation. Some things are different in Canada, other things are the same. Google algorithm works to your advantage. If you know what to do. Look forward to seeing your results. Keep me posted. Okay. Yeah. So he was in Canada. How would you know that unless I said that? And if you read what he wrote, what are the chances you're going to read what I wrote? Very, very good. Right. One of the things I'll add is there's really unlimited characters to how long you can write your response. So my current opinion of reviews is my response was too short, missed an opportunity to put a lot of keywords in there. It could have been much, much longer. But the basics of it are review the person who reviewed you, tell your side of the story, help paint the picture so that when I read this that it helps me to identify. So if a person from Canada read this, that's going to be important to them. It's going to be important to them that I handle clients in Canada, they didn't know it from reading his, they only learned it from reading mine. So that's the important point is it's free marketing. So when somebody from Canada reads that, that's free marketing. That I have clients in Canada. Okay. And like I just did. And whenever you're in here, throw your review alike. Always go in here and throw your reviews likes. I haven't seen any analytics that shows that this is helping that much. But why not? I'm in there. Why not? Okay, I believe that's it. Let's go back through this again. Quick summary. On optimizing your Google, my business profile talked about the importance of photos. I can go on and on about that. I believe it is the biggest hack that you can do to help improve your help improve your Google my business profile. It's more than just a business listing. So Cross every T and dot every I. If they give you an option to do something, take advantage of it, then the hacks that people don't know about are using products, using the product section to improve engagement on your profile. I can't tell you I've ever sold one of these products for this page, but I can tell you how many clicks I got, how many visits to my website, how many phone calls. I can tell you all that and you can create your own categories after that. We talked about Q and A. That's another thing that people are. They're just not aware of how important it is. But it really is. People read these things. If I did a Google search and your FAQ answered my question, your FAQ can show up as my answer. And then reviews. I will always, till the day I die, talk about the importance of Google reviews because they're gold. And then finally we talked about posts and how posts aren't as strong as they used to be. That could change any day now, but right now they're the least, least important thing on your profile. Alright. If you ever have any questions. I'm easy to find. I'm all over Facebook. I just googled myself. Everything on the first page is a way to contact me. So always feel free to reach out. I love helping people with this stuff because so much of this is unknown. So much about Google is, is confusing, it's unknown. And I want to make sure you get the information because it's not supposed to be confusing and unknown. Google actually tries very hard to make sure that all this stuff is easy, that anybody can do it. Yet somehow, somehow it's still incredibly difficult. But this is what I do. These are the hacks that I see that work and I would, I wanted to share them with you. So there you go. Let me check the questions really quick. Yes, Cindy, it is recorded. Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up there. Under 30 minutes. I like it in and out. So thank you for attending. I look forward to meeting you again. We're gonna do this the next four Tuesdays. I don't remember the topic for next Tuesday, but we will be here again next Tuesday talking about Google and how to dominate that first page.