If you’re a local business owner anywhere in the world and you’re not familiar with what Google My Business can do for you, then your competitors appreciate you. Google My Business, or GMB, is the next best thing for any local business selling services or products in a specific geographic area. For local businesses, getting exposure is harder than it used to be because the traditional ways of marketing like billboards, TV, radio and publications are all a thing of the past.

GMB is a free to use platform that’s shown at the top of search results and the only way to be shown at the top is through local SEO. 43% of exposure for any local business comes from the internet, and these numbers are only expected to increase. If you don’t have a strong online presence, then you’re missing out on the lifeline that every business needs – leads.

Google My Business changed how online businesses get noticed and those business already established are generating 3 – 4 times the leads of businesses who are not. This works for any industry, in any location around the world.

Local search results are location specific based on where you’re searching from and shows you the most relevant, closest businesses. There are two ways in which results are shown including maps and search. If you’re searching on mobile, Google will show results based on where you’re searching from.

How to Improve Local SEO

Improving your local SEO is the only way of improving your search engine rankings in GMB. It all starts with claiming your Google My Business listing or creating one, which for some, can be very tricky. It’s free to do and there’s plenty of resources out there or you can hire a professional company experienced with local SEO marketing.

Ways to improve your local SEO including:

  • Claiming your Google My Business listing
  • Creating local citations
  • Creating niche relevant citations
  • Creating high-quality backlinks
  • Custom map embeds
  • Map citations

NAP

NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone Number and becomes a footprint throughout the internet pointing back to your local business. The key to NAP is consistency. It’s used in citations to leave that footprint on various directory sites like Yelp, Foursquare, Hot Frog, Yellow Pages, and others and shows search engines like Google that your site’s more popular than others without citations.

It may sound like quantity’s the key, but that’s not necessarily true. The quality of the citation like consistency and where it’s placed will have the biggest effect on improving your local SEO rankings. Consistency relates to the same exact spelling – if your address is 1000 NW 10th St, you’ll always want to spell it the same and not 1000 NW 10th Street.

Importance of GMB Reviews

While reviews on your GMB listing doesn’t exactly influence your search engine rankings, it still important. Reviews act as social proof and have a huge impact on customer behavior. It’s believed that GMB listings with 10+ positive reviews are 83% more likely to be clicked on than listings that don’t.

The easiest ways to get reviews is engaging with your customers and kindly asking. Customer follow-up gives business owners every chance to clarify and extend their customer support while providing a 5-star experience.

Aggregate GMB Insights

Within your GMB dashboard you will see Insights that show you key metrics about your listing including:

  • Phone calls placed through your listing
  • Clicks through to your website
  • Which images, products and posts were viewed
  • Number of search and map views including increase/decrease
  • Various other stats such as days of the week, monthly comparison and more

Having a local business in this day in age is not easy, especially if you’re not familiar with online marketing. Google My Business accounts for a huge part of any online strategy and is probably the biggest influence on delivering leads to local businesses.

At Pan Pacific Lead Marketing, we have over 10 years of experience in local SEO marketing and have helped numerous local businesses increase their lead prospects. We strategize a custom plan based on our client’s needs allowing you to run your business while we maximize your online presence and to get your more leads.

Back to home page