Thinking of ranking your business higher on GMB? Your Google Maps listing is an essential marketing tool for your business. It can help you get discovered by new customers, stand out from the competition, generate more business, boosts your online reputation, and ultimately increases leads and sales – all for free.
According to Google’s data, 76% of people looking for a local business on their smartphone will visit the business on the same day or the next day. This means that the organic traffic you get through local search is ready for conversion.
Don’t you like that piece of cake?
Yes, you like it.
Bringing your business to the top of the results may seem like an impossible goal, but it can be done.
Why Rank Higher on Google My Business for Multiple Keywords?
In this digital age, SMEs are struggling to find customers who are looking for products and services online in their geographic areas. Therefore, this is very important to rank higher on Google my business because a large number of local customers will look for business before joining it.
The points below explain why you need to rank your business high on GMB:
- Ranking higher on Google my business for multiple keywords helps you target more local customers.
- It gives you the advantage of building local connections, increasing ROI, improving the quality of your listings, and adding multiple ways for consumers to engage with your business.
- Provide authenticity for your business. When your business appears on Google Maps or local search, your potential customers are more likely to analyze whether your business is authentic.
According to Google, “Local results are mainly based on significance, distance and distinction. These factors combine to help you find the best match for your search.
It means that you need to increase your relevance and visibility on Google to master local search results.
So whether you’re a small local business or a company with hundreds of locations, you’ll love these powerful techniques to improve google my business ranking.
Let’s get started!
7 Local SEO Ranking Factors to Rank Higher on Google My Business
“Near me” searches increased by 130%. The 7 steps below will ensure that you stand out in the local search and beat the competition.
1. Google My Business Optimization
Of course, if you don’t have a Google Maps listing, you won’t be able to rank higher or undertake good Google Maps marketing.
First, you need to claim or verify your business on “Google My Business“. This will establish your presence on search engines for free, which means your business will also appear on Google Maps. Not only will your business appear in search results on all devices, but if Google verifies your business as legitimate, it may also appear in the valuable sidebar space of Google Search.
Check out the video given below to add or declare business on GMB.
Video source: https://support.google.com
GMB (Google My Business) allows you to control how your business appears in local search, manage customer opinions, and integrates your presence with Google Maps. Creating and optimizing Google My Business listings is one of the most important ways to improve your local ranking on Google.
Here is a checklist to optimize Google My Business:
- Verify your listing
- Choose your business category
- Include some relevant keywords in the GMB title
- Provide links to runnable and trackable websites
- Specify exact opening hours
- Post an address (especially for snack packs, which rank proximity as a search factor)
- Place a map marker
- Add area code to the phone number
- Include photos
GMB profiles will receive a better ranking with more reviews, more feedback and more time online.
2. Get Reviews From Happy Customers
According to Statista data, 84% of consumers rely on online reviews recommended by other consumers. Naturally, search engines treat online reviews as a sign of local search.
Writing great reviews for your customers not only optimizes your image in Google My Business; it encourages more local customers to buy from you.
Ask your customers to post honest and productive reviews to improve the ranking of businesses on Google My Business.
Knowing that Google likes what customers like, it’s no surprise that Google Maps supports rankings of companies with positive reviews.
3. Optimize Your Website Homepage
Your homepage should make it extremely apparent who you are, where you are from, and what you do. Make it simple for Google to grasp these aspects of your business. This information should be clearly stated in your page title tag, the header tag, and the meta description.
When creating your Google Maps business listing, you will need to fill in your website URL to make a positive impact on your local rankings and drive traffic to your site. It plays an important role in your overall SEO strategy. The website that you link to your Google Maps listing will have a direct impact on the ranking and authority of your listing in local search results.
Google uses your website to create crucial Google Maps lists of keywords, company categories and domain authorities – all impacting your rankings.
4. Add Your Business to Local Directories
There are thousands of directories online for almost every industry you can think of. Publishing your business to local directories will help you ensure that when people search for local businesses for online services, you will be in the best search results.
Your company list should include the following basics:
- Accurate business names, addresses and phone numbers are consistent across all directories
- Backlinks to your website
- A comprehensive description of your business
Note: Moz Local provides a quick and free review of your current status in several major directories. However, if you have stronger funding, services like Yext and Yelp may provide more comprehensive options.
5. On-Page Behaviour
The way users communicate with your site can affect your Google My Business ranking. Your behaviour sends a signal to Google that determines whether your site is useful to visitors. User Behavior is available to site administrators through the Google Search Console.
Although not all of these factors directly affect their classification, they focus on a positive user experience. You need to provide users with a positive experience to make sure they spend more time on your page. When users spend more time on your page, it can lead to positive results.
Important behavioural cues to include are:
Click-through rate: A behaviour analyzed by Google is its click-through rate (CTR). This is the rate at which people click on links to your website compared to those who had the opportunity to click on your result. The more people click through, the more relevant your page appears in search engines.
Bounce Rate: One negative behaviour that should be taken into account is the bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of people who get to their landing page and return to search results immediately. If the site’s bounce rates are high, indicate that your content is not relevant, resulting in lower rankings. It is important to keep people on your page so that you can reduce your bounce rate.
Page Speed: One way to do this is to increase your page speed. Users do not like to wait for pages to load slowly. If your page takes too long to load, users will return to the search results and choose another one. This increases your bounce rate.
To avoid increasing your bounce rate, you can use Google PageSpeed Insights to see how your site is performing and where you can improve.
Directions for Business Clicks: Search engines calculate that if people feed you on the trip immediately after visiting your business, the business must be credible.
Mobile click-to-call: Google states that calls from a mobile search results page are a clear indication of relevance. According to research conducted by Google, more than 40% of mobile search engines use Click to Call.
6. Add Local Business, Organization, Product, and Service Schema
Do you know Schema markup helps Google match your business with local searchers? Although schema has no direct impact on rankings, it supports Google in organising your data and allowing it to appear in relevant search results.
What’s the best part?
You don’t need to be certified as a developer to set up schema markup. Even without coding knowledge, you can easily use schema markup and implement it on your site.
You should apply local business schema or structured data markup on every web page to optimize your website for local SEO and improve your local ranking on Google.
If you have a schema on your website, or you are not sure, you can also check the status on Google’s structured data testing tool and see the breakdown of the various existing schemas on your website.
7. Update NAP Citations
The first question you may encounter is “What is NAP?”
Your NAP is an acronym including your company name, address and phone number.
N = Company name
A = Business address
P = Business phone number
Your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) should be in the footer of each page. Make sure it matches your GMB profile and upload this structured data to the schema to make sure Google reads it.
If you have multiple locations, create a page for each location and apply the NAP associated with that location to that page.
8. Social Media
How social media signals influence local search engine optimization is unclear. However, social proof is a positive factor that search engines consider when ranking your website.
In short, the more people interact with your brand on social networks, the better your local SEO will be.
Here are some social signals related to the local search:
- Increase in social media followers
- The number of brand-related tasks, likes, reposts, etc. in social networks
- Number of brand-related mentions in social networks
- Number of comments on your social media pages
- The age of your Facebook page
- Biographies completed on social networks
- Constant NAP (name, address, and phone number) information
Conclusion
If you want customers to pass your door, then prioritize local SEO to improve your google my business ranking.
SEO is changing rapidly. You never know when Google will introduce new features for local search in its SERPs, but you can count on these changes. This is why it is important to always understand the local SEO guidelines to rank your business higher on Google my business. You will ensure that your business will not take advantage of attractive local search, but it will also lay a solid foundation for the introduction of new SEO features.
Like a normal SEO strategy, you should continue to analyze and optimize your local SEO strategy to make it relevant to your local customers. Make sure that the details of your local listings are accurate and up-to-date, keep updating your content to reflect the user’s intentions, and don’t forget to respond to comments politely and quickly.
