Intro
As the digital landscape gets more competitive and cluttered by the day, local search specialists increase their focus on creating successful online customer experiences for their business clients. In such a complex structure, with so many companies trying to outdo each other, local searches are becoming even more relevant for all businesses, regardless of their size or industry. The strategies that aim to make a business more visible to those who are looking for it in the career search are increasingly assertive. Local searches are highly competitive.
Organic visits, in turn, are a valuable ally in prompting and maintaining the journey and, consequently, the engagement of consumers interested in the products or services of the company both online and in the physical store.
This essay aims to be a step-by-step tutorial on which strategies aligned with business objectives can be implemented to increase organic visits to business profiles on Google via local searches, focusing on the search for the three highlighted places. Providing actionable insights is the foundation for quick changes. Therefore, it paves the way for the executive to work against the clock and competition deadlines, allowing them to be a few steps ahead of other competitors that are not yet working with the techniques presented.
Working with this approach, if the company does a deeper overview of the business to go beyond just the immediate objectives mentioned in this text, it is possible to create even more different strategies than competitors in the market, reaching pioneer states. And for that, the text starts by defining a series of tactical procedures that a company can take to start leading the industry.
Importance of Organic Visits for Google Business Profiles
Organic visitation plays a huge role for businesses that want to make themselves known on the Google Business Profile. Organic visits are new people who find the business through a Google search of all kinds. They are generally potential buyers with a local intention, either to come directly to the store or to purchase a product or use a service through the local business’s website. These quality visits are not the result of an action that brands have implemented in the digital ecosystem. The individual has come on their own based on their own initiative.
That increases the potential of customer acquisition as well as the visibility of the company or the franchise’s brand in its neighborhood. Moreover, in the specific case of “Good to know,” the more visits happen, the better the natural referencing of the company will be through the knowledge graph. There are almost no SEO levers specifically activated for the optimization of the Business Profile SEO.
The creation of quality signals and data, however, has a very positive impact on the website’s traffic. We can already see great excitement from customers to see the results of Q1 2022. Several examples of companies with significantly increased real business visits have been highlighted lately. Some customers increase their natural Google visits with clear objectives: “We now have an excellent visit ratio thanks to Google My Business.
As shown by the ‘nearby’ sentence interpreted in our Google Analytics, we are at 94% in terms of new visits compared to direct visits in the establishments. That is thanks to the actions we have been taking, particularly in terms of systematic response, collection and publication of customer reviews, answering questions, and making reservations. We are increasing our SEO for future qualitative and quantitative business!”
Optimizing Google Business Profile
A well-optimized Google Business Profile can increase a brand’s visibility in search engine results. To optimize your GBP, there are several mandatory steps. Begin by ensuring that basic information, such as the correct business name, address, and hours, are displayed when your brand comes up in search results. Upload visuals, such as a profile and cover photo, that represent your brand accurately.
Brands may also upload other images and create or customize videos to further engage customers. Additionally, your GBP must list a phone number for your business. Google will automatically populate the “From the business” section of your GBP with Google Posts you create that feature sales, promotions, and news. Posting regularly on a GBP not only helps with organic visits, but it also helps with your CTA conversions.
Many of the same strategies that are required for local SEO also help attract organic visits to your GBP. Accurate listing information is vital because it allows potential customers to find and contact you. Images further entice clicks. Transparency fosters trust, so it is important to list comprehensive information to encourage organic visits. Apart from these touchpoints, customer interaction is vital for generating visits to your GBP.
People read reviews to develop an impression of your business before deciding whether or not to visit. When positive reviews come in, be sure to say thank you. Be sure to take steps to address comments and improve your service or product if a client reports a negative experience. A well-optimized GBP and timely customer interaction drive more potential clients to your business. Make sure to monitor your GBP so that you are aware when reviews come in, and stay on top of Google Posts that your customers will see. Timely responses will improve consumer traffic.
Engaging with your customers—both prospective and existing—via Google Posts and reviews will drive traffic and sales to your business. As you work to ensure an optimized GBP, respond to all customer reviews every week. Whether reviews are positive or negative, engagement demonstrates you see the customer’s comment as an integral part of your business policy. Some of the most successful actions undertaken from your GBP profile on Google are from asking Google Posts, an array of calls to action, from announcing events and promotions to customer reviews that help you win before your audience arrives.
Regular posting to your GBP profile not only helps improve your organic visits, but also helps improve your CTA conversion. Making regular use of Google Posts can also result in a consistent appearance before your audience and brings together regularity with good positioning. At least 50 posts should be made to draw consistently on your GBP profile on Google. Even as posts are treated to the Google Best Practice Guidelines, an element of doubt creeps in. Posts that are too lengthy are unclear; the best should average around 100 to 300 words. Networks interested in news, promotions or offers, and events can be stable for medium-sized enterprises
. Call-to-action posts can also be announced for general corporate news and announcements – go to the “What’s New” tab from the desktop GBP dashboard to publish one yourself today. The ability to view a product post will only appeal to retailers who want to be able to take for products. Managed from the “Products” box within the desktop GBP dashboard, products must contain early ad posting so that food and drink, beauty, and apparel managed new assets are designed to operate effectively.
Creating a Complete and Accurate Profile
Completely and accurately filling out your Google Business Profile
A complete and accurate profile is the most important factor in search results and optimization. Information like your business’s name, categories, address, and phone number should all be consistent with what is listed on your website. Some additional details to list include the service categories you offer to ensure they show up in Google results, regular business hours to appear trustworthy, accurate changes to hours of operation so customers have up-to-date information, and utility links and attributes you would like to see listed or accreditations you have to build more trust on results pages.
A recent survey found that the most common issue with these listings is incomplete profiles. Businesses filling out more of their profiles saw much better performance for key shopping periods. After missing traffic that Google Business Profiles could have brought to our door, we had an moment. While our business has been offering the same services online for our whole existence, our physical storefront has been open for less than two years, and there are changes to services to make sure people know about them.
We are not the only ones! If you are not regularly auditing your Google Business Profile and working to optimize it as much as possible with the newest tools and optimization solutions, you are leaving a lot of opportunity on the table. Don’t assume just for the sake of assumption that your content is correct and optimized; you need to validate it! I suggest validating it using a pull-it-up-and-view-it-in-the-wild-so-you-know-what-users-see approach.
Utilizing Keywords and Descriptions
1. Include keywords, descriptions, and optimized content. 2. Utilizing keywords and descriptions. To increase the number of organic visits, take advantage of the opportunity to use keywords strategically in the business description on the profile. Google often adds bolded keywords from your description to local search results if they match a user’s search query. Including your target keywords means that if you match a keyword a user is typing into Google, it will make those keywords stand out in local search results.
This allows your profile to stand out to users. Additionally, for those who are not coming to a business listing from a direct share or a branded search, they are typically coming to the business listing after searching for a business type or product they are interested in. By including target keywords and related keywords in the profile’s description, the business increases the likelihood of its profile showing up for those search queries and therefore increases organic profile visits.
Writing the perfect description for a Google Business Profile takes time and research. The perfect description accurately and effectively portrays what your business is, what it does, and what separates it from competitors. The best descriptions describe your business in full and provide as much knowledge to the reader as you can in the 750-character limit. The advantage of writing a complete and thorough description is that it has the potential to encourage engagement on your profile.
The hope is that a complete description will inform the visitor of what they need to know in order to take the next step in the commercial transaction, such as liking, following, or visiting your business to make a purchase. Another option for tips on how to write a good description is to visit the competition and see what their profiles look like; the best profiles will constantly be the best performing profiles.
When writing a company description, promote free amenities, perks, and friendliness but leave out the sales talk. A common mistake is to list amenities already expected of a business, as it can appear like a hard sell and make a listing look like it’s trying too hard. In the description, include targeted keywords and related keywords. Use the alternate keywords to provide more information about what you do and use tools to get the true volume for any keyword.
Finally, write a comprehensive description that can persuade someone why to choose your company over another. The more keywords in a description, the more ways there are for people to find you. However, when the number of keywords gets too high in the description, it ends up sounding really unnatural, as it can be considered spam.
Local SEO Techniques
Quality local SEO strategies can lead to improved visibility within Google, thus driving more organic traffic to your location pages. Techniques like the following may influence your local search results:
Increase citations, a term used for any place where your business’s name, address, or phone number is mentioned online. In other words, any kind of online business directory. Properly maintained name, address, and phone (NAP) consistency across online platforms enhances trust signals not only between a business and search engine but also between a business and its potential customers. Building and properly maintaining accurate citations may take time, especially due to inconsistent or blanket policies implemented by some citation platforms. Create and verify a Google My Business account.
GMB is a free tool provided by Google to help business owners manage their online presence across the search engine and its growing portfolio of utilities, which includes an online dashboard and mobile app to help brands manage their appearance in search results and maps. Create location and location-silo pages. These pages should contain useful information specific to the location, such as an extensive list of different store locations or department-specific routed emails. Key features include unique content, name, address, phone number (NAP) located near the top of the page, with relative schema markup for location, and embed a Google Map showing the location.
Build a team of local backlinks. To improve local search engine visibility, internal linking is a strategy that sticks. Consider some top-priority areas to link to show your site to the local power of location or hub pages. Include local link metrics (NAP, citations, etc.) if your business is competitive nationally. Google trusts local businesses and websites more when i) they have a physical location, ii) they have an updated, accurate physical location listed on Google, and iii) they’re listed in online business directories located in the same city as the location page being linked to. File accurate and up-to-date location data for sites like GMB, Facebook,
Yelp, TripAdvisor, and industry-specific directories. Solicit reviews and make it easy for happy customers to leave positive reviews. Keep a majority of reviews originating on your GMB location or location-silo landing pages while also dispersing some of their accumulation across reviews on web assets like Facebook, Yelp, and industry-specific online business listings. Don’t apply the same review comment more than once across any location, silo, or website, and keep close attention to your time-sensitive reviews.
Citation Building and NAP Consistency
3. Methods 3.1. Citation Building and NAP Consistency Citation building can form the foundation of local SEO. A citation is a reference on a website that includes the name, address, and phone number of a local organization. Many factors have been found to influence local rankings, both positive and negative. However, citation-related factors were found to be positively influential. With increasing online competition, multiple suggestions are offered to businesses that want to increase their internet visibility with a lucrative local audience.
A vital reference is the importance of having a consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) reflected across online directories and platforms. Discrepancies in the NAP provided can confuse search engines regarding the localized status of an SMB, resulting in a decrease in the credibility of their local ranking.
It is strongly recommended to list a business in multiple directories; this will enable local searches to find the organization, read reviews, and research the organization, hence driving up business. It is highly recommended to list in these directories; however, by listing on a multitude of platforms with inconsistent NAP, it can severely cripple an organization’s local rankings. It is recommended that businesses should only list in good quality and industry-specific trusted directories.
Other suggestions include researching the locality of the directory, ensuring the directory offers a link that includes a follow attribute, and looking for directories that are well-ranked in search engine result pages. In order to help SMBs move upwards in the citation rankings, there are a multitude of online tools and strategies that they can engage with to ensure that citations are accurate. There are multiple online tools that will identify inconsistencies in the locations of citations.
User-generated content and reviews also play an important part in establishing locality credibility. These are strong indicators of a business’s standing in the local community. Other indicators of local search can be offline prominence and engagement with the business on governing bodies. Over time, these online listings will need to be monitored, and the NAP will need to be identified and updated in the same style as per the business changes. It is advised to ensure the best possible coexistence; ensure that the citation is accurate at every available online option.
Content Marketing for Google Business Profiles
By far, content marketing is what can really make you stand out. Updating your profile allows you to offer new, dynamic, and above all, relevant content to potential customers. A profile with no activity is not so alluring. Offering new content through regular posts and updates is helpful to showcase any ongoing promotions, in-store events, and communicate news about your business. By doing so, your business profile will appear much more dynamic and engaging. This way, users are also more likely to peruse your business profile in their searches and maybe even check in. After all, a business that regularly proposes updates adds value and makes these digital assets more useful for its users.
In the end, each updated post is indexed and contributes to defining the sector and especially to consolidating the keywords covered as topics that are of great interest to the point of having up-to-date content for the user; content deemed to be relevant, establishing the profile as an expert. It is also a stronger signal given how infrequent it occurs, rather than just the latest posts, as this strategy allows the profile proposals to be constantly changing. Adapt your content strategy to the store events or promotions you are managing. Try to share “useful” or already evergreen content.
Many businesses earn their authority in their field and guarantee the majority of their traffic on their website with educational content: tips, how-to guides… Why couldn’t this strategy be applied to your business profile as well? Add an image or a video. The graphic or multimedia content that accompanies the post is the first element that intrigues the person: using good eye-catching images or videos will capture the user’s attention. It’s easier to make a person intrigued by an image than by the publication itself. Take advantage of seasonal trends or local events: they’re usually more engaging.
Publishing Regular Posts and Updates
Publishing Regular Posts and Updates
Given that Google’s organic search algorithms love fresh content, Google even prefers websites and platforms that update their software or keep up with new upgrades for this reason. It follows that one key way to gain more organic visits to a Google Business Profile (GBP) is to publish frequent updates and posts. Visitors and followers should learn to expect updates every month, every two weeks, or every 10 days.
The exact timing doesn’t matter, but some kind of regular schedule for updates does. Consistency in your posting tells people that you are dependable and that they should look for your updates and special deals. The more your audience knows to expect from you, the more likely they are to keep following and watching your GBP posts. This is also a principle of relationship building; the better you are at consistent communication, the more your customer base knows they can trust you to keep providing information that is helpful for them.
Adopt some or all of the following suggestions. Primarily, publish promotions and deals that are too good to pass up. You should also publish the voice of your organization, the feel of your business, and updates on what’s new or changing. One perk of any social media, including Google My Business, is showcasing user-generated content. You should add Google posts where and when they are relevant to the most customers. The best time is soon after the event for customer events you want to promote.
The timeliness of your post can also impact organic searches; if you get a lot of comments from people saying they tried your new raspberry chocolate candy and loved it, your GBP may rank higher in organic search results for candy shops and for raspberry-related keyword searches. You can always check and validate your intuition with an analysis of your GBP page’s insights and analytics to see which posts do best over time.
Do you get a lot of clicks on posts emphasizing 50% off sales versus posts telling the stories of how you source your organic free-trade coffee beans? Notice what kinds of posts are least interesting to your regulars, too. If you are getting few clicks and no comments on your posts with marketing messages, then it’s time to try storytelling. Please keep trying it until you get some people commenting. If the comment is “Please stop doing this, it’s boring,” then you can stop.
Frankly, that’s great customer feedback and might have saved you the trouble of turning off some would-be customers who visit in person to find out it’s all factory coffee after all. Always include a link back to your site or the relevant site if the post is about a part of your organization, even if it’s a partnership where you won’t directly benefit or even be mentioned there.
You may benefit from indirect link flow through citation, but for our purposes, the most important reason to do this is to build real human credibility and to amplify efforts to tell the stories of some people who have been helped by your organization’s work. The emotional weight of that kind of ethically marketed message is definitely worth the limited time it takes to post a link with a teaser. On Google My Business, you can and should reuse your post from the original tweet or Facebook post for a time-efficient double impact.
Measuring and Analyzing Organic Visits
How we measure and analyze organic visits to Google Business Profiles: To understand how potential clients are engaging with your listings outside of direct searches, you’ll need to use analytics tools that can gather data about your profiles, such as: Who visited our profiles Common characteristics and interests of our viewers to target potential look-alike clients On what kinds of queries we are appearing Where viewers live Insights on interest topics These tools can give us insights into how people are engaging with our profiles, make personalized experiences, and even analyze the data to understand viewer motivation and intent (likelihood to convert).
Analyzing your performance: You’re always developing and can experiment – make your goals realistic and push yourself to always beat them. If you’re trying to hit 300 visits or more, it’ll be easier to measure if that is your goal rather than a 99% increase from the same period before. Always be testing new approaches, and learn from those.
Using Google Analytics and Insights
Using Google Analytics
The free version of GA integrates directly with GMB. You automatically get data about how your pages are performing in the Google My Business section of the Acquisition report. There, you can see top-level info about the behavior of people who found you via a GMB call-to-action button. Dig into the Advertising reports to learn more about how your Google My Business ads are performing.
Using Google My Business Integration
If you don’t use GA, you can track a lot of the same data right on the platform. The Google My Business Insights dashboard can be found under the Home section of your GMB account and has a number of tabs for finding insights.
Search has more detailed data about which queries customers use to find your business and the behavior of those visitors. You’ll also see where on the internet they found you; for more info, click the “Sources” tab at the right of the report.
Maps summarizes where customers request directions to your business from, the vicinity of your customers, and where in the world your customers are from. User demographics consolidate customer info with gender, age, and country of residence. You can filter these demographic insights by time of day and day of the week. User Actions replaces what was formerly the Google My Business users typed and popular times section. You can gain customer-at-a-glance information on the total number of calls, messages, and visits to your business. Properties in use shows where customers who find you arrive at. This feature also uses the feedback metric time for a given property.
Setting Goals and Events up in GA
Try setting up a filtered view of your website data just for local traffic. This will give you more detailed info on results from your GMB listing.
Set up goals and events to track things like phone calls, on-site actions, bookings, or content downloads. This will help you determine the conversion rate of people who found you via your GMB listing. Looking at the conversion rate over time against the impressions or clicks given in the GMB dashboard will help you determine the quality of traffic from your GMB. It might be that a lower number of visitors is better quality than a high number of visitors, resulting in a higher conversion rate. Of course, visitors are rarely ‘high’ or ‘low’ quality and the best measure would be sales or bookings.
Marketing Actions for Optimizing Reports
Besides examining the default Insights report, use the search query info to optimize your website and set up custom reports for ongoing promotion of your event on such platforms. Regularly review the geographic, search, and action data on a local business. It is just a good way to keep an eye on who your customers are, where they come from, and the actions they take as a whole. Regular review of this data and comparison to organic search data will enable you to make informed marketing decisions for your content and event promotion.
Businesses with photos on their listings receive more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and more clicks through to their websites than businesses that don’t maintain their pictures. Additionally, businesses using GMB’s photo path feature where they post daily photos of their venue receive more interest in customer actions like phone calls and driving directions on Google Maps. To be competitive, businesses must regularly verify their listing. Make sure you aren’t bloating your data with old links that are no longer valid or worse, lead to a competitor’s store.
