Unlocking Local SEO Success: Your Complete Guide to Google Business Profile

In today’s digital age, establishing a strong online presence is paramount for businesses, especially for those aiming to attract local customers. One of the most powerful tools in your local SEO arsenal is Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business). This platform not only enhances your visibility on Google Search and Maps but also plays a crucial role in shaping your online reputation. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into everything you need to know about Google Business Profile and how to leverage it for local SEO success.

What is Google Business Profile?

Google Business Profile is a free tool provided by Google that allows businesses to create and manage their online presence across Google Search and Maps. By claiming and optimizing your Business Profile, you can control the information that potential customers see when they search for your business, such as your address, phone number, hours of operation, and customer reviews.

Why is Google Business Profile Important for Local SEO?

Optimizing your Google Business Profile is essential for local SEO success for several reasons:

a) Improved Visibility: A well-optimized Business Profile increases your chances of appearing in the local 3-pack and Google Maps results, making it easier for local customers to find and contact you.

b) Trust and Credibility: A complete and accurate Business Profile builds trust with potential customers, as it signals that your business is legitimate and reliable.

c) Customer Engagement: Google Business Profile allows you to interact with customers by responding to reviews, answering questions, and posting updates, which can enhance engagement and foster a sense of community around your business.

d) Insights and Analytics: Google provides valuable insights into how customers find and interact with your business online, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to improve your local SEO strategy.

How to Create and Optimize Your Google Business Profile

a) Claim Your Business: If you haven’t already, claim your business on Google by visiting the Google Business Profile website and following the verification process.

b) Complete Your Profile: Fill out all the relevant information about your business, including your name, address, phone number, website, hours of operation, and categories. Make sure that the information is accurate and consistent across all online platforms.

c) Add High-Quality Photos: Upload high-resolution photos of your business, including the exterior, interior, products, and team members. Visual content helps potential customers get a sense of what to expect and can improve engagement.

d) Encourage Reviews: Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on your Business Profile. Respond to reviews, both positive and negative, in a timely and professional manner to show that you value customer feedback.

e) Post Regular Updates: Keep your Business Profile fresh and engaging by posting updates, offers, events, and other relevant content. This not only keeps customers informed but also signals to Google that your business is active and relevant.

f) Utilize Google My Business Features: Take advantage of additional features offered by Google My Business, such as messaging, Q&A, and appointment booking, to further enhance customer engagement and convenience.

Monitor and Improve Your Performance

Regularly monitor the performance of your Google Business Profile using the Insights dashboard. Pay attention to metrics such as views, clicks, calls, and direction requests to gauge the effectiveness of your local SEO efforts. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and refine your strategy accordingly.

Final Thoughts

How to Re-Open Your Temporarily Closed Google My Business Page After Covid-19 Lockdown [Video Tutorial]

The majority of the businesses across the world are shut down due to the recent Covid-19 epidemic. As a result, the Google Business Page listings of the business organizations across the globe have been marked as “Temporarily Closed” by Google itself. This means that all these business establishments are no more working until the lockdown is lifted and the customers will also understand that they are not functioning at the moment. Here we will learn how to re-open the temporarily closed Google My Business Page of a business organization after the lockdown due to the attack of Corona Virus is lifted.

[Read more…]

Google Ads Comes with Expanded Portfolio Bid Strategies with Several Other Options

As per the latest news, Google Ads is now busy rolling out its new options for portfolio bid strategies. With its latest update, Google Ads is making the bid strategies compatible with more types of smart bidding. As we all know, the porfolio bid strategy by Google Ads helps the advertisers in optimizing the overall performance across multiple campaigns. The portfolio bid strategy is indeed an automated, goal driven bid strategy, which groups various campaigns, ad groups and keywords together.

As of now, the portfolio bid strategies is available for options such as Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize clicks, and Target impression share. With the latest expansion, Google Ads is going to make it easier for using the Smart Bidding for the search campiangs. The porfolio bids are also available to use along with the Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value.

Now the advertisers using Google Ads can pair these new portfolios along with shared budgets and this can help in assisting for increasing conversions or conversion value.

Google is now recommending the users to incldue campaigns in the same portfolio if they share a common budget and use Maximize clicks, Maximize conversions, or Maximize conversion value.

Google Will Now Start Reviewing Photos and Videos Uploaded to Google My Business

In one of the most recent updates, Google has announced that they will be making some kind of changes in the video and photo content policy for its Google My Business listings. From now onwards, the photos and videos that are uploaded on to Google My Business listing will go through some kind of review process, before being published online.

Earlier, there were not any kind of reviews in place for uploading photos and videos on Google My Business page. But now you can start witnessing some kind of delay for the photos and videos to be made live on GMB profiles after they are uploaded.

As of now, there has not been any word from Google on whether the photos and videos will be review automatically by AI or go through a team of human content reviewers. If we think deeply, we can understand that a human review process for the photos and videos on GMG will make a longer delay for the content to be published live on GMB. But human reviewers are capable of catching up things that are not possible with machines or AI.

Reviews are Applicable to User Generated Content Only

As per some reliable sources, it is clear that the current change in the policy by Google is applicable to those content which are submitted by other users. In an official Tweet by the Google My Business team, it had pointed to a link that is applicable to the user contributed content policy of the Maps.

As per the updated user contributed content policy of Google My Business Page, it states that the content that are uploaded directly by the owner of the business does not have to be reviewed before publishing. Apart from the new review process, there are not other major changes to the policies of the user generated content for Google My Business Page.

Anyhow, the recent updates will makes things a little slower when it comes to uploading of content, but will make sure that the most relevant and genuine photos and videos are uploaded to each Google Business listings.

As Per Google, 70% of Sites Have Been Moved to Mobile-First Indexing

Google is all set to transfer all the websites to mobile-first indexing, and they have confirmed that 70% of sites have already made the transtion. The remain 30% of the websites will be moved ot the mobile first indexing by September 2020 and Google officials have stated that by September all the websites will be officially switched over to the mobile first indexing.

The time between now and September 2020 will be very much crucial as Google will be continuing its process of moving the websites to mobile-first indexing by the time they get ready. It your website is showing an increase in Googlebot’s crawling, then it is a clear indication that your website has been moved to the mobile first indexing and this will be mainly from the mobile smartphone user-agent.

You can also check the status of your website’s mobile first indexing in your Search Console Tool’s settings page and also in the URL inspection tool. The guidance from Google, that is related to optimizing a website for mobile-first indexing is the same for now also.

When you optimize your website for mobile-first indexing, you need to check some factors such as:

1) The On-page content of the website is the same on mobile and desktop versions
2) The Meta data of the website is the same on both mobile and desktop versions
3) The website’s structured data is the same on both mobile and desktop versions

The URL testing tool by Google will help the website owners to easily check both the versions of a website, which are desktop and mobile version. You can make sure that both the search engine and real visitors can see similar content on the desktop and mobile versions.

Google has clearly recommended website owners to now use separate mobile URLs (which are also known as “m-dot”), as such URLs will create various issues and confusions for the search engines as well as users. The major thing that you need to take care is to make sure that your website has a responsive design.

Google’s URL testing tool allows site owners to easily check both the desktop and mobile versions of a page. So you can ensure Google (and visitors) can see identical content on desktop and mobile.

Google specifically recommends not using separate mobile URLs (also known as “m-dot”) because they can cause “issues and confusion” for search engines and users. The gold standard for mobile-first indexing is responsive web design.

How to Turn on Parallel Tracking for Your Google Ads Account

Parallel tracking is one of the most important thing that we usually use to ignore while handling our Google Ads account. In-fact parallel tracking is something that helps load your landing page fast and thereby reduce lost visits. This will eventually lead to increased conversions, and also improved ad performance. The Parallel tracking sends the visitors directly from your ad to your final URL (landing page) while click measurement activities happens in the background. This means that the visitors will not be send to the tracking URL first, which will result in slow loading of the landing page.

With the parallel tracking method, the visitors will be directed straight away to your landing page while the click measurement part happens in the background, without affecting the page load time.

The parallel tracking looks something like below:

1) Visitors clicks on your ad.
2) Visitors  sees the landing page.

At the same instance in the background, some processes takes place. They are:

1) The click tracker of Google Ads loads.
2) Tracking URL loads.

If you are using multiple click trackers, additional redirects may load.

With the absence of parallel tracking, visitors have to go through one or more redirects after clicking the ad before they reach your landing page. This means that it will take longer time for the visitors to reach the landing page.

Without parallel tracking the ad tracking and execution looks like below.

1) Customer clicks on your ad.
2) After that the Google Ads click tracker loads.
3) Then the Tracking URL loads.
4) Possible other tracking URLs loads.
5) Customer reaches your landing page.

So we can understand the fact that turning parallel tracking for your Google Ads account is very much helpful in improving the performance of your campaigns. If you are not sure about how to enable parallel tracking for your Google Ads campaign, then as an advertiser, you can turn on this facility by following the steps below:

1) First sign in to your Google Ads account.
2) After that, in the navigation menu, click All campaigns.
3) Click Settings in the page menu on the left,
4) Next click Account Settings.
5) Click Tracking.
6) Now click the switch that is seen next to “Parallel tracking” and turn it on.

Before parallel tracking is turned on, Google will advise the advertisers working with any other click measurement provider to make sure their system is compatible with it.

Compatibility with parallel tracking will be different based on which features are enabled. A click measurement provider should be able to advise on what to do if there is an issue like incompatibility.

So, hope that the above steps are sufficient enough for you to learn how to enable parallel tracking for your Google Ads account. This will ultimately help in improving the overall performance of your campaigns, as the landing pages will be loading fast for the visitors clicking on your ads.

A Hub for Top Trending Product Searches Launched by Google

In its latest move, Google has launched a hub on the web for digital marketer to identify and discover the top trending product searches across various categories. Google Shopping 100 now highlights the products that have recently experienced an increase in US searches. It is also worth noting the fact that these are not necessarily the top product searches when we look overall, but they are the products that are seeing a rise in its popularity on the internet.

Google officials has said that they have highlighted some of the top categories for holiday gifts such as tech, kitchen gear, games and toys since a long time. Google has experienced a lot of warm furry boots in accessories and apparel, and the high tech vacuums are big in home goods.

Google is aware about the fact that the holiday season is the best time to launch Google Shopping 100, but there are chances that it could still be used so as to discover trending products searches throughout the year. Google Shopping 100 can be helpful for the consumers for activities such as gift-giving inspiration, comparing prices of different online retailers, and also to find out whether a particular product is available at a nearby store. The marketers will find it easy to keep up with the interests of the consumers, and they can also use these information for activities such as creating content and earning income through affiliate marketing.

Consumers can use Google Shopping 100 for gift-giving inspiration, comparing prices of different online retailers, and finding out whether a product is in stock at a nearby store. Marketers can use it to keep up with what consumers are interested in, and use the information to do things like create content and earn affiliate income.

As of now, there are a limited amount of categories that are being showcased in Google Shopping 100 and the list is expected to increase as the platform grows. Following are the categories in which the Google Shopping 100 showcases the products:

Tech
Kitchen gear
Toys & games
Accessories & apparel
Gaming
Sports & fitness
Home goods
Personal care

We need to wait and see whether this new web portal by Google can be used throughout the year. But we can say without doubt that this platform can be used as a great consumer research tool. The online marketers are very much anxious about the upcoming tool and are waiting eagerly for its release.

Google Search Console Can Now Provide Report on Same-Day Data

The Search Console tool is getting updated by Google and now it will come with the ability to provide fresher data for the users in the Search Performance report. Earlier the report in the Search Performance section was atleast a day older and this really prevented the users from getting more updated information from the tool. But now, SEOs and site owners from across the world will be very much happy as they will be able to get access to the same-day date once they log into their Search Console tool. The webmasters had to wait for several days to get data for a particular day and now with the latest update, Google Search Console tool is all set to make a big change in their reporting system. This update is considered to be a great enhancement of the previous report that was provided by the tool.

The SEOs and website owners will be now getting access to fresh and improved data from the Search Performance report and this feature was being requested by the Search Console users since a long time. Here are some of the changes that a fresh data from the Search Console tool can provide to the SEOs.

a) The ability to view the weekend performance of a website on Monday morning, rather than waiting until Wednesday.
b) Check the stats of the website as the first thing in the morning.
c) Opportunity to Check whether the traffic of the website has rebounded after fixing any technical issues.

The webmasters should also make a note of the fact that the that fresh data points will be replaced with final data points within a a few days. So we can expect that the fresh data might change a bit before it is finalized. Another thing that the webmasters need to know about the fresh data update is that it has not been yet supported by the Search Analytics API, and it is also not in the Discover report. But we can hope that both these limitations may be addressed and fixed in the near future.

There are also other important improvements that have been made to the Search Performance in Google Search Console. Apart from returning fresher data to the web site owners, the Search Performance report will enable a more clearer communication of the data timezone, which is indeed the Pacific time zone. The Search Console report also helps you in exporting performance data over a particular time frame of your choice and it makes easy for you to identify and analyze the trends and changes. All these updates are not yet live on your Search Console account and Google is still in the process of rolling it out.

Google Updates its Maps App with the Ability to Edit Business Information

Google has made another major update to its the Maps app on iOS, and with the new update, Google allows business owners to edit their listing information without having to leave the app.

The new update will make it easier for the verified owners and managers to edit their respective business profile.

This feature will be very helpful for business owners, when they look up to their own listing in Google Maps.

It will be helpful for you, when you might be checking your business listing to see if there are any new reviews or customer photos and finds spotting an inaccuracy in the business profile.

It will also be helful, when you have changed your business hours or stopped offering a particular service, and these change are not reflected in the business listing.

Now you can easily update the information immediately through the Maps app, rather than exiting the app and using a mobile browser or the Google My Business app.