Google My Business Local SEO Crash Course Guide (Part 1)
So today i'm trying to address some of
the questions and some of the concerns you have where you've perhaps delved into
google my business before but you just want to get back up to speed again I mean if you
did google my business listing say a year ago quite a few things have now changed and so the
purpose of this video is to take you through all the new things you need to know about the
very latest thinking that's going to get you extra traction over your competition and in
effect it's a crash course so that after watching this video you're going to be ready to do all the
right things going forward with google my business so I'll assume you know a little bit about google
my business you've already got your business registered you've already got your listing there
maybe you've added some photos you might have even got some nice reviews coming through but this
is just going to get you a bit more up to speed so it's worth noting that we're talking about
local SEO now what's the difference between local SEO and national SEO or just search engine
optimization which is what SEO stands for we'll simply put local SEO is kind of the new way that
Google is adapting and helping businesses succeed because if you're looking for say
an estate agent for property locally or if you're looking to order a pizza takeaway or
you need a local plumbing service where do you go well google knows that most people want something
local to them they want people to be called out and to come within the next 20 minutes or so they
want a delivery for their pizza within the next half an hour so local SEO is quite different to
the old national SEO where you just wanted to be number one for pizzas in the whole of the UK and
that's where you as a small business can succeed in effect there are some things you can do and
there's some things you can't do with local SEO for example, if someone's looking for your business
you can't get any more locally to them because your business is in a place so there are certain
things like how far you are from the person searching that you can't do anything about but
there is 55 of the algorithm that you can control and those are the things we're going to look at
today and of that 25 of it is based on google my business which is why I particularly emphasize
on my channel the importance of optimizing google my business it's the biggest thing you can control
to get new customers and clients locally there are two particular things that's changed the habits of
people searching for you on google maps or google my business or just on google search engine what
are those two things well one is that people are no longer using laptops and possibly even to some
degree tablets they're using their mobile phone so most people are walking around using a
mobile phone searching for businesses or maybe they're stuck in a car or in a car park
and they're thinking where's the local business for this where's the local service for that so the
majority of people today using their mobile phones like computers like a laptop to try and find
businesses so what does that mean well that means you need to make sure that your website your
optimizations and everything about your business is aimed for someone searching for it on the
mobile now you may say well actually my criteria the customers I'm looking for don't use mobiles
maybe they've got a certain age bracket maybe they're not particularly technically savvy
well that may be true but it is changing so much so that the majority will be using mobiles and you
may need to change your perception if you want to attract the right customers or more customers
a greater volume of customers going forward now the second thing that's changed is the search
terms themselves are much more locally concise so what do we mean by that well they may
use the town or the city that you're in as part of the search phrase and that's often
been misused by people on google my business so there's been a misuse and this
is needing to be addressed by google so I wouldn't suggest you go down that avenue but
what I would suggest you do is on your website you talk about the towns the cities the vicinities
of local things around you that you get local links from other businesses and other
associations that are around you and also just bear in mind certain key phrases
are used by people looking for your business if you're a flower shop for example many people
won't type in flower shop into google they'll put flower shop near me or nearest flower shop so
those are words like nearest near me they show search intent they show it's a local search they
show they're looking for a business close to them so think about when you write an article can you
put the words nearest nearby near Bournemouth nearest town or city that's local to you think
in terms of the person looking for your business as opposed to what you're thinking about and that
is one of the biggest shifts in the last few years when it comes to google my business and google
search engine optimization now if you decide to do nothing at all about that well that's fine you
may find that you've already got an authority in google but over time it will change so there's
an opportunity here if you're a new business or if you're a young business or if your business
just hasn't been optimized that well recently there's an opportunity at the moment to
take advantage of those types of things so think of the perspective of how your customer
is viewing your business have you gone to google in say incognito mode or on a browser you've never
used before so you're not signed in and have you just tried searching for your type of business
have you just imagined that your business you're the customer and you're searching for your type of
business and you put in near me well obviously if you're using a phone that's right next to where
your business is or it's within your business you may come up number one but what about next
time you're on the other side of town or next time you're out shopping just do a search in the
incognito mode to see where do you truly come for the real customers out there looking for
your type of business there's an honesty required sometimes from a business owner to see it from the
perspective of the customer and when you do find your business and maybe you've got a knowledge
panel that side panel on the side of a search engine or maybe it comes up on the map and you
click on the map and you see your business there how much information useful information does
it give to the customer does it attract the customer to pick up the phone and phone you are
the reviews any good do the reviews actually tell a good representation of your business what
about the questions they're asking do you have frequently asked questions on there what about the
photo that's showing what about the logos that are showing the logo of your business is actually the
latest logo what about your business name your title your phone number you've heard of nap name
address phone number but what about your website too does that have the same representation when
people search for your business does it really strike a chord with a genuine customer
well most people think it always does the facts are when I review websites and review
businesses and review google my maps and google my business sometimes people are slightly deluded and
if you can change your thinking if you can think in terms of your customer then you'll be able to
engage your customer with great photos with honest representations of your business you'll make it
so attractive it'll stand out and people will then click on it and that's how google works because
when people click on your business in google maps when they're searching for your type of business
it sends a signal to google and google goes well everyone seems to click on this it seems to
engage the customers they get great reviews i'm not interested in whether this business has been
around for two years three years 10 years 20 years locally this is an authority these guys are
the experts these guys seem to be trusted now what's interesting is their expertise
authority trustworthiness is something that i've often mentioned also in my videos in
fact i've got several videos that talk about e a t expert authority trustworthiness and that
is something that's very difficult for google to rate in fact they've got guys that actually go
around they go to website addresses and they look to see does this look like an authority from
human perspective they've got a book that has loads and loads of questionnaires
for these google experts to fill out and to see whether your business represents
what true people are looking for in true life so are you an expert are you an authority are you
trustworthy well you'll always think you are but what does your customers think of you and that's
the type of way of thinking that's the way google is changing the way the algorithm is working
it's much more based on a manual process of observation now at this point in the
video i just realized that there was still so much more to talk about i didn't want
to rush through all the rest of this stuff for instance there's a new free website you can
get through google my business insights reveals a bit more about how photos are so important how
do you choose the right category how do you keep your posts updated and how do you make sure you
fully appreciate what google's after the algorithm well i cover the rest of that in the second part
of this video and i'll see you there don't miss it
