Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that allows users to promote their businesses on the SERPs and Maps. It’s an effective way to increase visibility and drive traffic to your website. Understanding the benefits and features of your GMB ranking is a great way to help your website grow and experience the benefits of effective SEO. Here’s how to improve your GMB ranking.
What Is GMB?
Google My Business, or GMB, is essentially the Google search engine’s business directory. In the same way that the Yellow Pages helps users find who they’re looking for, GMB makes it easier to find needed information on a business, including its location, phone number, website, products/services, operating hours, and customer reviews.
Business listings on Google can show up in four different places.
The knowledge panel – a panel of information located on the right side of the screen that a user gets when they search for a specific business.
The local pack – also known as a snack pack or 3-pack, this information shows up right under the ad portion on the SERP.
Google Maps – This Info can be seen through the mobile app or a browser. Simply click on “Maps” in the Google search results.
Local Finder – This section comes up when you click on a listing in the SERP or on the “More places” button on the bottom of the local pack.
Each of these listing locations can have a direct effect on your business and its ability to rank well and draw in traffic. However, optimizing your website and content can increase your chance to rank well in each of these areas. When it comes to ranking well with SEO, there are a few things you need to consider.
The Pillers Of Local SEO
While many factors affect your local listings in Google’s SERP, some are more important than others. However, almost all aspects of local listings can be broken down into one of three categories: Prominence, Relevance, and Proximity.
Prominence
Prominence is similar to brand awareness. It refers to your business’s popularity, taking into account how well-known your business is to its users. Businesses that are more prominent than others are more likely to rank well in the local search results.
Your prominence can be affected by both online and offline factors. The more prominent your brand is in the real world, the more search results will reflect that awareness. Google search engines also take online visibility into account. The more links to your site, citations, features, reviews, etc, the more your prominence, and therefore your online visibility, will increase.
Relevance
Relevance is the key to not only SEO but Google’s entire algorithm. When uses search for specific words, Google works to provide the most relevant results to answer their questions and meet their needs. To do this, Google bots crawl and index websites, sorting them into categories. These websites are then selected to appear in the SERP when Google determines them to be relevant to a user’s search.
It’s simple to increase your relevance. All you have to do is optimize your content to make it clear what your website is all about. Once Google has a clear picture of your website, it will present your content to those with relevant searches. You can optimize your website for Google by completing your online profiles adding relevant keywords to your website.
Proximity
Proximity has a large impact on local listings. It has to do with how close the physical business is to the user. For instance, if a user located in Kansas searches “Chinese restaurants” Then Google won’t bring up results in North Carolina. (unless North Carolina is an included keyword in the search)
The algorithm used by Google to determine proximity is complicated. Although it’s easy to understand that Google looks at the term searched, as well as the location of the searcher, there are other factors involved.
For instance, if you search for “Chinese restaurant” while walking through the city, the first results are going to be Chinese restaurants within walking distance as opposed to driving. Distance is a key player in proximity analysis since most consumers are more likely to patron a business closer to them as opposed to far away (although a strong brand awareness can cause them to travel further.)
Seeing as to how you can’t move your business address to rank well in other locations, you need to optimize your local profile so that your information is displayed to all customers you want to reach.
Let Us Help You Succeed!
We can meet your SEO needs and help you rank higher in the Local Pack, organic search, and YouTube. Whatever your business goals, we will work to build an SEO strategy that reaches them. We do everything we can to work with our clients to make web design and online marketing affordable. Contact us for more information.
