The local SEO industry is always changing, and in a year of huge global shifts that have had significant impacts on many local businesses, this rate of change seems to have been vastly accelerated. While the local SEO community is supportive and keen to share knowledge on tactics, there are some elements of working in the industry that aren’t as frequently discussed. It can be difficult to know what to charge your clients, what services to offer, and what salary to aim for. This is is why we set out, back in 2011, to benchmark the key statistics that illustrate what it’s really like to work in local SEO. The Local Search Industry Survey aims to look at the attitudes, experiences, and finances of people that are working in the world of local SEO. We’ve aimed to provide a useful measure of life as a local marketer year on year, combining the insights of people working in agencies, as freelancers, and in businesses. Thank you so much to the 550 local marketers who answered this year’s survey. Your insights are very valuable and we are incredibly thankful. Publishers are welcome to use the following charts and data, crediting BrightLocal and linking to this URL. If you have any questions about the report, please get in touch with the content team, or leave a comment below. Information about the demographics of the survey can be found at the end of this post. The Outlook for 2021Success in 2021As we speed into the second half of the year, it seems like many local marketers are hopeful about what 2021 has to hold. 26% believe that it will be easier to achieve local SEO success in 2021—up from 22% last year. However, with fewer people saying it will be neither easier or harder (37%, down from 46%), this also means that, overall, more people are expecting it to be difficult (37%, up from 33%). With local SEO, it can be very difficult to predict what’s coming. Algorithm updates can come out of the blue, and Google My Business can often be seen adding or testing new features, each of which add another item to the to-do list. And, with Google’s Page Experience Update still slowly rolling out at the time of writing, there could still be a lot of changes that could impact how local marketers work. The trends affecting local marketing in 2021
N.b. Respondents were asked how much they agreed with the above statements. When this survey was sent out back in May, respondents were far more likely to see the Page Experience update as having a big impact than not. 50% said that they believed it would have a big impact, while 48% said that they felt prepared. There has been a lot of discussion of what the Page Experience Update will mean for websites, and whether it’s something that will have a major impact on local businesses. Whether or not it has a big impact on rankings, improving the experience for visitors can only be positive! 59% of respondents say that Google My Business has improved in the last year. During the early stages of the pandemic in the US, Google rolled out a series of changes and improvements to make access to Covid-19 related information simpler. On top of this, it rolled out a series of new features—from extending the length of Google Posts, to expanded messaging features, and much more! You can keep on top of all the Google My Business changes with Sterling Sky’s very handy Timeline of Local SEO Changes. But it’s not all been rosy in the world of GMB. 36% say that Google My Business has had more bugs in the last year, while just 25% say they believe GMB support has improved in the last year. Despite Google introducing many new local business features, it’s clear there are many ongoing frustrations for local marketers. Local SEO SalariesThe average salaries for local marketers in the USA, UK and CanadaSalaries for digital marketers can vary pretty drastically, with disparities between countries being particularly notable. The median salary for a local marketer in the UK is £45,000. Comparing to Canada ($107,500 CAD) and the US ($77,000 USD), it’s a lot less fruitful to be an SEO in the UK—with this UK median salary converting to about $62,500 USD in the USA, and $77,000 CAD in Canada. So why is there such a big pay disparity? Could it be because local SEO is less of a recognized need in the UK, and therefore the comparative lack of demand is dragging down salaries? We’d love to hear your theories; let us know in the comments.
N.b. We chose to compare salaries in the USA, Canada, and the UK only as other countries did not have enough survey respondents to create indicative average salaries. Respondents were able to opt out of sharing their salary. The median salary for a local marketer working the USA, UK, or Canada in 2021 is $87,579 USD—below last year’s global average of $88,532. However, looking at salaries as an average rarely shows what’s really happening. Drilling down into different segments, you’ll see a wide variety of salaries—with younger SEOs earning significantly less than more experienced specialists. Women working in local SEO receive an average salary of $75,315 USD, compared to $93,128 for male SEOs. The gender pay gap has increased compared to last year’s survey, moving from a difference of 14% to 24% over the course of the year. While of course, this change could be purely down to different respondents sharing their salaries this year, here is a list of ideas and causes to help promote gender equality in local SEO. Comparing by business type also makes for interesting analysis. Local marketers working in agencies earn an average of $91,468 per year – around $4,000 than their freelance counterparts. People in charge of marketing in businesses earn an average of $78,457 – though it’s important to bear in mind that many in-business marketers will have SEO and digital marketing tasks as just one task of many involved in keeping the business running. Local marketers’ satisfaction with salariesDespite clear pay disparities, the majority of local marketers are happy with their salaries – with 41% of respondents saying they are “extremely” or “very” satisfied. The highest proportion (43%) are “somewhat” satisfied, which perhaps isn’t surprising; I’m sure most people would always be happy for a little more in their paycheck! Looking at respondents in the UK, 50% are “extremely” or “very” satisfied with their salaries, compared to 41% in the US and 39% in Canada. While SEOs in the UK do get paid comparatively less than their North American counterparts, they tend to be happier with their salary. But, with the average salary across all jobs in the UK being £31,461, pay for local marketers tends to be relatively high. Hiring and Working in Local SEOAnnual revenues of local marketing agencies and freelancersLooking at the revenues of agencies and freelancers, there was a dip in the proportion of respondents bringing in less than $100,000 (23% this year, compared to 35% last year). 50% of respondents work in local marketing businesses that earn more than $500,000 per year, up from 37% last year. Rather than this highlighting a significant revenue change over the past year, though, it’s highly likely that this is a reflection of this year’s respondents. The average hours spent on local SEO each weekSurvey respondents work an average of 43 hours per week, but naturally very few spend all of it focusing purely on local marketing. Interestingly, respondents from multi-location businesses spend the most hours purely focusing on local marketing, alongside in-agency marketers—with each spending around 25 hours a week on SEO and marketing. Winning new business, meetings, and admin all take up a sizeable chunk of the working week, so spending all your time on billable work isn’t possible in most companies. Local businesses spend the fewest hours focusing on SEO and marketing. It’s important to note that this survey was primarily answered by BrightLocal’s customers, email subscribers and social media followers, and therefore the local businesses answering this survey may be a little more SEO-savvy and willing to spend time on marketing than the norm—many of whom may only spend minutes or hours each week on marketing. The number of employees in local marketers’ businessesThe majority of respondents in this year’s survey work in small and medium-sized businesses—with just 12% working in companies that have over 100 employees. Working in local SEO can be a lonely job, with 38% of businesses only having one specialist in their company—and 70% having fewer than 6. This is lower than last year’s study, in which 81% had 5 or fewer local marketers; though this could be based on the respondents this year rather than necessarily indicating that businesses and agencies have fewer marketers on the books. Building a community of like-minded local SEOs to share ideas and results of tests will be vital for many local marketers to improve their work and learn new ways to improve performance for their clients or businesses. Will your business hire more SEO-related staff in 2021?Despite the pandemic, it seems that many companies are planning to grow their local SEO workforce, as 51% are likely to hire more local marketers this year. After a year during which many agencies will have paused hiring and lost clients, it’s promising to see the optimism for hiring remaining pretty steady compared with last year’s pre-pandemic report. For many businesses, digital marketing will have become even more important, and this may have led to an increased need for agencies and freelancers to help get them in front of customers while traditional routes to sales changed. The proportion of local marketers moving jobs in 2021There is a disparity between the proportion of companies expecting to hire more SEOs and the proportion of marketers expecting to change role. This puts the power in the hands of marketers, with potentially more jobs to choose from, which could mean that competition could be lower than perhaps expected. This difference between supply and demand could mean marketers are able to request higher salaries and better benefits based on the scarcity of competition. 25% of local marketers say they have already found a new job, or will look for one this year—up from 22% last year. Perhaps it’s no wonder that more marketers expect to move jobs this year—many may have paused their search for a new role during the uncertainty of the pandemic, while others may be looking for a fully remote role now that many businesses have made this a possibility. The proportion of local marketers planning to freelance in the futureFor the first time, we asked respondents whether they planned to freelance in the future. While 40% already freelance either full or part-time, a further 19% plan to take on their own clients in the short or long-term. Only 31% of respondents said that they wouldn’t. Of course, freelancing isn’t for everyone, and the stability and security of working for someone else is what many workers desire. However, digital marketing can be a great career to pick up extra work on the side, which may be why so many marketers are planning to make the leap over the next few years. We’ll be interested to monitor this in the coming years. How many years respondents have worked in local marketingDespite there being fewer respondents classing themselves as junior, there was actually an increase in the proportion of respondents that have worked in local marketing for a short amount of time. 13% have worked in the field for less than 2 years, up from 7% last year. A further 23% have worked in local marketing between two and five years—up from 17% last year. Level of local SEO knowledgePerhaps it’s no surprise that so many marketers are looking to go it alone in the future with such a high level of local SEO knowledge. 68% see their local SEO knowledge as being excellent or very good. But as we all know, local SEO can change quickly, and staying on top of the latest news and trends can take time. We want to enable every local marketer to be brilliant at local SEO, and have spent countless hours working on BrightLocal Academy: a set of in-depth video courses aimed at helping local marketers improve their knowledge. Check it out! ServicesThe most common services offered by local marketersN.b. In 2021’s survey, ‘Technical SEO’ was added as a standalone service for the first time. The most common services offered by local marketers
Local marketing can be a very varied job with a lot to learn—with local SEO alone having multiple factors to focus on. Not every agency or freelancer will be able to, or even want to, offer every service to clients, which means that local businesses wanting to choose a consultant need to think carefully about which specialties they really desire. Google My Business optimization is the most commonly offered service. Being that this is the biggest factor affecting local rankings, it’s no shock that most local marketers are offering this to clients. In fact, it’s a bigger surprise that nearly 10% aren’t! Content creation and optimization has become more widely offered over the last year, with 83% of marketers offering this to their clients. This could be a result of the pandemic, where businesses needed to connect with their customers in different ways while footfall fell and businesses closed. Local Services Ads also seem to be growing, with 56% of marketers now offering this service. Google rolled these out to more countries and niches over the last year, so it’s only natural that more marketers are choosing to offer this to clients. Notable drops compared to 2020 are in on-site optimization, reporting, Google Posts, link building, and video marketing. It feels unlikely that some of these SEO services are becoming less valuable, so this could highlight marketers tightening their focus to spend time on their preferred specialties rather than trying to do it all. The most valuable services for local marketing successThe most valuable local marketing services
Local marketers were asked to share which five services they believe are most valuable for local marketing success. Again, Google My Business optimization comes out on top—outpacing other services by far. Content creation has nearly doubled in importance among respondents compared to last year. With so many more marketers in this year’s survey offering this as a service, this could explain why there has been such a leap—but what came first: the value, or offering it as a service? Citation building and cleanup remains a very valuable service, with 40% of respondents placing this among their most valuable service offerings. This may have been particularly important over the last year where many interactions with consumers have shifted online, meaning the accuracy of the information about businesses is more important than ever to avoid confusing or frustrating potential customers. Spam fighting has seen notable change this year, with 17% of respondents naming this as one of the most valuable services to offer. Tackling the abundance of spam in local search results can have a big impact on local rankings success, and it’s great to see more local marketers identifying this as valuable. Local businesses vs local marketers’ perceptions of valuable local marketing servicesAs well as looking at what specialists in local marketing see as the most valuable services, it’s interesting to compare how the opinions of people working in businesses differ. While I wouldn’t want to downplay anyone’s knowledge, it’s important to understand that there could be a significant difference between what local marketers see as successful and worthy tactics, and what businesses may desire. A combination of compromise and education may be required for a harmonious ongoing relationship! Optimization of Google My Business is less valued among businesses—with only 53% placing this in their top 5 most valuable services, compared to 80% of those in agencies or freelancing. This disparity between the perceived importance of Google My Business is a little concerning, and suggests that businesses may be underestimating the power that GMB holds for rankings and conversions. According to local businesses, the most valuable services for local marketing success are:
Social media is also more valuable to businesses than it is to marketers—meaning they may expect an agency to offer this on top of other local marketing specialisms. The post Local Search Industry Survey appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/39nbq9n Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/
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Whether they have “DoFollow” links or NoFollow links, local citation sites with links through to local business websites are invaluable to local SEO. Backlinks remain one of most important factors that influence both organic search ranking and local-search/maps ranking. If you’d like to see what the experts say about local link building, check out our Expert Local Link Building Survey. The Local Citations Trust Report also explores why correct local citations are vital to keeping customers happy – finding that 80% of consumers lose trust in a business if they see incorrect or inconsistent NAP information online. Local citation sites that provide backlinksKnowing that many SEOs like to build links through their citation-building actions, we wanted to put together a useful resource to show which local citation sites provide either DoFollow links or NoFollow links. In June 2021, our Citations team delved into our extensive local citation database to create a comprehensive list of local citation sites with DoFollow or NoFollow links. – Jump to the Top Citation Sites with DoFollow Links – – Jump to the Top Citation Sites with NoFollow Links – To make this resource even more useful we’ve added further information about each local citation site so you can make quick, informed decisions:
Both tables can be downloaded as CSV files – see the links below each table to download these. We plan to regularly update the below lists to keep them up-to-date and useful for our customers. If you have any thoughts or questions on any of the sites in our list, let us know. Please Note: Local citation sites listed here aren’t necessarily ones we can submit to using Citation Builder. Click here for more information. What are DoFollow links?Follow links, known to some as “DoFollow” are links that Google and other search engines are able to follow to reach a linked website. This passes on authority, or ‘link juice’, from the source through to the destination website. The more reputable links that you have pointing to your website, the more likely a search engine will believe it to be a high-value (‘authoritative’) site. Links are DoFollow by default, so do not require additional HTML attributes in order to follow. Including DoFollow links on your site allows you to pass on authority to the websites that you link to. However, including DoFollow links in forums and comment sections of websites can attract spammers attempting to improve the visibility of their own sites. Local citation sites that include DoFollow links are considered to have extra value because they contain a DoFollow backlink. These combine SEO benefits from well-respected sites with potential clickthroughs from consumers looking for a local business. What is a NoFollow link?NoFollow links contain HTML tags that stop search engines following links to pass on link juice. Links that contain NoFollow attributes stop Google from seeing a link as an endorsement of the linked page. These have become increasingly important due to penalties that can apply to paid links. Although they won’t carry the link juice back to your site, in Local SEO NoFollow links are still important. Back in March 2020, Google announced that they no longer looked at ‘NoFollow’ as a directive, and instead a ‘hint’ (a suggestion that Google shouldn’t follow the link, rather than a command that Google has to obey). Any link from a local citation site provides much more exposure (and ease of access) to audiences searching for products and services like yours. To create a NoFollow tag, the code rel=”nofollow” should be included in hyperlinks. Do NoFollow links help SEO?There is a constant debate about the SEO value of NoFollow links. In the past, SEOs believed that NoFollow links were ignored by Google and therefore had no value. However, now studies suggest that Google can acknowledge NoFollow links, and attribute some value to the website they link to. If we look beyond pure SEO value, NoFollow links have other benefits to their destination pages. Links placed on large sites with lots of users or on very relevant sites can generate valuable website visits. Build local citations the easy way using BrightLocalBuilding local citations can take a lot of time, effort and stress. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We have an experienced team of professional citation builders who deliver over 60,000 citations every month for our agency and brand customers. Our manual local citation service costs just $3 per submission, and ensures that your business is appearing in all the right business listings sites and local directories. We can also submit your business data to local data aggregators in the US. These aggregators will distribute your data out to their network of directories, mobile apps and mapping services. Our aggregator service is high quality and low cost; we submit to all three US aggregators for just $60/year. See how our prices compare with other citation building services.
The post Top Local Citation Sites With DoFollow and NoFollow Links – Updated 2021 appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2USb6NM Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ It’s no secret that Google My Business (GMB) is an incredibly popular platform and plays a huge part in influencing local rankings. According to a survey carried out by Whitespark, Google My Business is the number 1 ranking factor for the local pack. But GMB goes beyond rankings. Many call it the homepage for local businesses—the first place customers will find and evaluate your business—whether they are looking at customer reviews, exploring your services, or converting directly from your listing. This is why we’re proud to announce the next free course to land in BrightLocal Academy: Google My Business Management 101. We’ve created this detailed new course in collaboration with local SEO and GMB expert Niki Mosier. Why? Well, we noticed that there’s lots of advice out there about setting up and optimizing a GMB listing but not a great deal about managing and maintaining them. Google My Business isn’t just a one-and-done activity. Understanding how to handle the ongoing maintenance of a GMB listing is key to ensuring you see continual local visibility success. That’s why this course goes beyond giving advice on how to simply enhance GMB listings and includes clear guidance on how to manage and maintain them for long-term success. Throughout the six lessons, Niki shares her knowledge on how to:
“This course was so fun to make and I’m excited for others to learn from it! I’ve claimed and managed tons of GMB listings for clients over my career so I was very happy to put this knowledge together to share with others. The lessons in this course will answer important questions you might have about managing a GMB listing and make the whole process much easier for you.” – Course Leader Niki Mosier Watch this video to find out what it’s all about… Enroll today and gain from Niki’s 10 years of experience as an agency SEO digging deep into local SEO and Google My Business listings for dozens of different clients. Who is this course for?If you’re one of the following, we’re confident you’ll get a ton of value from enrolling today:
How can I join?Whether you’re a BrightLocal customer or not, you can get access to this course, and be among the first to find out when new courses drop, by enrolling for free. Here’s how… If you’re a BrightLocal customer, you can access the academy via your BrightLocal account. Simply log in, click ‘Learning Resources’ at the top of the screen and select ‘BrightLocal Academy’ from the dropdown menu. You’ll be taken straight to your academy account page where you can enroll on the ‘Google My Business Management 101’ course. If you’re not a BrightLocal customer, you can join BrightLocal Academy for free here and follow the same steps above to enroll on the course. Want to know more about BrightLocal Academy?Check out the official BrightLocal Academy FAQs here:
If you have any questions of your own, feel free to get in touch with us or leave a comment below. We hope you find this fresh new course useful, and can’t wait to hear how it’s helped you improve your local SEO skills.
The post New Academy Course: Google My Business Management 101 appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3xS4aOD Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ About this ResourceLocal business directories, also known as local citation sites, are crucial to local search optimization, but with 1000s to choose from it’s not always easy to find the right ones for your business. Fortunately, we have done the hard work for you: on this page you will find over 800 niche business listing sites, split across 40+ business categories! How to use this resourceIf you know which industry category or niche you’re looking to build citations on, you can head right there now! Simply check out the Contents list (on the right on desktop and at the top of the page on mobile) and look for the industry that’s right for you. Need to return to the Contents list? Just click the small ‘down’ arrow at the top of the page. How are they selected?Our specialist Citation Builder team carefully hand-build over 60,000 citations every month, so this certainly gave us a head start! We combined this in-house knowledge with many extra hours of manual research, including using existing resources, to compile a ‘long-list’ of over 10,000 sites. Each of these was then manually reviewed and filtered down to a ‘Best-of-the-Best’, by business category. Filter steps:
Categorization steps:
How do you go about adding listings to each site?We have helpfully included links to each site, so you can go straight to them, create an account and build your business listing. This can take around 15-20 mins to do per site. Take a look at our Complete Guide to Local Citations for more guidance. Did you know? On average, local businesses in the top 10 Google local search results have 81 citations* – to create this many you would be looking to spend over 20 hours manually building citations! Do you really have that much time to spare? Let BrightLocal take care of your Citation Building instead!Short on time? We have a crack team of expert Citation Builders who are able to get you listed on the business listing sites that really matter for your business. What’s more, unlike some citation building services, with BrightLocal there are no annual recurring fees. You pay for the citations, and they’re yours to keep – forever. With a free account setup and a low cost of just $2 per listing, our pay-per-citation service has made us the go-to choice for businesses and marketing agencies large and small. Find out more about our Citation Builder service and see what our customers have to say. The post The Top Business Listings for Every Industry – Updated 2021 appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3wFmieI Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Spam has been prevalent in the local search landscape for a long time. Why? Because everyone is looking for ways to cut corners. Many businesses unfairly employ spammy tactics like keyword stuffing, multiple Google My Business listings, lead generation websites, and falsified reviews to manipulate local search results and get ahead of their competitors. It’s not something that just affects local SEOs, too. The wider world has caught wind of these scammy tactics:
GMB spam isn’t just unfair, it risks damaging the reputation of Google My Business as a trustworthy source of information, as well as the reputations of the legal, health, and home service industries in which it seems to be most prevalent. Google My Business (GMB) name spam is one of the most common spam tactics, mainly because Google still puts way too much significance on keywords appearing in GMB business names as a ranking factor. What is Google My Business name spam?Google My Business name spam is when the business name on a GMB listing doesn’t match the business’s registered name. Sometimes this can be accidental. Maybe the person who set up the GMB listing wasn’t aware that they had to use the registered business name? Maybe they’ve seen other spammy listing names and just think it’s what everyone does and so it’s okay? But it also can be intentional, where the person stuffs different keywords into the GMB listing name on purpose, in order to boost rankings for those keywords. Google’s guidelines on names for GMB listings are clear: “Your name should reflect your business’ real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers. … Including unnecessary information in your business name is not permitted and could result in your listing being suspended.” – Google One of the reasons that name spam is such a problem is that updating the business name in a GMB listing is quick and easy. All you need to do is log in to your GMB listing, go to ‘Info’ in the menu on the left and click the pencil icon next to the business name. Types of Google My Business name spamStuffing synonyms into the business nameThere are lots of ways of saying the same thing. This is what makes rankings so tricky in the first place and why adding synonyms to a business name is a really popular form of name spam. Some people even take it to the extreme, like this example from Josh Loewen:
Inserting a location into the business nameAdding the location of the business to the business name in order to try and outrank competitors is another obvious and popular tactic, just like the business in the fourth position has done in the image below (not the second and third, though—they’re legitimate business names). Using emojis or special characters in the business name to make it stand outSome might argue that using emojis and special characters is simply a great branding exercise. But if, for example, a business added five star emojis to their business name, it’s not harmless branding anymore but making a claim that can influence searchers. This is unfair to the other businesses and that’s why this tactic gets a big thumbs down from the local SEO community and Google. Using subjective adjectives in the business nameIt’s not just the use of emojis that can turn a branding exercise into a claim. Adding words like ‘Best’ and ‘No 1 Rated’ to the business name has the same impact and is another unfair way to influence users. Accidental name spamWe all know accidents can happen and the world of GMB spam is no exception. We’ve seen multi-location franchises using numbers in GMB listing names. This is not them spamming intentionally because using a number isn’t going to benefit rankings or convince users to use them. They’ve done this simply to help them manage the sheer volume of their businesses in one location. What can we do about Google My Business name spam?Unfortunately, Google’s algorithms aren’t always great at spotting spam, and their limited measures to keep business owners and SEOs honest aren’t always effective. This is why Google relies on consumers, business owners, and marketers to try and identify spam and get it removed. In the most recent Local Search Ranking Factors survey, experts declared spam-fighting as the most important activity you can perform to increase rankings. So rather than simply trying to outperform spammers using the same tactics, it’s a good idea to focus your attention on getting spam eradicated. The post Google My Business Name Spam: What to Look for and How to Remove It appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3gFHSZx Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ GMB Product Expert and Local SEO Consultant Tim Capper is known for his expertise on Google My Business for Hotels. On Twitter, Tim regularly shares updates to help keep hotels (or agencies who manage hotel listings) in the loop and ahead of the game. In this guide to GMB for hotels, Tim outlines the quirks and oddities that make Google My Business for hotels a different game entirely. The Foundations of Google My Business for HotelsIn 2018, Google made changes to their local algorithm that removed localization from the organic search results for search queries that include ‘Hotel + Location’. This update removed local hotel websites from search results in favour of Online Travel Agent (OTA) sites, which meant that the only remaining avenue for individual hotels to appear on a page for ‘hotel + location’ was in the Hotel Pack. This update meant that, more than ever, having a Google My Business listing was vital to a hotel’s visibility for these types of search queries. What is the Hotel Pack? The Hotel Pack is similar to the Local Pack but looks and behaves very differently. It’s the list of businesses that appear when you perform a local search, above the organic results. The Hotel Pack, like the Local Pack, is comprised of local business listings but it will look a little different as will explore shortly. How is Google My Business for hotels different to other listings?Although the listing is created within the same framework of Google My Business, lodging categories are heavily restricted as to what they are able to access within the Google My Business framework. The reason for the heavy restriction on functionality is driven by ads revenue. By limiting all the above features, space is created for the ‘Compare Prices’ and ‘Booking’ block for OTAs. The remaining space is filled with hotel amenities. Take a look at the below screenshot to see what I mean: The Local Pack vs Hotel PackThe Hotel Pack is very different from the Local Pack and is primarily driven by Google Travel, rather than the Local Pack (which is driven by Google Maps.) See below the Hotel Pack (left) compared to the Local Pack (right). The Hotel Pack is designed to allow for ease of use in filtering hotels and booking. It does not allow users to click through to a hotel’s website or view its telephone number this early on in the browsing/buying process. The aim here is to allow the user to find and book through Google Travel. The Hotel Pack is triggered for multiple search queries, but they must include the search phrase “hotel”. The Hotel Pack will typically appear below ads and before organic search results. How does the Hotel Pack local algorithm work?The algorithm ranking factors for hotels remain the same for other Google My Business listings. These are:
However, Google tries to provide the most relevant hotel for specific hotel search queries:
It’s worth noting that a lot of the above can be influenced by optimizing on-site for specific phrases and queries. How does searching for hotels on Google Maps work?The most significant difference you notice when searching for a hotel in an area is that the usual “pins” you see are replaced with price pins. The price displayed on Maps is typically the lowest rate available from the listed OTAs for the date selected by the searcher. If you are not using an OTA or using a 3rd party booking provider integrated with Google Hotel Ads, then you won’t get a price label. Instead, you’ll get a tiny blue dot. Equally, if your OTA or booking provider has not provided any room rates for the date criteria that a user is searching, the price pin reverts to a blue dot. The takeaway from this is, without pricing info, you become a blue dot in a sea of dollar signs. Don’t be a blue dot! If you are a small hotel or Bed & Breakfast I would recommend either registering with an OTA or Hotel Ads, but you must keep your bookings and availability up to date. Google Hotels also have a free booking link set up to help small properties get connected and visible. What GMB features do hotel listings have access to?Although hotel features are heavily restricted, you should certainly be using them, updating them and monitoring them. Here are the features for hotel listings to pay attention to on Google My Business:
Some of these only need creating and never need re-visiting, but attributes, photos, and reviews should be monitored and or updated regularly. It’s also worth noting that some of these can be managed in the GMB dashboard, some partially, and some you need to contact business support to update. Hotel AttributesUpdating and checking your hotel attributes should be done on a regular basis, as Google is constantly updating what’s available. You can access this feature by heading to your GMB dashboard, then Info, and then Hotel Attributes. There are two sections within hotel attributes: Property Details, which includes:
And room details:
AmenitiesHotel amenities can be selected and deselected directly from the GMB Dashboard. This is also available under the Attributes section. The majority of these amenities can be modified in your attributes, however, some of them are still provided directly via OTA sites. If your attributes have never been set or managed, they will be fully set via OTA information. Once updated, it may take a while before they display. You will need to contact OTAs for ones not available but still displayed on their page, then GMB support who can manually update the information. HighlightsHotel highlights cannot be controlled by the user; these are created by user reviews, either by mentioning “highlights” within the review text or by selecting it within the review flow. Based on the type of visitor: And then refined based on the travel type they’ve selected: Class RatingWhere Google has access to your county’s official hotel class classifier, they will use this class rating. Where they do not have access, they will rely on OTA information. If your hotel’s class is displayed incorrectly (for example, 4-star instead of 5-star), check with your country’s official classifier to make sure it is displayed correctly and also check that all your OTA listings are displaying the correct class. You will then need to contact GMB support for the correction to be manually updated. Opening HoursTypically 3, 4, 5-star hotels have 24-hour opening hours and should be set as such. If your reception closes at a certain time, with guests having to use a keypad or key to gain access, then you can set your hours accordingly. For example, 6am-11pm. You can then use the ‘More Hours’ section and select access hours. Booking LinksIn order to have an OTA booking link displayed, you have to be listed on that OTA’s website. To have the pricing information displayed, you need to configure this directly with the OTA and your booking system. To have your own booking link displayed, you either need to integrate your booking system directly with Hotel Ads API or use a booking system provider that is integrated with Hotel Ads. Note: You will still need to set your room commission (bid) with Hotel Ads even for your own booking link. This means you will still pay Google a commission on the room booking even if the searcher uses your booking link. Eligible businesses located inside the hotelGoogle offers the option for hotels to list businesses that are located within the building. For example, you might have an on-site restaurant or even a salon. Some businesses eligible for this feature include:
There are a few things to keep in mind in order to prevent a duplicate merge, which can cause havoc to your listings. Located InInternal listings should be marked as ‘located in’ the Hotel. You cannot mark something as ‘located in’ from your dashboard, so you need to use the “Suggest an Edit” feature in Google Maps. Now, because this is user suggested, you need to regularly check if your main hotel is located inside a larger building on your listing. Users love to suggest you are inside the main building and not the actual hotel, so keep an eye on this to ensure it remains accurate. PhotosPhotos for hotels get viewed a lot and play a large part in the user’s purchasing decisions. Here are some basic rules to follow:
In my work, we typically try to provide OTAs with one standard set of images for hotel, rooms and facilities, then use another set for our own sites and GMB. We want the user to stay on our own properties (e.g. website) where possible. ServicesGoogle My Business listings for hotels do provide a services section. However, at the moment, hotel services are not surfaced in search, as is the case for other GMB listings in the form of justifications. For example, here where it says ‘Provides: Sports massage’, is an example of Google surfacing a business’s services in SERPs. Even though services are not used and surfaced for hotels at the moment, this is not to say they won’t be in the future, so I’d recommend taking the time to add your services. These could be things like:
Service categories will be created for each category type you select, and internal services can be selected based on this information. Some options will already provide a selection of services that Google typically associates with the category. How to Set Up Google My Business for HotelsIt is very rare for a brand new hotel to be built and for there to be a need for a completely new listing. You would typically have brand new listings for Bed & Breakfasts, Guest Houses, and smaller operations. If you’re not working with a brand new hotel (for example, you’re doing a rebrand for an existing property) you first need to locate any previous listings. Ideally, the purchase contract should include ownership transfer of the current Google My Business listings (the hotel itself and any internal listings.) It might be the case that you didn’t have this information, or the company you worked with didn’t want to hand over the GMB listing. If so, the steps will be different for you. Here are the steps you’ll need to take depending on your scenario: Setting up a new hotel listingIf you’re working with a brand new hotel (which, as I said, would be rare) you would create and verify a hotel’s GMB listing just like any other GMB listing. If that’s the case, follow these steps to set up your Google My Business listing. Taking over an existing listingIn the instance that you’re taking over an existing listing, there are three possible scenarios: 1. Ownership TransferThe previous owner transfers ownership to your account. Once ownership is accepted they remove themselves from account ownership. 2. Hotel Listing Claimed but Ownership Not TransferredThe sale is complete, everything is transferred but they forgot about GMB and now you need ownership. In this case, you need to log into your GMB dashboard and select ‘Add Single Business’. Search for and select the hotel you need access to. If the business has been already claimed, select ‘Request Access’. The current owner then has seven days to either confirm or deny the access request. If the user fails to confirm your request (for example, it may be an unmonitored/inactive account) and Google can see your account is the verified owner of the associated domain (this will be confirmed through Google Search Console) then the listing will be transferred. If, for some reason, it is denied, then the update email from Google will contain a link where you can appeal and follow the process to regain ownership. 3. Hotel Listing UnverifiedThis is a straightforward claim where you simply need to verify the business listing through a postcard or telephone verification. In the case of new owners or a rebrandIf the hotel you’re working with is rebranding, before you go through the steps of getting ownership of the listing and rebranding the listing, you need to think about a few things: 1. What are the reviews like?If they’re terrible, then it may be better to mark this listing as closed and open a brand new listing. Before you mark it as closed, you can either remove the telephone number and website or update it to your new telephone and website via the ‘Suggest an Edit’ function. 2. What OTAs are listed on the booking options?Updating the name and details of the GMB listing will not automatically remove the OTA bookings that are listed. This is because they are linked via the listing’s CID and not the name or domain. You must remember to update all the OTA listings: either inform them of the name change (if you are keeping access to OTA dashboards) or request that they remove the old hotel and create new OTA listings and accounts under the rebranded name. Once you have decided on the above options, the listing can either be marked as closed and a new one created, or you can transfer ownership of the current one for the rebrand. Top Tip: It is always advisable to create your GMB listings in the same account as your Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Hotel Ads accounts. As we discussed earlier, this can help Google understand that all entities are linked and therefore verify that you’re the domain holder. How to Succeed as a Hotel on Google MapsGoogle My Business provides very little for hotels to optimize within the platform itself. Use what you can and keep amenities up to date, with regular photo updates. There are some other tactics you can integrate to put your best foot forward, too. Make sure your website and GMB listing work togetherLocation is key to hotel searchers and the search results produced by Google so, on your website, be specific to your location and provide accurate location information to Google. For a single location hotel site: have your hotel’s name, address, telephone, and ‘find us’ link running across your footer. For multi-location sites: provide your hotel’s name, address, telephone, and ‘find us’ link running across each specific location’s property’s pages. I recommend using your CID URL for your ‘find us’ link, which can then be used as hasMap in your Hotel Schema. Shift your focusAs I said earlier, Google has made it almost impossible to rank your business for the query ‘Hotel + Location’. You should still be optimizing for this, naturally, but your focus should be shifted to where you can win in search results, as well as appearing for more specific user search queries during the searcher’s research phase. Look at your :
All of these can be optimized for location queries, plus offering and the intended guest type. AccommodationThere are ways to leverage your accommodation offerings, based on: 1. TypeWhat beach, mountain, monument, and.or park does the accommodation overlook? Include this in your content. 2. FeaturesHow many bedrooms are available? Is it particularly good for families? Is there access to a swimming pool? Are the baths oversized? 3. Intended forTo whom is the room type or the accommodation best suited? Make sure to include this information if you do have a target audience. 4. UsesWhat can the accommodation be used for? For example, is the space large enough to host a small wedding? Is the room equipped for long-stay and business? Leisure FacilitiesRemember that your leisure facilities may also be eligible for their own GMB listings (for example, an on-site spa or gym). These can then be optimized in their own right for queries like ‘Gym + Location’. Wedding & Conference FacilitiesOptimize individual pages as well as supporting content:
Location and Local ContentBe the source of information for the area your property is located in. I like to explain this as a brand-building exercise while showcasing your property to potential visitors to the area. 1. LocationBe the source of information for users looking at visiting your area.
2. Things to doPeople travel to an area for a variety of reasons, so be the source of this information to users and keep them looped in with what’s available in the nearby area. If you can’t be proud of your city, town, village, then who can? Share information on nearby amenities, restaurants, bars, attractions, and must-see landmarks. ConclusionAs we’ve seen above, managing Google My Business and Google Maps for Hotels requires a different set of tasks to other industries, but I hope that by providing this guide to getting the most out of your GMB hotel listing, I’ve shown you that optimization is possible and that there is always room to improve your listings. Good luck! The post Google My Business for Hotels: How to Set Up and Optimize Google Hotel Listings appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3iHQLoc Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ We’re delighted to announce that Claire Carlile has joined BrightLocal as our in-house Local Search Expert. Claire’s one of the most respected and well-loved people in the local search industry, always bringing a wealth of first-hand experience and unique perspectives to the content she produces and the wisdom she shares. A rare breed, Claire combines a deep understanding of local search and digital with extensive knowledge of the fundamentals of marketing. She boasts an envious academic background in marketing which allows her to approach projects with a strategic and research-driven mindset. We took notice of the great content Claire was creating a couple of years back and jumped at the chance to get her involved in our own content initiatives. Earlier this year, Claire created an amazing course for BrightLocal Academy. We loved what she delivered. The local search community loved what she delivered.
Awesome content, valuable insightsClaire brings a new dimension to our already fantastic content output thanks to her boots-on-the-ground knowledge of local SEO. Having first-hand experience is one thing. Being able to turn it into engaging and helpful content is another. And fortunately for us, Claire is fantastic at doing just that. We see Claire as much more than a content powerhouse. She’ll also provide valuable insights to our product direction, helping us get inside the heads of local marketers, so we can develop products that solve their biggest challenges. What to expectIt’s fair to say we’re brimming with ideas about how Claire can add value to our customers, and good news is there’s plenty already in motion. Claire’s already working on two (yes, two!) additional courses for BrightLocal Academy. She’ll also be sharing her knowledge far and wide at upcoming SEO events later this year. Plus, we have plans to expand our educational initiatives beyond BrightLocal Academy, helping local marketers deepen their knowledge in new ways. Here are a few words from Claire about her decision and what to expect: “I’m so excited to be welcomed to BrightLocal and to become part of an awesome team that I’ve admired for yonks. I’ll still be consulting as Claire Carlile Marketing, but it is actually a dream come true to combine solo consultancy with a collaboration with such a forward-thinking, knowledgeable and kind bunch of people. I’m loving working on the BrightLocal Academy courses alongside some exciting new developments for learning. Watch this space! ” Claire probably won’t like all the fuss that’s being made over her in this post, but as you can tell, we’re really excited about having her on the team, and we hope you are too! The post BrightLocal Welcomes Claire Carlile as Local Search Expert appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3irYqXD Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Customer loyalty measures how pleased your customers are with your service and offering, and how likely they are to go on to tell others of their experience with your business. But why is customer loyalty important? Improving and measuring the loyalty of consumers is crucial for every business in gaining visibility and profit – allowing businesses to not only retain loyal customers for the long-term, but capitalize on this to attract new customers. When Covid-19 restrictions began, the importance of customer loyalty became even more clear. Consumer spending was at an all-time low globally, meaning word-of-mouth recommendations and repeat purchases became crucial for many businesses. 66% of consumers would keep buying from their preferred brand, even if that company is competing against a “more innovative” business, showing how powerful consumer loyalty can be. In this article, we’ll explore 6 tactics you can use to boost your brand’s customer experience and build brand advocates that last once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. 1. Offer Quality Omnichannel Customer Service 24/7Omnichannel customer service refers to collecting information and data about individual consumers across various engagement channels, while in their complete lifecycle. 2/3 of customers get irritated if they find themselves having to continuously repeat themselves to different support representatives; omnichannel customer service helps to reduce this common pain point. To understand how omnichannel systems work, imagine that you’re a service provider and a customer visits your website, goes through some plans, but exits without making a purchase. After some time, the customer revisits your website and then asks for a call from a support representative. Your sales rep approves the request and responds. The sales rep is able to give the customer the details they need to make a decision, all because the sales agent is aware of the plans that the prospect viewed on their initial visit to the website. That’s how powerful omnichannel models are. They keep you by the side of the customer at all stages and channels of the buyer journey. Did you know? Consistent branding across all channels can boost revenue by 33%. To employ an omnichannel model you must link customer service, sales, and marketing together. Unite all the customer touchpoints into one centralized system and allow your employees to make decisions based on the information obtained to give the best customer experience. BarkShop, a pet toy store, unites their online brand experience with the real world via pop-up stores: BarkShop allows its customers’ dogs to try out its products before purchase. Then the customers are given an in-app list of their pet’s favorite items. This is a great way to build goodwill and showcase the product, ahead of the customer needing to make a purchasing decision. Tactics like this are likely to help build brand advocates: people who are loyal to your brand and tell their network about it. 2. Launch Rewards and Loyalty ProgramsIncentivizing your target audience to make repeat purchases is a great way to build brand loyalty. To create an effective and successful consumer loyalty program you have to offer an incentive that no competitor is offering. Take customer behavior, expectations, market trends, and business size into consideration when building a loyalty program. Adidas provides an amazing take on this. The brand’s loyalty program for Asia termed ‘3Stripes.co’ gives loyalty members a voucher worth $10 for every $100 spent, alongside other benefits. Depending on your business type, you can craft a loyalty program that provides users with points and rewards at certain touchpoints or milestones. For example, it could be the case that every time they browse your online store they earn points, or they could earn points for making an in-store purchase. If you sell physical products online, perhaps you can offer free shipping as an incentive. Or if you offer services, you could provide clients with a $5 discount voucher for their next purchase. To promote the loyalty scheme, you can take advantage of email campaigns. This will help keep your target audience informed about specific deals and attract new loyalty members. Loyalty programs can be a great way to encourage your audience to make more purchasing decisions. For example, if a loyalty member has 27 points but needs 40 to receive special benefits, you could send them an email saying, “Keep going – You just need 13 more points to claim your reward!” Hotel Tonight’s loyalty email executes this excellently. Not only does it motivate the customer to make a purchase, but it identifies what action the customer must take in order to get their reward. 3. Focus on Customer Engagement InitiativesIf a business engages with its customers to its fullest potential, consumers are more likely to create a long-term relationship with the company. Customers that are consistently engaged hold a 23% higher share in the brand relationship, profitability, and revenue growth. This means that the possibility of such clients referring your business to their friends and family is pretty good. Initiatives that foster customer engagement may include phone calls or sending emails simply to ask if they are facing any issues or are getting on okay with your product. SEMrush sends customers emails asking why they haven’t clicked on their newsletter for some time. The email subject states: “Are we still friends? Please say that we are!” This shows the customer that the business cares enough to check in on them and take the first step to re-engage them. Beyond that, they’re using emotional words that help to create a connection. There are also other customer engagement initiatives that you can employ:
4. Run a Referral ProgramPeople are more likely to buy a service or product if their family and friends recommend it. By building a program that rewards your current customers for all successful referrals you can attract new clients and retain the current ones. Just like with loyalty programs, you have to offer a reward that customers will actually benefit from. For example, if you are in the cosmetic business, a great reward would be to give a free sample of a product to anyone who sends successful referrals your way. Or, service-area businesses may want to provide discount vouchers. By providing incentives like this you encourage your current customers to consistently purchase from you as well as increase your customer base by adding new people to your business. Keep in mind that great referral programs don’t just offer something to existing customers but to the person they referred, as well. If you offer incentives only to the person referring, the other party may be less motivated to take advantage of the relationship. Riff Raff & Co, the baby sleeping toy brand, provides a great example of such referral programs. The company offers the advocate (in this case parents with toddlers that refer other parents) a free sleeping toy after they get five of their friends to make a purchase and offers anyone who purchases with the link of the advocate free shipping worldwide. 5. Use Customers in Your ContentFeaturing customers in your content is a great way to let them know how much you appreciate them. You could repost customer content on your social media accounts. Another great idea is to create blog posts that highlight what the customer achieved using your product. This offers two major benefits:
SodaStream showcases an excellent example of this principle. The home carbonation product manufacturer brand shared a review of one of their clients and informed other customers to tag them on social media when they upload pics using their product for an opportunity to win a reward. This didn’t just provide them with social proof but also gave them a lot of user-generated content. Think about it, 89% of consumers read online reviews about local businesses before making a purchase decision. This happens because they want to know what other consumers think about your business or product, so if you can feature testimonials, comments, tweets, and reviews, then you can be a part of that segment of the customer’s journey. The goal in using customers in your content is to ensure that prospects who are doing their research on your business before purchasing see customers that align with their needs and wants. This will help to assist them in the decision-making process. 6. Boost Customer PersonalizationPersonalization is an amazing way to boost customer loyalty. 66% of consumers believe that companies must be able to understand their needs and expectations. To ensure effective personalization you may want to encourage your customers to have user profiles on your website. This enables you to easily track their purchase history and browsing behavior to personalize the experience. With customers creating user profiles on your website you also have the opportunity to send them personalized emails and craft campaigns that are relevant to each customer. If your services are offered in more than one country then ensure that you take into consideration the customer’s preferences and terms of language and location. By doing this, you can ensure that each customer gets the appropriate type of content at the right time. The customer also won’t have to choose their location whenever they visit your website. Albeit online-only businesses, YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix are great examples of businesses that take personalization seriously, and brick-and-mortar stores can learn from these tech giants, too. YouTube launched recommendation filters as topic bubbles situated at the top of your feed. The topics are based on browsing behavior or the current channel that the user is watching. With personalized recommendations, customers will probably want to revisit your website because it offers them exactly what they want before they even search for it, which again encourages consumer loyalty. Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign emphasizes this principle, too. The brand came up with a way to personalize their product by changing their bottle’s regular branding to 150 of the most common names in a country. The results were tremendous. Every time a customer bought a bottle and saw their name on it, it created a personalized experience. This campaign resulted in over 250 million sales for Coca-Cola. Create Your Customer Loyalty Strategy NowEnhancing customer loyalty isn’t always simple, but after the impact of Covid-19, it’s more important than ever. You may find that in our current circumstance, you have to give your customer loyalty strategy an extra push. Hopefully, the six consumer loyalty tactics I’ve shared with you today should assist you in retaining your current customers and amplifying word-of-mouth marketing to pull in new ones. Good luck!
The post How to Build Back Customer Loyalty After Covid-19 appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3w7n8jQ Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Local citation management is a core part of local SEO and can be a great foundation to build upon, especially for businesses just starting out on their journey and agencies working with them. In this complete guide to local listings management, we’ll walk through:
Get ready to learn everything there is to know about local citations. In fact, you might want to bookmark this resource and come back to it throughout your local SEO journey. The post Local Citations: The Complete Guide appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/34Lt9qG Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Google My Business Audit: 4 Ways it Can Help You Optimize Your Listing and Outrank the Competition6/4/2021 As a marketing professional or business owner, you’re probably already aware that Google My Business (GMB) is an increasingly important part of local SEO, and that its influence has only increased over the years. According to a study carried out by Whitespark, Google My Business is the number 1 ranking factor for the local pack in Google search results. Research that we conducted in 2020 found that 82% of the local marketing experts say that GMB optimization is a “very effective” tactic in improving local pack rankings. As well as being aware of what a critical tool Google My Business is, you’re probably also aware that Google doesn’t give away any competitor insights. For example, let’s imagine that you’ve just started work on local SEO for a law firm in Ohio. You want to know why a competitor is ranking ahead in Google search and what you need to prioritize to overtake them. You head over to Google and conduct a search but this is all you see: Without an intelligent tool, it’s nearly impossible to understand what you can do to beat the competition and get into the coveted local pack. This is why we built our Google My Business Audit tool. It does all the auditing and analysis that’s normally not available to you and compiles it into one, easy-to-read report. In this post, I’ll be revealing how you can use Google My Business Audit to help you to:
Let’s get started! 1. Ensure the accuracy and health of your Google My Business listingOn the Summary page of a Google My Business Audit report, you’ll find a series of tabs that tells you how accurate your listing is and what needs updating. The first tab is called Reviews. It shows the total number of reviews on your business’s Google My Business listing and the average star rating. There’s also a table below that shows you the five most recent reviews. Having great customer reviews is obviously very beneficial for a business and they play a key part in GMB, too. Your average star rating is shown in the local pack and many SEO experts believe that review signals are one of the most influential local ranking factors. So this tab is great for highlighting if your business needs more Google reviews or your average star rating is low. Our Reputation Manager tool is great for helping you to get more Google reviews as well as to manage and respond to them quickly. The Duplicates tab flags up any duplicate GMB listings that have been detected for your business. Duplicate listings confuse customers and split your rankings, so if you find any in your own report you’ll want to remove them as soon as possible. For instructions on how to do this, visit Google My Business Help. The next tab along is called NAP Comparison. This shows you if there are any inconsistencies with the information included in your GMB listing compared to those used to set up the report. NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. Making sure NAP data is accurate and consistent is an important part of Local SEO due to the role it plays in both search engine visibility and consumer trust. It can either give you a leg up in rankings or stunt your local pack and voice search visibility. It can also either make it easy for people to find you or frustrate them and eat into brand trust. If the information in the Google Listing row of the table isn’t accurate, it’s a good idea to update it because this is what customers will see. You’ll need to go to your GMB listing to make any changes. The last tab in this section is Other Ranking Factors. This table looks at what research considers to be the other most important local ranking identifiers on a GMB listing. For example, the business below doesn’t have two of the three identifiers set up. So this is something they need to address if they want to improve their rankings. 2. Understand how well your Google My Business listing is performingAs well as helping you to understand the health and accuracy of your GMB listing, Google My Business Audit is also great at telling you how well your listing is performing. By clicking the ‘Add Insights’ button in a Google My Business Audit report, you can connect to your GMB listing and have a wealth of performance data from Google My Business Insights appear. The information that appears is the same as you would find in your Google My Business Insights but with one key difference: Google My Business Insights only offers you six months’ worth of data, and for most businesses that’s just not enough. You want to see how you’ve performed over time to know if you’ve improved any metrics and also to spot any year-on-year trends. With Google My Business Audit you can see 18 months of data and start to answer some of those questions that you can’t just using Google My Business Insights. Let’s run through what data is available to you and what you can do with it. How customers search for your businessThe first piece of information that you’ll see is how customers search for your business. A Direct Search is when someone heads to Google and types in either the business name or address. You can draw a clear conclusion from this figure – these are people who already know about your business. A Discovery Search, on the other hand, is when someone has typed in something generic such as ‘lawyer near me’ and the business listing has appeared in the local search results. Having a higher Discovery search number means that your business is visible to new customers rather than relying solely on who already knows about you. If the percentage of Discovery searches is low, it could mean that the optimization of your Google listing is not as strong as it could be and you need to improve visibility by:
Where customers view your business on GoogleHere you can see how many customers have found your business via Google Search, and compare it to Google Maps. While this data may not seem helpful at first glance, in reality, it can clue you in on where to maximize your efforts. For example, if you saw an increase in Google Maps visits over time, this could be a good opportunity to review how your site is displayed on that platform and make it even better. So definitely one to keep an eye on. Customer ActionsThe ‘Customer Actions’ data shows you what type of action a user commonly takes on your GMB listing, including visiting your website, requesting directions, and calling. To see how many people took a particular action on a particular day, you can place the cursor over the appropriate segment of the graph on the day that you’re interested in. By selecting the boxes to the right of the graph you can turn off segments to isolate particular data points. You can then use this information to inform additional ways to improve your GMB listing. For instance, in this example, the high number of direction requests shows that there is an intent to visit the business. So they should be making sure parking details are clearly labeled in their GMB listing description and on their website. This business could also edit the contact page on their website with directions, parking, and public transport access to help those planning a visit. Finally, they could upload images of their location to their GMB listing showing the approach from different directions. Phone callsIn the next section, you can see how many people have clicked to call you via your GMB listing. At the top of the section, ‘Total calls’ gives the total number of phone calls in the time frame that you select. In the graph, you can choose to view trends in customer phone calls by either ‘Day of the week’ or ‘Time of day’. You can use this data to see which day of the week and time of the day generates the most calls and make a note that staff need to be available and ready to answer the phones at these points. As I mentioned earlier, because Google My Business Audit tracks this data over 18 months it can also come in handy for reporting. Let’s say a business specializes in taxes, they could compare the number of calls during peak tax season between February and April to show the company’s year-on-year growth. 3. Compare how well your Google My Business listing is performing for specific keywords vs your competitorsKnowing which of your competitors is ranking for individual keywords is essential if you want to try and outrank them. But when you look at the results of a Google search for that keyword, you receive very little information. This is not the case with Google My Business Audit. In a report, each keyword that you entered when you set it up is given its own tab. In each keyword tab, there’s a table of the top ten competitors for that keyword. This is pulled from Google’s SERPs, but more importantly, you can see a lot of information that Google isn’t showing you when you do a normal search. Each column of the table gives you information about your business’s competitors based on common ranking factors in local search, such as the primary business category they’re using in their GMB listing and the number of links, photos, reviews, and citations they have. These tables are going to give you some great, actionable insights. For example, this business is ranking in fifth position for the keyword ‘Divorce Lawyer’. Working our way across the table we can see they have far fewer reviews than the four businesses ranking above them. So if they want to close the gap on the competition here, they need to generate some more reviews. We’ve got a tool called Reputation Manager that can help you do that. Based on this information, they might also want to consider changing their primary business category to Divorce Lawyer, too, as that’s what most of the top competitors are using. 4. Report success to clients and stakeholdersIf you wanted to share this report with a colleague so they could be made aware of the issues, or present it to a client to help them understand the actions you’re going to take to improve their rankings, you can download and share a white-labeled version of the report to include in performance meetings and other business settings. Here’s how to set up a white-label profile in BrightLocal that you can add to reports, including Google My Business Audit. First, click the avatar icon at the top right-hand side to open the dropdown menu, then select ‘White-label Profiles’. In the next screen, click ‘Add White-label Profile’. Give your white-label profile a name, upload a logo, and add any header or footer text, such as your business’s contact details. There’s an option to make this your ‘Primary’ white-label profile, which is really useful if you’re going to be creating several white-label profiles but want this to be your default one. Next, choose a color scheme to match your brand and then save it by clicking the ‘Add White-label Profile’ button. Tip: Choose the option called Minimal if none of the other colorways match your brand. To add your white-label profile to a Google My Business report, go to the report, click ‘Settings’ in the menu panel on the left, and then ‘White-label Settings’ in the dropdown. In the next screen, click on ‘Select white-label profile for this location’ and choose the white-label profile you created from the dropdown. Finally, scroll down and hit the ‘Update Settings’ button to save it. So that’s it! Four ways that Google My Business Audit can help you optimize your GMB listing and outrank the competition. We know that our customers have plenty of innovative ways to take advantage of this great tool. If you’d like to share your own tips and hints, head to the comments and tell us how you’re using Google My Business Audit, or email us if you’ve got a particularly compelling story to share. Want to give Google My Business Audit a whirl? Grab a 14-day free trial and see what’s possible. The post Google My Business Audit: 4 Ways it Can Help You Optimize Your Listing and Outrank the Competition appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3z1ZXti Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ |
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