Optimising your Local SEO

In a world currently sitting in what we call the Digital Age, competition and relevancy is everything. People are more learned than ever before. Companies are more innovative than ever before. It means as a business owner, you need to be on top of your game to ensure your business name and brand is getting out there to the people you want. You have to cut through the noise and be heard, and one tactic you can use is creating and properly managing a Google + and Google My Business page.

Having talked about the term ‘Google it’ in our previous blog and just how popular Google is, it makes sense that the Google platforms mentioned above are clearly valuable to your business. People have access to ‘Google’ anything, at any time, in almost any geographical space. Google released a clip at the end of 2014 listing just how many searches were performed. Want to take a guess? Trillions. It was in the many trillions. It is almost unfathomable.

If there are this many searches being performed, and if you aren’t giving the people who make these searches the chance to view your business and brand, imagine what you are missing out on! Since the ultimate goal of branding is to form an association with your business and a certain thing, whether it is a branded message, an image, logo, a colour, shape, or even a slogan; Google is offering you the chance to consistently put this ‘branded content’ in front of people, thousands of times a day. That’s brand development in fast-forward mode.

Here we need to discuss how you can best optimise your Google + and Google My Business Page to aid your regular SEO efforts. The best part is you can start the optimisation process right from the get go. When setting up your Google + and Google My Business pages, you’ll see that in terms of customisation, all users are provided with a rather generic template. Everyone has the ability to add the following information:

–       Name

–       Phone number/s

–       Email address

–       Short Biography

–       Images and photographs of your business

–       Trading Hours

–       Website

All seems fairly straight forward, right? So why do we all see so many businesses getting it wrong? One area is the resolution and quality of the images and photos being used. Google rewards people who use high quality, professional looking images. Due to the fact that the template is so basic, the people who go to the effort of really turning it into something unique with photos get the recognition they deserve in Google’s eyes.

Another major indication of a strong Google + and Google My Business Page is whether there is an authorised website linked to the profile. If your website has a great reputation, but there is no official link then this authority will not be passed on to the Local pages in Google and, you may not have as much visibility if you did otherwise.

Just as with other social media platforms, other users can choose to be ‘friends’ with you. In regards to Google + and Google My Business, your friends list is labelled as your ‘circles’. Other users can add you to their circle, and vice versa and therefore creating your ‘circle of friends’ through the Google platforms. An optimisation technique through the use of your circles is interacting with Google + and Google My Business pages which already have a strong following and a high number of views. If you can encourage and indirectly persuade the users of these types of pages to add you in their own circles, Google will in turn reward your page.

Within Google My Business there is a section called ‘Insights’. This section allows you to track the number of visitors, clicks through to the page, clicks through to the website, number of direct phone calls from the page, and more. This can be an incredibly valuable tool. It’s rewarding to update your information, pictures, and content on your Google + and Google My Business pages, and see the percentage increase over time in engagement, clicks, phone calls and more as a result.

While we strongly focus on raising the strength of your website first and foremost, as this is conversely the biggest factor in determining the likelihood of you showing up in organic search results, what content you choose to share is still very important. It must be interesting and relevant content which aims to spark conversations, promote your services and products, encourages people to +1, comment and share. Google tracks all of this type of interaction, the more ‘busy’ a page seems – the more Google likes it.

In order to achieve rankings for Google My Business, it’s all about increasing the signal of your Google+ account as well as your website. It’s no easy shortcut though. Just as with any other social media platform out there like Facebook or LinkedIn, it requires constant management and attention. This is not a set and forget tool. On that note, if you are interested in learning more about Local and Regular SEO, make sure you tune in for our ‘Local SEO – The Uncharted Territory’ Optimise Webinar which launches at 10:30 am AEST on Tuesday 31^st March. You can register here, or you can just as easily call us on 1300 859 600 or visit our website.

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