Google My Business (GMB) is one of the most prominent ways to supercharge your company’s search engine optimization (SEO) and online visibility. If your business has a Google My Business and you’re ready to take it to the next level, here is a list of some top SEO strategies for marketing using Google My Business to help your company outrank competitors in organic Google search:
-
Rank Higher, Remove Spammers
Competitors often game the system to boost their rankings. Beat them at their own game. There’s a short-sighted hack called ‘keyword stuffing’. This is the practice of obsessively adding keywords to your company name on Google My Business to improve SEO rankings for those keywords. This practice is a violation of Google Community Standards but if left unchecked can put your business listing at risk.
If you suspect certain competitors are stuffing keywords into their company name on Google My Business, here are steps to take:
- Search and check your top competitor’s website to confirm their actual business name.
- Locate their listing in Google My Business.
- Click on “Suggest an Edit” if you see any name inaccuracies.
At AIS Media, our team continually monitors Google My Business listings for our clients and their competitors and when we spot inaccurate listings, we take action to have them updated or removed and often see results in as little as a few business days.
-
Increase Google SEO Rankings by Adding Keywords into Customer Reviews
Positive Google reviews help your business in several ways. They’re proven to help boost Google SEO rankings, drive website traffic, and help instill customer confidence to increase conversion rates.
Incorporating your top keywords into your customer reviews takes the effectiveness of Google reviews to the next level.
Google will instantly notify you when your customer posts their review. When replying to customers, make each response personalized, simple, and, most importantly, include your business’s target keywords. Responding to reviews gives you an opportunity to rank higher in Google’s results page, get more traffic to your website, and ultimately, drive up conversion rates. This is verified by Google’s support page:
“Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers and the feedback that they leave about your business. High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location.”
*Embedding your high intent keywords in your customer reviews make local search results hyper relevant to searches and provides faster assurance of a business’s quality of services/products related to that specific search.
-
Embed a Google Map on Your Website
Businesses listed on Google Maps are becoming more advanced. Accessing Google Maps enables consumers to make informed decisions about your business quickly. Embed a Google Map onto your website to take advantage of this SEO marketing benefit. By doing this, you show Google that your Google My Business listing is verified. In turn, this action helps contribute to your overall Google Maps ranking.
To embed a Google Map Feature on your website:
- Search for your business name on Google Maps
- Click on the “Share” icon
- Select “Embed a Map”
- Copy and paste the link to your business’s contact page
-
Get Star Ratings Under Your Search Results
Why do star ratings matter?
Star ratings provide online searchers an important element of social proof and instills confidence when the searcher sees how other users rate items and services.
Install the “Aggregate Rating” schema code for review snippets on your search engine results page (SERP). A schema code is a code that gets added to your website to better communicate the specifics of what your website and content is about for Google or various other search engines to read.
To install the schema code, you need to open the HTML of one webpage or template and directly insert a schema markup into it. This process requires the capacity to code and understand the program.
Google bots then display your star rating on your webpage’s search result after the code is installed.
-
Minimize the Impact of Negative Reviews
No business likes getting negative reviews. A negative review can be discouraging and, if left unchecked, can make a severe negative impact on SEO rankings and revenue. The worst thing to do is to simply ignore them.
- Respond to negative reviews quickly. This provides an opportunity to give your side of the story in order to minimize damage.
- Be professional by stating this occurrence will not happen again and show your desire to improve things in the future. If you can resolve the matter with your customer, ask them to remove their negative comment.
- Continually monitor your reviews (or have someone do it for you) to ensure the potential damage a negative review can make on your business is minimized.
SEO Strategies by AIS Media
Need an expert digital marketing team with proven successful SEO strategies to help your business increase its online visibility, improve SEO marketing and convert more visitors into customers?
At AIS Media, our award-winning digital marketing team helps businesses grow through high-performance SEO marketing, PPC, digital strategy, and social media marketing. Contact our team today for a complimentary digital marketing review: 404-948-5075.
