Category: Small Business Marketing

Why It’s Important to Have A Google My Business Profile

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“Google it!” We’ve heard it. We’ve said it. A staple in the cultural zeitgeist, we are all very familiar with Google as consumers. From a business standpoint, the importance of a Google My Business Profile cannot be understated. It is integral for every business; large and small, brick-and-mortar or exclusively online.

You may be curious why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile. Google controls about 92% of the search engine market share across the world. That means if people are searching the web, they’re almost certainly googling. Google connects people to businesses they may normally not have found and connects businesses to decision-makers that can elevate their status from good to great. When considering why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile, consider the impact of starting with trust, being seen, and increasing lead generation.

What is a Google My Business profile?

A Google My Business profile provides you with the ability to list your business and appear in local search results. You can display pertinent information on your business: location, hours of operation, and contact details. A link to your website can be listed and attract web traffic. There are even features available to link upcoming events or articles. With a Google My Business profile, you choose how you are seen in Google search and maps and can even accept online orders.

Plus… it’s free!

Start with Trust

When people are searching your business, knowingly or otherwise, they are beginning their relationship with your business. One of the reasons why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile, is to be in control of your first impression.

It can be frustrating to receive mixed messages from a business, especially after a simple introduction. When information is difficult to find, incoherent, or inconsistent, it turns away potential leads from engaging further or turns away potential customers seeking your goods or services.

There is also the possibility that your business does not get fair or accurate information posted online. Without claiming your Google My Business profile, you will not be notified of reviews of your business or any information that is listed that is inaccurate or outdated.

By having a Google My Business profile, you get to speak for yourself. You can visit your profile anytime to edit or see how many people have seen or clicked on your listing. There is even a question and answer feature that can connect you with your community. What better way to start a relationship of trust and competence than with being available and transparent with people from the second they’ve found you in a search.

Start with trust. Build a reputation for being clear, informative, and up-to-date as a business.

Be Seen

With the Google algorithm being directly linked to your company’s SEO, a Google My Business Profile puts you in a position to improve your likelihood of being seen just by optimizing your profile. With a Google My Business profile, your reviews and location improve your likelihood of being seen.

When questioning why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile, an immediate asset is the ability to be seen in Google Maps. More and more search queries are based on geography. This makes sense. With the immediacy of information available in search engines like Google, searching “restaurant near me” or “law office near me” is an efficient and concise way of searching to get relevant results. Whether or not you know it, you’re being shown businesses first that have a Google My Business profile. In fact, it’s got a cyclical benefit. A Google Business Profile improves your local SEO. A local business listing is more likely to appear when people search using Google maps.

Engaging with feedback from your community is another reason why it’s important to have a Google My Business profile. With a profile, you are able to see, respond, and contact people who leave you reviews. Reviews add to your credibility as a business. While branding yourself with legitimacy is integral to successfully running a business, reviews also benefit your SEO. The Google algorithm favors this and it highers your ranking in search results. Simply put, reviews on your Google My Profile listing improve your likelihood of being seen.

Improve your SEO

Google uses vivid phrases and keywords to help users find businesses in search results. Like traditional website SEO, implementing these keywords and relevant phrases in your content improves your visibility. Therefore it is increasingly important to add keywords that match your business and services to help potential clients find your business in all places possible – your business description, your comments, and your posts. The algorithm favors the specific. Take advantage of the profile tools like Question & Answer, Messaging, and GMB posts to consistently put yourself in the best position to be seen.

The importance of your search engine result page rank increases daily. More and more people are becoming less and less likely to keep scrolling and instead choose to click and engage with top results.

That is the difference between making a connection, completing a sale, or doing business.

To conclude

As our world becomes more insular and our online activity becomes increasingly targeted toward our habits, it’s integral for businesses to stay current on all of the opportunities available to them to gain and maintain people’s attention. With Google’s ever present impact on our daily lives, it is essential to think seriously about the benefits your company can garner from starting with trust, being seen, and improving your SEO with a Google My Business profile. All of this is at your fingertips when you make a profile with a few simple clicks, totally for free.

When considering why it’s important to have a Google My Business Profile, remember you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Make an account today.

Tags google my business, search engine optimization, seo

General Leadership Marketing Small Business Marketing

4 Signs It’s Time for a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

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$signs-you-need-a-fractional-chief-marketing-officer$

Many small business owners, this year especially, are still trying to get a grip on what works and what doesn’t. All the marketing goals in the world are only as good as the direction and leadership of the marketing efforts coming from the top.

Did your marketing efforts pay off during the first quarter of this year? Are you woefully unsure and wildly self-conscious about it? You’re not alone.

Whether your marketing is directionless or you need more financial resources to invest in a solid strategy, here are four signs it’s time to consider a fractional chief marketing officer (CMO).

1. You Have a Marketing Plan, but No One Is Available to Be in Charge of It

This is a common trap when the marketing direction is steered by multiple people or by someone who is not solely focused on marketing.

Your company brand and success may have been built long before the days of complex marketing channels and automation. In order to prepare for the future (or present), businesses are tasked with adapting at lightning speed, to keep pace with contemporary strategies, tools, and tactics.

Oftentimes, especially in small and growing businesses, marketing initiatives are scattershot and lack a cohesive plan. An experienced marketing strategist can help right the proverbial ship for a strong and successful future.

2. Your Sales Team Is Creating Their Own Marketing Materials

Your sales team may be great or your sales team may be YOU. Either way, if your sales team is creating their own presentations, one sheets, and PDFs, it’s very likely that those materials are unfocused and weak.

A fractional CMO can develop a unified message that creates an exceptional customer experience, makes you and your team feel more confident in presenting your offerings, and improves conversions – all for a more cost-effective approach.

3. You Have Lots of Pricey Marketing Tactics Without a Supporting Strategy

It’s an easy trap to fall into. Someone says you need a new website, so you get one. You sponsor events and buy branded swag. You create a Google Ads campaign and get swallowed by the ad costs. You hire an intern to manage your social media because young people know social media, right?

You did all the things and yet, not a penny of ROI to be found. The absence of strategy will leave you frustrated and broke. You need marketing insights that help inform executive decisions, build the reporting you need to make smart business decisions, and then closely track revenue and growth. That will give you ROI for miles.

4. You Need More Financial and Organizational Flexibility

The very first ingredient needed for continued success is flexibility. You need to be agile so you’re available to capitalize on shifting situations or unforeseen challenges.

Locking your business into a yearly salary commitment for a CMO, Marketing Strategist, or even a social media coordinator is antithetical to the needs of many small businesses. Why? Hiring staff is a big commitment. What’s more? So is firing them.

If the relationship doesn’t work out with someone closely involved in your marketing efforts, separating from them can be an arduous and costly process.

Conversely, if your fractional CMO or outsourced marketing team isn’t working out, it’s much easier to end the relationship and find another fractional CMO or team.

How Is Your Marketing Going?

As your business grows and your needs shift, a fresh perspective with more experience may be needed. While reviewing your first quarter sales this year, ask yourself this: Do I have the time necessary to devote to marketing and sales?

If you’re not sure, feel free to score a free strategy session with GoBeyond SEO. ROI is within reach, we promise.

Tags brand marketing, marketing, marketing strategy, smb marketing

Local SEO Marketing Small Business Marketing Small Business SEO

Word of Mouth Has Gone Digital

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Word of mouth (WoM) has gone digital. It’s no longer good enough to hear from one or two people that a movie is good or entertaining. We won’t consider a hotel that doesn’t meet our own health and safety standards. We now rely upon a consensus of reviews before we make our decisions, even if it is something as simple as choosing a movie from our couch.

In 2022, this kind of feedback crowd-sourcing is ubiquitous. From restaurants to law firms, or from pet groomers to industrial cleaning companies, reviews are (or should be) a big part of the marketing strategy for businesses, large or small.

Many business owners feel that their best clients come from word of mouth. And they’re probably right.

If only there was a way to have those sweet, positive, and wildly influential words used to describe their business immortalized in some way so that future prospects and potential clients could hear them–oh wait, there is! It’s called Google reviews. And if you’re not prioritizing Google reviews, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

3 Ways Google Reviews Affect Your Business

Online reviews are the closest thing we have to WoM in the digital realm, and they absolutely matter for your business. Here are three ways Google reviews can impact your online visibility and reputation.

Reviews impact SEO. You read that right. Getting more of them, especially positive ones, improves your digital visibility and conversion rate. That means more clients for you. (Psst: Dealing with a fake or negative review? We’ve got you.)
Google trusts the power of WoM marketing. It factors in the quantity and quality of reviews to evaluate where and when your business should show up in search engine results. Just as customers use online reviews to validate their purchase decisions, Google and other search engines take a similar stance when showing results.
Users and search engines have a similar objective. Google wants to weed through the vast web to deliver the right information, service, or product to you in the fastest way possible, and this aligns with our goals as searchers. In fact, reviews pretty much work as crowd-sourced WoM recommendations.

If you’re already prioritizing Google reviews and reviews from other sites, good for you. If you have a system or process in place already, even better.

However, if you haven’t been able to net enough positive Google review to impact your business, it may be time to consider setting up an automated process to make getting reviews simple, painless, and effective.

GoBeyond SEO works with business owners to implement an automated process to make it easy for customers to write and submit reviews and to give businesses a cringe-free way to ask for them. Find out more by booking a free discovery call with us.

Tags google ranking factors, search engine optimization, seo, word of mouth

Search Engine Optimization Tips Small Business Marketing

Are you Missing this Important Opportunity to Get More Clients?

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Word of Mouth (WoM) will always be the best form of advertising, but it’s gone digital. If you’re not prioritizing your Google reviews and actively managing your digital reputation, you are missing an important opportunity to be visible and vetted by more clients or customers. Keep reading to learn more about online reviews and how they affect your rankings in Google.

How Google Reviews Can Bring You Clients

When you enter a local search term into Google, three main factors will affect the ranking of each site displayed:

Relevance
Distance
Prominence

The first two ranking factors are explanatory–Google will attempt to present the most relevant options within your immediate vicinity. Makes sense, right?

Reviews, however, fall into the category of prominence. If you searched for “dog groomer” and found one with hundreds of highly rated reviews, that groomer may outrank a closer local competitor if they have fewer, less positive ratings and reviews.

3 Simple Steps to Get More Reviews and Boost Your Rankings

Let’s say you’re one of the many businesses that doesn’t have a ton of reviews. Here are three steps you can take to bump those review numbers and, consequently, your SEO results.

1. Fix Your Listings

“Near me” searches are growing exponentially year after year. With the rise of voice search, they’ll be even more important. It’s estimated that 22% of voice searches are location-based. That’s a big number and growing by the minute.

If you haven’t done so already, claim your Google My Business (GMB) profile. This is your most visible listing, since it will show up every time someone does a search for your business.

It’s incredible how many businesses don’t take this simple step to boost their rankings and online visibility. Some of these businesses still have their old business address and phone number listed and then wonder why they don’t get more phone calls!

If you want to make sure your Google listing (or Yelp, Bing, or any other listing service) is correct, Google your company and see what pops up. If you think you need help fixing it, give us a shout. We update and optimize Google My Business (and other) listings every day.

2. Send Review Requests

Customers trust reviews. The more reviews you have, the better. That’s why it’s important to ask your customers to leave reviews. This is the kind of social proof that future customers will trust and can ultimately encourage them to convert.

To get the best results, make sure you’re sending review requests via text and email. This makes the process easy for the customer. They don’t have to spend time looking for your business or where to post the review. All they have to do is click the link and write about their experience.

Also, there’s no need to feel weird about asking. Happy customers love to help out. Asking can feel awkward, but more for you than for them. Make it easy for them and you’ll get more reviews. If asking directly is still too much for you, GoBeyond has a cringe-proof process in place to get you those reviews without making you blush.

3. Respond to Customer Reviews

Lots of business owners don’t respond to online reviews. That’s a big mistake. A study by Harvard Business School showed that responding to reviews leads to a higher overall star rating.

But the benefits don’t end there. Genuine responses help build loyalty with your customers. A simple “Thanks a ton, we hope to see you soon!” can leave a positive impression in the mind of your customers and encourage them to come back for more.

Google has confirmed that responding to reviews can help your business rank higher on search engines. What’s not to love about that?

Don’t Stress About Getting Reviews

Word of Mouth will always be a factor when it comes to decision making. We’re social creatures and the opinions of others dictate everything from how we behave at the dinner table to how we make our laws. Word of Mouth has not and will never go away, but how we access those opinions has changed permanently.

Don’t stress about the review process. These days, having the occasional bad review is not a business death sentence. The far worse outcome sounds more like this: “Acme Products and Services? Never heard of ‘em”.

Want to automate your review process to make it easier and less painful to get more reviews of your business? Contact GoBeyond SEO to learn more about our process for getting reviews without the hassle.

Tags google my business, google ranking factors, search engine optimization, seo

Small Business Marketing

Setting Boundaries for Ultimate Business Success

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Did you know that business ownership is one of the most stressful choices you can make in your career?

Did you also know that you can manage your stress even as a business owner? That feeling of being enslaved to the company you’ve created is not a requirement for success.

Here’s a way to manage your stress while building a foundation for success: setting boundaries with appropriate positioning and targeted marketing and you’ll get to work with your ideal clients with less burnout.

The Benefits of Setting Business Boundaries

We know what you’re thinking: why should you limit your client opportunities by setting boundaries before you’ve even had the chance to talk to them?

This is a fair question. However, you’re not setting rigid boundaries in that you won’t speak to many prospects. Setting business boundaries helps you laser focus on the perfect client for your business. Doing so will benefit you in the following ways:

Decrease your competition. The more clear you are with your boundaries in regards to who is a good fit for you and who is not, you’ll decrease your competition. To that end, you’ll have time and energy to focus on the clients that will help you build your business.
Gain better traction. Every business needs momentum to get started and continue growing. Crystal-clear business boundaries make it so much easier to gain traction and get going!
Easier marketability. “Jack of all trades, master of none” is not an effective marketing strategy and a one-way ticket to burnout. Clear service offerings to specific clients is the best way to make your business life infinitely easier.

Now that you’ve seen the benefits of setting those boundaries, it’s time to get started creating them!

3 Steps for Setting Boundaries

So what’s the best way to establish boundaries with people you’ve never met?

Know who you want to work with. From the kind of work you want to do most to the personality type of your ideal client, be clear with YOURSELF before you ever write a piece of marketing material for your clients.
Seek to understand the pain points of that ideal client. Not how you can help them, but rather how they need to be helped. How will what you offer them impact their life? Their business? Their bottom line?
Position yourself as a specialist or as an expert in your field. If the word “specialist” or “expert” is problematic, you can still use words like “focused” or “expertise” to outline the framework of what you do and for whom.

Believe it or not, specificity will actually increase your close rate. You may reach fewer people, but the number of people who choose to move forward will go up. It’s the very definition of work smarter, not harder. Added Bonus: No more burnout.

Need Help Nailing Down Your Target Audience?

GoBeyond SEO helps small businesses reach their ideal clients every day. Schedule a free discovery call with us to learn more about how we can help you narrow your focus so you can have the business you’ve always wanted.

Tags business success, Entrepreneurship, narrow target market, small business marketing, target audience

Lead Generation Small Business Marketing

Discover Your Magic Micro-Niche

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You’ve heard of the term niche, but have you heard of a micro-niche? Micro-niching will work wonders when you need to get more clients and make more money, quickly. Micro-niching will laser focus your attention on the best parts of your business.

We know you have questions, such as, what the heck is a micro-niche? Won’t a micro-niche make my market smaller and thereby yield fewer clients? Why would I want to do that?

Fact: You will make your reach smaller.

Fact: Your market will be smaller.

However, you will NOT yield fewer clients. In fact, it is just the opposite. Micro-niching makes your marketing efforts more customized, less expensive, and more effective.

Even if you already have a target market, you can still pick a micro-niche.

How to find your micro-niche

Here are 3 quick questions to ask yourself to find your micro-niche:

Who are your current favorite clients? Pick 3-5
Why are they your favorite clients? Do they share common characteristics?
What common problem do you solve for them?

Don’t look now, but you just found yourself a micro-niche. With the right game plan, you could book a few of your favorite clients over the course of a month. Book a free strategy session with our team to learn more!

Tags lead generation, narrow target market, small business marketing, target audience

Small Business Marketing

How to Answer ‘What Do You Do?’ in 5 Ways that Communicate More Than Your Job Title

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The question “What do you do?” has basically become synonymous with “Who are you?”. There’s a reason it almost always follows “What’s your name?” in polite conversation.

But there’s another thing that can be communicated when you answer that question.

When you say, “I’m a lawyer” and offer nothing more, most people don’t know where to go with a short answer like that. They may dig further and ask, “What kind of lawyer?”, but they also may not. A truncated answer can lead to a truncated relationship.

If you want people to refer business to you, tell them how you help, not what you do.

So How Do You Answer ‘What Do You Do’?

If you’re at a networking event or trying to foster referrals, you’ll need a better answer than your job title.

The question “What do you do?” isn’t going to go away, so you may want to have a canned answer that can help you make the most of these exchanges.

Even if you’re in a job that you feel doesn’t require much explanation—for example, in accounting, law, or finances—giving more than your job title in response to this question is important.

But how can you do that without looking like you’re bragging or espousing your resume?

Here are five ways to answer this common question so that you don’t sound arrogant, but still demonstrate exactly what you do.

1. Talk About How You Help People

You might be a digital marketer (wink). Or you might be someone who helps lost websites get found. And doesn’t the latter sound infinitely more interesting?

Using a unique phrase to describe your job instantaneously removes stereotypes about what you do and explains the value you bring to the table.

Start your next response with “I help people…” and see where the conversation takes you from there.

2. Share an Anecdote About Your Business

Storytelling is always compelling. It helps us make connections. You get to provide context for the person you’re talking to, instead of relying on them to fill in the blanks with their own limited experience.

For example, let’s say you’re an estate planning attorney. You can say, “I just finished up a probate case that ended with a $45k settlement from my client’s mother’s estate. She expected she would need to come out of pocket to sell her mother’s home, but instead we were able to help her through this difficult time.”

Find a great anecdote about your business and share it. Infinitely more relatable.

3. Educate Them

When someone asks you what you do, they are asking to learn about you. Educate them! You are educating the other person on the subject of you.

Talk about the most interesting thing you’ve learned lately. Talk about the void in the market that you are filling. Talk about the latest thing happening in your industry.

Demonstrate expertise, but ideally, give them information that may be useful to them.

4. Be Self-Promotional

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone just let down the veil and really opened up about what they are good at? More people would be doing things they love. We would, collectively, be happier.

So, don’t be shy. You’re actually doing everyone a favor by being honest about what you’re good at and it makes you infinitely more interesting and referable.

5. Ask About Them

Demonstrating who you are can be as much about what you say as it is what you DON’T say.

If you want to really engage someone, give a full answer to their question, but then respond in kind. Ask them leading questions about what they do. If they say they’re a lawyer, ask them what they love about it. Who they help. What can we learn from them.

Responding this way will offer a balanced, not bragging, conversation and you could come to really enjoy the company of some of your professional colleagues.

Don’t let the question, “What do you do?” limit you. You’re not only your job title. Using the tips above will demonstrate the three-dimensional person you are and help you connect on a human level.

People love to work with and refer those they know, like, and trust. Having open and full answers to the existential “What do you do?” question will only strengthen that connection!

Not sure how you provide value to your clients? Let us help you nail your marketing strategy by booking a free consultation at GoBeyond!

Tags lead generation, sales tips, small business marketing

Marketing Small Business Marketing

Provide a First-Class Client Experience — Even on a Budget

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Are you familiar with Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If—”? This poem hits on a concept here; one so often lost in our post-pandemic digital world. What does it mean to walk with kings? What does it mean to lose the common touch, or in this case, not lose the common touch?

At its core, Kipling is talking about effective communication. Kings are faced with issues that are different from the issues faced by the common folk. Does it make sense to speak to the masses the same way you’d speak to a king? In most cases, it depends on the topic, right?

There’s a lesson to be taken from this concept when it comes to digital marketing: treat all your clients like kings, but from different kingdoms.

The concept of “the client is always right” has been lauded for decades, but to be clear, that’s NOT what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about giving your clients a first class client experience whenever they’re dealing with you and your company.

So how can you possibly give your clients first-class treatment? It’s unrealistic to make yourself available to every medium out there, and your time is limited. Here’s how you can impress your clients even on a budget!

Make Yourself Accessible to Your Clients

In keeping with the theme of kings versus the common folk, the key difference is access. The kings have access to you right away, or at least it feels that way. The common folk are those who are kept waiting on hold.

Just because we’ve all become more comfortable making purchases or buying services online doesn’t mean that your clients aren’t looking for human connections. Here are a few tools to give all of your clients, and potential prospects, the king’s treatment without costing you a king’s ransom.

Website Chat. Many have seen the website chat feature on websites, but it does seem to fall short when the chat bot is really just a robot with an auto generated message. There are several tools available to give you the ease of automated chat and give your clients/prospects the personal touch they deserve.

Virtual Receptionist. There’s an endless supply of talented people who can help you fill in the blanks. BUT, that’s not what we mean here. How cool would it be if every time you missed a call from the office, your cell phone was pinged with a message from that prospect or client? If you’re in a highly competitive field, missing out on a call could cost you.

Google Reviews. Even if no one reads your reviews, having enough reviews to prove that it’s not just your mom saying nice things about you (thanks mom) is enough to show that you’re a player in your industry. But how do you get them? Do you go crawling to your clients, hat in hand, and humbly ask for a review? Sure, that’s one way to go. But wouldn’t it be just FABULOUS to have an entire streamlined process that will not only get reviews, but manage and promote them?

When you take the time to understand your client, but also make your marketing work at its most efficient, you can easily give your clients a white-glove client experience without taking a second mortgage on your castle.

“If I had 6 hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first 4 hours sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

How sharp is your axe? Find out about these tools and more by scheduling a free, no-obligation call with us at GoBeyond SEO!

Tags client communication, client experience, client relationships, client services

Local SEO Marketing Small Business Marketing Small Business SEO

Three Reasons To Claim Your Google My Business Listing

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If you haven’t already jumped on the Google My Business bandwagon, now’s the time. Leaving a Google My Business profile unclaimed (psst: even if you’re virtual) is like leaving an entire host of free marketing opportunities on the table and willingly ignoring their existence…and you know better than that.

Here’s the deal: 80 percent of internet searches go through Google. Think of the last time you actually searched through Bing or Yahoo. Yet, 56 percent of potential Google My Business accounts have not been claimed. This means the business will not be told when a review comes through, you’re allowing third-party photos to be attached to your business without your knowledge, and you’re missing out on a wealth of leads and potential sales.

Keep reading for the top 3 reasons to claim your Google My Business listing.

1. Claim Google My Business Listing for Local SEO

Claiming your Google My Business profile gives you the ability to boost your ranking, free of charge, by instantly making yourself more of an authority in your space. See, Google’s algorithm primarily considers three features: relevance, proximity, and prominence. By claiming your profile, you are essentially sounding an alarm to the algorithm that your listing deserves a higher ranking because of information you’ve provided. Here’s why:

By adding your website to your profile, you are adding backlinks, which builds up your site’s reliability.
You’ve now provided Google with a location, which tells the algorithm when it should come up in more localized searches.
It makes your business more established and well-known in the eyes of Google.

2. Get Found By Potential Clients

As your SEO improves, your business appears earlier in the search ranking, and, as a result, your website traffic increases. Even simply filling out the information in the profile, however, and turning it into your own, enables your business to share necessary content with your potential customers.

By claiming the profile, you are able to put your ideas, via posts and blogs, in front of them. You give your audience a chance to learn about your business, the hours it operates, any pertinent or new information, and how to find out more. The more information your customers consume, the more likely it is the interaction will end in a sale.

3. Use GMB for Reputation Management

Google reviews are all the rage right now, and it makes total sense. The last restaurant you’ve visited, the electrician you’ve hired, the last salon you’ve entered…I would be surprised if you’ve never checked out some reviews before making a decision. 90 percent of people read reviews. 90 percent.

When you claim your Google My Business profile, you become notified when there’s a review. And, as every smart business owner knows, when there’s a review, there needs to be a response. Without claiming the profile, you don’t know when the review comes in, and you leave it unnoticed. As positive reviews build up, more positive reviews come in, and all this leads to more sales for you.

Beyond that, Google My Business recently added a messaging feature. More customer interaction means more engagement and loyalty which, again, means more sales.

How Do I Claim My Business on Google?

So now you’re convinced, but have no idea how to claim your Google My Business listing. Follow this process, and if you run into an issue, don’t hesitate to reach out for help.

Go to https://business.google.com/create and create an account.
Add your business name.
Add your business category. If your business shows up after this step, it’s possible that your business has already been added via a third-party. This may require a bit more poking around. If you get stuck, reach out for assistance.
Add your location or indicate that you’re virtual.
Different questions will arise based on your answers. Just fill them out.
Add pictures where you can. When adding your pictures, give them names. Most images are labeled with IMG_123 or something to that effect, which doesn’t help your SEO at all. Label your images with a specific name that lets Google know what you’re about, such as “Best-Dog-Groomer-Charlotte”.
Once you’ve completed and reviewed your details, click “Claim this business.”
It typically takes about 24 hours for your business to show up in the Google listings. You’ll receive an email confirmation that your business listing is active.

Don’t leave your business behind by leaving your profile unattended. Google My Business is a fast and easy way to improve your visibility, engage your audience, and provide a ton of content, and it’s all for free.

Tags google my business, local business marketing, local online marketing, local seo, online marketing, reputation management, seo, seo tips, small business marketing

Blog How We Can Help SEO Services Small Business Marketing Small Business SEO

How To Get More Business Using Search Console: Our Best Google Search Console Tips

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Search Console is a free tool from Google designed to help you understand how Google views your website. It provides insights into the health and overall performance of your site on Google.

If you’ve never used Search Console then the description above probably sounds really boring. But don’t worry, it gets more interesting! Search Console is an incredible tool for getting more high quality traffic to your website. And that translates into more sales with less effort.

Google Search Console Tips

In this article we’ll unpack 4 ways you can use Search Console to improve your visibility in Google. And outperform your competitors for high value search terms. And as you already know, the stronger your site performance, the more business flows your way.

1. Page Level Optimization

Search Console can tell you how many organic searches every page on your website received, and how many people clicked through to that page.

This is powerful information! And here’s an easy way to put it to good use.

You know your top pages are already getting lots of love from Google. And when you think about it, it’s a lot easier to boost a page that’s already doing well than it is to boost one that’s way down in the search results. So with just a few minutes of effort you can potentially get your top pages to drive even more traffic to your site.

First, find the keywords that are generating traffic for your high performing page. You can do this by opening the Performance Report and setting the date filter to 3 months.

In the Performance Report select the Pages tab and click on your top performing page.

Next, click the Queries tab. You should see what keywords are driving your results for that page. More often than not, your top 1 or 2 keywords make up the bulk of your search clicks.

Finally, optimize your page around the phrase that is driving the bulk of your results. Since you know what Google thinks your page is a good fit for your keyword, you can slip related phrases into your text. Google can process natural language, so write naturally around your target phrase.

As long as you are careful not to over optimize your content (ie keyword stuff) then you should see significant gains in your search results for your target keyword. Be sure to save a copy of the original text. If you experience a decline in your ranking you can simply revert to your previous copy.

2. Directed Links

Optimizing your best pages around high performing keywords works great. But sometimes your competition is just too strong to beat the easy way. But that doesn’t mean you can’t win.

One of Google’s top ranking signals is backlinks pointing to your website. When someone cites your page as a positive influence on their own work, Google attributes more authority to your content.

Search Console has already given you two key pieces of information. You know exactly what pages are performing well on your website. And you know what keywords are driving the results for that page.

This is gold!

Use this information to build additional backlinks to these high performing pages. Good backlinks can only drive your search results higher. Link building isn’t always easy, but Search Console improves your chances of getting backlinks to the exact pages you want to promote.

In the left side menu select Links. Then in the upper right side of the report click to Export External Links. Now you have a list of companies that are predisposed to support your brand. Send the list to a b2b data company and they’ll prepare a list of names and emails so you can reach out. Thank them for their previous support and see if they’d be open to a guest post or infographic. Since they’ve supported you in the past there’s a good chance they’ll do so again.

When you create your links use variations of your target keyword as the anchor text. This will further reinforce to Google that your page is the best result for that particular query.

3. Optimize Your Paid Campaigns

It’s worth noting that Search Console can be linked to both Google Ads and Analytics to extend the utility of both platforms.

If you are using Google Ads then you are almost certainly using Google’s Keyword Planner to select keywords you want to bid on. But what if there was a better way?

Keyword Planner shows you popular search terms related to your topic.
Search Console shows you the ACTUAL phrases people are using to search for your solutions. And that’s SO much better. You can see what phrases potential customers are using. Add those terms to your ‘exact match’ keyword lists. This will reduce your bidding costs, and help you find customers you otherwise would have missed.

4. If It Ain’t Broke… Check Anyway

The easiest way to gain market share from your competitors is to have a website that fully complies with Google’s best practices. After all, the better Google likes what you are doing, the more likely they are to send search traffic your way.

But how do you know what Google actually expects from your website?

Great question! And fortunately it’s one that Google has already answered. In Search Console, on the left side menu you’ll see two important tabs. The first is Experience and the second is Security and Manual Actions.

The Security And Manual Actions tab is exactly what it sounds like. You’ll see if Google has identified any issues that prevent them from sharing your pages in the search results. For example, if they think a link on your page leads to a suspicious page they won’t want to risk searchers having access to that link. And your page or whole site could get blocked.

The Experience tab has three sections – Page Experience, Core Web Vitals, and Mobile Usability.

The Page Experience and Core Web Vitals reports are available to help you improve your website experience for your visitors. The reports summarize how your pages perform in real world visits. For example, are your pages secure or loading quickly. Overall experience is important because if Google believes your website has a poor user experience they’ll deprecate your search ranking. Note that smaller websites don’t have enough visitors to generate enough data for a report to be created.
The Mobile Usability tab works for all sites. Google will tell you if there are any issues that need to be fixed for mobile users to have a good experience on your site. This tab is SUPER IMPORTANT because Google has moved to a ‘mobile first’ approach. If your site performs well on small devices then you’ll outperform sites that aren’t as well optimized.

Information Is A Revenue Catalyst

Search Console is valuable because it tells you everything you need to know to improve your search traffic.

You’ll receive insights about what Google thinks about your site. For example, any mobile compatibility issues or security problems. And what pages on your website are indexed, and which are being ignored.

Even better, Search Console provides detailed information about how people are interacting with your site. You can export a list of search terms that are driving visitors to your site. And also see what phrases people are looking for in your niche.

All this information is there to help you make better decisions about your website. The better you apply the lessons Search Console has to offer, the more traffic and subsequent sales you’ll enjoy.

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Matthew Murray is the director of Sales Higher, a B2B lead generation firm. Sales Higher grinds through the data so you can focus on landing deals.

Tags google search console tips, search console

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