TIP #1 OPTIMIZE YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PAGE

Many business owners search for their own businesses and are surprised to find that they aren’t in the top handful of businesses listed, let alone page one. What’s worse, they aren’t found in the all-important #Google search “local 3-pack” which is in that map box just above the fold on the results page. Some can’t even find themselves in #AppleMaps, #Waze, #Siri, or any other typed or spoken search apps that provide directional and listing information. It drives many business owners mad.

What makes matters worse is that if you’re not on page one, you are virtually and literally cloaked. Few people searching for businesses make it past the first page of search, and 89% of them are ready to buy when in search mode. YOU HAVE TO BE ON PAGE ONE! There are several reasons for lack of ranking, but over time and at a relatively low cost, you can become visible north of the fold in the Google 3-Pack search block.

#SocialOrdeals has mastered the technique for business ranking using a suite of products in their platform that SMBs from Veterinarians to Car Dealers, Restauranteurs to Attorneys, Carpenters to Retailers, Franchisers and Associations of all shapes and sizes can utilize to grow their business’ visibility and sales volume. There are other companies out there that offer platforms with a similar suite of services but few are as affordable and for lack of a better description, credible in the execution as is Social Ordeals.

Tip #1: Google My Business is responsible for 25% of your ranking in search. The days of a dominant webpage are over. It’s Google’s plan to control as much of the web as they can and want you on their property for as long as possible – so we need to play by their rules.

Step 1: Claim the page as your business and make sure all information on it such as Business Name, Address, Telephone #, and Web Address are 100% correct. Google will send you a postcard verifying the location at the outset of claiming your GMB page.

Step 2: Load it up with your businesses specialties so people can see what differentiates you from competitors. If you’re a medical specialist, make sure prospective patients can see what you focus on, laser therapy, surgery, MRI machine on premises, etc. I suggest the most profitable products and services be spotlighted. If your a restaurant, post some of your specialty dishes, so on and so forth. Post pictures of the facility as well, along with smiling employees and customers if they oblige but not in the business’s products and services section.

Step 3: Pre-load popular questions and answers in the appropriate section given so the public can research you right then and there, and click to call instantly. The Q&A section is public so if you don’t answer any questions that come up without warning, someone from the public will, and you may not like the response. Keeping a vigil on this section is crucial because it’s so forward facing to a public likely in buying phase. Putting revised hours of operation here is a good idea because so many governments are vacillating on who opens and who doesn’t. Some only offer curbside so…you get the idea.

Step 4: Drive as many positive reviews to your GMB as possible. Reviews account for 15% of your search ranking score so make sure to have a review generation and reputation management strategy bought and paid for before you open your doors OR, get one in place if you currently aren’t employing one. Almost everyone looks at business reviews before making a decision. If you aren’t pulling 4.5-5.0, you are a B business in the eyes of the public. But it’s not just high scores that count, rather the volume of reviews that will lift you on any of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) of which Google gets 70% of the traffic.

Step 5: Drive all of your social media posts to your GMB page. Consider it a crucial social media element to your businesses positive visibility to the public. After all, the GMB page is one click away from the customer’s search engine operation so put your best content forward. Hashtag all of your social media posts (as well as your specialties) as you would on any social media platform because those hashtags WILL help you rank in search on Google. It may be a lesser known fact, but we’ve seen it applied.

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Call it machine-learning, artificial intelligence, whatever, but CarGurus has determined that once a car has had a predetermined amount of leads, it should have been sold. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t. Either way, they are pulling what they consider stale inventory off the shelf at their discretion. In other words, a vehicle that may have received (hypothetically) 20 leads has reached its limit, and will no longer appear in the search results page when a customer is looking for that particular vehicle. Despite that, there is no real way to objectively determine the true quality of those leads.

Dealers aren’t given notice,  the listing just…goes away

Dealers are complaining that they can’t find sitting inventory on the CarGurus.com classified site they pay to advertise on, and have no idea how long that inventory has been removed from search. Truth be told, that inventory disappears from the search results, but stays in place on the dealer’s inventory CarGurus page. What irks dealers is that CarGurus has no idea whether or not that inventory has been sold, as there is no communication between CarGurus and themselves to confirm before the listing goes black. 

Historically, leads generated on 3rd party classified sites tend to take 60 days to close on average. To gain some perspective here, email leads take 42 days, direct, organic, Facebook Marketplace, and paid traffic take 30 days to close on average. Call traffic is considered a high value, off-line lead second only to warm referrals, and foot traffic. These are just averages though, and there can be a number of reasons why some popular units sit longer than others. 

Dealers really need to pay attention to the inventory that they list on a classified site because this practice may not be limited to CarGurus. In CarGurus defense, they are trying to maintain a positive user experience, and listing potentially phantom inventory that has already been sold is a huge credibility problem. I’ll explain in a moment.

The car I’m paying for to rot on my lot, I’m now paying to rot on CarGurus.com…huh?

Perhaps it’s in the fine print that listings can be pulled from search at CarGurus leisure. Still, how does one rate the veracity of a lead if they are to be limited? If certain inventory is stoking a lot of calls or lead form fills, it may be on the verge of closing and then suddenly…CarGurus zaps it without warning. The “without warning” part is the issue. I think we can all agree that some leads are better than others. I also think we can all agree that when you’re advertising on a site that also carries look-alike inventory from competitors, the quality of a lead can be diluted. CarGurus is not taking into account the demographic of the customer, their credit profile, or otherwise. The input we’re getting is that the leads are basically people with not enough for a down payment or they have really bad credit. CarGurus isn’t the least expensive classified out there. Most dealers pay good money to keep their inventory listed for a reason, usually because it isn’t sold! 

Dealership bait and switch tactics, laziness to blame for flawed CarGurus policy?

The challenge many car dealers have is in managing their own inventory. Failure to pull down sold inventory may be the ultimate reason for the CarGurus policy to vaporize certain listings out of search. It may be as innocuous as dealers having inventory management issues or just being too busy or possibly too lazy to pull units down after they’ve been sold.

In CarGurus defense, they have experienced negative consumer feedback complaining of car listings not being updated. CarGurus is also weary of bait and switch tactics that dealerships use to lure in buyers. It hurts their reputation as a classified site. Experience combined with some data crunching probably suggests that they’re better safe than sorry by lifting inventory out of search that meets a certain set of criteria shared by vehicles that have actually sold. 

Maybe they just need to improve the software that’s processing the inventory data to get more accurate real time results instead of clipping the dealership’s cars? Most inventory companies take 24-48 hours to update the listings, depending on how many feed providers are involved. 

The Solution is pretty simple

We’re sitting on a list of a dozen car dealers that can’t find their unsold inventory on CarGurus.com. Unless it suddenly became a free classified site I’d say this is an issue that needs to be addressed quickly. Consequently, dealerships need to stay on top of their inventory at all times with all vendors. Dealers use a variety of inventory management solutions that should prevent this from happening but not all do. In lieu of automation, the Internet director or manager needs to be proactive enough to know what’s up and what’s down. Have a list of vendors your inventory is going to, be proactive about reaching out to those companies when you have an inventory provider switch, and most importantly, ensure the listings are accurate. Now that you’ve read this, it’s best to follow the old Ronald Reagan axiom that he applied to the Soviet Union…“Trust but verify.”

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How to Use Keywords to Rank Higher on Google

What Exactly are Keywords?

Any time you type a thought, question, or concept, into a search engine, the phrasing and important identifying words you use are known as keywords. Keywords are the best pieces of information used when performing a search and tell Google what you should expect and how specific it should be in its results. Google will then rank results simply by relevance to your keywords, quality of content , and site format. Google likes websites that are easy to identify and require little work on their end, so make sure your website fits the bill. Study keywords, select a keyword, after that write about that keyword— it’s that easy.

How Do Search engines like Google Use Keywords to Determine Rank?

Search engines use keywords to spot, categorize, and retrieve pages based on how people are searching. But what exactly does this mean for you? As a business owner, it means a lot. What your potential customers are searching for that leads them to your business is very important for you to figure out. In order to drive more traffic to your site , and business, you should be creating targeted, high-quality content on social media, Google My Business profile , and website, continuously updating and transforming your website design and layout, and weaving in keywords where you can, without stuffing your articles or posts. When you target keywords, you focus the page on a specific topic in order that it is able to rank in relevant search engine results .

For Which Keywords Should I Rank?

When harnessing the power associated with SEO , it’s crucial to know what appeals to your audience, and know how to reach them. Watch the language your target audience is using on social media marketing, in emails, or in discussions, and take note. When producing content for your internet site or social pages , utilize the words your customers are using. If you use terms on your website that people are searching for, you’ll be more likely to show up on search engine results. Appealing to your customers through a comparable tone and voice will also help to build trust . When you target keywords, you focus a given page on a particular topic. You are trying to get that web page to rank in search engine pages for relevant searches. Since Google aims to deliver the most useful details to the searcher, your content will display as a top result for that problem.

How to Use Quality Content to Rank Higher on Google

When making content for your website, GMB user profile, and social media accounts , it can be difficult to compose relevant, quality content, while also including keywords and making sure it is optimized meant for search . When writing content for your business, it should function to remind the reader of the services and products you offer, your competitive advantages , and draw the potential customer in. Your articles should be well-written and spell checked, include both long- and short-tail phrases , and include relevant keywords without stuffing so that you can build and maintain strong SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.

Focus on Sharability

In order to get your website seen by potential customers and build strong SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, your content needs to have a catchy name or image, be clickable, and most importantly— shareable . One of the best ways to get new customers interested in your company, and transform your SEO , without lifting the finger is by making your content articles something you, your friend, your own mom, or your coworker might want to read on social media. If you are a massage therapist and you write an article entitled “The Beauty of Massage”, that may not be the most enticing article to read while scrolling on Facebook. But if a person publish a blog post entitled, “What Kind of Massage Do You Need? Take the Test Now!”, that would be an interesting article to most viewers. And the a lot more shares you get, the stronger your SEO is going to be .

Concentrate on Niche Topics

Another way to make sure that your content is high-quality is simply by choosing appropriate, niche topics where one can have domain name authority . While there are most likely thousands of articles on Google about different sorts of massages, if you wrote an article particularly targeting the benefits of Swedish massages intended for pregnant women, you will greatly limit your own SEO competition. As a result, your content is going to be seen by more people, since it nears the top of Google search outcomes.

How to Use Backlinks in order to Rank Higher on Google

Backlinking isvcertainly powerful, but often a forgotten method to help improve your SEO. As a small company, you actually have a competitive advantage in this area over larger companies. A backlink is when another web site links to your article from theirs, allowing a new range of clients to see your content and your internet site, and improving your SEO at precisely the same time.

How to Build Backlinks

Building healthy backlink relationships with local businesses, such as having your products featured in their virtual gift guide in exchange for adding their restaurant to the “local recommendations” section of your website, will not only enhance your local communications, but also improve your ranking on Google .

Local newspapers, blogs, or other local avenues are other areas to explore. These publishers love to work with local businesses and will often help to promote you, mainly because you are a small business and that is the audience they serve . Such publications can also be a huge boost not just for a few quality backlinking, but also for good press for your business and eyes on your website.

Using Google My Business to Rank Higher on Google

Google My Business and SEO may well not seem like they have much in common, nonetheless it is actually the building of your GMB profile that will help to greatly strengthen your SEO. While your website remains a crucial ingredient to the results of your business, Google is making it simpler for potential customers to get what they’ re looking for directly in a find. Google My Business is to be able to enhance this experience when it comes to local searches . More than ever, it is vital to make sure your Google My Establishment profile is created, claimed , enhanced, and updated regularly in order to can be of help build strong SEO for your corporate, and help get found by the nearest customers.

Although not their traditional online business directory , Google My Companies acts in a similar fashion as Yelp or Foursquare in the sense that it provides vital information and reviews about your business to consumers. Info on your GMB listing is public-facing, making it essential for this information to be on-point and fleshed out.

How Google My Business Impacts Ranking

Your business’  Google My Business listing impacts your ranking in Google search engine results as well as Google-maps . The more complete and ideal your listing is, the higher it can rank. Businesses with a complete and accurate Google My Business listing get 7x more clicks than those lacking and are 70% more likely to gather visits. This is hard evidence why Google My Business not only expands your search ranking, but also your sales and chances of success. The impact most typically associated with inaccurate or inconsistent listings is definitely not one you can afford. A complete Google Much of our Business listing includes:

• Business title
• Address
• Phone number
• Category
• Website
• A number of hours of Operation
• Review
• Photos
• Q& A

In certain industries, there may be new fields as well. When your Google About Business listing is complete, the business will be favored by Google search results, your website and foot traffic will increase, and potential customers will be able to find and contact your business faster and easier. Collecting reviews , changing information as it changes, and creating relevant details to your business will assist you to improve your ranking and get you additional customers.

Checklist for Using Google My Business to Improve Your Rank

Overall SEO is impacted by a variety of factors. Google My Business is just one of them, consider Google is the largest search engine, it’ s a great place to start. Unlike all other SEO building tactics , setting up and customization your GMB profile is not only easy to do, but it’s quick, easy, and free. Google My Business also offers a strong competitive advantage that the majority of other SEO techniques may not, due to its direct connection to Google Maps, it will assist you in getting seen and found by the most critical customers of all— the ones in your neighborhood. The local SEO Google My Business can provide is invaluable to any  other comparative service or strategy.

Google has many applications and features that integrate directly with Google My Business, such as Local Search results . Google Local Search will pull up a map of businesses that the possible client has searched for in that industry, among them “spas near me ”. The more accurate and complete your listing often is compared to others in your area, the more likely your business interest is to be at the top of the list, helping to further build your local SEO . Businesses are synced and updated along with GMB, so the more active you are on your GMB profile, the higher you will rank in results.

If your business isn’t appearing any longer under local searches, or falling far down the page, then it is time for a Google My Business renovation. Consider the following when updating your profile .

Do you possess reviews, and are the reviews valuable?

If you are low in this area, don’t be afraid for ask loyal customers to put in a good word for you on Google My Business, or offer a small incentive to have reviews written. Many customers would be happy to spread the word about the excellent services you offer if they are pleased with their experiences. If you have negative reviews, make sure you are responding quickly and professionally.

If your information is current, is the description complete?

If your description is too short, for instance “electronic repairs”, you will get away from customers wondering about the specific tech services you offer. Think of a short heading that would accurately sum up the majority of your services, without getting too bogged down in details.   Write a strong elevator pitch for your business and include it.

Do you have great photos?

When you upload photos to your GMB profile , make them to both relevant and high quality. Snap shots of in-store events, classes, or of your storefront are all great options to include your Google My Business profile. You’ll want to update these photos regularly for top level local results.

Are there Questions and Answers on your own profile?

Google’s new Q& A section provides you with the ability to answer customer questions exclusively in your business listing. The benefit of this is that you can preemptively answer questions that valued clientele might otherwise not know the answer. This can impact their decision to use your business. For example , “Do you have vehicle? Yes, there is a parking lot for customers.” may be enough to turn a recurring onlooker into your next customer. Utilize this section wisely and always respond to points quickly. As a business owner, you can also submit frequently asked questions and answer them yourself.

Google My Business is an incredibly powerful free tool that helps improve local SEO, get your small business found by more people, and help generate potential customers . By keeping your GMB profile up to date, professional, and fully completed, you will be giving your business a leg up on the competition.

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Paid search can be a beneficial channel for any inbound marketing strategy . From boosting brand awareness to driving increased traffic and sales conversions, paid search can help you build a better link between search engines and your website content.

One paid search tactic commonly used to help companies rank their pages above the noise and clutter of search engines results is pay-per-click (PPC), in case not fully optimized, your PAY PER CLICK efforts can turn out to be simply expensive, fruitless tactics.

One way to optimize your campaign is to use a negative keyword list. Before all of us delve into this topic, let’s have a quick refresher on a few of the basics of PPC:

Google Ads Fundamentals

With Google taking over search engine traffic, Google Ads is among the more powerful, cost-effective platforms available for applying and running PPC campaigns. Just how exactly does PPC work on Google Ads?

Google Ads operates on a pay-per-click model, by which users bid on keywords and buy each click on their advertisements. Whenever a search is initiated, Google digs into the pool of marketers and chooses a set of winners to show up in the valuable ad space upon its search results page. The “winners” are chosen based on a mixture of factors, including the quality and meaning of their keywords and advertisements, as well as the size of their keyword offers. – Wordstream

As with search engine optimization (SEO), the building blocks of paid search is keywords— search terms or phrases that make it simpler for potential leads or purchasers to find your content on search engine results webpages (SERP).

The right keywords within a PPC campaign can help you better focus on prospects exactly when and where they are almost certainly to convert. But what if specific keywords are triggering PPC advertisements that are attracting the wrong type of site visitors?

That’s exactly where negative keywords come in.

See the Opportunity in Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are key phrases that relate to your business, industry, plus content, but they trigger clicks through people who are not your targets and who may not even be interested in your own brand or content.

From an organic SEO standpoint, that isn’t big deal. But because Google Ad’s auction style favors bet size and relevance, you could finish up wasting your budget on traffic which is less likely to convert.

Thankfully, negative keywords provide an excellent opportunity to further your campaign’s targeting and effectiveness. Online Ads, you can prevent your ads being displayed to anyone who utilizes these keyword or phrases within their search. But how do you determine which usually keywords to include in your negative key phrase list?

Analyzing Search Data

Where to Look

A person doesn’t have to look far to locate search terms and phrases to boost your negative keyword lists, mainly because one of the best places to look is in Google Ads itself:

• Search Terms Report: With this report, you can view real search terms people used in Google that will triggered your ads. You can choose the keywords that might not have drawn the correct traffic by viewing which usually terms have lower click-through plus conversion rates.
• Google Keyword Planner : If you want to identify negative keywords prior to them costing you anything, there’s no better place to look compared to Google Keyword Planner. Right here you can review keyword suggestions associated with terms you want to target in your advertisement campaigns, but it’s a useful tool to identify unrelated conditions to exclude.

Pro Tip : Negative keyword lists are not the set-it-and-leave-it effort. Comb through lookup data frequently to make sure you’re also  staying on top of new search terms which could hurt your conversion rates.

What to Look for

Identifying negative keywords can be challenging because it requires analyzing and learning the searcher’s intent. You’ll almost have to dig a bit to determine if a searcher is looking for everything you offer or something else?

For example , someone searching for “cybersecurity jobs near me” is likely searching for employment opportunities in a specific location, while someone searching for “cybersecurity careers training” may be focused more on development opportunities. Both searches make use of the keywords “cyber security jobs” however the intent of each inquiry is different.

Understanding why the searcher is using a keyword and determining their intended end goal is vital in order to building an effective negative keyword checklist.

Pro Suggestion: Choose your bad keywords carefully. If you use too many damaging keywords, you may prevent qualified individuals and their search queries through seeing your ads.

Getting the Most From PPC

PPC and paid search provide businesses and marketers added visibility to attract target personas, but it can become an expensive endeavor if not fully optimized. Making use of negative keywords is not only an effective way to cut down on wasted ad spend, but it can also significantly improve your ads’ conversions.

About the writer

Chelsea Boice Chelsea is an Associate Consultant at SmartBug. She previously worked as a freelance Digital Marketer supporting B2B and B2C organizations with inbound, email, plus social marketing campaigns.

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