Are you wondering how to rank your Google Maps/Places/My Business page? Great, we get asked this question a lot.
This post is step one, it will help you just to get ranked. Once you are ranked, you will likely need to improve your rankings. If you feel your page is already properly optimized, read this post on five ways to improve your Places page rankings.
That will give you five simple tips on how to out rank your competition. If you don’t have a My Business page setup or are not the manager/owner of the page, this post is for you so read on.
Another Way to Rank
SEO is the process of getting your website listed in the search results.
But there is another way to rank in the search results.
There’s always another way in fact.
You see, last week I wrote a post on how to rank high in Google. That was shortsighted. Depending on what business or industry you’re in, there might be another way to have your website and business rank high.
Start by Googling your business, but don’t Google your business name. Instead, pretend you’re a new customer searching for one or all of your products and services.
Do you see search results that look like this?
Google My Business Pages
In the above image you see two organic search results, and then a map with 7 businesses listed and Google Map icons. These map-type results are known as Google Places or My Business Pages.
As of December 2015, these types of search results are showing up for just about every local search term. By that I mean if you search a product or service and your city name, you’ll see Google Places/My Business pages with the map showing where they’re located. These search results are the exact same if someone were to search for businesses via Google maps.
This is part of Google’s latest algorithm Pigeon which is focused on user proximity. In many ways, Pigeon provides an easier way to rank at the top of Google. Instead of investing in local SEO to rank your website, you can follow the steps in this post and rank your My Business page.
And I’m going to tell you what it takes to get your business listed and ranked in the “A” position in a couple of paragraphs.
Benefits of Optimizing your Google Places Page
No matter what, I think it’s important now and in the future to claim and optimize your Google Places Page. On top of jumping to the top of the search rankings, it’ll also help potential clients:
See what your store looks like (since you can add photos and even videos)
Some of the other benefits of properly optimizing your page are:
Links your website to your local page
Increases your business’s exposure and search traffic
You have full control over your business details and can edit them
Now that you know the benefits, let me show you how to claim, optimize and rank your Google Places page!
How to Rank a Google Places Page
Over the remainder of this blog post, you will learn how to rank your Google Places page.
Here is what you will need to do:
Find out if your business is listed already
Create your listing if it isn’t listed
Claim your listing if it is listed
Optimize your Places page
Get your business listed in directories
Get people to review your business
Is Your Business Already Listed?
If you already have a My Business Page and have access to it, jump down to the optimize section.
If you don’t know, the first step is to see if your business page is listed. Sign into your Google account. If you don’t have one, sign up for one as you should have Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools and now Google My Business setup under your Google account.
Once you have signed up and logged in, go to Google My Business. From there you should see a button titled “Get Your Page”.
The following page will have this image.
Select the proper definition of your business. No matter what you select you will be asked to search to see if your business is already listed. If this is the case, go to the claiming your listing section.
Search for your business name in the box and click on the blue magnifying glass. If it is listed, it’ll show up and you’ll have to claim the listing which you can learn how to do here.
Create a New Listing
If your page wasn’t listed, you’ll have to set one up. After the search you’ll see this screen.
Click on the “Add Your Business” link and this page will appear. Enter all your business details, making sure they are consistent with what is listed across the web. Name, address and phone number are now very important since Google’s Pigeon algorithm hit worldwide in December of 2014.
Once you are done you will be asked to confirm that you are authorized to act on behalf of the company. Click continue and you will be prompted to select yes to verify the listing. This will come in the form of a postcard from Google containing a pin # to confirm you are the owner. That takes around 2 weeks. In the meantime, you can still optimize the page so jump to the optimize section!
Claiming Your Listing
If your business showed up when you searched, click on the business name.
The next screen will ask you to confirm if you are the authorized owner. Click the box and hit yes. The next page is where you will be asked to continue and verify you are the owner. Google will send a postcard to the address. The postcard will contain a pin # and instructions on how to verify you’re the owner. You can still optimize your page for better rankings in the meantime.
Time to Optimize
Your Google My Business dashboard will look like this.
Hit the red edit button to properly optimize all the areas. I can’t stress enough the importance of consistent name, address and phone number when it comes to your business listings.
Business Name – Make sure it’s correct, current and your legal name. Do not try and add any keywords. Doing so will cause Google to flag your page since it doesn’t match up with sites like YellowPages.ca.
Address – Confirm that this is the same as what is on your website’s contact page. If you don’t have your address listed, you should for a ton of reasons outside of this one!
Contact Info – Make sure it’s the same phone number as listed on your website and in other directories like Yelp and YellowPages. Add your website and main email address as well.
Category – You can add up to five services you provide. This is where you will want to determine your five most popular services. You might only have one or two, but add those in.
Business Hours – Keep in mind people don’t have to visit your website to find out your hours. They can see that on your page or when they search your business name, so fill them out properly.
Photos – Add as many photos as you can. They could be of your store front or of your friendly staff. Make the visitor feel comfortable with you before they’ve even set foot in your store. Be sure to name your photos for some of your keywords/search terms. If you are a plumber use “city name+state/province+plumber.jpg”.
Introduction – Write 250 words of unique content that is different from on your website. It’s been recommended by various local SEO’s that I connect with that you should avoid keyword stuffing or placing any keywords in your about section. List all of your popular services that people might search for in an easy to read way and put links to important pages on your site, your Better Business Bureau or perhaps Yelp pages for reviews.
Once this is done, hit the blue “Done Editing” button.
All Done But Now What?
In many cases, simply creating or claiming and optimizing your Google My Business page might get you ranked, but at the bottom of the Places listings. You want to be ranking at the top don’t you? Of course you do!
So I’ve covered a lot in this post on how to rank your Google My Business page. If you have any questions, you can contact us below and/or visit our Google My Business packages page. We have created a few packages and services aimed at helping you improve your rankings.
And from time to time I will talk about meaningful marketing and integrating your offline and online marketing.
How to Rank at the Top of Google
Since content creation and blogging for business is important, I do want to blog more. But I don’t want my posts to be fluff.
I want my posts to educate you. So for today I’m going to run through how I got my site to rank #15 within a week for the search term Victoria SEO.My goal is to rank within the top three. And I’ll be posting status updates revealing any new strategies you should know about.
This is obviously a crowded market. Who wants to work with an Victoria SEO company if they don’t rank within the top three results? It’s a demonstration of their skills after all.
Since my industry has a lot of local competitors, it should be encouraging for those of you who live in a city with lots of competitors and who are having trouble ranking near the top of your targeted search terms.
In a second I’ll explain what it took me to get there. But know that it takes some commitment if you plan to do it on your own.
However you might be too busy. If that’s the case, be like most entrepreneurs and hand this off to a professional.
How I Did It
I want to explain how to rank at the top of Google by teaching what I’ve done. This will help you understand that SEO is easier than long division!
Here’s the four steps you need your website to take to rank at the top for your desired search terms (keywords):
Now up until last week, I wasn’t even trying to rank for the search term Victoria SEO. When I first started this site last year, I did my keyword research, optimized my content and did some backlinking.
But I was struggling getting solid leads to my site. That’s because I wasn’t defining my market. Hence why I changed my keywords and told Google I wanted to rank for Victoria SEO and Internet Marketing.
And surprisingly I’m ranking #15. That’s due in part to the backlinking I did all of last year. Within the last week though I’ve acquired more backlinks by adding my business and website to a few local and Canadian business directories.
Getting to the Top
The backlinks I have acquired are not the strongest. But they’re still worth something.
I’ve noticed that not many of my competitors websites have a blog. Even if they do, they’re only blogging twice a month. Therefore I’m confident in my abilities to get to the top within the next three months.
Once again I’ll be updating my progress.
But for you start with my four steps in the middle of this post. And of course follow my blog! You can do that by signing up for my email newsletter at the top right of this screen.
This strategy will allow you to rank quickly for targeted keywords. Great news for those who are in a crowded marketplace and have too many competitors’ websites to leap frog in the search rankings.
Continue reading to learn about an SEO strategy that will have profound results for your lead generation.
The Cookie Cutter SEO Strategy
Everyday people are turning to Google. They’re looking for your service.
Most business owners and service providers know that. When they think SEO, they think people are searching for providers like “Los Angeles divorce lawyer” or “Pittsburgh life insurance”.
People are searching those terms. A lot of them too. But the price and time to reach the top search results for those terms (keywords) is high.
Also this strategy is cookie cutter in my opinion. Everyone targets those keywords. And that’s why it’s so competitive.
You should aspire to stand out. Not follow the crowd.
Let me introduce you to the SEO strategy that will yield profound results. I’m 95% certain your competitors aren’t using this strategy.
Answer My Question Google!
Yes people are searching “Los Angeles divorce laywer”. But they are also searching to find out answers to their questions and problems.
What you do next is simply answer that question by writing a blog post about it. The keyword you then target is that question.
So simple. What’s extremely beneficial about this is a qualified lead is landing on your blog post. They get their question answered and their happy.
It doesn’t stop there though. Perhaps this question has other questions tied to it. If you have a ‘recommended posts‘ plugin or links to other blog posts in the blog post they landed on, they can read more of your blog posts.
I read a great post on Marcus Sheridan’s blog last month. The topics were blogging and content. In the comment section I saw a wonderful testimonial for this SEO strategy.
My next example comes from Insurance Agent and internet marketer Ryan Hanley. He did the exact same thing I’ve explained in this post for his companies blog and the results are astounding.
And lastly I want to show my Peerless Golf blog’s Google analytics report for July 2012.
There is a slight problem with this SEO strategy which is known as targeting longtail keywords. But it can be easily overcome.
You’ll be targeting people from all over the world. Here’s a screenshot of the visitors locations.
Not exactly targeted. However I can easily change my settings through my Google Webmasters tools account to target searchers in a specific country.
If you don’t have Webmaster tools setup, do it know by reading this post.
So you’ll receive visitors from all over your home country. But in the example a few images above, Ryan Apsy and his shoulder pain found a Doctor who blogged about shoulder problems in his city. Depending on your average bill of sale or the lifetime value of a client, the ROI on even 5 people doing business with through your blog is massive.
The Ball Is in Your court
I’ll leave you with this. Write down every question you can think of when it comes to your business or service. Then get blogging!
Search Engine Optimization can be down right intimidating.
I feel your pain. Three years ago I knew nothing of SEO.
That was until a friend suggested I talk to him for an hour on SEO. At the time I was working for a golf holiday company and I felt that we could attract website visitors through search terms like “Scotland Golf Holiday”.
For a few reasons I wasn’t able to help my employer out. But it was still beneficial to learn SEO.
And now I’m helping you learn SEO in three components.
Click on the first two links for previous posts where I show you how to do proper keyword research and then properly optimize your website.
Today’s post will discuss how to get backlinks to your site.
How To Get High Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are simply links from other websites pointing towards yours. They help notify Google that your website exists. The more valuable backlinks you have, the better your Google PageRank. I explain why PageRank is important to your overall search engine rankings below.
Essentially backlinks are the HGH of SEO. In this case they improve your search rankings and not your bicep size!
Without all three components your rankings will not improve. As I said backlinks are the only way Google knows your website exists. You could nail the first two components to SEO but if you have no backlinks pointing to your website, your rankings won’t improve.
Continue reading this post for a list of ways to acquire high quality backlinks.
Before I list those ideas, lets start of talking about Google Pagerank. Page rank is a way Google notifies us on how trustworthy a website is.
Sites like Facebook, ESPN.com and Twitter have a high page rank. Most business websites like yours don’t have any Pagerank.
But as you build more high quality links to your site, your pagerank and trust with Google will increase.
Now onto getting more backlinks. With Google continuously cracking down on what type of links are valuable, here is a list of the best ways to get high quality backlinks.
Business Directories – Getting your business listed in directories with help with citations and most directories give a link back to your site.
Guest Blogging – finding relevant blogs and pitching a blog post idea
Social Media Profiles – Linking your personal and Business Google + pages to your website is important. Even if you don’t plan on using Pinterest, Twitter or other social media sites, create a profile with a link back to your website.
Be remarkable, unique or even controversial – if you’re remarkable or unique, people will talk about you online. The same with controversy, it generates attention and possibly plenty of conversation and links
Comment on relevant blogs
Participate on social networking sites like Facebook and Google+ where you can link to your latest blog posts
Participate in relevant forums
Monitor and participate in local forums like Reddit
Hold interviews with prominent people – they’re bound to garner enough attention
Submit your business to relevant local and industry specific directories
Submit a press release to press release sites
Link out to others and maybe they’ll notice and link back
Was this video easy to understand and do you have a clear plan of action to start acquiring more backlinks? If you’re struggling finding relevant blogs let me know and I’ll help you out.
If you enjoyed this video and want to know more about SEO, subscribe to my updates. There are a few more thing I want to discuss on this blog that deal with SEO and I will be blogging about soon.
I’ve talked to a few business owners lately about SEO.
They’ve all told me that they don’t understand how it really works. This isn’t good since it’s such an important component to online marketing.
The time has come for me to educate and simplify search engine optimization.
I’ve already talked about the stepping stone to any SEO campaign, keyword research. Today I’m going to talk about the second step and why your SEO campaign might be treading water like our polar bear friend above. If you have a blog, this step will also keep people on your website longer and give them the information they’re after so read on! (more…)
