Improve local SEO with Google My Business
Every business owner with a website is looking for ways to get noticed in the search results. Today, there are loads of tactics to rank well as a local business, but there is no silver bullet: as with most SEO issues, this is a combined effort. One of these pieces of the local SEO puzzle is Google My Business, a dashboard for managing listings.
But what is it exactly and why is it so important for local SEO? What is Google Business Listing?
Business Listing is Google’s one-stop shop to manage how your business will look and perform in the search engine. It is an essential tool to find out and adjust how your site shows in Maps, the Knowledge Graph, Google+ and organic search results. According to the 2017 edition of Moz’ Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, Google My Business continues to be the biggest driver of local SEO success, with quality links coming in at a close second.
How does it work?
Once verified, you can fill in all the necessary details and check how your listing is doing. You can even get regular insights to see how many impressions, clicks and subscribers your listing got over a period. It’s a great way of getting a feel for how your business is perceived by Google and customers alike.
Ranking factors
Google My Business uses many factors to determine rankings for businesses. We’ll highlight the three most important ones:
- Relevance
- Distance
- Prominence
To optimize your Google My Business listing
- Category as accurate as possible
- Provide as much data as you can – your profile has to be 100%
- Your business contact number
- Opening times – think about holidays!
- Photos – are they accurate and good or can you improve them?