What is Local SEO?

Essentially, simply being found locally by people searching for you.

This could be Google Maps (the Google Business Profile), or organic Google Search (your website), or even in local Facebook Groups where locals ask about various services and businesses.

For example, if you are looking for an Electrician in Auckland NZ, then showing up on Google Maps is a strong play.  So would presence in a local Facebook Group, where people ask about Electrical services.

When we evaluate where leads come into these types of local businesses, it’s always amazing to us that often, the Google Maps listing (Google Business Profile), will send more customers to the business than what their website does!

What we’ve found in our work helping businesses rank better locally over the last few years, is that Reviews (Google, Facebook, other 3rd party options) are THE most important factor in improving your presence, and getting customers locally.

Yes, there are quite a few things to do to ensure you win locally on Google etc, but we’ve found if there is ONE thing that stands out, it’s getting good, regular reviews.

Obviously using a tool like myPresences will help you in this regard, so please consider using their help here.

Remember – regular reviews help you convert browsers into customers – almost everyone these days is looking at reviews online to establish if you are a good business.

We’ll list out some steps you can take to ensure you are getting good, regular reviews so that you can win locally online:

Always loop back to customers asking for feedback

This sounds obvious but it is truly amazing how many businesses do not do this.

For our clients, we work with them to design a feedback workflow that is mostly automated.

For example, every Monday, clients from the previous week get an email simply asking for any feedback on how their experience was.

If the reply comes into the marketing team inbox, and its +ve, a follow up goes out asking for a review.

Designing the emails and reach-out process is a once off job, following people up is manual, but well worth it.

Provide a 2nd Review option apart from Google

We’ve found that lots of people can’t or won’t leave Google Reviews.  There are various reasons for this.

We’ve also noticed though that the Google Business Profile picks up reviews from other places, like Facebook pages.

So, we get clients to provide a 2nd option as well, and oftentimes we’ve noted that a customer might not have a Google account, but they do have a Facebook account.

All reviews count, all reviews help you get noticed, all reviews help you rank higher in a variety of places.  Go get those reviews!

Go back to older customers

When a new client comes to us, we get them to design a strategy to reach out to customers from further back in time, e.g. last year, the year before that etc.

This is for 3 reasons – reviews, referrals, and reactivations.

Imagine you bought some shoes 2 years ago from your local sports shoe retailer.  You get an offer via email for 30% off any new pair of shoes that people are free to share with friends.

This can generate a referral to a friend, a reactivation of that customer, and then give you an opportunity to generate a review as well from that client.  It’s a very worthwhile tactic.

Recently we worked with our own Business Advisor, to discover ways to increase profit.

We were shocked at how much new clients were costing us in acquisition costs, so the idea of reaching out to existing clients certainly hit home for us.

Older customers can be such a great source of reviews, referrals, and reactivations!

To conclude – we can’t recommend ramping up your review acquisition enough.

Google Business Profile recently made this even easier by providing a built in QR code to their platform, so get busy and figure out the best method for your business.

More information:

Optimize your business for AI recommendations

Google Business Profile Management

SEO Checklist for local businesses

Even more valuable than your website.

This is what people see on the right when they search for your business on Google.  The quality of your profile has a big impact on whether your business will rank when people search for businesses like yours.

If you search online you’ll find lots of advice on why optimizing your Google Business Profile is incredibly important.  And a lot of people who will tell you they are gurus on getting the most from your profile.

Typical advice includes:

• Optimize your listing and include as much information as you can
• Set your Primary category correctly and set all your applicable categories
• Get regular new natural reviews
• Maintain a rating at least in the low to mid fours
• Reply to your reviews
• Post good content to your profile regularly
• Answer questions posted by customers on your profile
• Add your products and services

The good news is Google Business Profile management is now included with myPresences on all plans.

Even better, our multi location and agency features allow you to manage multiple profiles from one place with ease.  It’s never been quicker and easier to manage multiple Google Business Profiles!

Let’s dive into the new features.

Profile status

We now let you know the status of your profile,  and when it changes,  we alert you on the timeline.

Google has been known to suspend profiles or put them in review for legitimate changes!  Now when any of your locations are not fully claimed you will be alerted and can see it one place which of your locations are affected.

Some of things that may happen to your profiles include:

• Suspension
• Disabling (the above screenshot shows 2 disabled profiles)
• Notices that profile quality does not meet guidelines
• Being placed in review
• Profile ownership disputes

If any of your locations are affected we provide help to get it resolved directly in the interface.

Verification

Before you can take full control of a profile you need to be verified.  This verification process involves contacting you at the business to verify ownership.

This commonly involves:

• A postcard sent to your business address with verification steps
• An automated phone call or sms
• An email to your business address

myPresences now supports this verification process and will:

1. Show you which verification options are available.
2. Allow you to initiate the most appropriate verification process.

Once you have started verification we will update you on your profiles status.

Photo & Video Management

You can see all of the photos and videos on your Google Business Profile in one place.  This is a great way to see if you are representing the business well. Do you have old photos or videos? Can some be replaced with better ones? Do you have bad quality and low resolution images?

With myPresences quickly and easily upload new ones and manage the existing ones.

The best part! Because we have access to every photo and video you have used online you can use them to quickly upload new images from your library. No having to find images and upload them from your device.

Question and Answer Management

When people post questions on your Google Business Profile you will be notified in myPresences and you can answer them directly through the interface.

You can also add your own questions and answer s to seed common questions that people ask about your business.

Posts Management

See all your past posts in one place and easily create new posts.  Ensure you’re posting to your Google Business Profile regularly with good content.

Reviews Management

See all your reviews together and quickly and easily reply to google reviews. This also includes reviews that have been removed from google so this is a great way to see those reviews google has decided to remove from publication on your profiles.

Profile Performance

Check how your profiles are performing in seconds.  See all your most important profile KPI’s in one place and optimize your profile to keep them improving.

Agency and Multi location

Now that Google Business Profile has a dedicated place in myPresences, make the page available to your clients or region managers so they can quickly and easily see how their pages are performing and manage their pages.

With multi location groups you can give regions the ability to manage their pages only and see how they compare.  Select a location to work on that location.

Try Google Business Profile management in myPresences today with our 14 day free trial. or book a demo to see it in action.

Organic search traffic is the best traffic to generate as once it is established it doesn’t cost you anything.  If you run ads traffic will stop as soon as you stop paying.  It can take longer to establish,  but organic seo has a bigger longterm payoff for your business.

Below are 7 essential keywords you should be monitoring for your business. These are the keywords that are most important for your business that you should be ranking as high as possible for.

For keywords with your business name, phone number or website you should have the top ranking and probably occupy most positions on the first page.

When monitoring these keywords you should monitor the keywords as if they were searched from as close to your location as possible, or where your customers would search from.

1. Your business name

Keyword example:  XYZ Plumbing.

People searching for your business name are looking for you in particular.

They either:

• Are an existing customer looking to find additional information on your business
• Have seen your business somewhere else and are searching for you
• Your business has been recommended to them

Your business should dominate the first page of results for your business name.  The first result should be your own website and your Google Business Profile should appear in the Knowledge Panel to the right.

2. Your business name and location

Keyword examples:  XYZ Plumbing annerley, Salon XYZ balmain.

This keyword is similar to your business name but the searcher thought it was important to specify a location to make it more likely they find your business.

3. Your business type and location

Keyword examples: plumber in chadstone, plumber chadstone, plumbers in chadstone, plumbers chadstone

These are your opportunity for new business, you should rank as high as possible for these keywords.  It is also very important to compete for these keywords because they generate business for your competitors when they don’t choose you.

These keywords are also likely to include a lot of pages on other websites like Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor and many others. You should ensure your business is listed on these services as people will click through to these services and are most likely to choose a business that is listed on the first page of results on those services.

See our blog post on Barnacle SEO for more information.

4. Your phone number

Keyword example:  555 4555

Searching for a phone number can be a great way to find a business online as there is less ambiguity.

When people search for your phone number they are very likely to be about to interact with your business.  Make sure the results they find are as compelling as possible to get them to decide to become a customer.

5. Business type near me

Keyword examples:  salon near me, salons near me

This is a very important keyword for your business.

People using these keywords are looking for local businesses like yours and if they are searching on a mobile device they are probably very likely to be ready to purchase.

6. Your major services\products and your location

Keyword examples:  fix leak doncaster, korean food ascot, tax return kensington,  car service 3108

Think about the major keywords that your customers use to search for you and then add your location or postcode.  Monitor as many of these as you can as these keywords are about bringing you new business.

7. Your website

Keyword examples: www.mypresences.com, mypresences.com

It might sound counterintuitive to search for a website on a search engine rather than typing it into the address bar but many people do this.

For these people you want to ensure you rank well for when people use a search engine to do directly to your website.  The google homepage will automatically redirect to your website, but other search engines may not.

You should always rank number 1 for your own website but monitor this keyword to be sure.

myPresences makes it super easy to track these keywords for your business.  It couldn’t be simpler, when you add your business to myPresences we automatically monitor all these keywords for your business as if they were performed from your location.

We are also the only search tool that can monitor how your listings and profiles rank in addition to your website.

Try our 14 day free trial and be sure to check out the search page to see how your business ranks for these terms.