 Is setting up a Google My Business page a valuable use of your time as a business owner? Absolutely! Why do I need a Google My Business page? Google is the new Yellow Pages, you need to create this page to control the way the public views your business. Does it cost anything? Google My Business is completely free! How long does it take to set up and is it something I need to be posting on regularly? It takes 5 days for Google to send you the address verification postcard and about 20 minutes to set up before and after receiving the post card. It is a great idea to post on GMB regularly but is not completely necessary depending on your business. How do I go about setting up a Google My Business page? Let me explain… Step 1: Is to login to Google. Go to Google.com/Business and you will see this screen  Click “sign in” at the top right and log in to the email address you want your Google My Business to be associated with. (You can add admins and other users later) (You will need a Gmail account, if not you will need to make one) Enter your business’s name where prompted  If your business already has a Google My Business listing, it's name will auto populate as you begin to type. If there is no existing listing, then type out the EXACT name you want. Be specific with capital letters and punctuation. Step 2: Filling Out the Initial Form. Pro Tip: Keep every letter down to the comma the same in all locations on the internet. This let’s Google know you are trustworthy and will help you rank. Select your category  If your category is not listed choose the closest fit. Add your services and if you have a physical location customers visit you at. Next, if you’re a local business, choose the locations you serve. You may choose towns, counties, states, and countries. If you are a national brand or global brand then you should probably not create a Google My Business page. You can also skip entering locations you serve. Next, enter the business’ phone number and website. Now you can enter your address and get ready to receive your verification postcard. If you checked off “no” to having a location people can visit don’t fret! This address is a way to prove you’re a real person with a real business and stop scammers in their tracks. After entering the information to receive the postcard you now can access your GMB Dashboard.  Step 3: Using the GMB Dashboard. At this point, while you may have access to the dashboard, your functionality is limited. Any changes you make will be put “under review”. This will usually last until you have received your post card from Google and have entered your verification code. The Wait is Over So, it’s been the 5 days, you have received and verified your account. Now lets complete your account. To edit your info, click “info” on the left. On this screen (see below) you can click the pen icon to edit each field.  Fill out your name how you want it to appear to Google Users. Avoid changing your address at all costs. Service areas, as you can see above, accept towns, counties, and states. Fill in your hours, special hours and the phone number you want your customers to reach you at. Next, we create a handle. Similar to other social platforms you want to keep this simple and easy to read. You can use Google’s suggested handle (usually preferred) or create your own. This will allow you to share your GMB easier with customers when asking for reviews. Underneath that enter your website. Appointment links can be pointed to your booking page or even your “contact us” page. We will dive into the products section in more detail later in this article. In the Services section enter the services your business provides. These services aren’t keywords per se, but your keywords are a great start. It can’t hurt! Under Highlights, if you are a veteran or women-lead business you can add these attributes here. Finally, add a bio, your date established, and some relevant pictures. The bare minimum for photos should be a logo, the outside of your business, and the inside of your business. Step 3: Advanced Features. Insights By now you are familiar with the GMB layout we can start exploring into the more advanced features. A great tool that you can use across the internet is “Queries Used to Find Your Business”.  Use this data to develop keywords for your SEO, blogs, and alt tags! You may also find a keyword that has nothing to do with your business is causing you to appear. You can now address this issue by creating a negative keyword in your PPC campaign or even address it in a blog post. You can also see how customers have found your GMB (see below)  Direct – Someone searches for your specific business. This type of discovery usually comes when someone types in your business’s name into Google. Discovery – You want this portion of your pie graph to be the largest, especially if you are doing SEO. This is where people can find your business without prior knowledge of your existence. Branded – This is traffic directed towards your GMB listing that is coming from an external source like a Facebook post. If you are trying to build an organic following you should spend time making this portion larger. Products You want to fill everything out if possible. Add some of your products to the product section with a picture, a price, and description, and a call to action (located at the bottom).  Even if you’re a service-based business you can still upload these as “products” Include keywords into the product descriptions and even the names of areas you serve i.e. state or county.  Conclusion
The goal of GMB is to take up as much space as possible. The goal is to fill in every field you can, post a ton of images, updates, and request reviews from your customers. These days, reviews on GMB are extremely influential in your local SEO rankings and can be the determining factor that gets your business the call INSTEAD of your competitor. One last pro tip: As we mentioned throughout this article, keeping your info consistent across the web is invaluable when trying to convince Google that you are the authority in this space. Visit Moz and type in your business’ name & address and they will show you where any inconsistencies lie. You can then opt into their service which lets you monitor and edit your business info on all major directories in the United States. (You also only need to subscribe to this service for a year, no need to continue paying annually once everything is in order. If you want a custom GMB plan or want to learn more about Mad Mango Marketing SEO feel free to contact us or text us directly at 203-988-4375.
0 Comments
 Local Blog Writing for SEO Many our readers have asked us to share suggestions on how best to optimize blogs articles for SEO, so they could rank faster and better on Google.
SEO blogging is crucial because it helps you consistently get more visitors to your website. There are numerous things that you can do to optimize your site posts for SEO. In the following blog, we'll share our best blog SEO tips to assist you in optimizing your blog posts for SEO like a pro. These are the tips that we use on our own blogs, which attracts thousands of visitors from search engines for our clients. The Mad Mango way! Write an Effective Blog Post Title The name of your blog article is extremely important for search rankings. A fantastic blog post name makes your post more relevant to the search query. More to the point, it motivates users to click on your post when they see it from search results. To produce a blog post with a great title & SEO friendly, utilize your focus key word in the title. Aside from adding your attention keyword, we also advise creating headline click-worthy. That's simply because click through rate (CTR) plays an important part in SEO. There are lots of formulas to write headlines. One tool we love is Answer The Public. With this service you can enter a keyword you are targeting and it will give you related questions to that keyword. Pro Tip: Make the title of your blog one of these questions! Boost Your Headings. Your webpage headings are a different part of the blog which search engines give weight to in figuring out exactly what your webpage is all about. That means that, once again, you want to look for opportunities to put your key words in the page heading. Headings are often a good place for those secondary keywords you have in mind, since it probably will not make sense to work with your primary keyword in every heading on the page. Use Relevant Internal Links. Links are easily among the most important ranking signs for its search engine algorithms. Obtaining other websites to link to yours is a struggle, but you have the power to do as much applicable internal linking on your own site as possible. Each time you compose a new article, consider any blog posts you have already printed that are related to what you are writing today. Wherever it is logical to accomplish this, add those hyperlinks and, in the event you can do so naturally, use anchor text that links to your target key word for the elderly post you're linking to. META Description The meta description is another important component for encouraging clicks from search engine results. The major item people see on the search engine result pages would be the name. Together with the name there are now more visual elements like video screenshots and author avatars resulting from Google Authorship, that are referred to as rich snippets. However, a secondary factor on the SERPs is the description. This is the smaller text below the Title that explains in more detail what's on the webpage. When writing your descriptions that you want to share just a small amount of what the reader will see in the entire article. Entice their interest. Utilize the attention keyword phrase. Keep it under 160 characters. Don't stuff it with keywords. Write as though you were writing an introductory paragraph for your article. The objective is to convince the searcher to click through to a post. Boost Your Images to Drive More Traffic Here's a secret that most bloggers do not understand about: Google Picture Search can send a good deal of traffic to your blog should you optimize your images properly! All you have to do is add alt text to your images. To do this, click in your image and specify the alternate text as shown below. Insert an appropriate description from the Alternative Text box so Google can comprehend what the picture is about and assist your potential readers find it when they do Google image search. Apart from having a proper alt text, ensure your image loads quickly. You can ensure this by using a WordPress plugin called ShortPixel. This will compress your pictures and allow them to load quicker. Finally, SHARE! After the perfect blog has been written, you have optimized the content for SEO, and you properly labeled your image you are ready to go! Send your post to everyone you can. Email lists, all social channels, text it to your mom! Here’s a list of 20 great sites to post your blog to that aren’t Facebook and LinkedIn |