Leveraging Your Google Business Profile for More Local Traffic

Leveraging Your Google Business Profile for More Local Traffic

SEO has come a long way, and so too has the way in which Google allows you to get local traffic to your website using your Google Business Profile. Best of all, you can do so without coming off spammy or doing anything off-color.
The first way you can leverage your Google Business Profile is with the questions and answers feature. This is what you see come up often when you are searching for a local business. Typically, you will not need to post a lot of the most common questions, and answers as your current customers will likely have already done so. However, it is certainly in your best interest to look at the questions and answers that do come up when you conduct a search for your business. Then if you see questions that are relevant to your business that need to be answered, you can do so. It becomes really helpful when you are able to get in a keyword or phrase in the question or answer. By doing so, you’ll gain more results when someone is searching on a local level.

Another way to get some almost free advertising for your business through your Google Business Profile is utilizing the “related to your search” post. These posts are limited to only 1500 characters, but when well-crafted, they make it possible to share information such as special events you might be holding or even some new products you are getting ready to roll out. Essentially what will happen is your local business will come up even if someone is not specifically searching for it. Yes, it will be underneath a search result as “related to” but the more exposure for your website, the better.

Of course, nothing will aid you in your quest for online dominance using your Google Business Profile like the reviews you can and should garner. It has become commonplace for business owners to ask satisfied customers to leave Google reviews. However, you should really take this a step further and see if they would be willing to mention an actual product or service of yours. For example, you might run a hotdog stand, and one of your customers leaves a review saying, “Really great food.” A positive review is a positive review, but it would be even better if that same customer would mention your hotdogs. “A great tasting hotdog” does you a lot better, especially if someone searches something like “Hotdog near me.”

Sticking with the reviews, they have even more power if pictures are included. An image of your product will increase the chances of your local business coming up even more. So, if you are going to ask for reviews, be sure to ask for them in the proper manner. Even a handful of specific reviews with pictures is better than a ton of general and non-specific reviews.

Local searches are a lot more powerful than you might think. Remember, people conducting local searches are looking specifically for something local to them. Those types of searchers are far more likely to buy as opposed to someone who stumbled onto your site. So, it pays to be up on all things local with your Google Business Profile.