Google Business Profile is one of the most powerful local SEO tools. It gives users complete control over how their business appears across Google platforms – from search results and maps, to updates and posts from customers. Unfortunately, many businesses are underutilizing its full potential.
To maximize the benefits of your Google Business Profile, it is necessary to optimize it for local SEO. Doing this will enable your business to rank higher both in the Map Pack and organic search results pages on Google. In order to achieve this objective, ensure your NAP (name, address, and phone number) are correct as well as having high-quality photos and an engaging description highlighting USPs of your services and some customer reviews from satisfied clients.
Once you’ve set up your Google Business Profile, the next step should be verifying it. This simple process doesn’t require technical expertise and typically takes less than five days; once complete, a postcard with your verification code will arrive at your business location allowing access to analytics, reviews and other vital information.
Google considers several criteria to evaluate whether or not a Business Profile is relevant to local searches, including proximity and relevance based on how closely a profile matches searcher queries. Furthermore, they take into account factors like device used and location when assessing a Business Profile’s relevancy.
Relevancy of Business Profiles can also be determined by using NAP citations – mentions of your name, address and phone number on other websites – consistently across platforms. Google will use these references to compare and match them between platforms.
Other than optimizing your NAP, there are other things you can do to enhance the local SEO of your Google Business Profile. One way is adding photos that showcase both your location and business. Photos give customers a sense of place and increase engagement with both website and social media pages while playing an integral part in local search rankings and snack packs.
Add photos to your Google Business Profile can help to cement customer connections. However, beware of posting too-large images that take too long to load; such large files could potentially take as much as 10 seconds for some web browsers to load them completely. Furthermore, avoid uploading photos that contain excessive text or iconic landmarks that could slow the loading speed of your website.
