The business that wants appearance in front of local customers, appearing in the top 3 Google map listing is of vital importance.
People use “near me” in search queries for any local business search. So it is the utmost importance to reach a website on top. Appearing on top 3 will get more exposure compared to the searches. It significantly increases phone calls, sign-ups, footsteps and much more.
Have a quick glance at how to rank a local business higher in Google maps. As Google maps are mainly based on geographical location so; visibility, credibility and positive reviews and many other factors hold a great position to rank a GMB or website.
Visibility and Credibility
The more visible your business will be on Google maps the more credibility it will gain. A business gains high ranking and visibility if it can be seen to the potential customers. Visibility can be gain by publishing blogs regularly, get active on social media, On-page optimization of web and high-speed website.
Having citations on local directories, Yelp, TripAdvisor and other directories are a big part in gaining visibility and credibility.
Positive Reviews
Google considers positive reviews as a positive ranking signal. Positive reviews lead to more conversion. It sends a signal of trust and authority to the search engine and also proves to be an important part of local business.
Reviews are social proof that people like, love and recommend your product and services. In short, to get a position in local SERP, reviews are considered to be the major ranking and trusted factor. While negative reviews can affect the reputation and rank badly.
Role of Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is when the business paid for the ads to be shown on the top 3 Google map listing. In terms of cost, paid advertising costs much than organic marketing and will give results faster but with short term benefits.
Blogs, content, inbound marketing, are all the factors that are required by paid and organic search. The difference is of time only. One gives the quick result and others will take time to rank organic search.
Paid ads can be extremely costly if not optimized well. And its average cost is increasing each and every year.
Google My Business with Accurate NAP
Google My Business (GMB) is a place where you can list all the business information like business names, addresses, contact information, business hours, etc. It increases the chance of showing up in Local Google pack, Local Finder, Google map and in organic ranking.
These factors are determined by Google when ranking a website higher. Remember that incomplete and irrelevant information rank down the website. In “Review Update” of the Google update tab, you can remove all the incorrect data that may create some trouble to rank a website higher.
Local Citation
Local citation is a simple record of the name, address and phone number, location and website URL on major local directories. It validates the business location in front of Google. Google map citation generates positive exposure and builds a strong and trustworthy online presence.
Authoritative and relevant citations help to boost website ranking. Citation link building is when the URL is part of local citations.
Links with citations get more value than those that don’t have links. And, when it comes to local SEO, the citation is equivalent to backlink.
Role of Schema Markup
Schema markup is an advance On Page SEO technique that helps search engines to provide rich information to the users.
The search engine grabs the relevant information for the users with schema markup. This kind of markup defines the business more specifically to the search engine. You can use this tool to modify details like addresses, images, geographical location, contact details, etc.
Currently, there are 4 types of categories to mark up the Google Map:-
Parking map (for parking), seating map (for seating), transit map(for transit) and venue map (for malls, auditorium, museums, etc)
Role of Keyword in Google My Business
If your target keyword is not on Google My Business, add keywords there. Create a list of relevant keywords or tags you wish to rank for and add on google maps. You can also use synonyms of the keywords that can be used by the people to search for your business.
Set keyword occurrence in the content, as well as in HTML tag that will help to rank in Local SEO. Adding a natural keyword in the content appeals to the human reader.
Business uses Google Maps to mark their business location like where their stores, hotels, business offices are located. A customer uses these maps to find the exact location of the business.
Importance of Google Map Marketing
Google map marketing is the optimization of business presence in Google maps. It impacts the way Google views your business and how it appears in organic search.
With Google map marketing, it is more important to know how complete and accurate GMB listing is. This could be a tie-breaker among you and your competitors in determining who appears in the search. Finally, the most important is good reviews which are considered to be the major deciding factor.
Incorporate Photos to Google Maps
Listing that includes photos grab more traffic than any other way. Google extracts the metadata information of the photos near your business’s location.
Photos represent what your business is about. As concerned with the size of the image, the display and the actual size of the image should be very close otherwise it could damage the speed of the website. Photos create an everlasting impression and encourage users to click through your site.
Importance of Reviews in Google Map Marketing
Positive reviews are actually digital currency for your business. People not only check but they trust reviews blindly before buying any product or services.
Positive reviews encourage prospective customers. Whether a review is positive or negative, it is important to respond to them. Responding them back in an effort to show commitment to search engines and customers. Not responding to the reviews is a risk of increasing churn. Reviews do help to improve local search ranking.
It can be increased in less time with great power if you ask your customers for Google reviews.
Role of Tag and Categories
Customers who are specific to the search term make your site more discoverable. In CMS or WordPress it is simple to add tags and categories to every page. A brief description can be added to each of the pages.
Page tag allows you to identify easily business terms that your website visitors are accessing. Categories are meant for wider grouping of your posts, just like a general topic or content of the table.
Google Map and Social Media
Google Maps is more likely to share the social network with each update. Maps offer the ability to follow the local business similar to how users follow a brand on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Beyond every direction, the connection between the two is highly valuable. Google continues to roll out new features before promoting the social functionality to ensure that the features appropriately scale with consumer needs. Social media posts can be sourced from existing social content planning efforts and require little effort to publish with regularity.
Google Maps has the potential to increase revenue in millions. It not only helps to show business location but also helps to generate more traffic via any means like foot trafficking, emailing, social media or any other source.
Customers are more likely to support, seek out and refer brands that they truly care about and appreciate it anyway to get more leads.
