January 20, 2025 • 21 mins
2025 is finally here, but before we dive into the new year, let’s take a moment to celebrate the biggest marketing takeaways from 2024! We’ve rounded up the best insights, advice, and strategies from OMG’s product experts and turned them into one action-packed video.
Whether you’re looking to up your game with Google Ads, understand how AI is changing the landscape, or see why Local Services Ads are a must-have, this video has something for every SMB owner. Think of it as a greatest hits reel for marketing gold that you can use to crush it in 2025.
Let’s make this year your best yet!
00:00–00:29 Intro Sequence
00:30–01:24 [Ajay] A Website’s Ranking is Critical
01:25–02:13 [Henry] How Website Design Impacts User Experience
02:14–03:33 [Alcira] Google Ads in a Nutshell
03:34–04:37 [Alcira] Key Google Ads Dependencies
04:38–05:12 [Henry] Google Business Profile: Organic vs. Paid Advertising
05:13–05:44 [Henry] The Power of Google Business Profile Reviews
05:45–06:11 [Ajay] Why Consistent Reviews Matter for GBP
06:12–08:03 [Ajay] Local Services Ads Simplified
08:04–08:56 [Ajay] What Sets Meta/Facebook Apart from Google
08:57–09:41 [Henry] Industry-Specific Advice & NAP Consistency
09:42–10:22 [Ajay] OpenAI: A Disruptor to the Status Quo
10:23–10:58 [Ajay] The Website as an Authority Factor for AI
10:59–13:22 [Corain] Why Marketing is an Investment Worth Paying For
13:23–15:15 [Henry] The Story of Our Time: Battle for User Experience
15:16–15:41 [Ajay] Google Business Profile: Beyond the Basics
15:42–16:33 [Aleyna] GBP Delivers Calls – and More!
16:34–17:50 [Ajay] Local Services Ads: The Automatic Crediting Update
17:51–18:22 [Ajay] Embracing AI & Machine Learning – The Future is Here
18:23–19:00 [Ajay] Verified GBP: A New Requirement for LSA
19:01–19:48 [Ajay] The Care & Strategy in OMG’s Product Stack
19:49–20:41 [Ajay] Why Google Introduced a Grace Period for Verified GBP
20:42–21:15 [Henry] Towing & Automotive: The Necessity of LSA for Success
21:16–21:35 Outro Sequence
Google Business Buzz Podcast
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What we got planned for the people.
Everyone is a superchargedepisode all about websites.
Now it is 2024.
A new year is upon us, and thatmeans it's time to tackle one
of the most bothersome things,at least to me, in our industry
what makes a good website?
This is kind of a myth or afable, depending on who you talk
to.
Everyone kind of makes up theirown answer to that question,
(00:50):
and it really bothers me because, for the small business owner,
for you, our audience, I needyou to understand that there is
a professional standard in thisindustry for what a good website
means and one that can bebeneficial for you.
There is a way to measure this,there is a way to see this and
there is kind of a convention wecan all agree on, and it starts
with understanding a few things.
So the website obviously isyour online business space.
(01:12):
It is a digital storefrontwhere people can find
information about your productsand services.
That's obvious.
But what I really want to bringit to is how that website ranks
is everything.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
And we know that a website's quality score can also
affect their Google Ads qualityscore, right?
So all of these things worktogether, not just, you know,
because of Google's algorithm.
It's because of the user'sexperience, which is primarily
what Google is looking toreplicate with their algorithms.
(01:43):
What Google is looking toreplicate with their algorithms
they can't physically go tothese businesses and test them
out to see what kind ofexperience they give their
customers.
What they can do is createsimulations using different
signals to try to aspire to getas close as a human being as
possible.
(02:03):
So if a website is slow, baduser experience.
If the website doesn't havethose keywords in the headers or
in the metadata, bad userexperience.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Also in terms of what the average small to
medium-sized firm should knowabout Google Ads for running
their businesses.
What do they need to know?
It's 2024,.
What's changed?
What's hot?
What's the deal All?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
right To actually run on Google ads, you have to make
sure that one your business isregistered.
100 percent, guys.
There's no way around it.
Google actually has a policynow that all accounts are going
to be verified, so if you have abusiness license, you're good
to go.
As you said, Google has beenaround for more than 20 years 24
, to be exact, actually and thisspecific platform helps all
(02:49):
businesses, from smart to largeenterprises, to actually promote
their products and services.
Get that money, because that'sall we want.
Increase your ROI and yourvisibility Along the time and
along the process.
You are going to need to expandon your campaigns, right?
Google is not a set it andforget it type of platform, or a
platform that brings in moneyright away.
(03:09):
Right, we want to make surethat you build it.
Everything that's good istaking time to build, right?
So we want to make sure thatyou go in, utilize your
resources, create your campaignsand optimize those campaigns,
If you can, regularly.
I advise you to do that.
What two weeks, three weeks,just to make sure that you get
your data right?
(03:30):
It is something that you haveto be on top of.
It's not a set it and forget it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
What are the showstoppers that you see come
in when clients want to runGoogle ads and we sit down with
them and across from them andsay, hey, let's get started.
And Alcior then finds oh, thisis a problem, that is a problem,
that is a problem.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
The first showstopper , I would say, is not having a
proper budget.
Google Ads is a pay-per-clickplatform, right.
We want to make sure we haveenough clicks to actually
generate a call, a lead.
Whatever your conversion andwhatever your goal is Right.
That is the first thing youhave to, one again, analyze your
market, utilize the keywordplanner to actually tell you OK,
(04:07):
your clicks in your area are 15, 20 dollars per click.
You automatically should knowOK, this is not going to be a
cheap thing, let's invest Right.
So we want to make sure thatthat is the first thing.
Another thing is not havingclear goals or clear
expectations.
As I mentioned previously,google Ads is something that
takes time to build and it'ssomething that actually needs
(04:29):
that little elbow grease for usto actually find a really good
audience and locate what needsto convert and what is
converting well and not so well.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
This is not advertising.
This is organic marketing.
You can't pay Google for thetop spots on Google Maps Very
similar to the old schoolwebsite organic ranking.
Underneath the map you'll find10 and now infinite scrolls show
you infinite results, but theyare ranked based on relevance of
(05:02):
the query and based on how wellthe website functions.
It's very similar to that.
That's the old school organicranking.
You can't pay for it.
Reviews are also part of theprominence factor on Google
Business Profile.
So another way to get betterranking on local map for your
(05:23):
GBP is to get more reviews andpositive reviews.
The more positive reviews youget, your rating is going to get
better and Google is going tosee that Consistency, recency of
reviews.
They're seeing that thatconsistency, recency of reviews.
They're seeing that they'regoing to give preferential
treatment to businesses that areconsistently getting new and
positive reviews.
(05:44):
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
That is because Google wants to see that the
business is engaging andcontinuing to curate an
excellent and outstanding userexperience.
They're not interested in thebusiness that just has a
thousand people who have saidgreat things a year ago.
Google is interested inverifying that your business, to
our audience and listeners, iscontinuing to provide that
(06:07):
experience.
So it's not about quantity asmuch as it is about consistency.
All of a sudden, companies likeHomeAdvisor and Angela start
popping out, ranking really welland grabbing dollars from the
marketplace and they start doingwell and Google's over here
like man.
We have a problem.
People are using our searchengine to go over to HomeAdvisor
and how we need to fix this,and so they come up with a
(06:29):
really, really brave and boldsolution.
They come up with this platformcalled Local Services Ads.
Now, local Services Ads wasoriginally launched in 2015.
Very small test markets, verylimited amount of categories.
Local Services Ads we'll put agraphic on your screen right now
is basically, as we've coveredthe very top of the screen you
pay to get calls.
(06:50):
It's trusted advertising.
Your background check, yourlicense check.
This is the best of the best.
And instead of HomeAdvisor andAngie's List right where you're
all bidding for the samefrustrated customer that just
wants to get somebody to helpthem.
Local services ads is reallyinteresting.
It offers a real at-bat, aphone call with the customer.
This customer potentialcustomer is calling you, you
(07:11):
know, wanting to do businesswith you.
Let's go back to our AC repairexample.
If all of you listening andwatching you don't know what
this is yet, simply go on yourphone and type in AC repair near
me.
You'll start to see theseGoogle guaranteed ads at the top
.
This is a better answer.
People, you can dispute badcalls.
You can save your money.
The same lead isn't gettingsent to 50 other people.
What Henry and I are saying isthat if you're a plumber, if
(07:32):
you're an electrician, if you'rean HVAC towing company, funeral
service, you're a traditionalservice-based medium business.
You want to now run localservices ads.
Those calls are going to becheaper, they're going to be
more accessible, they're goingto be better.
But you don't want to forgetabout Google Ads.
Local services ads is just onelayer at the top and we all know
that to have the best chance ofsucceeding in this game, we got
(07:54):
to show our business name loudand proud on every advertising
layer that we can afford to bein.
There's LSA at the top.
There's Google ads.
There's Google business profile, the maps.
What makes being on Meta so muchmore intimate?
Everyone so much more special?
On Google you're meeting yourcustomers where the
transactability is.
You're meeting them for a call,you know.
You're meeting them for amessage.
(08:14):
You're meeting them for atransaction a click on meta.
It's way more special than that.
You're meeting people wherethey're at, not just for the
transaction.
You're meeting them as who theyare.
Think about all the demographictargeting that had to happen
for Henry's wife to get that adright somewhere.
In setting up those Facebookads, whoever set them up had to
highlight OK, hey, I'm lookingfor maybe female age between
(08:37):
so-and-so, who lives so-and-so,who enjoys this, different
interests, different tasteprofiles.
They are really whittling downinto who the person is to be
able to target them, to showthem that ad and then ultimately
end up in that transaction.
That is a level of granularity.
It's a level of specificity interms of the audience targeting
guys that is unparalleled.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
You need to be on TripAdvisor if you're a
restaurant or a hotel.
You need to be on Houzz ifyou're a home service right,
there's so many places that youneed to be.
So you got to really cover theboard.
Google, Facebook, Instagram weshouldn't even mention that.
That's obvious.
You should always be there andyou should have all of that
information synced up.
Always be there and you shouldhave all of that information
(09:20):
synced up.
Same name, address, phonenumber, same categories, same
services, same logos, samephotos, same URLs, because
Google, meta and users are alllooking for those signals.
Right For that to be consistentacross the board.
If me, as a user, if I start onGoogle and then I want to see
what they're posting on Facebookand the name is even slightly
different, I'm going to bequestioning.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And I think it's fair to say that's the most Google
has been challenged, kind ofsince they won the internet war
way back in the day for a kindof search engine dominance, if
you will.
And now, all of a sudden youknow this open AI coming into
the fray with ChatGPT was thefirst significant, successful
disruption that has been posedto Google is how I would phrase
that and you're really seeingthem start to double up and
(10:04):
understand that risk and thenput a lot of resources and
iterate and adapt, respond veryquickly.
So it's certainly aninteresting time to watch this
unfold and it's only a goodthing.
When these big tech giantsfight us consumers and marketers
and technologists, we winbecause we get better technology
as a result of their beef.
Before, when we were talkingabout websites, it was already
(10:26):
paramount.
It was already super critical.
Now it's even more importantbecause your website, the
criticality of having that SEOin good standing, having your a
good functioning website outthere, cannot be understated.
This means that you can getmore visibility, not just across
the internet that you're usedto, but more expansively also
across AI platforms that arealso going to leverage how good
(10:49):
your website is as an authorityfactor in that search to display
you or not.
The website is absolutelyparamount, even more so in the
age of AI.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
In the illustration you talked about with changing
your oil.
It's the same thing, I like tosay I stay in my lane.
I tell people that all the time, as in, if you are a
professional in your area, missHairdresser, I'm going to go to
you and let you do what you dobest so I can do what I do best.
Right, and it's the same thing.
It's like we're all gifted andtalented in our own areas.
You know what you're good at.
(11:20):
For the business owner, yourfocus is running your company.
You're good at that.
You have a passion for that.
You're putting your money andyour time and your investment in
that, so do that.
But that might not come alongwith the skills that you need to
have a marketing componentthat's efficient and effective
for your business.
So what do you do?
Like I say, I stay in my lane.
As a business owner, I wouldsay let me find someone that
(11:43):
knows all of the things, because, as you said, in 2024, so many
things change Everything, all ofthese different platforms that
you wanna get a part of.
They're making changesconstantly.
As a business owner, I don'thave time, and so it's important
for you to stay focused on thethings that again matter to you
that you have the time for that,you have the passion for what
you want to do at the end of theday, and let professionals kind
(12:05):
of take over the rest.
Cheaper isn't always necessarilybetter.
I want you to always understandthat Cheaper isn't always
necessarily better and moreexpensive isn't necessarily
better either.
However, you have to beprepared to pay something.
I have to put this out therebecause a lot of times SMBs are
just companies period.
Sometimes there's anexpectation that the price
(12:28):
should be way down here for youto get here.
The expectations like if wejust talk about this elephant in
the room.
Sometimes the expectations area bit higher for what you're
willing to pay.
And there's a saying that wehave in the Caribbean.
I'm originally from the Bahamasand so we say scared money
don't make money.
Scared money don't make money.
(12:48):
I said if you're scared tospend money, you're more than
likely you're not gonna make alot of money.
Because you have to understandit's an investment, your
business.
You are investing in yourbusiness because you know you're
going to get that return onyour investment.
So it's important for you tounderstand that you are going to
have to spend money when youuse an agency, let's make sure
(13:09):
you let it.
It's not free, just like youdon't give, you know, your
services for free.
You're doing something.
You expect to be compensated.
It's the same with agencies,but they charge.
It's them that we charge.
Why is that?
Because of the people, becauseof the process, because of the
product.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Google is actually going to transition what they
call smart campaigns intoperformance max campaigns.
Now, smart campaigns are whatwas once called these simple ads
that you just click on andclick off, very limited in their
optimization and what you cando.
Now Google has understood thatthere's no reason to have that
(13:47):
type of ad type.
They're going to transition toperformance max campaigns
because it does the same thingand more.
It offers AI capabilities,right Optimization.
They're looking at audiencesmore.
They're looking at keywordphrases instead of specific
keywords.
You can get granular with thisinformation, but what Google is
(14:10):
doing is they're just usingtheir high, very influential AI
the AI that has access to all ofthe data on the internet for
the past 25 years and they'reapplying that to their Google
ads layer.
The user needs to know thesethings.
The business owner needs toknow how to optimize for that
(14:31):
user so that everybody's happy,and I think that's what Google's
ultimate goal is.
And even though they arecriticized for having all types
of privacy violations or thingslike that, I think their
ultimate goal is high qualitysearch results, high quality
advertising results for optimaluser experience.
(14:54):
Because I always say it, ifGoogle loses the user experience
war, then people are gonnachange to Bing.
People are gonna change todifferent search engine and chat
.
Gpt is coming with a searchengine, right everything.
Everybody is coming at theirheels, so they can't slip.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Google business profile isn't strictly about
just the listing, but rather itencompasses directories.
There's also the website, whichis a huge dependency and
impacts the performance of theGoogle Business Profile.
So the first thing you need tounderstand is that it's not just
the Google Business Profile,but it's rather the Google
Business Profile plusdirectories, plus the website
(15:36):
and there are even more factorsI'm sure will come up as we get
through the course of thisconversation and we want to also
get away from this framework oftalking about Google Business
Profile as just calls orthinking about it as just calls.
I'm sure that's something thatyou see, elena.
On the client services side,it's all about those customer
engagements over time.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I mean phone calls are definitely important in what
most people look at because atthe end of the day, that's how
you can really tell if that wasa return on your investment.
But a lot of my most kind ofimportant ones and again you
kind of mentioned it it's reallykind of industry based.
You know, if you are, you know,maybe a bed and breakfast,
you're going to really want tofocus on those direction
requests you're going to want tofocus on, you know, those
(16:13):
website visits, those are goingto be really the two kind of
bigger ones, depending again onthat industry.
You know, if you are reallytrying to build up that brand
awareness, if you're running aspecial on your website, if
you're running anything you know, depending on trying to get
more traffic to your name, thosewebsite visits, again, the
direction requests, those aregoing to be kind of really
really two big big ones that Isee a lot.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Get this.
Now there's a machine listeningto every single call on the LSA
platform except the medicalverticals they're not allowed to
listen to that for HIPAA butlistening to every single call
and that system willautomatically determine if the
lead is charged or not charged.
So get this.
What it really means is youdon't have to go in there and
(16:54):
manually dispute your leadsanymore, because bad calls are
going to happen.
They happen on LSA, they happenon Google ads, they happen on
every.
No matter how well you setthese ads up, consumer behaviors
, consumer behavior you're goingto get bad calls.
That's reality.
The thing is, most of yourcalls will be good.
That'll make it worth it.
But now for those slim chunk ofbad calls, you don't have to do
anything.
You just have to pay attention.
Number one, see which ones aregetting automatically credited,
(17:17):
and I kind of lied there withnot doing anything.
Part B of this update is alsorating your leads.
So instead of going in thereand manually disputing your
leads, now I want you all tothink of interfacing with this
giant smart robot.
I'm joking, but same premiseYou're now interacting with the
machine.
Machine learning and AI arehere, guys, and it's here in LSA
(17:38):
on a big way.
Now you can teach that machinewhat you know why was it good or
bad?
So on and so forth and thatwill, in theory, influence your
leads in the future.
So this is a big step for tech.
Customer behavior is changingand you know people want.
They want to have their cakeand eat it too, and that's
getting harder to do with theolder approaches, man, and so we
(17:59):
got to adapt.
And is it going to beuncomfortable at first?
Sure, are we going to learn andget better as this tech refines
?
Heck, yeah, I can't imagine howgood Google's automatic
crediting for local services adsis going to be in two to three
years, how refined and efficientperformance max campaigns will
be in two to three years.
Are they perfect now?
No, that's not what we'resaying.
We're saying that they're here,they're important and they're
(18:22):
going to get better.
Here's what's going on.
By November 21st, businessesmust have a GBP Google Business
Profile in order to run localservices ads.
That is absolutely massive.
For all the years that localservices has been on here, gbp
has never been a strictrequirement.
You needed one review to get byfor most industries on local
(18:46):
services ads.
You need a handful more reviewsfor certain industries, like
roofers, but you've never neededthe GBP.
And now, all of a sudden,several years later, your LSA is
not going to run if your GBP isnot verified.
Massive, massive, massiveimplications.
We designed these solutions,some of our products,
specifically around this problem.
It's like, hey, gbp, lsa, let'spackage, package them together,
(19:07):
let's deal with these issueshead on.
We see that they haveimplications concerning one
another.
If you lose your gbp reviews,your lsa will get impacted.
Now that's just even moremagnified.
That's even more of a biggerdeal.
I know our clients are beingwell taken care of, but, um, I'm
worried about those people thatare not.
You know, don't have someonelike us in their corner, because
now your call volume canpotentially disappear.
(19:29):
Not to be an alarmist, but it'strue.
If you need those leads to eat,like you said, henry, that's
food off of your table.
So if you want someone thatgenuinely, genuinely lives, eats
, breathes this, someone thatcares about you and knows what
they're doing, come talk to us,because if you lose one, you can
lose the other at this point,because if your GBP goes down,
heck, your LSA is going to godown too, as far as we
(19:50):
understood it, on November 21st,google Local Service ads would
only run if you had a verifiedGBP.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Now I believe that date was rolled back.
Right, ajay.
Why do you think they announcedsomething publicly with a
different date, only to roll itback?
Even with working with anagency man, even with working
with people that know whatthey're announce something
publicly with a different date,only to roll it back.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Even with working with an agency man, even with
working with people that knowwhat they're doing, google
business profile issues are notalways easier or fast to fix,
depending on what's going on.
If you're having issues withthat verification, it can take
some time, it can take weeksright, and so I think Google is
trying to walk a fine linebetween adding more trust into
(20:29):
their system basically havingpeople be who they say they are
on maps, on LSA, and have thatall be verified, and also not
being too harsh and tooaggressive to where they're
penalizing people.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
The best time to plant a tree was five years ago,
so you have to act now.
Early bird gets the worm Rightnow for towing specifically, as
we saw for many other industriesin the past, the early adopter,
the person, the advertiserthat's always there, the only
advertiser there, is going toget all the phone calls, and
(21:04):
with towing, it's an emergencyservice.
Everybody has a car.
Everybody ends up needing atowing provider at some point.
So you want to be on top.
You need to be on top.
You're my hero.
I see you tonight.
What we got planned for the people.
Everyone is a superchargedepisode all about websites.
Now it is 2024.
A new year is upon us, and thatmeans it's time to tackle one
of the most bothersome things,at least to me, in our industry
what makes a good website?
This is kind of a myth or afable, depending on who you talk
to.
Everyone kind of makes up theirown answer to that question,
(00:50):
and it really bothers me because, for the small business owner,
for you, our audience, I needyou to understand that there is
a professional standard in thisindustry for what a good website
means and one that can bebeneficial for you.
There is a way to measure this,there is a way to see this and
there is kind of a convention wecan all agree on, and it starts
with understanding a few things.
So the website obviously isyour online business space.
(01:12):
It is a digital storefrontwhere people can find
information about your productsand services.
That's obvious.
But what I really want to bringit to is how that website ranks
is everything.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
And we know that a website's quality score can also
affect their Google Ads qualityscore, right?
So all of these things worktogether, not just, you know,
because of Google's algorithm.
It's because of the user'sexperience, which is primarily
what Google is looking toreplicate with their algorithms.
(01:43):
What Google is looking toreplicate with their algorithms
they can't physically go tothese businesses and test them
out to see what kind ofexperience they give their
customers.
What they can do is createsimulations using different
signals to try to aspire to getas close as a human being as
possible.
(02:03):
So if a website is slow, baduser experience.
If the website doesn't havethose keywords in the headers or
in the metadata, bad userexperience.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Also in terms of what the average small to
medium-sized firm should knowabout Google Ads for running
their businesses.
What do they need to know?
It's 2024,.
What's changed?
What's hot?
What's the deal All?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
right To actually run on Google ads, you have to make
sure that one your business isregistered.
100 percent, guys.
There's no way around it.
Google actually has a policynow that all accounts are going
to be verified, so if you have abusiness license, you're good
to go.
As you said, Google has beenaround for more than 20 years 24
, to be exact, actually and thisspecific platform helps all
(02:49):
businesses, from smart to largeenterprises, to actually promote
their products and services.
Get that money, because that'sall we want.
Increase your ROI and yourvisibility Along the time and
along the process.
You are going to need to expandon your campaigns, right?
Google is not a set it andforget it type of platform, or a
platform that brings in moneyright away.
(03:09):
Right, we want to make surethat you build it.
Everything that's good istaking time to build, right?
So we want to make sure thatyou go in, utilize your
resources, create your campaignsand optimize those campaigns,
If you can, regularly.
I advise you to do that.
What two weeks, three weeks,just to make sure that you get
your data right?
(03:30):
It is something that you haveto be on top of.
It's not a set it and forget it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
What are the showstoppers that you see come
in when clients want to runGoogle ads and we sit down with
them and across from them andsay, hey, let's get started.
And Alcior then finds oh, thisis a problem, that is a problem,
that is a problem.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
The first showstopper , I would say, is not having a
proper budget.
Google Ads is a pay-per-clickplatform, right.
We want to make sure we haveenough clicks to actually
generate a call, a lead.
Whatever your conversion andwhatever your goal is Right.
That is the first thing youhave to, one again, analyze your
market, utilize the keywordplanner to actually tell you OK,
(04:07):
your clicks in your area are 15, 20 dollars per click.
You automatically should knowOK, this is not going to be a
cheap thing, let's invest Right.
So we want to make sure thatthat is the first thing.
Another thing is not havingclear goals or clear
expectations.
As I mentioned previously,google Ads is something that
takes time to build and it'ssomething that actually needs
(04:29):
that little elbow grease for usto actually find a really good
audience and locate what needsto convert and what is
converting well and not so well.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
This is not advertising.
This is organic marketing.
You can't pay Google for thetop spots on Google Maps Very
similar to the old schoolwebsite organic ranking.
Underneath the map you'll find10 and now infinite scrolls show
you infinite results, but theyare ranked based on relevance of
(05:02):
the query and based on how wellthe website functions.
It's very similar to that.
That's the old school organicranking.
You can't pay for it.
Reviews are also part of theprominence factor on Google
Business Profile.
So another way to get betterranking on local map for your
(05:23):
GBP is to get more reviews andpositive reviews.
The more positive reviews youget, your rating is going to get
better and Google is going tosee that Consistency, recency of
reviews.
They're seeing that thatconsistency, recency of reviews.
They're seeing that they'regoing to give preferential
treatment to businesses that areconsistently getting new and
positive reviews.
(05:44):
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
That is because Google wants to see that the
business is engaging andcontinuing to curate an
excellent and outstanding userexperience.
They're not interested in thebusiness that just has a
thousand people who have saidgreat things a year ago.
Google is interested inverifying that your business, to
our audience and listeners, iscontinuing to provide that
(06:07):
experience.
So it's not about quantity asmuch as it is about consistency.
All of a sudden, companies likeHomeAdvisor and Angela start
popping out, ranking really welland grabbing dollars from the
marketplace and they start doingwell and Google's over here
like man.
We have a problem.
People are using our searchengine to go over to HomeAdvisor
and how we need to fix this,and so they come up with a
(06:29):
really, really brave and boldsolution.
They come up with this platformcalled Local Services Ads.
Now, local Services Ads wasoriginally launched in 2015.
Very small test markets, verylimited amount of categories.
Local Services Ads we'll put agraphic on your screen right now
is basically, as we've coveredthe very top of the screen you
pay to get calls.
(06:50):
It's trusted advertising.
Your background check, yourlicense check.
This is the best of the best.
And instead of HomeAdvisor andAngie's List right where you're
all bidding for the samefrustrated customer that just
wants to get somebody to helpthem.
Local services ads is reallyinteresting.
It offers a real at-bat, aphone call with the customer.
This customer potentialcustomer is calling you, you
(07:11):
know, wanting to do businesswith you.
Let's go back to our AC repairexample.
If all of you listening andwatching you don't know what
this is yet, simply go on yourphone and type in AC repair near
me.
You'll start to see theseGoogle guaranteed ads at the top
.
This is a better answer.
People, you can dispute badcalls.
You can save your money.
The same lead isn't gettingsent to 50 other people.
What Henry and I are saying isthat if you're a plumber, if
(07:32):
you're an electrician, if you'rean HVAC towing company, funeral
service, you're a traditionalservice-based medium business.
You want to now run localservices ads.
Those calls are going to becheaper, they're going to be
more accessible, they're goingto be better.
But you don't want to forgetabout Google Ads.
Local services ads is just onelayer at the top and we all know
that to have the best chance ofsucceeding in this game, we got
(07:54):
to show our business name loudand proud on every advertising
layer that we can afford to bein.
There's LSA at the top.
There's Google ads.
There's Google business profile, the maps.
What makes being on Meta so muchmore intimate?
Everyone so much more special?
On Google you're meeting yourcustomers where the
transactability is.
You're meeting them for a call,you know.
You're meeting them for amessage.
(08:14):
You're meeting them for atransaction a click on meta.
It's way more special than that.
You're meeting people wherethey're at, not just for the
transaction.
You're meeting them as who theyare.
Think about all the demographictargeting that had to happen
for Henry's wife to get that adright somewhere.
In setting up those Facebookads, whoever set them up had to
highlight OK, hey, I'm lookingfor maybe female age between
(08:37):
so-and-so, who lives so-and-so,who enjoys this, different
interests, different tasteprofiles.
They are really whittling downinto who the person is to be
able to target them, to showthem that ad and then ultimately
end up in that transaction.
That is a level of granularity.
It's a level of specificity interms of the audience targeting
guys that is unparalleled.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
You need to be on TripAdvisor if you're a
restaurant or a hotel.
You need to be on Houzz ifyou're a home service right,
there's so many places that youneed to be.
So you got to really cover theboard.
Google, Facebook, Instagram weshouldn't even mention that.
That's obvious.
You should always be there andyou should have all of that
information synced up.
Always be there and you shouldhave all of that information
(09:20):
synced up.
Same name, address, phonenumber, same categories, same
services, same logos, samephotos, same URLs, because
Google, meta and users are alllooking for those signals.
Right For that to be consistentacross the board.
If me, as a user, if I start onGoogle and then I want to see
what they're posting on Facebookand the name is even slightly
different, I'm going to bequestioning.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And I think it's fair to say that's the most Google
has been challenged, kind ofsince they won the internet war
way back in the day for a kindof search engine dominance, if
you will.
And now, all of a sudden youknow this open AI coming into
the fray with ChatGPT was thefirst significant, successful
disruption that has been posedto Google is how I would phrase
that and you're really seeingthem start to double up and
(10:04):
understand that risk and thenput a lot of resources and
iterate and adapt, respond veryquickly.
So it's certainly aninteresting time to watch this
unfold and it's only a goodthing.
When these big tech giantsfight us consumers and marketers
and technologists, we winbecause we get better technology
as a result of their beef.
Before, when we were talkingabout websites, it was already
(10:26):
paramount.
It was already super critical.
Now it's even more importantbecause your website, the
criticality of having that SEOin good standing, having your a
good functioning website outthere, cannot be understated.
This means that you can getmore visibility, not just across
the internet that you're usedto, but more expansively also
across AI platforms that arealso going to leverage how good
(10:49):
your website is as an authorityfactor in that search to display
you or not.
The website is absolutelyparamount, even more so in the
age of AI.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
In the illustration you talked about with changing
your oil.
It's the same thing, I like tosay I stay in my lane.
I tell people that all the time, as in, if you are a
professional in your area, missHairdresser, I'm going to go to
you and let you do what you dobest so I can do what I do best.
Right, and it's the same thing.
It's like we're all gifted andtalented in our own areas.
You know what you're good at.
(11:20):
For the business owner, yourfocus is running your company.
You're good at that.
You have a passion for that.
You're putting your money andyour time and your investment in
that, so do that.
But that might not come alongwith the skills that you need to
have a marketing componentthat's efficient and effective
for your business.
So what do you do?
Like I say, I stay in my lane.
As a business owner, I wouldsay let me find someone that
(11:43):
knows all of the things, because, as you said, in 2024, so many
things change Everything, all ofthese different platforms that
you wanna get a part of.
They're making changesconstantly.
As a business owner, I don'thave time, and so it's important
for you to stay focused on thethings that again matter to you
that you have the time for that,you have the passion for what
you want to do at the end of theday, and let professionals kind
(12:05):
of take over the rest.
Cheaper isn't always necessarilybetter.
I want you to always understandthat Cheaper isn't always
necessarily better and moreexpensive isn't necessarily
better either.
However, you have to beprepared to pay something.
I have to put this out therebecause a lot of times SMBs are
just companies period.
Sometimes there's anexpectation that the price
(12:28):
should be way down here for youto get here.
The expectations like if wejust talk about this elephant in
the room.
Sometimes the expectations area bit higher for what you're
willing to pay.
And there's a saying that wehave in the Caribbean.
I'm originally from the Bahamasand so we say scared money
don't make money.
Scared money don't make money.
(12:48):
I said if you're scared tospend money, you're more than
likely you're not gonna make alot of money.
Because you have to understandit's an investment, your
business.
You are investing in yourbusiness because you know you're
going to get that return onyour investment.
So it's important for you tounderstand that you are going to
have to spend money when youuse an agency, let's make sure
(13:09):
you let it.
It's not free, just like youdon't give, you know, your
services for free.
You're doing something.
You expect to be compensated.
It's the same with agencies,but they charge.
It's them that we charge.
Why is that?
Because of the people, becauseof the process, because of the
product.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Google is actually going to transition what they
call smart campaigns intoperformance max campaigns.
Now, smart campaigns are whatwas once called these simple ads
that you just click on andclick off, very limited in their
optimization and what you cando.
Now Google has understood thatthere's no reason to have that
(13:47):
type of ad type.
They're going to transition toperformance max campaigns
because it does the same thingand more.
It offers AI capabilities,right Optimization.
They're looking at audiencesmore.
They're looking at keywordphrases instead of specific
keywords.
You can get granular with thisinformation, but what Google is
(14:10):
doing is they're just usingtheir high, very influential AI
the AI that has access to all ofthe data on the internet for
the past 25 years and they'reapplying that to their Google
ads layer.
The user needs to know thesethings.
The business owner needs toknow how to optimize for that
(14:31):
user so that everybody's happy,and I think that's what Google's
ultimate goal is.
And even though they arecriticized for having all types
of privacy violations or thingslike that, I think their
ultimate goal is high qualitysearch results, high quality
advertising results for optimaluser experience.
(14:54):
Because I always say it, ifGoogle loses the user experience
war, then people are gonnachange to Bing.
People are gonna change todifferent search engine and chat
.
Gpt is coming with a searchengine, right everything.
Everybody is coming at theirheels, so they can't slip.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Google business profile isn't strictly about
just the listing, but rather itencompasses directories.
There's also the website, whichis a huge dependency and
impacts the performance of theGoogle Business Profile.
So the first thing you need tounderstand is that it's not just
the Google Business Profile,but it's rather the Google
Business Profile plusdirectories, plus the website
(15:36):
and there are even more factorsI'm sure will come up as we get
through the course of thisconversation and we want to also
get away from this framework oftalking about Google Business
Profile as just calls orthinking about it as just calls.
I'm sure that's something thatyou see, elena.
On the client services side,it's all about those customer
engagements over time.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I mean phone calls are definitely important in what
most people look at because atthe end of the day, that's how
you can really tell if that wasa return on your investment.
But a lot of my most kind ofimportant ones and again you
kind of mentioned it it's reallykind of industry based.
You know, if you are, you know,maybe a bed and breakfast,
you're going to really want tofocus on those direction
requests you're going to want tofocus on, you know, those
(16:13):
website visits, those are goingto be really the two kind of
bigger ones, depending again onthat industry.
You know, if you are reallytrying to build up that brand
awareness, if you're running aspecial on your website, if
you're running anything you know, depending on trying to get
more traffic to your name, thosewebsite visits, again, the
direction requests, those aregoing to be kind of really
really two big big ones that Isee a lot.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Get this.
Now there's a machine listeningto every single call on the LSA
platform except the medicalverticals they're not allowed to
listen to that for HIPAA butlistening to every single call
and that system willautomatically determine if the
lead is charged or not charged.
So get this.
What it really means is youdon't have to go in there and
(16:54):
manually dispute your leadsanymore, because bad calls are
going to happen.
They happen on LSA, they happenon Google ads, they happen on
every.
No matter how well you setthese ads up, consumer behaviors
, consumer behavior you're goingto get bad calls.
That's reality.
The thing is, most of yourcalls will be good.
That'll make it worth it.
But now for those slim chunk ofbad calls, you don't have to do
anything.
You just have to pay attention.
Number one, see which ones aregetting automatically credited,
(17:17):
and I kind of lied there withnot doing anything.
Part B of this update is alsorating your leads.
So instead of going in thereand manually disputing your
leads, now I want you all tothink of interfacing with this
giant smart robot.
I'm joking, but same premiseYou're now interacting with the
machine.
Machine learning and AI arehere, guys, and it's here in LSA
(17:38):
on a big way.
Now you can teach that machinewhat you know why was it good or
bad?
So on and so forth and thatwill, in theory, influence your
leads in the future.
So this is a big step for tech.
Customer behavior is changingand you know people want.
They want to have their cakeand eat it too, and that's
getting harder to do with theolder approaches, man, and so we
(17:59):
got to adapt.
And is it going to beuncomfortable at first?
Sure, are we going to learn andget better as this tech refines
?
Heck, yeah, I can't imagine howgood Google's automatic
crediting for local services adsis going to be in two to three
years, how refined and efficientperformance max campaigns will
be in two to three years.
Are they perfect now?
No, that's not what we'resaying.
We're saying that they're here,they're important and they're
(18:22):
going to get better.
Here's what's going on.
By November 21st, businessesmust have a GBP Google Business
Profile in order to run localservices ads.
That is absolutely massive.
For all the years that localservices has been on here, gbp
has never been a strictrequirement.
You needed one review to get byfor most industries on local
(18:46):
services ads.
You need a handful more reviewsfor certain industries, like
roofers, but you've never neededthe GBP.
And now, all of a sudden,several years later, your LSA is
not going to run if your GBP isnot verified.
Massive, massive, massiveimplications.
We designed these solutions,some of our products,
specifically around this problem.
It's like, hey, gbp, lsa, let'spackage, package them together,
(19:07):
let's deal with these issueshead on.
We see that they haveimplications concerning one
another.
If you lose your gbp reviews,your lsa will get impacted.
Now that's just even moremagnified.
That's even more of a biggerdeal.
I know our clients are beingwell taken care of, but, um, I'm
worried about those people thatare not.
You know, don't have someonelike us in their corner, because
now your call volume canpotentially disappear.
(19:29):
Not to be an alarmist, but it'strue.
If you need those leads to eat,like you said, henry, that's
food off of your table.
So if you want someone thatgenuinely, genuinely lives, eats
, breathes this, someone thatcares about you and knows what
they're doing, come talk to us,because if you lose one, you can
lose the other at this point,because if your GBP goes down,
heck, your LSA is going to godown too, as far as we
(19:50):
understood it, on November 21st,google Local Service ads would
only run if you had a verifiedGBP.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Now I believe that date was rolled back.
Right, ajay.
Why do you think they announcedsomething publicly with a
different date, only to roll itback?
Even with working with anagency man, even with working
with people that know whatthey're announce something
publicly with a different date,only to roll it back.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Even with working with an agency man, even with
working with people that knowwhat they're doing, google
business profile issues are notalways easier or fast to fix,
depending on what's going on.
If you're having issues withthat verification, it can take
some time, it can take weeksright, and so I think Google is
trying to walk a fine linebetween adding more trust into
(20:29):
their system basically havingpeople be who they say they are
on maps, on LSA, and have thatall be verified, and also not
being too harsh and tooaggressive to where they're
penalizing people.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
The best time to plant a tree was five years ago,
so you have to act now.
Early bird gets the worm Rightnow for towing specifically, as
we saw for many other industriesin the past, the early adopter,
the person, the advertiserthat's always there, the only
advertiser there, is going toget all the phone calls, and
(21:04):
with towing, it's an emergencyservice.
Everybody has a car.
Everybody ends up needing atowing provider at some point.
So you want to be on top.
You need to be on top.
You're my hero.
I see you tonight.
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