September 4, 2024 • 22 mins
Google Business Profile (GBP) is more important than ever in 2024, but it's NOT just about the listing! 🤯 In this episode of Google Business Buzz, Ajay and Henry sit down with OMG National's digital marketing specialist, Aleyna, to unpack the TRUTH about organic traffic and how to dominate local search. 💥
Get insider perspectives on:
The surprising truth about Google's prominence factor. 🤫
How Google uses directories and websites to rank your business (and why consistency is KEY!) 🗝️
Why AI is a game-changer for local SEO and how to use it to your advantage. 🤖
The importance of reviews, photos, and other customer actions in boosting your GBP performance. 📈
And much more!
Plus, Aleyna shares real-world client examples and actionable strategies you can implement TODAY! 💪
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction 👋
0:48 What is Google Business Profile (GBP)? 🕵️
2:18 - 3:08 🤯 BIGGEST Mistake Businesses Make: Assuming Google only cares about the GBP listing!
5:06 - 5:38 🤯 GBP in 2024: It's Not What You Think! The expanded scope of Google Business Profile.
6:06 - 7:18 🤯 Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket: Why an omni-channel approach is critical for GBP.
8:42 Real-world client examples & insights. 💼
11:17 - 11:44 🤯 Why Most Businesses FAIL at GBP: The hidden challenges & how to overcome them!
12:18 The power of client contributions: reviews & photos. 🤝
14:41 - 15:28 🤯 The Shocking Truth About Photos: Why they matter MORE than you think!
21:48 - 22:35 🤯 It's a FIGHT! Why customer service is CRITICAL for GBP success.
**Don't forget to like, subscribe and hit the notification bell to stay updated on all things Google Business!**🔔
#googlemybusiness #gbp #localSEO #organictraffic #digitalmarketing #businesstips #2024 #OMGNational #expertinsights #seostrategy
Google Business Buzz Podcast
Brought to you by:
OMG National
www.omgnational.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of the
Google Business Buzz.
As always, I'm Ajay, I'm joinedby my colleague and friend,
henry Heredia, and we've got avery special guest with us today
.
We are joined by our very ownElena.
Now, elena, I'll let youintroduce yourself a little bit,
tell our viewers a little bitabout you and what you do here
(00:43):
at OMG.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
Hi guys, how are you doingtoday?
I am our digital marketingspecialist here, so I am our
account rep, and I've been hereabout four years or so already.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Awesome Four years of experience being on the ground
with real clients.
We're super excited to bringyou guys perspective from
someone that's talking toclients every single day and
helping them navigate thislandscape.
And in tandem with that, we'vegot a really cool topic.
We've talked about paidadvertising.
This month we're excited tofocus on the Google Business
(01:14):
Profile, or GBP for short.
This is a loaded and packedtopic because this is a super
valuable platform which almostall of our clients are on, or
many of them are on.
It ends up being a very popularstarting package for a number
of reasons which we're going toget into.
So, henry, we've got the manhimself, the product manager for
(01:38):
the GBP and organic productshere at OMG.
What is up with GBP in 2024?
How is this platform becomingmore and more relevant to our
small businesses every day whodepend on it?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Hey, jay Elena, thank you so much for joining us
today and to all of ourlisteners and viewers, thanks
for joining us as well.
So, yes, google Business Proorganics right, google organics.
How we define organics is thatyou're not paying for looking
(02:10):
with intent, right, and theintent is what drives people to
go into Google and say, hey, Ineed to know what the best pizza
(02:34):
around my neighborhood is right.
And then you go into the GoogleMaps and Google is looking for
that search engine results pageto be very relevant to that user
intent.
Why does it do this?
Because Google wants them tocontinue to use that platform.
If Google starts giving usersbad results, then people are
(02:57):
going to stop using them.
They're going to go to Bing,they're going to go to Yahoo.
But organic still is a veryimportant tool in the marketing
arsenal, but not the only one.
We know that consumer behavioris changing in 2024.
People are going to differentavenues to find out about
(03:19):
businesses right TikTok,facebook, instagram, snapchat.
We have the meta extendednetwork, right their display
network, which includes a bunchof other websites, google's own
display and extended network,which, for paid advertising,
includes a bunch of differentwebsites.
(03:39):
But now the organic side alsoincludes a bunch of different
websites, because we know that alocal business needs to be on
Google Maps, right, there's noif, ands or buts.
But how do they climb the ranksof Google Maps?
Right?
And that's touching on thethree local ranking factors the
(04:03):
relevance, the distance and theprominence.
And Google mentions directoriesin that prominence factor.
This is a Google article.
You can look it up yourself.
I'm not making this up.
This is public for everyone toread and to create their own
methodology around.
This is how we baked ourmethodology to create their own
(04:26):
methodology around.
This is how we baked ourmethodology.
And through prominence, we knowthat Google is indexing these
different directory sites, likeYelp, like Better Business
Bureau, like Chamber of Commerce, mapquest, even Apple Business
Connect, even Bing, right?
All of these different sites,these different platforms, have
(04:47):
to do not only with the Googleranking, but where people are
making their decisions.
We never know where that'sgoing to happen, right?
So that's the importance in2024 of organics.
You got to be everywhere, yougot to cast a large net and then
reel them in.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And I think you just flipped the idea of GBP on its
head To everyone watching andlistening.
Who is maybe less familiar withGoogle Business Profile, you
would have thought okay, they'retalking about the Maps listing.
And what we've just said isthat, no, google Business
Profile isn't strictly aboutjust the listing, but rather it
encompasses directories.
There's also the website, whichis a huge dependency and
(05:29):
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,
and there are even more factorsthat I'm sure will come up as we
get through the course of thisconversation.
And so understanding that userjourney, that customer journey,
(05:51):
is going to be very important tounderstanding why these things
matter, and I think we've got agood example on deck to perhaps
start that conversation.
So there's one client we wantedto focus on today.
Henry, you want to talk alittle bit about our highlighted
example.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Thanks, ajay, I do.
I do want to talk about them.
We have a great little bed andbreakfast client here in tourist
area of the United States.
They not only do they get a lotof traction from the Google
business profile, but they'regetting traction from a bunch of
(06:28):
other different websites likeTripAdvisor.
Why TripAdvisor?
Because it's still superrelevant to users that are
looking to plan a trip and thisis the perfect destination for
that.
Yelp, bing, duckduckgo, right.
So Google is still the mostimportant website and search
(06:51):
engine out there, but people arestarting to look for
alternatives, and DuckDuckGo,bing, yahoo have had an increase
in their market share with whathappened with the COVID
pandemic.
So after that, after thepandemic, people started to look
for alternatives and we can seethis in the market share
(07:15):
decrease for Google and increasefor the other ones.
We're also seeing that for thisclient particularly, they're
getting phone calls, directionrequests and emails directly
from their website.
After visiting the directorieson Yelp, people are going to the
website to actually make theirbookings and that is what really
(07:39):
gives us a lot of the valuewith the website.
We also know that with thelatest Google leak, we know how
important traffic is to awebsite.
Google is looking at real people, real users, going to a
specific website, and if itdoesn't have traffic, then it
(08:01):
devalues the rank.
They also look at bounce rate.
They look at engagement withinthe website all of these things
and how do they do that?
They do that through their ownplatforms like Google Analytics.
If you have it installed, it'sgoing to help you rank because
they're using it to rank you.
So all of these things areextremely important to keep in
(08:24):
mind and to become educated asmarketing and digital marketing
changes, and I wanted to ask you, elena, what are your clients
and small businesses out therein the real world?
What are they saying and howare they impacted by updates
(08:44):
that we see all the time?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the biggestthings I hear and intend to see
is a lot of people are tellingthem we found your business from
Google, but there's so manydifferent platforms.
Like you guys are mentioninghow they found their business,
did they find their websiteprofile, did they find them
through all these listings,through an advertising product?
(09:07):
And, at the end of the day,most of them are finding their
website organically.
They're finding it through thebusiness profile.
They're finding them throughall of those general listings
that we're mentioning.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Awesome.
That's good feedback.
And it was yesterday one of ourcolleagues, not yesterday.
On Tuesday, one of ourcolleagues from the advertising
department shout out to Corey.
He mentioned something superimportant, which is with Google
Ads, especially with PerformanceMax and display campaigns.
You might not get theconversion come in through the
(09:41):
social media, through thedirectory listings, through the
actual website or the GBP, andGoogle Ads doesn't always count
(10:01):
for those conversions, but thisis the omni-channel right.
This is the omni-channelapproach because consumers are
behaving differently in 2024.
Things are changing.
People are becoming more savvy.
Ai is helping people getquestions answered that were
(10:23):
very much difficult before.
You needed a research assistantto get things answered.
Now that you know, ai Gemini'sto that level and it can
research things, give you links,and that's why consumers are
changing right, and as youngerconsumers become business owners
(10:44):
, they also need to change.
What would you say, ajay, here?
What is your reaction?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
What would you say, jay, here, what is your reaction
?
I'm really so.
I see lots of change, both inhow, in what Google is focusing
on and how that affects oursmall to medium-sized client
base, but also in terms of howwe're speaking to it and
following along as a company,because we are very much aligned
with Google.
We know this landscape ischanging.
We know it's more of anaudience and interest-based
(11:13):
landscape than ever before, andI think that the first thing my
mind goes to is that this isvery potentially challenging for
a small to medium-sizedbusiness that just thinks
they're signing on with us forGoogle Business Profile because
it's going to rank higher,they're going to get more
customer engagement.
Simple, simple.
(11:35):
Well, it's not so simpleanymore and there's a lot that
goes into it.
We talked about the relevance,distance, prominence.
We talked about the directories.
We talked about the website,elena.
That's a huge expectation pillto swallow, potentially, and I
want to understand how theseexpectations are in the real
world.
When clients come to us, how doyou sell them the story that
they need desperately tounderstand about everything that
we put into it and why that'simportant for them?
(11:55):
What do these earlyconversations look like?
What are they not understanding?
What's challenging, what arethe humps you have to get over?
Talk to us a little bit aboutwhat that's like in the real
world.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
A lot of my clients forgetabout the collective effort that
really comes with all of theselistings of making sure
everything is up to date, makingsure that all of the business
hours the information is correct, because a lot of them think,
you know, oh well, everyone'sgoing to Google, we're not going
to Bing.
But at the end of the day, it'snot just you know users that
are going to these listings,it's Google as well that's
(12:28):
indexing them, they're taking alook at them.
So we have to make sure thisbusiness information is correct
overall, again, not just foruser value, but for Google, who
is looking for this information,so they can then show them
those websites, they can showthem the business profile.
They feel confident that thisis the correct information, they
are the most relevant to theperson searching, so they're
going to show them that business.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Well articulated, so it sounds like hurdle.
One can potentially be talkingabout the importance of the
listings and then it's probablypretty cool to get to show those
listings grow over time interms of value produced from
them.
What about client contribution,elena?
Because I feel like with paidads there's an expectation that
they put up a budget.
Clients do, and the phone juststarts ringing off the hook and
(13:09):
that's it.
Life is good.
Sure, there's rating andmarking your calls and other
pieces of feedback there, orclient input, but for organic
specifically, I feel as thoughthe feedback, the contribution
required, is a lot higher.
What does that contributionlook like in 2024?
What is our ideal clientbringing to the table for a GDP
(13:29):
product?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, absolutely, and again it's just going back to.
It's a really cheesy metaphorand I use it all the time for my
clients kind of helps themunderstand.
But I always say your businessand your Google business profile
are essentially friends.
When you guys are firststarting out, google doesn't
know who you are, google doesn'tknow what services you offer,
they don't know about yourbusiness, they don't know really
(13:51):
anything.
So it's kind of up to us tobuild that up.
But for client contribution wehave to then give real life
examples and the biggest part ofthat is going to be business
reviews.
The reviews really do play areally big feature in that and
that's really kind of what I hitthe most is reviews and then,
of course, business photos.
You know people really want tosee the visual side of things.
(14:12):
We're just, you know, puttingreviews up there.
We're putting, you know,different posts, things like
that, up there.
There has to be some type ofvisual aspect and the biggest
hurdle for me is really kind ofshowing them how important a
photo is, because at the end ofthe day you don't really think
you know why is a photoimportant to be added to a
business profile?
It's just a picture, you knowof an HVAC unit.
It's just a picture of afurnace.
But at the end of the day itgoes back to that collective
(14:34):
effort of showing Google.
We are doing these jobs, peopleare happy with them.
Look at all these reviews thatwe got.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Oh, so important.
You said it.
You said it right.
Why?
Clients when I was a DMS aswell, clients would always say
what do you mean?
Pictures?
Use the ones that I gave you.
They gave me five at thebeginning of the relationship,
ones that I gave you.
They gave me five at thebeginning of the relationship.
No, mr Client, the reasonGoogle needs those pictures is
(15:02):
because it can see thosepictures.
It has AI in the background.
It has had vision AI in thebackground for years now.
We're just now realizing it andit can actually see what that
picture has.
And if you use the same pictureon your website and on the
other directories, it's going tosync it up.
It's going to say, hey, thisbusiness is actually, you know,
doing what it says it's doingand it's giving us authentic
(15:25):
content and it's consistentthroughout our indexing network.
So let's bump it up on thatlocal ranking.
Great, great summary, greatgreat.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And you alluded to it , henry, but you said and to the
indexing network.
But it's not just the Googlebusiness profile where some of
these images are being seeded to, but it's all across the
internet through variousdirectories.
So why don't you talk to us alittle bit, henry, about what
type of information is beingpushed across these directories?
Give us a sense of scale, howbig this network is.
What's being pushed to itbesides images?
What else are we updating upthere?
And get a sense of what'sreally going on behind the
(16:04):
scenes that our clients benefitfrom every day?
As it's relevant to thelistings, Right.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Well, google, in the prominence factor, mentions
directories right.
But why does it mentiondirectories?
Because it needs it to have thesame name, address, phone
number, categories, services asit does on the GBP.
Think about it as a creditscore.
If Experian sees that your nameis Henry Heredia, but the other
(16:32):
ones see me as Henry M Heredia,then who am I?
Am I Henry Heredia or am IHenry M Heredia?
And that brings down my score?
Same thing with Google.
If they see that the businessname is incorrect on different
listings and not the correct onethat they have, they're going
to devalue that ranking score.
(16:52):
We have to make sure that thename is in sync across the board
and it has to look like it doesin the real world.
That's what Google wants.
Google wants to basicallyrecreate the real world in their
digital world with prominence,right?
That's why, if you look atGoogle Maps, you'll be able to
see landmarks, museums, thingslike that really easy.
(17:16):
They have built-in prominencebecause everybody knows about
them already.
The prominence that we have tobuild is for those businesses.
Like Elena said, google needsto get to learn about that
business and that's when thetrust happens.
They can't be friends withouttrust, so we need to give them
that trust and you talk about ittoo in your LSA layer, right,
(17:37):
it's all about trust.
So definitely, definitely, it'simportant to have that same
information, consistent, sameattributes, the same website
link, because you never knowwhen, where they're going to
come from right.
What if they are on Yelp?
There's a lot of users on Yelplooking for businesses, looking
(18:00):
for restaurants, looking forHVAC companies and towers, and
if they find your informationcorrectly, they're going to find
you and they're going to reachout to you.
It's not just Google anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Well said, it's not just Google anymore.
And with respect to thedirectories, not all directories
are equally important,depending on the industry.
So, when you think about whatgoes into a product that's going
to power the foundation of youronline presence, you got to
think about directories and, inline with that, you got to think
about core data architecturename, address, phone number, nap
(18:29):
, as Henry stated.
Now, along with the core dataarchitecture and all that good
stuff, you also got to thinkabout okay, well, this is simple
enough.
I'm going to OMG, national oranother agency because I want
more organic calls.
It's not that simple, guys.
So think about commonoperational things that happen
over the course of running abusiness.
Say, you have an address changeor something similar.
(18:49):
You change locations.
Well, not only do you need toupdate that on Google Business
Profile, you're going to have togo and update that across all
your directories.
Otherwise, what?
Otherwise, your rank is goingto suffer, your presence is
going to suffer and yourcustomer engagements are going
to suffer.
And we want to also get awayfrom this framework of talking
about Google Business Profile asjust calls or thinking about it
as just calls.
(19:10):
I'm sure that's something thatyou see, elena, on the client
services side.
It's all about those customerengagements over time, which can
be many things.
Elena, why don't you tell us alittle bit about the different
types of customer actions thatclients can expect from GBP?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, I mean phone calls are definitely important
in what most people look atbecause at the end of the day
that's how you can really tellif that was a 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.
If you are maybe a bed andbreakfast, you're going to
really want to focus on thosedirection requests.
(19:44):
You're going to want to focuson those website visits.
Those are going to be reallythe two kind of bigger ones,
depending again on that industry.
If you are really trying tobuild up that brand awareness,
if you're running a special onyour website, if you're running
anything you know depending onyou know trying to get more
traffic to your name, thosewebsite visits, again, the
direction requests, those aregoing to be kind of really
(20:05):
really two big big ones that Isee a lot 100% and, like with
anything else, at the end of theday, if you can't measure it,
you can't really speak to it,and so a really cool tool we
have to look at rank at a bird'seye view are our rank grids.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
We're going to put an image of that up on the screen,
but this really allows you tosee how your business is
changing month over month,quarter over quarter.
And obviously the intent withany good product methodology is
to have the product performbetter over time and with GBP,
simple enough it's.
If we do our methodology workreally hard, you should be able
to see, feel those gains, bothin customer actions as well as
(20:42):
your rank over time.
And, as Elena alluded to, thoseKPIs, those metrics, what we
focus on is going to be a littlebit different depending on your
industry, depending on yourvertical.
Different customer engagementswill have different value to you
based on who you are, whichisn't entirely sensible.
So overall, henry, it's a lotof ground.
We've covered a lot of goodground on GDP.
Why don't you wrap it up andtake us away?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Sure will.
So just wanted to say before wewrap up definitely agree with
phone calls being an importantmetric and the other metrics
being extremely important aswell, but we have to think about
how competitive all businesshas become now in 2024.
And if you are getting phonecalls through your listings,
(21:26):
organically, through yourwebsite, or even paying for them
, you have to work them.
You have to work to close thesale.
You have to try and be polite,give that user the greatest
experience possible and closethe sale.
What I see is you know clients,our clients.
They pay us to give themtraffic.
(21:47):
Right, we can't close a dealfor them.
We're not on that other side ofthe phone helping them close
the deal, a deal for them.
We're not on that other side ofthe phone helping them close
the deal.
But there are a lot of otherpeople that are doing the same
services out there competingwith them, and consumers are
(22:09):
savvy, they're changing, they'relooking for businesses that not
only can do what they'relooking for with expertise, but
also that they're nice to dealwith, right and that they can
rely on them and they have goodreviews and all that good stuff
that we talked about today.
But I just want to reinforcethe fact that business owners
need to fight to close theirdeals because there's a lot of
competition out there.
And that's the beauty ofAmerica, right?
(22:30):
We live in a capitalist societywhere everyone has the
opportunity to grow.
Thank you, elena, so much forjoining us today.
Jay, thanks again.
Thank you everyone forlistening and watching.
Love you all.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Hi, thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Thanks, elena, see everyone.
Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of the
Google Business Buzz.
As always, I'm Ajay, I'm joinedby my colleague and friend,
henry Heredia, and we've got avery special guest with us today
.
We are joined by our very ownElena.
Now, elena, I'll let youintroduce yourself a little bit,
tell our viewers a little bitabout you and what you do here
(00:43):
at OMG.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
Hi guys, how are you doingtoday?
I am our digital marketingspecialist here, so I am our
account rep, and I've been hereabout four years or so already.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Awesome Four years of experience being on the ground
with real clients.
We're super excited to bringyou guys perspective from
someone that's talking toclients every single day and
helping them navigate thislandscape.
And in tandem with that, we'vegot a really cool topic.
We've talked about paidadvertising.
This month we're excited tofocus on the Google Business
(01:14):
Profile, or GBP for short.
This is a loaded and packedtopic because this is a super
valuable platform which almostall of our clients are on, or
many of them are on.
It ends up being a very popularstarting package for a number
of reasons which we're going toget into.
So, henry, we've got the manhimself, the product manager for
(01:38):
the GBP and organic productshere at OMG.
What is up with GBP in 2024?
How is this platform becomingmore and more relevant to our
small businesses every day whodepend on it?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Hey, jay Elena, thank you so much for joining us
today and to all of ourlisteners and viewers, thanks
for joining us as well.
So, yes, google Business Proorganics right, google organics.
How we define organics is thatyou're not paying for looking
(02:10):
with intent, right, and theintent is what drives people to
go into Google and say, hey, Ineed to know what the best pizza
(02:34):
around my neighborhood is right.
And then you go into the GoogleMaps and Google is looking for
that search engine results pageto be very relevant to that user
intent.
Why does it do this?
Because Google wants them tocontinue to use that platform.
If Google starts giving usersbad results, then people are
(02:57):
going to stop using them.
They're going to go to Bing,they're going to go to Yahoo.
But organic still is a veryimportant tool in the marketing
arsenal, but not the only one.
We know that consumer behavioris changing in 2024.
People are going to differentavenues to find out about
(03:19):
businesses right TikTok,facebook, instagram, snapchat.
We have the meta extendednetwork, right their display
network, which includes a bunchof other websites, google's own
display and extended network,which, for paid advertising,
includes a bunch of differentwebsites.
(03:39):
But now the organic side alsoincludes a bunch of different
websites, because we know that alocal business needs to be on
Google Maps, right, there's noif, ands or buts.
But how do they climb the ranksof Google Maps?
Right?
And that's touching on thethree local ranking factors the
(04:03):
relevance, the distance and theprominence.
And Google mentions directoriesin that prominence factor.
This is a Google article.
You can look it up yourself.
I'm not making this up.
This is public for everyone toread and to create their own
methodology around.
This is how we baked ourmethodology to create their own
(04:26):
methodology around.
This is how we baked ourmethodology.
And through prominence, we knowthat Google is indexing these
different directory sites, likeYelp, like Better Business
Bureau, like Chamber of Commerce, mapquest, even Apple Business
Connect, even Bing, right?
All of these different sites,these different platforms, have
(04:47):
to do not only with the Googleranking, but where people are
making their decisions.
We never know where that'sgoing to happen, right?
So that's the importance in2024 of organics.
You got to be everywhere, yougot to cast a large net and then
reel them in.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And I think you just flipped the idea of GBP on its
head To everyone watching andlistening.
Who is maybe less familiar withGoogle Business Profile, you
would have thought okay, they'retalking about the Maps listing.
And what we've just said isthat, no, google Business
Profile isn't strictly aboutjust the listing, but rather it
encompasses directories.
There's also the website, whichis a huge dependency and
(05:29):
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,
and there are even more factorsthat I'm sure will come up as we
get through the course of thisconversation.
And so understanding that userjourney, that customer journey,
(05:51):
is going to be very important tounderstanding why these things
matter, and I think we've got agood example on deck to perhaps
start that conversation.
So there's one client we wantedto focus on today.
Henry, you want to talk alittle bit about our highlighted
example.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Thanks, ajay, I do.
I do want to talk about them.
We have a great little bed andbreakfast client here in tourist
area of the United States.
They not only do they get a lotof traction from the Google
business profile, but they'regetting traction from a bunch of
(06:28):
other different websites likeTripAdvisor.
Why TripAdvisor?
Because it's still superrelevant to users that are
looking to plan a trip and thisis the perfect destination for
that.
Yelp, bing, duckduckgo, right.
So Google is still the mostimportant website and search
(06:51):
engine out there, but people arestarting to look for
alternatives, and DuckDuckGo,bing, yahoo have had an increase
in their market share with whathappened with the COVID
pandemic.
So after that, after thepandemic, people started to look
for alternatives and we can seethis in the market share
(07:15):
decrease for Google and increasefor the other ones.
We're also seeing that for thisclient particularly, they're
getting phone calls, directionrequests and emails directly
from their website.
After visiting the directorieson Yelp, people are going to the
website to actually make theirbookings and that is what really
(07:39):
gives us a lot of the valuewith the website.
We also know that with thelatest Google leak, we know how
important traffic is to awebsite.
Google is looking at real people, real users, going to a
specific website, and if itdoesn't have traffic, then it
(08:01):
devalues the rank.
They also look at bounce rate.
They look at engagement withinthe website all of these things
and how do they do that?
They do that through their ownplatforms like Google Analytics.
If you have it installed, it'sgoing to help you rank because
they're using it to rank you.
So all of these things areextremely important to keep in
(08:24):
mind and to become educated asmarketing and digital marketing
changes, and I wanted to ask you, elena, what are your clients
and small businesses out therein the real world?
What are they saying and howare they impacted by updates
(08:44):
that we see all the time?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the biggestthings I hear and intend to see
is a lot of people are tellingthem we found your business from
Google, but there's so manydifferent platforms.
Like you guys are mentioninghow they found their business,
did they find their websiteprofile, did they find them
through all these listings,through an advertising product?
(09:07):
And, at the end of the day,most of them are finding their
website organically.
They're finding it through thebusiness profile.
They're finding them throughall of those general listings
that we're mentioning.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Awesome.
That's good feedback.
And it was yesterday one of ourcolleagues, not yesterday.
On Tuesday, one of ourcolleagues from the advertising
department shout out to Corey.
He mentioned something superimportant, which is with Google
Ads, especially with PerformanceMax and display campaigns.
You might not get theconversion come in through the
(09:41):
social media, through thedirectory listings, through the
actual website or the GBP, andGoogle Ads doesn't always count
(10:01):
for those conversions, but thisis the omni-channel right.
This is the omni-channelapproach because consumers are
behaving differently in 2024.
Things are changing.
People are becoming more savvy.
Ai is helping people getquestions answered that were
(10:23):
very much difficult before.
You needed a research assistantto get things answered.
Now that you know, ai Gemini'sto that level and it can
research things, give you links,and that's why consumers are
changing right, and as youngerconsumers become business owners
(10:44):
, they also need to change.
What would you say, ajay, here?
What is your reaction?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
What would you say, jay, here, what is your reaction
?
I'm really so.
I see lots of change, both inhow, in what Google is focusing
on and how that affects oursmall to medium-sized client
base, but also in terms of howwe're speaking to it and
following along as a company,because we are very much aligned
with Google.
We know this landscape ischanging.
We know it's more of anaudience and interest-based
(11:13):
landscape than ever before, andI think that the first thing my
mind goes to is that this isvery potentially challenging for
a small to medium-sizedbusiness that just thinks
they're signing on with us forGoogle Business Profile because
it's going to rank higher,they're going to get more
customer engagement.
Simple, simple.
(11:35):
Well, it's not so simpleanymore and there's a lot that
goes into it.
We talked about the relevance,distance, prominence.
We talked about the directories.
We talked about the website,elena.
That's a huge expectation pillto swallow, potentially, and I
want to understand how theseexpectations are in the real
world.
When clients come to us, how doyou sell them the story that
they need desperately tounderstand about everything that
we put into it and why that'simportant for them?
(11:55):
What do these earlyconversations look like?
What are they not understanding?
What's challenging, what arethe humps you have to get over?
Talk to us a little bit aboutwhat that's like in the real
world.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
A lot of my clients forgetabout the collective effort that
really comes with all of theselistings of making sure
everything is up to date, makingsure that all of the business
hours the information is correct, because a lot of them think,
you know, oh well, everyone'sgoing to Google, we're not going
to Bing.
But at the end of the day, it'snot just you know users that
are going to these listings,it's Google as well that's
(12:28):
indexing them, they're taking alook at them.
So we have to make sure thisbusiness information is correct
overall, again, not just foruser value, but for Google, who
is looking for this information,so they can then show them
those websites, they can showthem the business profile.
They feel confident that thisis the correct information, they
are the most relevant to theperson searching, so they're
going to show them that business.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Well articulated, so it sounds like hurdle.
One can potentially be talkingabout the importance of the
listings and then it's probablypretty cool to get to show those
listings grow over time interms of value produced from
them.
What about client contribution,elena?
Because I feel like with paidads there's an expectation that
they put up a budget.
Clients do, and the phone juststarts ringing off the hook and
(13:09):
that's it.
Life is good.
Sure, there's rating andmarking your calls and other
pieces of feedback there, orclient input, but for organic
specifically, I feel as thoughthe feedback, the contribution
required, is a lot higher.
What does that contributionlook like in 2024?
What is our ideal clientbringing to the table for a GDP
(13:29):
product?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, absolutely, and again it's just going back to.
It's a really cheesy metaphorand I use it all the time for my
clients kind of helps themunderstand.
But I always say your businessand your Google business profile
are essentially friends.
When you guys are firststarting out, google doesn't
know who you are, google doesn'tknow what services you offer,
they don't know about yourbusiness, they don't know really
(13:51):
anything.
So it's kind of up to us tobuild that up.
But for client contribution wehave to then give real life
examples and the biggest part ofthat is going to be business
reviews.
The reviews really do play areally big feature in that and
that's really kind of what I hitthe most is reviews and then,
of course, business photos.
You know people really want tosee the visual side of things.
(14:12):
We're just, you know, puttingreviews up there.
We're putting, you know,different posts, things like
that, up there.
There has to be some type ofvisual aspect and the biggest
hurdle for me is really kind ofshowing them how important a
photo is, because at the end ofthe day you don't really think
you know why is a photoimportant to be added to a
business profile?
It's just a picture, you knowof an HVAC unit.
It's just a picture of afurnace.
But at the end of the day itgoes back to that collective
(14:34):
effort of showing Google.
We are doing these jobs, peopleare happy with them.
Look at all these reviews thatwe got.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Oh, so important.
You said it.
You said it right.
Why?
Clients when I was a DMS aswell, clients would always say
what do you mean?
Pictures?
Use the ones that I gave you.
They gave me five at thebeginning of the relationship,
ones that I gave you.
They gave me five at thebeginning of the relationship.
No, mr Client, the reasonGoogle needs those pictures is
(15:02):
because it can see thosepictures.
It has AI in the background.
It has had vision AI in thebackground for years now.
We're just now realizing it andit can actually see what that
picture has.
And if you use the same pictureon your website and on the
other directories, it's going tosync it up.
It's going to say, hey, thisbusiness is actually, you know,
doing what it says it's doingand it's giving us authentic
(15:25):
content and it's consistentthroughout our indexing network.
So let's bump it up on thatlocal ranking.
Great, great summary, greatgreat.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And you alluded to it , henry, but you said and to the
indexing network.
But it's not just the Googlebusiness profile where some of
these images are being seeded to, but it's all across the
internet through variousdirectories.
So why don't you talk to us alittle bit, henry, about what
type of information is beingpushed across these directories?
Give us a sense of scale, howbig this network is.
What's being pushed to itbesides images?
What else are we updating upthere?
And get a sense of what'sreally going on behind the
(16:04):
scenes that our clients benefitfrom every day?
As it's relevant to thelistings, Right.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Well, google, in the prominence factor, mentions
directories right.
But why does it mentiondirectories?
Because it needs it to have thesame name, address, phone
number, categories, services asit does on the GBP.
Think about it as a creditscore.
If Experian sees that your nameis Henry Heredia, but the other
(16:32):
ones see me as Henry M Heredia,then who am I?
Am I Henry Heredia or am IHenry M Heredia?
And that brings down my score?
Same thing with Google.
If they see that the businessname is incorrect on different
listings and not the correct onethat they have, they're going
to devalue that ranking score.
(16:52):
We have to make sure that thename is in sync across the board
and it has to look like it doesin the real world.
That's what Google wants.
Google wants to basicallyrecreate the real world in their
digital world with prominence,right?
That's why, if you look atGoogle Maps, you'll be able to
see landmarks, museums, thingslike that really easy.
(17:16):
They have built-in prominencebecause everybody knows about
them already.
The prominence that we have tobuild is for those businesses.
Like Elena said, google needsto get to learn about that
business and that's when thetrust happens.
They can't be friends withouttrust, so we need to give them
that trust and you talk about ittoo in your LSA layer, right,
(17:37):
it's all about trust.
So definitely, definitely, it'simportant to have that same
information, consistent, sameattributes, the same website
link, because you never knowwhen, where they're going to
come from right.
What if they are on Yelp?
There's a lot of users on Yelplooking for businesses, looking
(18:00):
for restaurants, looking forHVAC companies and towers, and
if they find your informationcorrectly, they're going to find
you and they're going to reachout to you.
It's not just Google anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Well said, it's not just Google anymore.
And with respect to thedirectories, not all directories
are equally important,depending on the industry.
So, when you think about whatgoes into a product that's going
to power the foundation of youronline presence, you got to
think about directories and, inline with that, you got to think
about core data architecturename, address, phone number, nap
(18:29):
, as Henry stated.
Now, along with the core dataarchitecture and all that good
stuff, you also got to thinkabout okay, well, this is simple
enough.
I'm going to OMG, national oranother agency because I want
more organic calls.
It's not that simple, guys.
So think about commonoperational things that happen
over the course of running abusiness.
Say, you have an address changeor something similar.
(18:49):
You change locations.
Well, not only do you need toupdate that on Google Business
Profile, you're going to have togo and update that across all
your directories.
Otherwise, what?
Otherwise, your rank is goingto suffer, your presence is
going to suffer and yourcustomer engagements are going
to suffer.
And we want to also get awayfrom this framework of talking
about Google Business Profile asjust calls or thinking about it
as just calls.
(19:10):
I'm sure that's something thatyou see, elena, on the client
services side.
It's all about those customerengagements over time, which can
be many things.
Elena, why don't you tell us alittle bit about the different
types of customer actions thatclients can expect from GBP?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, I mean phone calls are definitely important
in what most people look atbecause at the end of the day
that's how you can really tellif that was a 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.
If you are maybe a bed andbreakfast, you're going to
really want to focus on thosedirection requests.
(19:44):
You're going to want to focuson those website visits.
Those are going to be reallythe two kind of bigger ones,
depending again on that industry.
If you are really trying tobuild up that brand awareness,
if you're running a special onyour website, if you're running
anything you know depending onyou know trying to get more
traffic to your name, thosewebsite visits, again, the
direction requests, those aregoing to be kind of really
(20:05):
really two big big ones that Isee a lot 100% and, like with
anything else, at the end of theday, if you can't measure it,
you can't really speak to it,and so a really cool tool we
have to look at rank at a bird'seye view are our rank grids.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
We're going to put an image of that up on the screen,
but this really allows you tosee how your business is
changing month over month,quarter over quarter.
And obviously the intent withany good product methodology is
to have the product performbetter over time and with GBP,
simple enough it's.
If we do our methodology workreally hard, you should be able
to see, feel those gains, bothin customer actions as well as
(20:42):
your rank over time.
And, as Elena alluded to, thoseKPIs, those metrics, what we
focus on is going to be a littlebit different depending on your
industry, depending on yourvertical.
Different customer engagementswill have different value to you
based on who you are, whichisn't entirely sensible.
So overall, henry, it's a lotof ground.
We've covered a lot of goodground on GDP.
Why don't you wrap it up andtake us away?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Sure will.
So just wanted to say before wewrap up definitely agree with
phone calls being an importantmetric and the other metrics
being extremely important aswell, but we have to think about
how competitive all businesshas become now in 2024.
And if you are getting phonecalls through your listings,
(21:26):
organically, through yourwebsite, or even paying for them
, you have to work them.
You have to work to close thesale.
You have to try and be polite,give that user the greatest
experience possible and closethe sale.
What I see is you know clients,our clients.
They pay us to give themtraffic.
(21:47):
Right, we can't close a dealfor them.
We're not on that other side ofthe phone helping them close
the deal, a deal for them.
We're not on that other side ofthe phone helping them close
the deal.
But there are a lot of otherpeople that are doing the same
services out there competingwith them, and consumers are
(22:09):
savvy, they're changing, they'relooking for businesses that not
only can do what they'relooking for with expertise, but
also that they're nice to dealwith, right and that they can
rely on them and they have goodreviews and all that good stuff
that we talked about today.
But I just want to reinforcethe fact that business owners
need to fight to close theirdeals because there's a lot of
competition out there.
And that's the beauty ofAmerica, right?
(22:30):
We live in a capitalist societywhere everyone has the
opportunity to grow.
Thank you, elena, so much forjoining us today.
Jay, thanks again.
Thank you everyone forlistening and watching.
Love you all.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Hi, thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Thanks, elena, see everyone.
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