March 12, 2024 • 25 mins
Join Ajay and Henry in this action-packed episode of the Google Business Buzz podcast, where they delve deep into the world of Google Business Profile. Discover the importance of Google's most influential layer in search engine results and learn how it can be the key to your business's success. From high-performing profiles to the significance of customer actions, relevance, distance, and prominence, this episode covers everything you need to know to optimize your presence and leverage organic marketing strategies effectively. Plus, get up-to-date insights into how AI and changing verification processes are shaping the future of GBP. Don't miss these expert tips and strategies designed to help your business thrive!
Like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more actionable marketing tips! Drop your questions in the comments below.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction to Google Business Profile & Its Importance
0:22 - Welcome & Episode Overview
0:39 - Why Google Business Profile is Crucial for Your Business
1:05 - High-Performing Google Business Profiles Explained
1:34 - Understanding Customer Actions on GBP
2:40 - Google's Algorithm and Key Factors for GBP Ranking
3:01 - The Uniqueness of Customer Actions in Organic Marketing
4:01 - The Three Known Factors for Local Organic Ranking
4:40 - Explaining Prominence in Google's Ranking
6:00 - How to Enhance Your Business's Prominence
7:00 - Tips for Managing Relevance and Distance in GBP
9:03 - Ensuring Your Website Boosts Your GBP Profile
10:59 - The Importance of Reviews in GBP Ranking
13:14 - Integrating Reviews in Advertising: Local Services Ads
15:55 - How AI Is Changing Google Business Profile
18:00 - New Challenges in Creating a Maps Listing
21:00 - Conclusion: The Long-Term Value of Google Business Profile
25:22 - Closing Remarks and Outro
Stay Connected with OMG National:
Call: (800)789-4619
Website: https://omgnational.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omgnational/
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/omgnational
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/omgmedia/
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 (00:00):
There are real customers we have and real
businesses we work with,benefiting from thousands,
thousands and thousands of thosecustomer actions and, more
importantly, we get to watchthose customer actions grow over
time.
Hello and welcome to a veryexciting episode of the Google
(00:24):
business buzz.
As always, I'm Ajay and that'sthis is Henry.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to another episode.
We've got a action packed,thrilling edition of the buzz
and this time we're covering theGoogle business profile.
This is the most importantlayer on the Google search
engine and, you know, arguablythe one that will make a
(00:54):
business the most money.
But you know, ajay and I aregoing to cover all of this here
in this impactful andinformational episode.
Ajay starts off.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm super excited, guys.
So Henry just said somethingsuper, maybe even controversial.
All the layers on Google, thisis one of the most meaningful
ones.
Why is that?
We're going to start by lookingat a high performing Google
business profile.
This is from one of our ownclients set, and what makes this
so special is the immenseamount of customer actions.
(01:26):
Now, henry, what is a customeraction?
Could you help define that forGVP?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Absolutely Well.
Whenever a user is on theGoogle map searching for a
restaurant, for example, in thiscase, the gateway restaurant in
California, they are going tosearch for either the business
name, a restaurant near me, etcetera, right On that Google map
(01:51):
.
Whenever they find the businessthat they want to interact with
, they're going to take actionseither a phone call action, a
message action, a website visitaction, a direction action, and
there are other sort of actionssuch as a menu visit action, a
food order action, if yourbusiness provides all of these
(02:15):
within your, your Googlebusiness profile.
Now, the way that usersinteract depends on on how well
a Google business profile isstructured Right.
There are a few differentthings that Google, in their
algorithm, looks for, and andthat is what the business owner
(02:36):
needs to identify and worktowards there's a few levers
that we need to pull on, andthat's what we'll cover here,
you know, in this beginningfeature.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Before we get to the levers.
You said something that thatstruck.
That struck me.
You said that these customeractions are super important.
Now, obviously, we've coveredGoogle ads, we've covered local
services ads, we've covered allthese paid layers of advertising
.
What makes these customeractions from Google business
profile that much more special?
What makes them unique ordifferent from these calls that
I can just pay for and get on onLSA or get on Google ads?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Sure, the.
The main difference is thatthis 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.
(03:33):
And now infinite scroll willshow you infinite results, but
they are ranked based onrelevance of the query and based
on how well the websitefunctions.
That's very similar to that.
That's the old school organicranking.
You can't pay for it.
(03:53):
There is more than 200 knownfactors for that and similar to
that.
There are three known factorsfor local organic.
That means on the map, on theGoogle map.
These are relevance, distanceand prominence.
Right, these are the threefactors that Google has made
(04:14):
public for business owners tounderstand and to leverage so
that they can achieve those topspots organically, without
paying and over time.
That is where most of theGoogle users are actually
conducting business.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Okay, so relevance, distance, prominence Can you
explain what prominence is,Because that is one that I've
seen misinterpreted sometimeswhen I talk about this and it's
a little bit unclear.
So how Right?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
right, right, yeah, prominence is kind of a bucket,
a catch-all type factor forGoogle.
So mainly, google wants to givetheir users the best possible
experience Anybody using aGoogle product.
They want them to be happy withit so they come back for more,
(05:10):
and that's how they maintaintheir dominance, right?
So, within prominence, whatthey're trying to do within
relevance, distance andprominence, really what they're
trying to do is mimic or reflectthe real world within the
digital world, right?
So they've instituted strictguidelines as far as how to
(05:33):
create a Google business profile, how to name a Google business
profile, the distance settingsof a Google business profile if
it's a service area business,and they do this because they
want to make sure that their mapand what they're reflecting
online is actually on offline aswell, in real life, how they
(05:56):
say nowadays, irl, theprominence is this feature.
So let's think about a museum ora landmark, right, that has
prominence because of its beingwell known and its history.
Right, you don't have to do SEOper se to get your museum to
(06:20):
top spots.
The Museum of Natural Historyis going to be one of the first
museums that you find if you doa Google search in New York City
for museums.
Right Because of its historyand its prominence.
Right it's real life prominenceand that reflects offline.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Thank you for that information, man.
So now, if I'm a business ownerlistening to this, I now know
that relevance, distance andprominence are the GBP ranking
factors to help me get more ofthese free customer actions.
So I guess where I wouldnaturally go to from that is how
can I, as a business owner,utilize that information Meaning
?
What are ways that our audienceshould know to take care of
(07:03):
their relevance, distance, andit sounds like particularly
prominence to kind of do well inthis world.
What are some tips we can throwout to make that come alive?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Love that question.
So relevance is all about thebusiness profile and making sure
that your business profile isfilled out to the T.
All of the different structuredfields need to be filled out.
Whether you do or you don'tprovide the attribute, they will
give you the option and youneed to fill it out as a
(07:33):
business owner.
That will give Googleauthoritative information,
trustworthy information, thatthey're going to use.
Within that relevance factor,how relevant is the business to
that search query that that enduser, the target audience, is
conducting?
That's how we got to thinkabout relevance.
(07:56):
Distance is about where that enduser is.
Google is always going toprioritize the area around the
end user that is conducting thesearch, the person online that's
doing a flat tire repair nearme.
They're going to be shownbusinesses that are around their
(08:16):
area, not businesses that are15, 30, two hours away, because
they want to give the userGoogle wants to give their user
convenient, authoritative,trustworthy results, so they're
not going to prefer businessesthat are far away.
They're going to preferbusinesses that are in the area.
(08:37):
But then there's prominence.
I was explaining it's acatchall For landmarks, things
that already have prominenceoffline.
You really don't have to domuch.
They have their prominence.
But for businesses, the way toget prominence is by making sure
that Googlebot indexes yourbusiness the same way the same
(09:01):
name, address, phone number,website, category, services,
photos, et cetera, across theboard on all of the different
local publishers, the localdirectories.
These are Yelps, yellow Pages,better Business Bureaus, chamber
of Commerce.
Once all of those differentdirectories are filled out with
(09:25):
the same information, googlebotis going to visit them and make
sure to tie together all ofthose different structured
fields.
And if they see that everythingis the same, it's going to give
our Google Business profile,the business profile, a boost, a
prominence boost.
Then there's the website.
(09:47):
The website is basically thetruth and the source of the
truth for Google.
After they go throughout all ofthose different websites,
they're going to want tocross-reference that same
content, the same information,the business address, services,
categories, all of that, photoson the site.
(10:10):
And when they docross-reference that on the site
and they tie all the knotstogether, that's when Google
gives more prominence points.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So it sounds like, just as me being less obviously
less experience with GBP thanyou hearing this, the two pieces
that may be harder for youraverage small business person to
take care of themselves are thedirectories you mentioned name,
address, phone number and NAP.
Those sound like they can be alittle bit complicated as well
as making sure your website isgood.
(10:41):
So I think those two pieces, inmy experience at least, are
ones that people don't reallythink are as connected or
important for the GBP'sperformance as they really are.
But we know, obviously, asprofessionals, that the
directories and the website arehuge parts of it and not to
neglect those.
So to all of those listening outthere, if you are undergoing
(11:02):
GBP management, I'll say that inquotes with a partner, I want
you to ask them hey, how are mydirectories doing?
Can you show me that?
And also, how is my websiterelating to this?
So those two pieces are ones wedon't want to miss.
Now there's also reviews.
Henry, you mentioned reviews,and I know that small businesses
and reviews can never be leftout of the same conversation
(11:25):
today.
What are new and clever ways ofgoing about review management
to help with this age-oldproblem?
How are we getting thosereviews flowing in 2024 and
beyond.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, the reviews are also part of the prominence
factor on Google BusinessProfile.
So another way to get betterranking on local map for your
GBP is to get more reviews andpositive reviews.
The more positive reviews youget, your rating is going to get
(11:57):
better and Google is going tosee that Consistency, recency of
reviews.
They're seeing that they'regoing to give preferential
treatment to businesses that areconsistently getting new and
positive reviews.
Why is that, ajay?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Well, 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
(12:33):
our audience and listeners, iscontinuing to provide that
experience.
So it's not about quantity asmuch as it is about consistency
in terms of the reviews and thealgorithm.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Bingo.
You said it and you saidsomething very important to user
experience.
They're trying to give thatuser the best possible
experience, and what better waythan to get actual,
user-generated content frompeople that have used that
business in the past and that'swhat they're going to serve up
to potential clients of GoogleBusiness Profile.
(13:08):
Now we know the Google searchis changing and the SERP itself
is changing, so reviews stillcount very much and they're
still very important, and weknow there are very many
different ways of shoppingonline.
(13:30):
Some people click on the firstthing that they see.
Some people scroll and doresearch, but we have to mention
the inclusion of local servicesads, which is the paid layer
that you are so familiar with,jay, and how do reviews impact
(13:56):
that layer?
Right, and how, specificallyGoogle Business Profile reviews
impact that layer?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Reviews are huge to the local services ads layer.
So, for those listening, if yougo plumber near me and you see
those Google guaranteed ads atthe top, that's LSA and reviews
are an important ranking factor.
So that determines, that's partof what determines whether I'm
ranking number one, whether I'mranking number three, number
seven, so on and so forthReviews, radius, responsiveness
(14:24):
and the bid.
Now, in terms of how they'reconnected, there's a connection
here that I think a lot ofpeople misunderstand.
Obviously, we're talking aboutGoogle Business Profile, the
maps, the organic marketing, andnow we've also entered LSA,
paid advertising, into theconversation.
Both of them need reviews andyou can get reviews to either
platform.
So there's a GBP review linkand there's an LSA review link.
(14:46):
But what I think, henry, that alot of my clients misunderstand
and I frequently catch mistakeson is that there is an
integration, a sync, a way totie GBP to an LSA together.
So if I have 100 reviews on GBPand if I do that sync now I get
those 100 GBP reviews alsobenefiting me algorithmically on
(15:06):
LSA.
But what people misunderstandis that that's a one-way street
and this is huge.
That means that even if we dothe sync, everyone the reviews
can only come.
Think of a one-way street.
We're only flowing in onedirection.
They can only come from GBP toLSA.
They can never come the otherway around, as of today,
february 2024.
You can never have your reviewson LSA benefit GBP, and so,
(15:31):
therefore, what we really landon is if you're a busy business
owner and you're trying tofigure out hey, does it make
sense for me to get reviews onlocal services ads?
Does it make sense for me toget reviews on Google Business
Profile?
I would consider you to thinkvery carefully on that question
and remember that your reviewswill only flow from Google
(15:53):
Business Profile to localservices ads, never the other
way around.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
That's super important.
So, in your estimation, weshould only focus, or focus the
majority of the time, on GoogleBusiness Profile, so that the
one-way street analogy works.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I would say definitely focus on Google
Business Profile.
So local services ads obviouslyalso has these trusted reviews,
the Google verified reviews.
I'm never going to say thatadditional trust factors are bad
, but in real life time islimited and if you're limited on
time and we all know thatreviews can be time consuming to
follow up with those customersintegrated in the process, and
(16:31):
so if you're going to make sureyou get them in one place, if
your time is limited, I wouldsay to focus acquiring them to
GVP for sure, and that's becausewe know those reviews are going
to benefit us Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
So that's an important thing to consider now
that reviews are beingintegrated into an advertising
layer.
So this has never been donebefore, at least in Google.
Google ads doesn't show reviews, doesn't allow users to leave
reviews, it's not reviewdependent at all.
(17:03):
Now Google local services adsis integrating a user-generated
content factor to their ranking,which is it's important,
because we have to understandthat Google's not just thinking
about money in this case.
They're actually thinking abouttheir end user and, like I say
(17:30):
all the time, they'd rather notmake money off of a business
that isn't doing things rightthan give that end user a bad
result.
And that's how they've gottento where they are right now.
So, in the same vein and seeinghow Google is changing, we're
(17:51):
seeing that AI is also beingintegrated into the Google
search and they're making apoint to use the GBP reviews to
show local searches within theSGE, the Search Generative
Experience.
They also make it a point toshow directories like Yelp, like
(18:14):
Yellow Pages, like MapQuest.
Things like that used to bevery popular that lost a lot of
traffic because of Google itself, but never lost the indexing
factor.
That Google never lost sight ofthem.
They kept on keeping them inthe rotation to make sure that
(18:40):
if someday they regainpopularity, they're back in the
mix and they have never left.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Henry, for our listeners and our viewers who
are familiar with GoogleBusiness Profile, who've been
using it for a while now, how isAI changing that platform
specifically?
What are things that theyshould look out for?
I know we've covered how to useAI to their benefit for feeding
Google Business Profile, but inwhat ways does it show up today
(19:06):
for 2024 on GVP?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Well, through the back end, if you're managing a
Google Business Profile, thereis now an area that allows you
to AI generate a businessdescription.
So if you have just a sentenceor two, it'll take that in
combination with all the otherstructured data that you have on
(19:29):
the GVP and it'll whip upsomething very, very nice,
something well-written.
That's the first integrationthat I've seen of AI within the
GVP platform itself.
They have now released AIwithin Google Maps, so that's
(19:49):
something interesting that Idon't have access to because I
don't have Android.
I'm on Apple.
I'm sure that's going to happensoon, though I'm sure it's
going to be released to allplatforms soon enough.
If search generative experienceis any indicator, it's going to
improve the way that peopleinteract with search.
(20:14):
It's going to be easier.
You're not going to have to doas much double search or look up
secondary things, because thisdidn't happen to give you
exactly what you were lookingfor.
Ai understands what you meanand will give you exactly what
(20:35):
you want.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Oh man, so we've got AI now in the GVP back end.
It sounds like helping you docool things like write
descriptions.
You've got, obviously, searchgenerative experience Google's
new look at search, which is AIinfused coming up.
So you're seeing a lot ofchange.
You've seen change with thename from Google my Business to
now Google Business Profile.
(20:56):
You're also seeing all thesedifferent technologies slightly
change things.
What else is changing in termsof customers and businesses
getting up on GVP today?
If I want to create a Mapslisting, what are things that I
have to look out for and thingsthat may give me a headache that
I may want to professional for?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Well, we kind of covered it in the beginning.
Google's guidelines have becomea lot more strict.
10 years ago, or even five, youcould easily get a Google
Business Profile up only using aUPS Store address Easy.
Nowadays that's impossible, andif you have an existing
(21:38):
location at a UPS Store that'snot that UPS Store.
It is vulnerable to beingsuspended.
That's part of how Google isevolving.
Google doesn't want businessesthat are illegitimate.
If you're trying to create anew Google Business Profile,
it's best that you have actualbusiness documentation on hand
(22:04):
and you're able to show yourlocation, your office tools and
do a video verification.
That has become the most commonway of verifying a Google
Business Profile.
It used to be a postcard Usedto be able to just send a
postcard to wherever you'relocated and bam, google Business
(22:27):
Profile is up and running Notanymore.
That's the rarest form ofverification.
Well, maybe not Instantverification is the rarest form
of verification, but it's becomeso rare that at OMG National,
we guide our clients through thevideo verification.
We even teach them how to settheir mobile device, because
(22:49):
things like high resolution willmake the video upload process
much more difficult and possiblyimpossible.
Excuse my redundancy, butthat's what can happen.
So the the process hasdefinitely become more difficult
, but I don't necessarilydisagree, because we need to
(23:14):
give users real results, notjust fake businesses that are
selling leads to actual serviceproviders because they know how
to game the system per se, soI'm for it.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I think I am too, man .
It sounds like things havegotten definitely more
cumbersome and navigating that,as always, will be made help
easier with the help of trustedprofessionals.
So with that, henry, it soundslike we're reaching an end here.
So if I had to wrap upeverything that we've learned,
ladies and gentlemen, I thinkthat we've learned that Google
business profile is leads overtime.
(23:53):
It's lead gen.
It just doesn't happen rapidly,it takes time and it takes
curating those factors ofrelevance, distance, prominence
with a strategy.
Now you can think of paidadvertising Google ads, local
services ads as playing checkers.
You're paying for those leadsand you get those leads and
that's great.
But Google business profiledoing that right is really
(24:13):
playing chess.
You're looking after yourselfin the long term and, like that
example we showed at the top ofthe podcast, there are real
customers we have and realbusinesses we work with,
benefiting from thousands,thousands and thousands of those
customer actions and, moreimportantly, we get to watch
those customer actions grow overtime.
So Google business profiles isalways, has been and likely
(24:35):
always will be a key componentof any real marketing strategy.
It's being changed by AI.
There are cool new ways that AIis being integrated in the back
to write descriptions and dothings of that nature.
With all the new features thatHenry talked about, all the
verification processes changingand getting a little bit more
cumbersome, and so we willcontinue to keep an eye on that
(25:00):
and, as always, report anychanges we see.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Thank you guys for joining us.
This has been Henry and Ajayand another Google business buzz
podcast.
Remember to like, subscribe andshare.
See you on the trails.
There are real customers we have and real
businesses we work with,benefiting from thousands,
thousands and thousands of thosecustomer actions and, more
importantly, we get to watchthose customer actions grow over
time.
Hello and welcome to a veryexciting episode of the Google
(00:24):
business buzz.
As always, I'm Ajay and that'sthis is Henry.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to another episode.
We've got a action packed,thrilling edition of the buzz
and this time we're covering theGoogle business profile.
This is the most importantlayer on the Google search
engine and, you know, arguablythe one that will make a
(00:54):
business the most money.
But you know, ajay and I aregoing to cover all of this here
in this impactful andinformational episode.
Ajay starts off.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm super excited, guys.
So Henry just said somethingsuper, maybe even controversial.
All the layers on Google, thisis one of the most meaningful
ones.
Why is that?
We're going to start by lookingat a high performing Google
business profile.
This is from one of our ownclients set, and what makes this
so special is the immenseamount of customer actions.
(01:26):
Now, henry, what is a customeraction?
Could you help define that forGVP?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Absolutely Well.
Whenever a user is on theGoogle map searching for a
restaurant, for example, in thiscase, the gateway restaurant in
California, they are going tosearch for either the business
name, a restaurant near me, etcetera, right On that Google map
(01:51):
.
Whenever they find the businessthat they want to interact with
, they're going to take actionseither a phone call action, a
message action, a website visitaction, a direction action, and
there are other sort of actionssuch as a menu visit action, a
food order action, if yourbusiness provides all of these
(02:15):
within your, your Googlebusiness profile.
Now, the way that usersinteract depends on on how well
a Google business profile isstructured Right.
There are a few differentthings that Google, in their
algorithm, looks for, and andthat is what the business owner
(02:36):
needs to identify and worktowards there's a few levers
that we need to pull on, andthat's what we'll cover here,
you know, in this beginningfeature.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Before we get to the levers.
You said something that thatstruck.
That struck me.
You said that these customeractions are super important.
Now, obviously, we've coveredGoogle ads, we've covered local
services ads, we've covered allthese paid layers of advertising
.
What makes these customeractions from Google business
profile that much more special?
What makes them unique ordifferent from these calls that
I can just pay for and get on onLSA or get on Google ads?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Sure, the.
The main difference is thatthis 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.
(03:33):
And now infinite scroll willshow you infinite results, but
they are ranked based onrelevance of the query and based
on how well the websitefunctions.
That's very similar to that.
That's the old school organicranking.
You can't pay for it.
(03:53):
There is more than 200 knownfactors for that and similar to
that.
There are three known factorsfor local organic.
That means on the map, on theGoogle map.
These are relevance, distanceand prominence.
Right, these are the threefactors that Google has made
(04:14):
public for business owners tounderstand and to leverage so
that they can achieve those topspots organically, without
paying and over time.
That is where most of theGoogle users are actually
conducting business.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Okay, so relevance, distance, prominence Can you
explain what prominence is,Because that is one that I've
seen misinterpreted sometimeswhen I talk about this and it's
a little bit unclear.
So how Right?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
right, right, yeah, prominence is kind of a bucket,
a catch-all type factor forGoogle.
So mainly, google wants to givetheir users the best possible
experience Anybody using aGoogle product.
They want them to be happy withit so they come back for more,
(05:10):
and that's how they maintaintheir dominance, right?
So, within prominence, whatthey're trying to do within
relevance, distance andprominence, really what they're
trying to do is mimic or reflectthe real world within the
digital world, right?
So they've instituted strictguidelines as far as how to
(05:33):
create a Google business profile, how to name a Google business
profile, the distance settingsof a Google business profile if
it's a service area business,and they do this because they
want to make sure that their mapand what they're reflecting
online is actually on offline aswell, in real life, how they
(05:56):
say nowadays, irl, theprominence is this feature.
So let's think about a museum ora landmark, right, that has
prominence because of its beingwell known and its history.
Right, you don't have to do SEOper se to get your museum to
(06:20):
top spots.
The Museum of Natural Historyis going to be one of the first
museums that you find if you doa Google search in New York City
for museums.
Right Because of its historyand its prominence.
Right it's real life prominenceand that reflects offline.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Thank you for that information, man.
So now, if I'm a business ownerlistening to this, I now know
that relevance, distance andprominence are the GBP ranking
factors to help me get more ofthese free customer actions.
So I guess where I wouldnaturally go to from that is how
can I, as a business owner,utilize that information Meaning
?
What are ways that our audienceshould know to take care of
(07:03):
their relevance, distance, andit sounds like particularly
prominence to kind of do well inthis world.
What are some tips we can throwout to make that come alive?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Love that question.
So relevance is all about thebusiness profile and making sure
that your business profile isfilled out to the T.
All of the different structuredfields need to be filled out.
Whether you do or you don'tprovide the attribute, they will
give you the option and youneed to fill it out as a
(07:33):
business owner.
That will give Googleauthoritative information,
trustworthy information, thatthey're going to use.
Within that relevance factor,how relevant is the business to
that search query that that enduser, the target audience, is
conducting?
That's how we got to thinkabout relevance.
(07:56):
Distance is about where that enduser is.
Google is always going toprioritize the area around the
end user that is conducting thesearch, the person online that's
doing a flat tire repair nearme.
They're going to be shownbusinesses that are around their
(08:16):
area, not businesses that are15, 30, two hours away, because
they want to give the userGoogle wants to give their user
convenient, authoritative,trustworthy results, so they're
not going to prefer businessesthat are far away.
They're going to preferbusinesses that are in the area.
(08:37):
But then there's prominence.
I was explaining it's acatchall For landmarks, things
that already have prominenceoffline.
You really don't have to domuch.
They have their prominence.
But for businesses, the way toget prominence is by making sure
that Googlebot indexes yourbusiness the same way the same
(09:01):
name, address, phone number,website, category, services,
photos, et cetera, across theboard on all of the different
local publishers, the localdirectories.
These are Yelps, yellow Pages,better Business Bureaus, chamber
of Commerce.
Once all of those differentdirectories are filled out with
(09:25):
the same information, googlebotis going to visit them and make
sure to tie together all ofthose different structured
fields.
And if they see that everythingis the same, it's going to give
our Google Business profile,the business profile, a boost, a
prominence boost.
Then there's the website.
(09:47):
The website is basically thetruth and the source of the
truth for Google.
After they go throughout all ofthose different websites,
they're going to want tocross-reference that same
content, the same information,the business address, services,
categories, all of that, photoson the site.
(10:10):
And when they docross-reference that on the site
and they tie all the knotstogether, that's when Google
gives more prominence points.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So it sounds like, just as me being less obviously
less experience with GBP thanyou hearing this, the two pieces
that may be harder for youraverage small business person to
take care of themselves are thedirectories you mentioned name,
address, phone number and NAP.
Those sound like they can be alittle bit complicated as well
as making sure your website isgood.
(10:41):
So I think those two pieces, inmy experience at least, are
ones that people don't reallythink are as connected or
important for the GBP'sperformance as they really are.
But we know, obviously, asprofessionals, that the
directories and the website arehuge parts of it and not to
neglect those.
So to all of those listening outthere, if you are undergoing
(11:02):
GBP management, I'll say that inquotes with a partner, I want
you to ask them hey, how are mydirectories doing?
Can you show me that?
And also, how is my websiterelating to this?
So those two pieces are ones wedon't want to miss.
Now there's also reviews.
Henry, you mentioned reviews,and I know that small businesses
and reviews can never be leftout of the same conversation
(11:25):
today.
What are new and clever ways ofgoing about review management
to help with this age-oldproblem?
How are we getting thosereviews flowing in 2024 and
beyond.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, the reviews are also part of the prominence
factor on Google BusinessProfile.
So another way to get betterranking on local map for your
GBP is to get more reviews andpositive reviews.
The more positive reviews youget, your rating is going to get
(11:57):
better and Google is going tosee that Consistency, recency of
reviews.
They're seeing that they'regoing to give preferential
treatment to businesses that areconsistently getting new and
positive reviews.
Why is that, ajay?
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Well, 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
(12:33):
our audience and listeners, iscontinuing to provide that
experience.
So it's not about quantity asmuch as it is about consistency
in terms of the reviews and thealgorithm.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Bingo.
You said it and you saidsomething very important to user
experience.
They're trying to give thatuser the best possible
experience, and what better waythan to get actual,
user-generated content frompeople that have used that
business in the past and that'swhat they're going to serve up
to potential clients of GoogleBusiness Profile.
(13:08):
Now we know the Google searchis changing and the SERP itself
is changing, so reviews stillcount very much and they're
still very important, and weknow there are very many
different ways of shoppingonline.
(13:30):
Some people click on the firstthing that they see.
Some people scroll and doresearch, but we have to mention
the inclusion of local servicesads, which is the paid layer
that you are so familiar with,jay, and how do reviews impact
(13:56):
that layer?
Right, and how, specificallyGoogle Business Profile reviews
impact that layer?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Reviews are huge to the local services ads layer.
So, for those listening, if yougo plumber near me and you see
those Google guaranteed ads atthe top, that's LSA and reviews
are an important ranking factor.
So that determines, that's partof what determines whether I'm
ranking number one, whether I'mranking number three, number
seven, so on and so forthReviews, radius, responsiveness
(14:24):
and the bid.
Now, in terms of how they'reconnected, there's a connection
here that I think a lot ofpeople misunderstand.
Obviously, we're talking aboutGoogle Business Profile, the
maps, the organic marketing, andnow we've also entered LSA,
paid advertising, into theconversation.
Both of them need reviews andyou can get reviews to either
platform.
So there's a GBP review linkand there's an LSA review link.
(14:46):
But what I think, henry, that alot of my clients misunderstand
and I frequently catch mistakeson is that there is an
integration, a sync, a way totie GBP to an LSA together.
So if I have 100 reviews on GBPand if I do that sync now I get
those 100 GBP reviews alsobenefiting me algorithmically on
(15:06):
LSA.
But what people misunderstandis that that's a one-way street
and this is huge.
That means that even if we dothe sync, everyone the reviews
can only come.
Think of a one-way street.
We're only flowing in onedirection.
They can only come from GBP toLSA.
They can never come the otherway around, as of today,
february 2024.
You can never have your reviewson LSA benefit GBP, and so,
(15:31):
therefore, what we really landon is if you're a busy business
owner and you're trying tofigure out hey, does it make
sense for me to get reviews onlocal services ads?
Does it make sense for me toget reviews on Google Business
Profile?
I would consider you to thinkvery carefully on that question
and remember that your reviewswill only flow from Google
(15:53):
Business Profile to localservices ads, never the other
way around.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
That's super important.
So, in your estimation, weshould only focus, or focus the
majority of the time, on GoogleBusiness Profile, so that the
one-way street analogy works.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I would say definitely focus on Google
Business Profile.
So local services ads obviouslyalso has these trusted reviews,
the Google verified reviews.
I'm never going to say thatadditional trust factors are bad
, but in real life time islimited and if you're limited on
time and we all know thatreviews can be time consuming to
follow up with those customersintegrated in the process, and
(16:31):
so if you're going to make sureyou get them in one place, if
your time is limited, I wouldsay to focus acquiring them to
GVP for sure, and that's becausewe know those reviews are going
to benefit us Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
So that's an important thing to consider now
that reviews are beingintegrated into an advertising
layer.
So this has never been donebefore, at least in Google.
Google ads doesn't show reviews, doesn't allow users to leave
reviews, it's not reviewdependent at all.
(17:03):
Now Google local services adsis integrating a user-generated
content factor to their ranking,which is it's important,
because we have to understandthat Google's not just thinking
about money in this case.
They're actually thinking abouttheir end user and, like I say
(17:30):
all the time, they'd rather notmake money off of a business
that isn't doing things rightthan give that end user a bad
result.
And that's how they've gottento where they are right now.
So, in the same vein and seeinghow Google is changing, we're
(17:51):
seeing that AI is also beingintegrated into the Google
search and they're making apoint to use the GBP reviews to
show local searches within theSGE, the Search Generative
Experience.
They also make it a point toshow directories like Yelp, like
(18:14):
Yellow Pages, like MapQuest.
Things like that used to bevery popular that lost a lot of
traffic because of Google itself, but never lost the indexing
factor.
That Google never lost sight ofthem.
They kept on keeping them inthe rotation to make sure that
(18:40):
if someday they regainpopularity, they're back in the
mix and they have never left.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Henry, for our listeners and our viewers who
are familiar with GoogleBusiness Profile, who've been
using it for a while now, how isAI changing that platform
specifically?
What are things that theyshould look out for?
I know we've covered how to useAI to their benefit for feeding
Google Business Profile, but inwhat ways does it show up today
(19:06):
for 2024 on GVP?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Well, through the back end, if you're managing a
Google Business Profile, thereis now an area that allows you
to AI generate a businessdescription.
So if you have just a sentenceor two, it'll take that in
combination with all the otherstructured data that you have on
(19:29):
the GVP and it'll whip upsomething very, very nice,
something well-written.
That's the first integrationthat I've seen of AI within the
GVP platform itself.
They have now released AIwithin Google Maps, so that's
(19:49):
something interesting that Idon't have access to because I
don't have Android.
I'm on Apple.
I'm sure that's going to happensoon, though I'm sure it's
going to be released to allplatforms soon enough.
If search generative experienceis any indicator, it's going to
improve the way that peopleinteract with search.
(20:14):
It's going to be easier.
You're not going to have to doas much double search or look up
secondary things, because thisdidn't happen to give you
exactly what you were lookingfor.
Ai understands what you meanand will give you exactly what
(20:35):
you want.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Oh man, so we've got AI now in the GVP back end.
It sounds like helping you docool things like write
descriptions.
You've got, obviously, searchgenerative experience Google's
new look at search, which is AIinfused coming up.
So you're seeing a lot ofchange.
You've seen change with thename from Google my Business to
now Google Business Profile.
(20:56):
You're also seeing all thesedifferent technologies slightly
change things.
What else is changing in termsof customers and businesses
getting up on GVP today?
If I want to create a Mapslisting, what are things that I
have to look out for and thingsthat may give me a headache that
I may want to professional for?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Well, we kind of covered it in the beginning.
Google's guidelines have becomea lot more strict.
10 years ago, or even five, youcould easily get a Google
Business Profile up only using aUPS Store address Easy.
Nowadays that's impossible, andif you have an existing
(21:38):
location at a UPS Store that'snot that UPS Store.
It is vulnerable to beingsuspended.
That's part of how Google isevolving.
Google doesn't want businessesthat are illegitimate.
If you're trying to create anew Google Business Profile,
it's best that you have actualbusiness documentation on hand
(22:04):
and you're able to show yourlocation, your office tools and
do a video verification.
That has become the most commonway of verifying a Google
Business Profile.
It used to be a postcard Usedto be able to just send a
postcard to wherever you'relocated and bam, google Business
(22:27):
Profile is up and running Notanymore.
That's the rarest form ofverification.
Well, maybe not Instantverification is the rarest form
of verification, but it's becomeso rare that at OMG National,
we guide our clients through thevideo verification.
We even teach them how to settheir mobile device, because
(22:49):
things like high resolution willmake the video upload process
much more difficult and possiblyimpossible.
Excuse my redundancy, butthat's what can happen.
So the the process hasdefinitely become more difficult
, but I don't necessarilydisagree, because we need to
(23:14):
give users real results, notjust fake businesses that are
selling leads to actual serviceproviders because they know how
to game the system per se, soI'm for it.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I think I am too, man .
It sounds like things havegotten definitely more
cumbersome and navigating that,as always, will be made help
easier with the help of trustedprofessionals.
So with that, henry, it soundslike we're reaching an end here.
So if I had to wrap upeverything that we've learned,
ladies and gentlemen, I thinkthat we've learned that Google
business profile is leads overtime.
(23:53):
It's lead gen.
It just doesn't happen rapidly,it takes time and it takes
curating those factors ofrelevance, distance, prominence
with a strategy.
Now you can think of paidadvertising Google ads, local
services ads as playing checkers.
You're paying for those leadsand you get those leads and
that's great.
But Google business profiledoing that right is really
(24:13):
playing chess.
You're looking after yourselfin the long term and, like that
example we showed at the top ofthe podcast, there are real
customers we have and realbusinesses we work with,
benefiting from thousands,thousands and thousands of those
customer actions and, moreimportantly, we get to watch
those customer actions grow overtime.
So Google business profiles isalways, has been and likely
(24:35):
always will be a key componentof any real marketing strategy.
It's being changed by AI.
There are cool new ways that AIis being integrated in the back
to write descriptions and dothings of that nature.
With all the new features thatHenry talked about, all the
verification processes changingand getting a little bit more
cumbersome, and so we willcontinue to keep an eye on that
(25:00):
and, as always, report anychanges we see.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Thank you guys for joining us.
This has been Henry and Ajayand another Google business buzz
podcast.
Remember to like, subscribe andshare.
See you on the trails.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com