August 4, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode of Local Marketing Secrets, Danny Leibrandt is joined by Claudia Tomina, the founder of ReputationArm and one of the most respected experts in local SEO and Google Business Profiles. Claudia is a Platinum Product Expert for GBP, a contributor to Search Engine Land and the Local Search Ranking Factors study, and someone who’s helped countless businesses—from national restaurant chains to mom-and-pop shops—rank in the map pack and recover from suspensions.
We cover everything from the suspension crisis and video verification to bulk verification strategies, the truth about keywords in reviews, why photos are more powerful than ever, and what actually helps a business rank locally. Claudia breaks down how Google’s systems really work, what signals matter most, how AI is changing local search, and what every business owner should stop fearing.
Whether you're a marketer, agency, or local business owner, this is an absolute masterclass on navigating Google’s local ecosystem in 2025 and beyond.
Claudia Tomina, Founder of Reputation ARM:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-tomina-ab78692a
X (Twitter): https://x.com/claudiatomina
Website: https://reputationarm.com/
Danny Leibrandt, Founder of Pest Control SEO:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/DannyLeibrandt
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/dannyleibrandt/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DannyLeibrandt
Website: https://dannyleibrandt.com
Pest Control SEO: https://pestcontrolseo.com/
Local Marketing Secrets Platforms:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LocalMarketingSecrets
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1TCL0LhZbsJS6mzanqnnT1?si=224075c9fbda42f5
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/local-marketing-secrets/id1741176782
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0bb5254-5d6c-4940-8211-085157cc1239/local-marketing-secrets
Podcast Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Claudia Tomina
06:11 Challenges in Google Business Profile Management
14:55 The Importance of Review Keywords
21:01 The Role of Categories in Local SEO
25:26 The Importance of Business Categories
29:58 The Role of Photos in Local SEO
35:18 The Value of Video Content in Local SEO
39:18 The Future of Local Search
47:04 Final Thoughts for Local Business Owners
#localseo #googlemybusiness #googlebusinessprofile #gbp #gmb #localmarketing #localbusiness #homeservicebusiness #homeservicemarketing #homeserviceadvertising #localseo #localadvertising #seo #marketing #podcast #business #claudiatomina #reputationarm #localseoexpert
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey there, and welcome back to Local Marketing Secrets.
I'm your host, Danny Lebrand, and today I'm with Claudia
Tomina. Claudia is the founder and CEO
of Reputation Arm and one of themost respected experts in local
SEO and Google business profiles.
She's a platinum Google BusinessProfile product expert, a
contributor to Search Engine Land and more recently, Local
Search Ranking factors, and a trusted advisor to businesses
(00:22):
trying to rank in the map pack and fix the trickiest local SEO
issues and in particular, restaurants.
So if you want real insights into Google's local ecosystem
and how it works, what's changing in local search, and
how to build a bulletproof online reputation, this episode
is for you. Now, without further ado,
Claudio, welcome to the show. Thanks.
Thanks for having me, Danny. Appreciate it.
(00:43):
Absolutely. So Claudia, talk to me about
your background. How did you get started in local
SEO and then eventually start reputation art?
So I actually, I used to, I usedto be really big in e-commerce.
I was like selling on Amazon before Prime even existed.
And I was, I ended up selling mybusiness and in the middle I was
(01:03):
kind of just looking in different businesses and I
decided I was like, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to
dabble into marketing. And I started shadowing at an
agency of a family relative. And then we decided that we were
going to create reputation Arm, which would be like the
reputation management portion ofhis agency.
And so, yeah, we started there, we connected, and now we're
(01:27):
building a SAS platform that helps like multi location
businesses, big brands, mainly restaurants, generate reviews so
that they can rank better. And then through that whole
process, I learned how to optimize Google business
profiles. What really gets them ranking.
I've been dabbling in like a lotof tasks and, you know, ranking
features, just always looking atGoogle Maps and how to do that.
(01:51):
And I became a Google products expert along the way and that
really like change things and help me evolve to even be a
better SEO. So it's been great.
The community's been so welcoming.
I've been doing this for six years now and so it's been
really wonderful. Yeah, talk to me about becoming
a product expert. What, what was that like?
What? What's the process?
Yeah, I mean, I had an issue with a client that like started
(02:14):
getting bombarded with negative reviews.
And I found the forum and I posted there.
And then I think it was Jason, he was on your shelf recently.
He helped connect me to another product expert.
That escalated it. And so I kept checking the
forums. And so while I was doing that, I
was like, I can answer all thesequestions.
(02:34):
So I started answering the questions and then I was like,
let me see if, you know, I couldgo down this path of being a
product expert. And I noticed that a lot of
great names like Joy and Ben Fisher and all these guys were
product experts. So I thought, let me try this.
And it's actually been so rewarding.
Like you help so many small businesses all over the world
(02:55):
and people are so grateful for your help.
And a lot of times like you're in a position to really like,
help this business like you, youalmost feel like obligated, like
you cannot like leave them. So it's, it's really satisfying
and it's helped me evolve as an SEO.
It's been it's been a wonderful time.
Yeah, awesome. And then you get to do cool
things like fly to Dublin for the Google events, so.
(03:18):
Oh, yeah, no, that, that's awesome.
Yeah. Tell me, what are some of the
biggest problems that people have faced?
Like is there just a recurring thing that people are always
asking in the forum? Right now it's all about
suspensions and verifications. So verifications is a big one,
you know, because people are trying like multiple times and
they're failing. So just like kind of guiding
(03:39):
them through the process and a lot of times it's like they
could be doing all the right things, but for whatever reason,
Google systems are not acceptingit.
And so like the forum is like the only way to help
troubleshoot and get through some of these like very
difficult things because I don'tthink support can even would
even be able to help them through it.
So it's like escalating kind of identifying the issue and like
(04:01):
our job is to make sure that like they've done all things
possible before escalating. And so like, even with
suspensions, like it almost feels like, you know, a lot of
these people, like they have no choice but to come to the forums
to get unsuspended because they filed their appeals.
And then they, you know, they might do it 2 times and they
fail and they have no choice butto come to the forum and have us
(04:24):
take another look. So really we're supposed to look
at everything, kind of make sureeverything's accurate, and then
if we, you know, notice something, kind of help them
identify it. And then from there we can do
the escalation and then help them get reinstated.
OK so suspensions and verifications is a newer thing
and that is that also re verifications or just first time
(04:46):
verifications? I mean, I don't, I wouldn't say
it was a newer thing. It's always bad with the video
verification is somewhat new to Google, I would say over the
last couple years because it wasalways postcard or phone number
or e-mail. And then they this whole video
verification, I mean it's helpeda lot with fraud.
So it's really good. But then it's also like a really
big pain for some of these smallbusinesses.
(05:08):
And then that's where like even bulk verified accounts become
even more important because if you like, I work with a lot of
brands, they don't these marketing directors don't even
know like an employee to call toeven ask them to do a video
verification. So like helping big brands get
bulk verified has become like a big core service that we've been
providing. So to make sure that like they
(05:29):
can bypass this video verification because how are
they going to do it? Especially like a fast food
chain, all these like big chains, they won't be able to
have employees do it. Yeah, talk to me about that bulk
verification process. How does that differ from just
verifying 1 profile? Yeah, so I think like it sounds
like, oh, OK, I have these 10 listings, let me get them Bolt
verified. But it really doesn't work like
(05:50):
that. You actually have to be bulk
verified. It's a status.
So once you're considered bulk verified and it's basically by
the user account, so like whatever e-mail account, and
then that e-mail has to be associated with all locations.
And typically it's done inside of a group.
And so once you have that status, every time you go to
(06:12):
create a new listing, you shouldbe able to bypass the video
verification. You actually might still get
like an e-mail verification or phone verification option and
then you can get through that. But it's it's way easier than
doing a video verification. OK.
Did you say there are requirements there?
Do you have to have a certain amount of locations or anything
else? Yeah, it has to be 10 or more
(06:34):
and you can't be a service area business.
It has to be location based. And then you know, there's
there's other requirements like you have to have a landing page
for each location. They have to, like they do some
type of audit on your website and everything has to match up.
(06:54):
So if you have 50 locations and you you have 49 landing pages,
then you don't get both verifieduntil you can actually make sure
that you actually have 50 landing pages that match the 50
Google business profiles. So they match everything up.
So sometimes it's easy to get somebody both verified and other
times it can take months. Interesting.
OK, no, I I didn't know that actually.
(07:15):
Let's let's jump into reviews because obviously this is a huge
topic regarding Google Business profile.
This is a lot of how we rank, how we convert.
First, talk to me about what's your company does in particular
with reviews. So do you guys have an
automation and what do you recommend?
Yeah, So we, we do have a dashboard that pulls in reviews
from OpenTable, DoorDash, Grubhub, apartments.com, pretty
(07:38):
much like 60 different websites.So any, any industry, any
significant industry. And then Google, of course.
And then our users are able to like respond to reviews.
We do track deleted reviews. So if something gets deleted
after scraping, like the Google API, we will be able to identify
if it's been deleted. And then we help like our
(08:01):
clients, like if they have a negative review that they need
to get rid of, like we'll help them through that process.
Or if they get like review attacks, we kind of guide them
through like, hey, let's just flag it right now and then see
how that goes. But I'll be honest, Google
systems gotten so much better atremoving reviews when you flag
them. So I mean, first up, flag the
(08:22):
review. And typically, like if you can
even get like a couple local guides to flag with you like two
or three. I'm noticing that they do get
removed if there's a clear violation.
So like, let's say you have a review with like no comments,
that's going to be harder. But if you can show a pattern
where like you have a social media link that like kind of
(08:43):
attacks your business, which caused you to have an influx of
negative reviews and you can kind of connect the dots.
You can use that, go through support and or an escalation in
the forums and kind of get through getting some of those
deleted. But yeah, I mean, everything's a
little unique, but they're like,you know, we, I, I do notice
that like without even me flagging, sometimes I get emails
(09:06):
where Google systems just say we've removed this review
because their AI systems are just getting better at detecting
what's against policies. Yeah.
OK. So you you've probably seen then
much less review fraud then in, in the past few years or so
because they they've been doubling down.
I don't know about the fraud part as far as people buying
(09:27):
reviews and stuff. I think that still happens.
I'm curious. I, I do see like people
mentioning that they're noticinglike those review fraud tags
where they're saying, oh, we're noticing suspicious reviews.
I haven't seen it. I actually like know a couple
businesses that like engage in buying, take reviews and I check
their profiles often, but they have, they don't have anything
(09:50):
on there. So I'm curious to see how that
whole thing is going to evolve. It's still, I could get still
new, but I think Google's just going to get better at it and
their systems are just going to keep learning.
And as as they keep learning andevolving, I think we'll notice
it getting better. And then, I don't know,
hopefully review fraud will. I don't think it'll stop.
(10:11):
People will always find ways to get through to it.
But I mean, maybe we'll see lessof it.
Interesting. Talk to me about dealing with
one star reviews. You mentioned this a little bit,
but but let's say it's an actuallegitimate one star review.
How do you deal with those? When the first stop is flagging
it, right. So, and like, sometimes I'll
(10:31):
tell a client like, I don't really see a clear violation
here or like, or in the forums of somebody like post something
and they're like, this is not our customer.
Just because the name it doesn'tactually match like, you know, a
customer that you know, that doesn't mean Google's going to
remove it. So, you know, because people can
use alias names and it's so they're never looking at the
(10:51):
user account name. So a business is always do that.
They're like, but I never dealt with this.
I don't know this person's name,but that's not the point.
The point is, what are the comments?
And is there a clear violation that we that Google can
identify? Otherwise you're not getting it
removed. Interesting.
OK, So what? What would be a clear violation?
(11:11):
And a former employee leaving a review if you can help identify
it. And then a lot of it's weird
because sometimes like they'll say, I work there, but Google
still didn't like flagging it. You would think they would be
able to remove it and it does it.
But if you, you know, go to support or if you like escalate
in the forums and you provide a pay stub and you can correlate
that that employee actually did work for you, then you'll get it
(11:34):
removed. So like showing proof really
matters or like social proof, like if you could, you know,
I've done it before. I've helped a few people in the
forums where they were able to go on social media and like show
that the people that were leaving reviews are connected on
Facebook. And so that was their friends
and family leaving negative reviews.
(11:56):
And so because of that correlation, and I could I, you
know, like explain that to Google support, we were able to
get them removed. So I mean, it takes a little bit
of effort and creativity, but like people, they hate getting
negative reviews. And it's like they can, they
will like do the work to like show the proof then that it is
(12:16):
possible. But I mean, when it's that one
or two or there's no comments orlike there's just no way you can
actually prove it, it's like move on, generate some more like
positive reviews and just take your 4.9 stars.
People get really about that onestar.
Yeah, no, I was gonna ask, does it even really matter?
I mean if you still have like a 4.74.8 like does it?
(12:39):
Should you even spend the time? And just, and you know, I always
just tell people like reply and just say, hey, you know what?
I don't recognize that I've everdone business with you.
You know, I would love to help you.
Can you reach out to us or I mean, it's all about the way
that you're going to reply to the review.
And then at the end of the day, like anyone looking, they're
going to ignore that review. It's not going to matter.
(13:00):
You're still at 4.7 stars and then you know reviews help your
rankings regardless whether they're negative or positive.
So just getting another review. Just take it and and move on.
It's all about how you respond to it.
Yeah, definitely. I would, I would assume that
everyone that's looking at the profile that might become a
customer, they're going to trackthe they're going to, they're
(13:20):
going to track the reply along with the review.
So they see that's hey, no, we've never worked with you or
hey, this is an ex employee or this is like an ex-girlfriend or
whatever it is. Then I would assume that they
would be understanding and just be like, oh, OK, well that that
actually makes sense then. And it almost makes you even
more trustworthy because I thinkyou've seen some stats on this
(13:40):
as well that people actually don't trust five star businesses
as much as like a 4.7 or 4.8 because it's, it seems like a
little fishy. It's like Howard, like you've
got all good reviews, like they're things just bound to go
wrong with businesses and with people.
So. Or kind of getting like rest of
reviews that one time and then you kind of go stale like
(14:01):
people, people catch on to that.But I, but I will say that there
is like a disturbing trend wherebusinesses are getting like, you
know, bombarded with negative reviews.
And then you know how there's that like chat feature now where
you could do like WhatsApp or tax and then they're getting
elicited for like bribery, like hey, pay.
Also, we're not going to remove your reviews.
(14:23):
And is that spam or is that legit?
You know, like a lot of times you'll see the numbers from
Pakistan or like a different country and it's just they're
like, and I've actually brought this up to Google where I'm
like, can't you guys look back at like the logs and the chats
to see if they're actually getting solicited?
You know, so it's, it's something to think about, you
know, but yeah, it's crazy. It's like businesses are like
(14:46):
getting attacked because they'reusing this feature and then
they're getting taking advantageof.
But I, I do have LinkedIn post on it.
It's like the best thing you cando is like, do not engage, do
not even respond. Don't give them like one
response. Because as soon as they see that
they got you emotionally involved, they're going to keep
doing it and they know that you're going to be scared and
(15:06):
eventually you're going to pay. Yeah, yeah.
But would you still recommend because I see mixed opinions on
this and a lot of people do get spam with that chat feature.
Do you still recommend companiesdo turn on that chat feature?
Yeah, I do because like I just say, like I tell my clients I'm
like, listen, just try it, let'ssee how it goes and if it gets
like really spammy and like mostyour leads there are just like
(15:29):
not authentic because that's howit was in the past, remember
when we had it. I just tell them then like we'll
turn it off. But I do think like Google's
tracking it now and performance metrics.
So like any type of engagement that they see, it might overall
help your ranking. So I mean, you don't want to
turn off a feature that like might help your rankings.
(15:50):
So I don't know. I just say like try it.
No, I recommend the same thing. And you might, you know, might
be 80% bad leads or spam, but ifwe can still get 20% of that
that ends up being, you know, quality decent leads, then why
wouldn't we? Right.
Like if somebody's like desperate, they need us like an
emergency service and they have that chat option they're going
to, they're like those type of businesses.
(16:11):
I say most definitely. It's difficult for restaurants
though. There's just so many channels,
right? Like there's like Open table and
people are calling. I mean, some of these
restaurants I manage are gettinglike 2500 calls a month.
So it's like it's crazy. So then adding that feature in
there and then people are like trying to change the
reservations. Like you really have to have
somebody dedicated to like monitoring those.
(16:35):
I've got a niche question for you.
Do you think because I I get asked this actually quite a lot.
I'm in like I'm in different pest control masterminds and SEO
masterminds. A good amount of people ask me
does it matter if you get reviewor sorry, if you get keywords in
your reviews and then I'll ask you after this keywords in
review reply. So let's start with reviews.
(16:55):
Should you get keywords in review?
Should you ask customers to put them there or does that matter?
OK, this is my theory on it. I think it's very industry
relevant. So I did a case study where like
my client wasn't like they specialize in like tableside
Caesar salads and so they had like 53 reviews with Caesar
(17:18):
salad in it. And I couldn't get them to rank
out rank these two restaurants that like had no mention of
Caesar salad nor were they even like known for their Caesar
salad or like like it was just like on the menu.
So I thought it was so odd. So I just like kept digging and
digging and digging. And what I came to realize is
that my clients menu didn't haveCaesar Salad and had Caesar
(17:43):
Kitchen. So there's multiple signals.
And as soon as we change the name to Caesar Salad, the
rankings went right up. Like they were #1 So do keywords
matter? Yeah, they matter.
But there's also different layers in the ecosystem that
have to be in place for Google to trust it.
So I mean, I know that like restaurants, we have a lot of
(18:06):
layers. Like we have booking systems, we
have ordering systems, we have the menu integrations, we have
menu highlights, photos. There's just like, there's just
so much more in the Google ecosystem for a restaurant and a
bar even like everything they do, Google always pushes it to a
restaurant category first. It's never going to be like the
pest control. So you have like your service,
(18:28):
like I work with the Restorationbrand and like we don't have a
lot of like layers to incorporate, right, Besides like
maybe having like a a booking link, but there's like and then
adding services. So I do think though, like if
you're, if you don't have like the service in the services area
and you have it in the review, you might be less likely to
(18:50):
rank. You can maybe still rank, but
your chances of ranking higher are better when they match the
service. And then there's they're
probably also looking at like website, you know, landing
pages, service pages for industry based.
I like, I mean like service based like pest control and
stuff. But personally, I don't find
that Google's going into my restaurant clients websites for
(19:15):
like ranking purposes. Like I can get a client to rank
on Google all within the Google ecosystem just by managing what
I have access to in there. Really.
OK, cool. Yeah, no, I actually, I, I
helped a smoothie company with like, I don't know, like 50
locations recently. And it is, it is more complex
objectively speaking, that there's so many things to add to
(19:37):
the menu, there's other things within the profile.
So I agree with you, it is more complex.
That's interesting that you had the exact keyword in the the
reviews that that didn't boost it though, or at least not much.
It actually mattered more on themenu.
So that's interesting. And then also the follow up
question I wanted to ask is how about review replies?
I get asked this a lot too, because this is something you
can control directly. You don't have to ask people and
(19:59):
kind of solicit. It.
So do not care about review reply keywords.
Well, I don't know, like in the age of AI, it might change
because like everything's getting, you know, indexed.
So I think it like with AI, it might matter like, so like I
did, I did like I had in my newsletter where I said like we
(20:21):
have to look at review replies alittle bit differently than how
we have in the past. Like as far as the ranking
factor in Google Maps or local pack on desktop.
No, I I don't think it exists, but there is a possibility that
with the, as the models evolve, like if somebody's like, yeah,
and they have like really great vegetarian options.
(20:41):
Like if you were to reply and say thank you for mentioning our
vegetarian options, you know, wedo have a, you know, vegan
desserts as well. Maybe I would pick up on the
fact that you have vegan desserts that maybe rank you for
that search query. So I don't know, it's it, I
haven't been able to like test that.
Like I've tried it, but I haven't been able to surface it
(21:03):
because typically there's alwayslooking at like like Yelp or a
TripAdvisor or like even like I always do like halal because
it's, it's like such a unique like keyword and they're so, but
like there's I'm surfacing like halal websites that like I never
even knew existed. Like I'm talking about like
(21:23):
listing all the restaurants thatare halal and I was like, wow,
OK, and like AI servicing that. So but I haven't been able to
like have them clearly identify,review reply.
But I think it, you know, over the years, as we keep testing,
we might find stuff. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm in the
the same range with you. I don't, I don't think it really
matters much. It might give you a tiny boost,
(21:44):
but really I just like to give aorganic, natural reply and it
shouldn't sound force and it shouldn't like be stuffed with
keywords or be like a whole pagelong.
I've seen some companies do that.
That's you just kind of lose your trust with the customer.
Or just relying on AI for all the responses.
Like we use AI for our responses, of course, but we
change it. Like we don't like allow this to
(22:06):
just automatically post the reply, like, and when clients
ask me about that feature, I'm like, I'm not ready for it.
Yeah. Like I'm not comfortable with
it, so I'm not comfortable passing that along to, you know,
the users. Yeah, definitely.
No, no, that's something I recommend is ideally if you have
an office manager, if you can have a dedicated person, then
they actually reply because theyknow what that was like.
(22:28):
I mean, they know that Jackie was dealing with rodents or that
Joe, you know, needed to throw my job what whatever.
So they they can give a little bit more on that.
I think that would that would help the customer relationship
and maybe even decrease trust. Movements when you get a review
right, like you kind of have to understand, you know, the
contacts, what really happened and then kind of like change
your response accordingly. Definitely, definitely something
(22:51):
you were mentioning a little bitwas the location pages.
I definitely want to ask about that because this is, I feel
like all these things are kind of controversial.
I feel like everyone kind of agrees on the, the business
name, you know, the category location.
So we're, we're getting into more nuanced stuff here, but I
feel like this is the stuff a lot of people haven't heard.
I'm curious to hear your opinionis how important is the page
that you link to? A lot of companies will just
(23:12):
link to their home page, but should you link to a location
page and how much does that matter and how much does the
content on the page matter? Yeah, I mean, I had like, so
when I'm dealing with a chain, of course the landing page has
to be there. That does matter.
But like when you have a little,a like 1 service based company
with one location, I, I just test it, you know, like it's,
(23:36):
it's just do some AB testing. And I don't know, I think it
really depends on search query. So like what you know it, it'll
fluctuate like everything, everything changes based on like
what the user search intent is. So while you know, the landing
page could help with a specific search query, it may not with
another. And like, same thing with like
(23:57):
your primary category. It's like you can have up to 10,
but it's like, especially with the restaurants, like which one
should you pick? Which one has the most search
volume and like what you know, what would fit best?
So like if you're like a Japanese restaurant like this,
this is a good example. I have a lot of clients that are
Japanese restaurants, but I maketheir primary category sushi
(24:19):
because it just has way more search volume.
They can so, but then Japanese will just be a secondary.
Interesting. OK, so you you have to look at
the keywords that people are searching and then kind of make
that your primary category. I yes, exactly.
So it's a lot of testing and then just kind of looking at the
rankings and like which, which keyword do you care to rank for
(24:39):
more and then if and then kind of adjust.
Cool. Yeah, no, So I I feel like most
people know at least people thatare familiar with local SEO,
primary keyword or primary categories, definitely the most
important. Do the secondary categories
really matter? Should you go about adding all
those and do they give much weight?
Yeah, they matter a lot. So what I find and like I I
(25:02):
think it might actually be in mysame study.
I'll send you a link to a coupleof them.
But so I have an Italian restaurant, yeah, like serves
flatbread pizza. And so like, they have pictures
of pizza on their Google business profile.
But overall, are they known for pizza?
No, they're not. It's like a fine dining Italian
(25:22):
restaurant, you know, for Bronzino, things like that.
But when I didn't have pizza as a secondary category, they did
not rank for pizza keywords. They couldn't rank as soon as I
added pizza restaurant as a secondary category, they started
ranking in like 3 and 4 positions.
They're never going to rank #1 but it's not their primary
(25:43):
category. And if somebody's really like
Google knows if somebody's searching pizza, they're going
to, they're going to surface anyone that has pizza in the
business name and pizza as a primary category.
So you have to kind of look at that.
And that's why I like you have, you could do a lot like
restaurants, especially like a service based companies like
they offer this one main service.
It's easy. But when you're offering like
(26:05):
for even on this Italian restaurant I have to add
steakhouse because I can't get them to rank for any steak
related keywords without adding that category in there.
So categories matter so much. It like will trigger search
query in top. Yeah, yeah.
No, it's a little bit different for home services at least like
you know, my main one pest control, you have the main one
(26:27):
pest control service, but then there's not really too many
others. I mean, there's bird control
service, some people do that. There's like wildlife removal
and service, OK, kind of. But there's there's not many.
So at least you're missing your scenario.
Offer a ton of services. So like a practical office like
should not just have dentists because they're probably missing
out on a ton of search queries like results just by not having
(26:51):
their categories in there. Awesome.
OK. So the additional categories are
more important than the servicesthan the menu items that that's
like kind of the the 8020. Well, it's like the first layer,
right? So like it's like business name,
then your category and then you have to fill in like it's a full
optimization. Like don't just think like, oh,
I got this and I got this. Why aren't why aren't I ranking
for for fest like it, You have to like really make sure that
(27:15):
it's like fully optimized because that Caesar salad
keyword is like the prime example.
It's like the menu name, like triggered, like if they had it
in keywords, they had it photos,they had everything that they
really needed except the name didn't align.
So that's interesting. Can you rank without the keyword
(27:35):
and the business name? Like how important is that?
I mean depends on your competition.
So like, like I'm doing a study right now for halal, like so
right, Like I can add a halal restaurant as a category, I can
add it as an attribute, I can add it as a menu item and maybe
like an image with the text. So I'm testing these things
(27:57):
right now and I can't outrank the businesses that have halal
in their name. So it's like I have to like kind
of remove that and then kind of see how like my rankings
fluctuate. But at the end of the day, if
the name, if the keyword is in the business name like you're
just, you're the winner. But in AI mode it might be
different. So interesting.
(28:19):
OK, so keyword in the business name is obviously huge.
Something I want to ask you regarding that is should you add
the city to the business name? I know some people do this.
I'm kind of I kind of have mixedopinions about this.
I don't always recommend it. Like you know what I recommend
it is when they have so many locations and then they're like
(28:40):
close by to and it's like easy for us to identify the location,
you know, like it and it makes sense.
Like brands that have hundreds of locations, like I'm like,
it's easier. But as far as like helping them
rank, like I just, I don't know if there's a ton of search query
and like like volume involved inadding the city, like it's more
(29:01):
like near me or you know, people's proximity.
So I don't know. I would say like look at search
volume for like what you're, youknow, and the see if that, if
there is any, like half the timeyou look at search volume for a
keyword you're trying to track on a rank tracker and there's
none. So why are you focused there,
right? Yeah, definitely.
(29:21):
And then what? What about photos?
I hear some mixed opinions here as well that you just need like
10 really good photos. Or should you just completely
snag it and keep adding more? I think adding photos is like
the like new 2025, like game changer.
Like I don't know how long, maybe maybe even sooner.
But like when if you go through Google Maps and again, I'm going
(29:44):
to refer back to restaurants because like everything shows up
in the restaurant ecosystem a lot easier.
It's like a easier to identify things.
But like, I looked up live musicand then Google's AI inside the
Google Maps app was recommendinglike jazz night karaoke, you
know, like I don't know what outthere was a few other
(30:06):
categories. And so when I was looking to see
like, what are they going to recommend?
There's no, there is no, there is a live music category, but
there was another thing that they had in there.
I was like, there's no category for this.
Where are they going to show me?And they pulled all of it from,
like, photos, the reviews, if somebody mentioned like live
(30:27):
music in the reviews or like theAI description of the business
might say they're known for having like, you know, jazz
music or live music events. So like, and then they were like
ranking restaurants that had no mention of, like, live music in
the reviews or anything. But they had a photo that kind
of gave the conception that there was like a karaoke night,
(30:50):
like a microphone. Yeah.
So I was like, wow, that's that's powerful.
So photos really do matter. Yeah, no, and I forget the tool,
it might be Google AI Lens or something like that, where
Google shows very clearly, it understands what's in the
images. So if you take a picture of a
basketball hoop, it'll say, hey,this is a basketball hoop, we
understand this is a basketball hoop.
Okay, this seems like a player, this seems like a court.
(31:13):
It understands what's in the photos.
So that's that's kind of what you're referring to.
And then a follow up question. I don't, we're just getting
better and better and they're and, and like you'll just start
seeing them making these like recommendations or people also
ask and, and all that's coming into play.
And a lot of it photos has always been a thing like when my
restaurant clients have like a lot of burgers and then like at
(31:35):
the top of the photos, like, youknow how they have like, you
know, burgers, whatever. And you can click on it and see
all the like images of the burgers like that.
That's a ranking factor because I actually went and tracked the
keywords that I saw within the Google business, like maps
account under reviews and, and those terms.
And I realize like OK, you can rank for these keywords if
(31:56):
Google sees it. Wow.
Yeah, I know. That's crazy that that's part of
optimizing for keywords is actually just having a photo of
the thing, which is I got a little bit harder with home
services, but with restaurants I'd assume that's fairly easy.
Right. Oh, like even Med spas like lip
fillers, if you just show beforeand afters of like lips, you
(32:16):
can, you don't rank better. But of course you're going to
want to make sure that you have that service checked off.
It's, it's actually a predefinedservice and you, you know,
you're in the Med spa category and all that.
So you do. You need to make sure all the
all the other layers are there too so you can really rank.
Yeah. What are your thoughts then on
optimizing photos that there's, there's tons of different things
(32:36):
you can do. I mean, I, I see people Geo
tagging, changing the title of the image, adding the keyword on
the image and their branding on the image.
Like there's just so much you can do here.
What are your what are your thoughts?
Like obviously Geo tagging doesn't work.
I don't think the title of the photo matters.
I don't know. I don't know how I wouldn't
(32:57):
even. Maybe I could test that.
I, I've never tried testing really that, but I just think
Google's, you know, smart enoughto know and like understand what
the image is without us even having to put any overlay text
or anything. And I mean, just like you said,
like the Google lens, like you can right click like and, and
Google will tell you exactly thedescription and sometimes they
(33:18):
even give you the, the location of where that image is.
So I don't know if really like any of that all matters.
Just have like really high quality professionally done
photos because that's what seemsto like be prioritized within
Google Maps on the overviews page and, and things like that,
or in your menu highlights or, or in your like reviews.
(33:40):
So just making sure you have photos.
And I do think like photos from customers can help a lot.
Like even with your rankings, they might even rank better than
you adding the photos. OK, so you don't have to worry
too much about optimizing the photos, but just more so
actually get good photos. Just get the photos and make
(34:00):
sure that like Google can visually see and understand the
service that you're trying to provide.
So if your carpet cleaning show you know, your guys doing carpet
cleaning and you know, or if you're like a plumber, show
yourself fixing, you know, sinks, different sinks,
bathrooms, kitchens, whatever itis, just show the photos and
(34:21):
keep adding it. I think the more signal you
provide to Google through photos, through your
optimization through the attributes, then if they can
clearly identify and match you with that search query, it's
going to help you rank. Yeah, something I recommend for
home services, which again, it might be a little bit different
for restaurants, but always having, you know, a technician
in the photo or someone similar that to show.
(34:42):
And that's also for conversions that people can kind of connect
and people want to buy from people, People want to connect
with people. So to see the technician doing
the job, he's pulling up in the truck, he's, I don't know, you
know, spraying the like. Pest control and they have the
sprayer or whatever, like Google's going to be able to
identify that, know that you're,you know, for pest control.
(35:03):
So yeah, anytime you can. I like clear like, so just
having a technician in the photo, like maybe not so much,
but having some equipment with it, I think it goes a long way.
For sure. And then what about videos too?
Do you need to have videos or does that help much?
So the most difficult part is getting the clients to even send
you content. I know.
So I tell my clients, whatever you send me, I'll post it for
(35:28):
you. So, and I try to encourage them
to just like use their phones, like don't think overthink it,
you know, just take some good footage, take a couple videos,
send some photos. I actually have like 1 client
that's a restoration brand and they have to document all the
photos for insurance. And so I realized like their
(35:49):
system, it's all in their system.
So now like I encourage them to like export the PDF and then I
literally take that job and my team will create a video of all
the photos. So it's kind of like the
process. So from the beginning till the
end. And then we've been posting
that. So I'm curious to see it.
We just started doing that. So I'm curious to see if the
(36:11):
like video montage is going to be as effective as just putting
the one photo in. Interesting.
And yeah, that's like kind of ties into what I was going to
ask is do you need to update that regularly?
Like I see some people say that you need to post photos every
week or every month you need to stay active.
Well, just we schedule and we try to like, you know, it
(36:32):
depends on the client, like if they're willing to give, you
know, a lot of content and they have a lot of jobs, it's just a
matter of us scheduling it. We don't, you know, we don't
edit much of it anyway. So we could we just tell them
like send what you have or like send a bunch.
So it like will last me six months or something like that.
And then I'll decide how many I want to schedule out for you
(36:53):
for. Sure.
What are your thoughts on GoogleBusiness profile updates?
Or I think they actually recently renamed it to POST.
I've seen some people actually. I don't I won't name them but
some of the top people in local SU I've seen they say I've just
given up on Google business profile post.
I stopped doing them. Not really a fan.
I haven't seen anything from them.
What are your thoughts on updateslash post?
(37:15):
So I do think that it'll make a comeback.
And the reason why I think that is because they're featuring
event posts for restaurants. And typically, like I said, they
always start with the restaurantcategory.
But I think that we're going to start to see like if you have an
offer or if you have an event, they might be featured like
within your brand search. But like overall now they're
(37:38):
pulling in all these social media.
So it's like you're still getting that social like the
social post pulled in if you're,if you're posting on your social
media accounts. So I don't know, I, I use posts
a lot just because like for the events, I do think that they
work very effective. And, and there I had some
(37:59):
clients where even like the offer posts worked like really
great. Like 'cause people would be
driving there and they're driving directions and they
would be offering like birthday packages and then they could
sell like 3 birthday packages that day.
So do they convert? Yes, most definitely.
I just think like a lawyer throwing a post up, like, I
don't know how well that's you can't really measure that right?
(38:20):
But at the end of the day, it's engagement, it's dwell time.
So I always just say do it Like you always have to just do all
the right things, best practices.
You never know when Google's going to like update their, you
know, algorithms and put more weight towards something.
And then honestly, we don't knowhow AI mode is going to work.
(38:41):
You know, they're indexing everything.
So I would say like, don't ditchthe posts, like keep them in
there because you might be able to tell AI something about your
business that's not within your,you know, your attributes or
your category. Yeah.
Where do you think the the future of local search is going?
I've seen that's number one stretch.
(39:02):
BT is pulling more and more fromGoogle Business profiles.
I think they're showing more like Bing Places now.
They're actually showing some Google business profiles.
There's some merging of that data.
Do you think local search is gonna stay on Google and will it
be AI mode? How do you think that will
progress in advance? I do think local search is gonna
stay on Google because they haveall the rich data.
(39:23):
Yeah. And they have like API
integration. They've just like built this
like incredible ecosystem and they're really good at it.
I don't know if they lost local search.
It would be crazy. Like it's like, it would be
crazy, but like in but Apple Maps is to me, like they do have
potential, but they just like they take too long like and like
(39:47):
there's a lot of like support issues.
Like I recently had they've likethe Apple Maps just launched
where they're like have the order links and then all of a
sudden my clients are calling mebecause they're sending them to
DoorDash and they want their order links in there.
It took me like 2 months to get their order links inside Apple
Maps. And it like it was like a
technical glitch and I had to work through customer service.
(40:09):
It was just like really, really difficult.
And it's just like so annoying like that.
You don't have those kind of problems with Google Maps.
Like you just it's all the data is like more authentic.
It's more like reliable and likeyou.
And then they built that like local guides program where like
you're the not a verified business.
(40:29):
If Google will still rank you, like it doesn't matter.
Like if if you're getting reviews, like there's a local
deli down the road. For me that always shows up.
And like this is how I discovered popular times was a
ranking factor because they werealways so busy at this one time.
And no matter what they ranked like at this one specific time
for lunch and they're not verified.
(40:49):
They've even barely had like categories listed like but
people left them reviews and like that popular times feature
just like got them rent. Really.
Yeah, Popular. Can you, can you manipulate
that? I don't know.
That's just. You know what, like I thought
about it, you you might be able to like to like, let's say
you're at a shopping center and the business like next door to
(41:12):
you is a little bit more busy and you moved your mat pen over
to their. I'd like, would that make Google
think that you're more busy? No, Yeah, I hadn't never tested
that. That's like, you know, but I
did. I did think about that.
But you, you all you're you're always going to notice a boost
in rankings if Google knows in real time that you're busier
(41:32):
than usual. OK, cool, got it.
I, I wanted to go back to suspensions because I feel like
we didn't totally cover that. What are some of the biggest
reasons you've seen for profilesgetting suspended?
You know, I think like a lot of people just come to the forum
and they're like, I didn't do anything.
(41:52):
I've been open for 12 years, whyam I suspended?
I think Google's just like enhancing their AI models and
maybe like scanning and whateverit is that they're doing may
trigger a business or a whole category to go through.
Like let's, let's see if there'sa lot of, let's get rid of the
spam in this category and like clean it up.
(42:15):
And then they just kind of like knock a bunch of businesses out
And like, in a way, it's not a bad thing, right?
Like spam fighting has become less of a thing I've heard from
other experts because a lot of people are getting suspended and
just like they can't verify or they can't get unsuspended, they
don't have the right documents. So that's that's a good thing.
But I think in general, like it's just them cleaning up
(42:39):
specific categories. And then if and then some
categories are a lot more sensitive, like locksmiths and
garage doors have like a lot of spam.
And so getting those guys reinstated takes a lot more
effort than getting a restaurantor or shopping center or like
any other type of business unsuspended.
(42:59):
Like I'll notice like certain categories can get themselves
unspended through the appeal process, but then like a
locksmith will almost always getdenied and have to come to the
forum. Huh, interesting.
Yeah, OK, so, so a lot of times it's just happening, happening
randomly there. There's nothing like.
Is there anything that can prevent?
Stop that happening. Hey, you know, like they're not
(43:21):
really saying, you know, but I mean, this is just the pattern
that like will notice. And it's like, oh, I see a lot
of threads coming from locksmiths today.
Oh, I see a lot of threads coming from the garage door guys
today. So it's like Google did
something in that category that like did a scan, but like, and
then and then they're like, OK, I didn't do anything, but there
(43:43):
is a violation. There's something that triggered
the suspension. So it could be like you have no
website, your landing page or your website data doesn't match
your Google business profile, your business, maybe your
business, this name. I don't know if that triggers
the suspension to be honest. It could if it's super spammy
miss like mismatch categories, your business description,
(44:06):
whatever it is, or like showing your address, I don't know,
whatever. Like it's just having your
service area further than two hours.
Like a lot of sometimes people don't realize like you can't get
unsuspended if your service arealisted is like beyond the two
hour distance. So it's just kind of going
through all that, fixing it and like kind of advising that
(44:26):
business owner like, OK, fix this, fix this, checking their
website, making sure everything's In Sync.
Or maybe Google just can't recognize that business through
third party sources. It's like, so they think there's
like a high level of spam for that business, but it could just
be a small business owner that really never really invested in
(44:47):
marketing, right? It's like referrals and they're
getting their Google leads and they've been happy for the last
20 years. Wow, OK, so it it seems like it
really all comes down to trust and also some some owner
activity as well that we should fill out the profile completely.
We should be pretty active on it.
I guess you're kind of hinting at the at that, but does owner
(45:07):
activity play a role? Like do you have to be checking
the profile every so often and be updating it?
I'm sure that does play a role in the trust factor.
So, yeah, it's like, can Google trust that you're, you know,
that you're managing your profile, that you really do
exist? Like, yeah, I would, I would, I
would say that is a good point. Not replying to reviews, not
(45:29):
updating your data or never. Like that could be a signal to
Google like, hey, do we trust this business?
We can't find them on Yelp. We can't find them on Angie's
List. A lot of small businesses don't
even have like websites. They might went to a Facebook
page. And so when you have that in
place, you're just going to get suspended.
OK cool. So you have to make sure to
optimize. Right.
Like if Google, if you could prove to Google that you exist
(45:51):
and but even though you don't have all these other things in
place, but then I think the chances of you getting suspended
again down the line might be a little greater too for you
because you don't have that foundation that Google can trust
you. Yeah, I'm sure reviews play into
that as well, that a company with 1000 reviews is much less
likely to get suspended than onewith 10 reviews because that's
(46:14):
kind of votes for. And you'll, you'll never really
see a business get suspended andhas like driving directions,
website clicks, those kind of signals are like really big for
Google. And so that's why you don't see
like restaurants getting suspended because there's so
much activity, there's so much engagement.
But then you have these service based companies where nobody
driving to them and like are, you know, maybe calling, you
(46:36):
know, but that's about it. Absolutely.
OK, so it's it's super signals oriented of like how are people
interacting with the profile? Are people interacting with it
at all? Are you interacting with it
yourself as the owner? OK, cool.
All good stuff to know. We'll start to wrap up here.
I've got one final question for you Claudia, which is, and I'd
like to ask all my guests this is what is your final message to
(46:58):
maybe local business owners or local marketers?
What do you want to tell them? What what do they need to know?
A. Lot of people always ask me like
after they get suspended, shouldI not touch my profile?
I'm so scared. Should I just like not do
anything? I think that's that's wrong.
You should be engaged on your Google business profile.
Anytime Google enables a feature, I think you should try
(47:20):
it. Anytime there's like another
layer where you can clearly tellGoogle and it what it is that
you do. I think that you should, you
know, give it a try. Do all your optimizations, do
all the best practices, and thenjust be in it for the long haul.
Awesome. Love that.
Cool. Well, Claudia, this has been a
great show. Where can people find you and
your company? Reputationarm.com at that.
(47:44):
I'm on LinkedIn at Claudia Tomina can search my name.
I'm always giving really good tips on my posts and like
discussing some of those rankingfactors.
And you can subscribe to my newsletter on LinkedIn as well.
Awesome. Yeah, no, I totally vouched for
Claudia. She's been putting out a lot of
good content, so definitely go follow her on LinkedIn.
So cool. Those links will be in the
description and then anything else you'd like to plug or
(48:04):
promote. I am launching a new site in our
new UX for our SAS soon, so follow me on LinkedIn and I'll
announce that shortly. Awesome.
Cool. Well, it's been such a great
show. I've learned a lot from you,
Claudia, and thanks so much for coming on.
Thanks Amy. Thanks for having me of.
Course.
Hey there, and welcome back to Local Marketing Secrets.
I'm your host, Danny Lebrand, and today I'm with Claudia
Tomina. Claudia is the founder and CEO
of Reputation Arm and one of themost respected experts in local
SEO and Google business profiles.
She's a platinum Google BusinessProfile product expert, a
contributor to Search Engine Land and more recently, Local
Search Ranking factors, and a trusted advisor to businesses
(00:22):
trying to rank in the map pack and fix the trickiest local SEO
issues and in particular, restaurants.
So if you want real insights into Google's local ecosystem
and how it works, what's changing in local search, and
how to build a bulletproof online reputation, this episode
is for you. Now, without further ado,
Claudio, welcome to the show. Thanks.
Thanks for having me, Danny. Appreciate it.
(00:43):
Absolutely. So Claudia, talk to me about
your background. How did you get started in local
SEO and then eventually start reputation art?
So I actually, I used to, I usedto be really big in e-commerce.
I was like selling on Amazon before Prime even existed.
And I was, I ended up selling mybusiness and in the middle I was
(01:03):
kind of just looking in different businesses and I
decided I was like, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to
dabble into marketing. And I started shadowing at an
agency of a family relative. And then we decided that we were
going to create reputation Arm, which would be like the
reputation management portion ofhis agency.
And so, yeah, we started there, we connected, and now we're
(01:27):
building a SAS platform that helps like multi location
businesses, big brands, mainly restaurants, generate reviews so
that they can rank better. And then through that whole
process, I learned how to optimize Google business
profiles. What really gets them ranking.
I've been dabbling in like a lotof tasks and, you know, ranking
features, just always looking atGoogle Maps and how to do that.
(01:51):
And I became a Google products expert along the way and that
really like change things and help me evolve to even be a
better SEO. So it's been great.
The community's been so welcoming.
I've been doing this for six years now and so it's been
really wonderful. Yeah, talk to me about becoming
a product expert. What, what was that like?
What? What's the process?
Yeah, I mean, I had an issue with a client that like started
(02:14):
getting bombarded with negative reviews.
And I found the forum and I posted there.
And then I think it was Jason, he was on your shelf recently.
He helped connect me to another product expert.
That escalated it. And so I kept checking the
forums. And so while I was doing that, I
was like, I can answer all thesequestions.
(02:34):
So I started answering the questions and then I was like,
let me see if, you know, I couldgo down this path of being a
product expert. And I noticed that a lot of
great names like Joy and Ben Fisher and all these guys were
product experts. So I thought, let me try this.
And it's actually been so rewarding.
Like you help so many small businesses all over the world
(02:55):
and people are so grateful for your help.
And a lot of times like you're in a position to really like,
help this business like you, youalmost feel like obligated, like
you cannot like leave them. So it's, it's really satisfying
and it's helped me evolve as an SEO.
It's been it's been a wonderful time.
Yeah, awesome. And then you get to do cool
things like fly to Dublin for the Google events, so.
(03:18):
Oh, yeah, no, that, that's awesome.
Yeah. Tell me, what are some of the
biggest problems that people have faced?
Like is there just a recurring thing that people are always
asking in the forum? Right now it's all about
suspensions and verifications. So verifications is a big one,
you know, because people are trying like multiple times and
they're failing. So just like kind of guiding
(03:39):
them through the process and a lot of times it's like they
could be doing all the right things, but for whatever reason,
Google systems are not acceptingit.
And so like the forum is like the only way to help
troubleshoot and get through some of these like very
difficult things because I don'tthink support can even would
even be able to help them through it.
So it's like escalating kind of identifying the issue and like
(04:01):
our job is to make sure that like they've done all things
possible before escalating. And so like, even with
suspensions, like it almost feels like, you know, a lot of
these people, like they have no choice but to come to the forums
to get unsuspended because they filed their appeals.
And then they, you know, they might do it 2 times and they
fail and they have no choice butto come to the forum and have us
(04:24):
take another look. So really we're supposed to look
at everything, kind of make sureeverything's accurate, and then
if we, you know, notice something, kind of help them
identify it. And then from there we can do
the escalation and then help them get reinstated.
OK so suspensions and verifications is a newer thing
and that is that also re verifications or just first time
(04:46):
verifications? I mean, I don't, I wouldn't say
it was a newer thing. It's always bad with the video
verification is somewhat new to Google, I would say over the
last couple years because it wasalways postcard or phone number
or e-mail. And then they this whole video
verification, I mean it's helpeda lot with fraud.
So it's really good. But then it's also like a really
big pain for some of these smallbusinesses.
(05:08):
And then that's where like even bulk verified accounts become
even more important because if you like, I work with a lot of
brands, they don't these marketing directors don't even
know like an employee to call toeven ask them to do a video
verification. So like helping big brands get
bulk verified has become like a big core service that we've been
providing. So to make sure that like they
(05:29):
can bypass this video verification because how are
they going to do it? Especially like a fast food
chain, all these like big chains, they won't be able to
have employees do it. Yeah, talk to me about that bulk
verification process. How does that differ from just
verifying 1 profile? Yeah, so I think like it sounds
like, oh, OK, I have these 10 listings, let me get them Bolt
verified. But it really doesn't work like
(05:50):
that. You actually have to be bulk
verified. It's a status.
So once you're considered bulk verified and it's basically by
the user account, so like whatever e-mail account, and
then that e-mail has to be associated with all locations.
And typically it's done inside of a group.
And so once you have that status, every time you go to
(06:12):
create a new listing, you shouldbe able to bypass the video
verification. You actually might still get
like an e-mail verification or phone verification option and
then you can get through that. But it's it's way easier than
doing a video verification. OK.
Did you say there are requirements there?
Do you have to have a certain amount of locations or anything
else? Yeah, it has to be 10 or more
(06:34):
and you can't be a service area business.
It has to be location based. And then you know, there's
there's other requirements like you have to have a landing page
for each location. They have to, like they do some
type of audit on your website and everything has to match up.
(06:54):
So if you have 50 locations and you you have 49 landing pages,
then you don't get both verifieduntil you can actually make sure
that you actually have 50 landing pages that match the 50
Google business profiles. So they match everything up.
So sometimes it's easy to get somebody both verified and other
times it can take months. Interesting.
OK, no, I I didn't know that actually.
(07:15):
Let's let's jump into reviews because obviously this is a huge
topic regarding Google Business profile.
This is a lot of how we rank, how we convert.
First, talk to me about what's your company does in particular
with reviews. So do you guys have an
automation and what do you recommend?
Yeah, So we, we do have a dashboard that pulls in reviews
from OpenTable, DoorDash, Grubhub, apartments.com, pretty
(07:38):
much like 60 different websites.So any, any industry, any
significant industry. And then Google, of course.
And then our users are able to like respond to reviews.
We do track deleted reviews. So if something gets deleted
after scraping, like the Google API, we will be able to identify
if it's been deleted. And then we help like our
(08:01):
clients, like if they have a negative review that they need
to get rid of, like we'll help them through that process.
Or if they get like review attacks, we kind of guide them
through like, hey, let's just flag it right now and then see
how that goes. But I'll be honest, Google
systems gotten so much better atremoving reviews when you flag
them. So I mean, first up, flag the
(08:22):
review. And typically, like if you can
even get like a couple local guides to flag with you like two
or three. I'm noticing that they do get
removed if there's a clear violation.
So like, let's say you have a review with like no comments,
that's going to be harder. But if you can show a pattern
where like you have a social media link that like kind of
(08:43):
attacks your business, which caused you to have an influx of
negative reviews and you can kind of connect the dots.
You can use that, go through support and or an escalation in
the forums and kind of get through getting some of those
deleted. But yeah, I mean, everything's a
little unique, but they're like,you know, we, I, I do notice
that like without even me flagging, sometimes I get emails
(09:06):
where Google systems just say we've removed this review
because their AI systems are just getting better at detecting
what's against policies. Yeah.
OK. So you you've probably seen then
much less review fraud then in, in the past few years or so
because they they've been doubling down.
I don't know about the fraud part as far as people buying
(09:27):
reviews and stuff. I think that still happens.
I'm curious. I, I do see like people
mentioning that they're noticinglike those review fraud tags
where they're saying, oh, we're noticing suspicious reviews.
I haven't seen it. I actually like know a couple
businesses that like engage in buying, take reviews and I check
their profiles often, but they have, they don't have anything
(09:50):
on there. So I'm curious to see how that
whole thing is going to evolve. It's still, I could get still
new, but I think Google's just going to get better at it and
their systems are just going to keep learning.
And as as they keep learning andevolving, I think we'll notice
it getting better. And then, I don't know,
hopefully review fraud will. I don't think it'll stop.
(10:11):
People will always find ways to get through to it.
But I mean, maybe we'll see lessof it.
Interesting. Talk to me about dealing with
one star reviews. You mentioned this a little bit,
but but let's say it's an actuallegitimate one star review.
How do you deal with those? When the first stop is flagging
it, right. So, and like, sometimes I'll
(10:31):
tell a client like, I don't really see a clear violation
here or like, or in the forums of somebody like post something
and they're like, this is not our customer.
Just because the name it doesn'tactually match like, you know, a
customer that you know, that doesn't mean Google's going to
remove it. So, you know, because people can
use alias names and it's so they're never looking at the
(10:51):
user account name. So a business is always do that.
They're like, but I never dealt with this.
I don't know this person's name,but that's not the point.
The point is, what are the comments?
And is there a clear violation that we that Google can
identify? Otherwise you're not getting it
removed. Interesting.
OK, So what? What would be a clear violation?
(11:11):
And a former employee leaving a review if you can help identify
it. And then a lot of it's weird
because sometimes like they'll say, I work there, but Google
still didn't like flagging it. You would think they would be
able to remove it and it does it.
But if you, you know, go to support or if you like escalate
in the forums and you provide a pay stub and you can correlate
that that employee actually did work for you, then you'll get it
(11:34):
removed. So like showing proof really
matters or like social proof, like if you could, you know,
I've done it before. I've helped a few people in the
forums where they were able to go on social media and like show
that the people that were leaving reviews are connected on
Facebook. And so that was their friends
and family leaving negative reviews.
(11:56):
And so because of that correlation, and I could I, you
know, like explain that to Google support, we were able to
get them removed. So I mean, it takes a little bit
of effort and creativity, but like people, they hate getting
negative reviews. And it's like they can, they
will like do the work to like show the proof then that it is
(12:16):
possible. But I mean, when it's that one
or two or there's no comments orlike there's just no way you can
actually prove it, it's like move on, generate some more like
positive reviews and just take your 4.9 stars.
People get really about that onestar.
Yeah, no, I was gonna ask, does it even really matter?
I mean if you still have like a 4.74.8 like does it?
(12:39):
Should you even spend the time? And just, and you know, I always
just tell people like reply and just say, hey, you know what?
I don't recognize that I've everdone business with you.
You know, I would love to help you.
Can you reach out to us or I mean, it's all about the way
that you're going to reply to the review.
And then at the end of the day, like anyone looking, they're
going to ignore that review. It's not going to matter.
(13:00):
You're still at 4.7 stars and then you know reviews help your
rankings regardless whether they're negative or positive.
So just getting another review. Just take it and and move on.
It's all about how you respond to it.
Yeah, definitely. I would, I would assume that
everyone that's looking at the profile that might become a
customer, they're going to trackthe they're going to, they're
(13:20):
going to track the reply along with the review.
So they see that's hey, no, we've never worked with you or
hey, this is an ex employee or this is like an ex-girlfriend or
whatever it is. Then I would assume that they
would be understanding and just be like, oh, OK, well that that
actually makes sense then. And it almost makes you even
more trustworthy because I thinkyou've seen some stats on this
(13:40):
as well that people actually don't trust five star businesses
as much as like a 4.7 or 4.8 because it's, it seems like a
little fishy. It's like Howard, like you've
got all good reviews, like they're things just bound to go
wrong with businesses and with people.
So. Or kind of getting like rest of
reviews that one time and then you kind of go stale like
(14:01):
people, people catch on to that.But I, but I will say that there
is like a disturbing trend wherebusinesses are getting like, you
know, bombarded with negative reviews.
And then you know how there's that like chat feature now where
you could do like WhatsApp or tax and then they're getting
elicited for like bribery, like hey, pay.
Also, we're not going to remove your reviews.
(14:23):
And is that spam or is that legit?
You know, like a lot of times you'll see the numbers from
Pakistan or like a different country and it's just they're
like, and I've actually brought this up to Google where I'm
like, can't you guys look back at like the logs and the chats
to see if they're actually getting solicited?
You know, so it's, it's something to think about, you
know, but yeah, it's crazy. It's like businesses are like
(14:46):
getting attacked because they'reusing this feature and then
they're getting taking advantageof.
But I, I do have LinkedIn post on it.
It's like the best thing you cando is like, do not engage, do
not even respond. Don't give them like one
response. Because as soon as they see that
they got you emotionally involved, they're going to keep
doing it and they know that you're going to be scared and
(15:06):
eventually you're going to pay. Yeah, yeah.
But would you still recommend because I see mixed opinions on
this and a lot of people do get spam with that chat feature.
Do you still recommend companiesdo turn on that chat feature?
Yeah, I do because like I just say, like I tell my clients I'm
like, listen, just try it, let'ssee how it goes and if it gets
like really spammy and like mostyour leads there are just like
(15:29):
not authentic because that's howit was in the past, remember
when we had it. I just tell them then like we'll
turn it off. But I do think like Google's
tracking it now and performance metrics.
So like any type of engagement that they see, it might overall
help your ranking. So I mean, you don't want to
turn off a feature that like might help your rankings.
(15:50):
So I don't know. I just say like try it.
No, I recommend the same thing. And you might, you know, might
be 80% bad leads or spam, but ifwe can still get 20% of that
that ends up being, you know, quality decent leads, then why
wouldn't we? Right.
Like if somebody's like desperate, they need us like an
emergency service and they have that chat option they're going
to, they're like those type of businesses.
(16:11):
I say most definitely. It's difficult for restaurants
though. There's just so many channels,
right? Like there's like Open table and
people are calling. I mean, some of these
restaurants I manage are gettinglike 2500 calls a month.
So it's like it's crazy. So then adding that feature in
there and then people are like trying to change the
reservations. Like you really have to have
somebody dedicated to like monitoring those.
(16:35):
I've got a niche question for you.
Do you think because I I get asked this actually quite a lot.
I'm in like I'm in different pest control masterminds and SEO
masterminds. A good amount of people ask me
does it matter if you get reviewor sorry, if you get keywords in
your reviews and then I'll ask you after this keywords in
review reply. So let's start with reviews.
(16:55):
Should you get keywords in review?
Should you ask customers to put them there or does that matter?
OK, this is my theory on it. I think it's very industry
relevant. So I did a case study where like
my client wasn't like they specialize in like tableside
Caesar salads and so they had like 53 reviews with Caesar
(17:18):
salad in it. And I couldn't get them to rank
out rank these two restaurants that like had no mention of
Caesar salad nor were they even like known for their Caesar
salad or like like it was just like on the menu.
So I thought it was so odd. So I just like kept digging and
digging and digging. And what I came to realize is
that my clients menu didn't haveCaesar Salad and had Caesar
(17:43):
Kitchen. So there's multiple signals.
And as soon as we change the name to Caesar Salad, the
rankings went right up. Like they were #1 So do keywords
matter? Yeah, they matter.
But there's also different layers in the ecosystem that
have to be in place for Google to trust it.
So I mean, I know that like restaurants, we have a lot of
(18:06):
layers. Like we have booking systems, we
have ordering systems, we have the menu integrations, we have
menu highlights, photos. There's just like, there's just
so much more in the Google ecosystem for a restaurant and a
bar even like everything they do, Google always pushes it to a
restaurant category first. It's never going to be like the
pest control. So you have like your service,
(18:28):
like I work with the Restorationbrand and like we don't have a
lot of like layers to incorporate, right, Besides like
maybe having like a a booking link, but there's like and then
adding services. So I do think though, like if
you're, if you don't have like the service in the services area
and you have it in the review, you might be less likely to
(18:50):
rank. You can maybe still rank, but
your chances of ranking higher are better when they match the
service. And then there's they're
probably also looking at like website, you know, landing
pages, service pages for industry based.
I like, I mean like service based like pest control and
stuff. But personally, I don't find
that Google's going into my restaurant clients websites for
(19:15):
like ranking purposes. Like I can get a client to rank
on Google all within the Google ecosystem just by managing what
I have access to in there. Really.
OK, cool. Yeah, no, I actually, I, I
helped a smoothie company with like, I don't know, like 50
locations recently. And it is, it is more complex
objectively speaking, that there's so many things to add to
(19:37):
the menu, there's other things within the profile.
So I agree with you, it is more complex.
That's interesting that you had the exact keyword in the the
reviews that that didn't boost it though, or at least not much.
It actually mattered more on themenu.
So that's interesting. And then also the follow up
question I wanted to ask is how about review replies?
I get asked this a lot too, because this is something you
can control directly. You don't have to ask people and
(19:59):
kind of solicit. It.
So do not care about review reply keywords.
Well, I don't know, like in the age of AI, it might change
because like everything's getting, you know, indexed.
So I think it like with AI, it might matter like, so like I
did, I did like I had in my newsletter where I said like we
(20:21):
have to look at review replies alittle bit differently than how
we have in the past. Like as far as the ranking
factor in Google Maps or local pack on desktop.
No, I I don't think it exists, but there is a possibility that
with the, as the models evolve, like if somebody's like, yeah,
and they have like really great vegetarian options.
(20:41):
Like if you were to reply and say thank you for mentioning our
vegetarian options, you know, wedo have a, you know, vegan
desserts as well. Maybe I would pick up on the
fact that you have vegan desserts that maybe rank you for
that search query. So I don't know, it's it, I
haven't been able to like test that.
Like I've tried it, but I haven't been able to surface it
(21:03):
because typically there's alwayslooking at like like Yelp or a
TripAdvisor or like even like I always do like halal because
it's, it's like such a unique like keyword and they're so, but
like there's I'm surfacing like halal websites that like I never
even knew existed. Like I'm talking about like
(21:23):
listing all the restaurants thatare halal and I was like, wow,
OK, and like AI servicing that. So but I haven't been able to
like have them clearly identify,review reply.
But I think it, you know, over the years, as we keep testing,
we might find stuff. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm in the
the same range with you. I don't, I don't think it really
matters much. It might give you a tiny boost,
(21:44):
but really I just like to give aorganic, natural reply and it
shouldn't sound force and it shouldn't like be stuffed with
keywords or be like a whole pagelong.
I've seen some companies do that.
That's you just kind of lose your trust with the customer.
Or just relying on AI for all the responses.
Like we use AI for our responses, of course, but we
change it. Like we don't like allow this to
(22:06):
just automatically post the reply, like, and when clients
ask me about that feature, I'm like, I'm not ready for it.
Yeah. Like I'm not comfortable with
it, so I'm not comfortable passing that along to, you know,
the users. Yeah, definitely.
No, no, that's something I recommend is ideally if you have
an office manager, if you can have a dedicated person, then
they actually reply because theyknow what that was like.
(22:28):
I mean, they know that Jackie was dealing with rodents or that
Joe, you know, needed to throw my job what whatever.
So they they can give a little bit more on that.
I think that would that would help the customer relationship
and maybe even decrease trust. Movements when you get a review
right, like you kind of have to understand, you know, the
contacts, what really happened and then kind of like change
your response accordingly. Definitely, definitely something
(22:51):
you were mentioning a little bitwas the location pages.
I definitely want to ask about that because this is, I feel
like all these things are kind of controversial.
I feel like everyone kind of agrees on the, the business
name, you know, the category location.
So we're, we're getting into more nuanced stuff here, but I
feel like this is the stuff a lot of people haven't heard.
I'm curious to hear your opinionis how important is the page
that you link to? A lot of companies will just
(23:12):
link to their home page, but should you link to a location
page and how much does that matter and how much does the
content on the page matter? Yeah, I mean, I had like, so
when I'm dealing with a chain, of course the landing page has
to be there. That does matter.
But like when you have a little,a like 1 service based company
with one location, I, I just test it, you know, like it's,
(23:36):
it's just do some AB testing. And I don't know, I think it
really depends on search query. So like what you know it, it'll
fluctuate like everything, everything changes based on like
what the user search intent is. So while you know, the landing
page could help with a specific search query, it may not with
another. And like, same thing with like
(23:57):
your primary category. It's like you can have up to 10,
but it's like, especially with the restaurants, like which one
should you pick? Which one has the most search
volume and like what you know, what would fit best?
So like if you're like a Japanese restaurant like this,
this is a good example. I have a lot of clients that are
Japanese restaurants, but I maketheir primary category sushi
(24:19):
because it just has way more search volume.
They can so, but then Japanese will just be a secondary.
Interesting. OK, so you you have to look at
the keywords that people are searching and then kind of make
that your primary category. I yes, exactly.
So it's a lot of testing and then just kind of looking at the
rankings and like which, which keyword do you care to rank for
(24:39):
more and then if and then kind of adjust.
Cool. Yeah, no, So I I feel like most
people know at least people thatare familiar with local SEO,
primary keyword or primary categories, definitely the most
important. Do the secondary categories
really matter? Should you go about adding all
those and do they give much weight?
Yeah, they matter a lot. So what I find and like I I
(25:02):
think it might actually be in mysame study.
I'll send you a link to a coupleof them.
But so I have an Italian restaurant, yeah, like serves
flatbread pizza. And so like, they have pictures
of pizza on their Google business profile.
But overall, are they known for pizza?
No, they're not. It's like a fine dining Italian
(25:22):
restaurant, you know, for Bronzino, things like that.
But when I didn't have pizza as a secondary category, they did
not rank for pizza keywords. They couldn't rank as soon as I
added pizza restaurant as a secondary category, they started
ranking in like 3 and 4 positions.
They're never going to rank #1 but it's not their primary
(25:43):
category. And if somebody's really like
Google knows if somebody's searching pizza, they're going
to, they're going to surface anyone that has pizza in the
business name and pizza as a primary category.
So you have to kind of look at that.
And that's why I like you have, you could do a lot like
restaurants, especially like a service based companies like
they offer this one main service.
It's easy. But when you're offering like
(26:05):
for even on this Italian restaurant I have to add
steakhouse because I can't get them to rank for any steak
related keywords without adding that category in there.
So categories matter so much. It like will trigger search
query in top. Yeah, yeah.
No, it's a little bit different for home services at least like
you know, my main one pest control, you have the main one
(26:27):
pest control service, but then there's not really too many
others. I mean, there's bird control
service, some people do that. There's like wildlife removal
and service, OK, kind of. But there's there's not many.
So at least you're missing your scenario.
Offer a ton of services. So like a practical office like
should not just have dentists because they're probably missing
out on a ton of search queries like results just by not having
(26:51):
their categories in there. Awesome.
OK. So the additional categories are
more important than the servicesthan the menu items that that's
like kind of the the 8020. Well, it's like the first layer,
right? So like it's like business name,
then your category and then you have to fill in like it's a full
optimization. Like don't just think like, oh,
I got this and I got this. Why aren't why aren't I ranking
for for fest like it, You have to like really make sure that
(27:15):
it's like fully optimized because that Caesar salad
keyword is like the prime example.
It's like the menu name, like triggered, like if they had it
in keywords, they had it photos,they had everything that they
really needed except the name didn't align.
So that's interesting. Can you rank without the keyword
(27:35):
and the business name? Like how important is that?
I mean depends on your competition.
So like, like I'm doing a study right now for halal, like so
right, Like I can add a halal restaurant as a category, I can
add it as an attribute, I can add it as a menu item and maybe
like an image with the text. So I'm testing these things
(27:57):
right now and I can't outrank the businesses that have halal
in their name. So it's like I have to like kind
of remove that and then kind of see how like my rankings
fluctuate. But at the end of the day, if
the name, if the keyword is in the business name like you're
just, you're the winner. But in AI mode it might be
different. So interesting.
(28:19):
OK, so keyword in the business name is obviously huge.
Something I want to ask you regarding that is should you add
the city to the business name? I know some people do this.
I'm kind of I kind of have mixedopinions about this.
I don't always recommend it. Like you know what I recommend
it is when they have so many locations and then they're like
(28:40):
close by to and it's like easy for us to identify the location,
you know, like it and it makes sense.
Like brands that have hundreds of locations, like I'm like,
it's easier. But as far as like helping them
rank, like I just, I don't know if there's a ton of search query
and like like volume involved inadding the city, like it's more
(29:01):
like near me or you know, people's proximity.
So I don't know. I would say like look at search
volume for like what you're, youknow, and the see if that, if
there is any, like half the timeyou look at search volume for a
keyword you're trying to track on a rank tracker and there's
none. So why are you focused there,
right? Yeah, definitely.
(29:21):
And then what? What about photos?
I hear some mixed opinions here as well that you just need like
10 really good photos. Or should you just completely
snag it and keep adding more? I think adding photos is like
the like new 2025, like game changer.
Like I don't know how long, maybe maybe even sooner.
But like when if you go through Google Maps and again, I'm going
(29:44):
to refer back to restaurants because like everything shows up
in the restaurant ecosystem a lot easier.
It's like a easier to identify things.
But like, I looked up live musicand then Google's AI inside the
Google Maps app was recommendinglike jazz night karaoke, you
know, like I don't know what outthere was a few other
(30:06):
categories. And so when I was looking to see
like, what are they going to recommend?
There's no, there is no, there is a live music category, but
there was another thing that they had in there.
I was like, there's no category for this.
Where are they going to show me?And they pulled all of it from,
like, photos, the reviews, if somebody mentioned like live
(30:27):
music in the reviews or like theAI description of the business
might say they're known for having like, you know, jazz
music or live music events. So like, and then they were like
ranking restaurants that had no mention of, like, live music in
the reviews or anything. But they had a photo that kind
of gave the conception that there was like a karaoke night,
(30:50):
like a microphone. Yeah.
So I was like, wow, that's that's powerful.
So photos really do matter. Yeah, no, and I forget the tool,
it might be Google AI Lens or something like that, where
Google shows very clearly, it understands what's in the
images. So if you take a picture of a
basketball hoop, it'll say, hey,this is a basketball hoop, we
understand this is a basketball hoop.
Okay, this seems like a player, this seems like a court.
(31:13):
It understands what's in the photos.
So that's that's kind of what you're referring to.
And then a follow up question. I don't, we're just getting
better and better and they're and, and like you'll just start
seeing them making these like recommendations or people also
ask and, and all that's coming into play.
And a lot of it photos has always been a thing like when my
restaurant clients have like a lot of burgers and then like at
(31:35):
the top of the photos, like, youknow how they have like, you
know, burgers, whatever. And you can click on it and see
all the like images of the burgers like that.
That's a ranking factor because I actually went and tracked the
keywords that I saw within the Google business, like maps
account under reviews and, and those terms.
And I realize like OK, you can rank for these keywords if
(31:56):
Google sees it. Wow.
Yeah, I know. That's crazy that that's part of
optimizing for keywords is actually just having a photo of
the thing, which is I got a little bit harder with home
services, but with restaurants I'd assume that's fairly easy.
Right. Oh, like even Med spas like lip
fillers, if you just show beforeand afters of like lips, you
(32:16):
can, you don't rank better. But of course you're going to
want to make sure that you have that service checked off.
It's, it's actually a predefinedservice and you, you know,
you're in the Med spa category and all that.
So you do. You need to make sure all the
all the other layers are there too so you can really rank.
Yeah. What are your thoughts then on
optimizing photos that there's, there's tons of different things
(32:36):
you can do. I mean, I, I see people Geo
tagging, changing the title of the image, adding the keyword on
the image and their branding on the image.
Like there's just so much you can do here.
What are your what are your thoughts?
Like obviously Geo tagging doesn't work.
I don't think the title of the photo matters.
I don't know. I don't know how I wouldn't
(32:57):
even. Maybe I could test that.
I, I've never tried testing really that, but I just think
Google's, you know, smart enoughto know and like understand what
the image is without us even having to put any overlay text
or anything. And I mean, just like you said,
like the Google lens, like you can right click like and, and
Google will tell you exactly thedescription and sometimes they
(33:18):
even give you the, the location of where that image is.
So I don't know if really like any of that all matters.
Just have like really high quality professionally done
photos because that's what seemsto like be prioritized within
Google Maps on the overviews page and, and things like that,
or in your menu highlights or, or in your like reviews.
(33:40):
So just making sure you have photos.
And I do think like photos from customers can help a lot.
Like even with your rankings, they might even rank better than
you adding the photos. OK, so you don't have to worry
too much about optimizing the photos, but just more so
actually get good photos. Just get the photos and make
(34:00):
sure that like Google can visually see and understand the
service that you're trying to provide.
So if your carpet cleaning show you know, your guys doing carpet
cleaning and you know, or if you're like a plumber, show
yourself fixing, you know, sinks, different sinks,
bathrooms, kitchens, whatever itis, just show the photos and
(34:21):
keep adding it. I think the more signal you
provide to Google through photos, through your
optimization through the attributes, then if they can
clearly identify and match you with that search query, it's
going to help you rank. Yeah, something I recommend for
home services, which again, it might be a little bit different
for restaurants, but always having, you know, a technician
in the photo or someone similar that to show.
(34:42):
And that's also for conversions that people can kind of connect
and people want to buy from people, People want to connect
with people. So to see the technician doing
the job, he's pulling up in the truck, he's, I don't know, you
know, spraying the like. Pest control and they have the
sprayer or whatever, like Google's going to be able to
identify that, know that you're,you know, for pest control.
(35:03):
So yeah, anytime you can. I like clear like, so just
having a technician in the photo, like maybe not so much,
but having some equipment with it, I think it goes a long way.
For sure. And then what about videos too?
Do you need to have videos or does that help much?
So the most difficult part is getting the clients to even send
you content. I know.
So I tell my clients, whatever you send me, I'll post it for
(35:28):
you. So, and I try to encourage them
to just like use their phones, like don't think overthink it,
you know, just take some good footage, take a couple videos,
send some photos. I actually have like 1 client
that's a restoration brand and they have to document all the
photos for insurance. And so I realized like their
(35:49):
system, it's all in their system.
So now like I encourage them to like export the PDF and then I
literally take that job and my team will create a video of all
the photos. So it's kind of like the
process. So from the beginning till the
end. And then we've been posting
that. So I'm curious to see it.
We just started doing that. So I'm curious to see if the
(36:11):
like video montage is going to be as effective as just putting
the one photo in. Interesting.
And yeah, that's like kind of ties into what I was going to
ask is do you need to update that regularly?
Like I see some people say that you need to post photos every
week or every month you need to stay active.
Well, just we schedule and we try to like, you know, it
(36:32):
depends on the client, like if they're willing to give, you
know, a lot of content and they have a lot of jobs, it's just a
matter of us scheduling it. We don't, you know, we don't
edit much of it anyway. So we could we just tell them
like send what you have or like send a bunch.
So it like will last me six months or something like that.
And then I'll decide how many I want to schedule out for you
(36:53):
for. Sure.
What are your thoughts on GoogleBusiness profile updates?
Or I think they actually recently renamed it to POST.
I've seen some people actually. I don't I won't name them but
some of the top people in local SU I've seen they say I've just
given up on Google business profile post.
I stopped doing them. Not really a fan.
I haven't seen anything from them.
What are your thoughts on updateslash post?
(37:15):
So I do think that it'll make a comeback.
And the reason why I think that is because they're featuring
event posts for restaurants. And typically, like I said, they
always start with the restaurantcategory.
But I think that we're going to start to see like if you have an
offer or if you have an event, they might be featured like
within your brand search. But like overall now they're
(37:38):
pulling in all these social media.
So it's like you're still getting that social like the
social post pulled in if you're,if you're posting on your social
media accounts. So I don't know, I, I use posts
a lot just because like for the events, I do think that they
work very effective. And, and there I had some
(37:59):
clients where even like the offer posts worked like really
great. Like 'cause people would be
driving there and they're driving directions and they
would be offering like birthday packages and then they could
sell like 3 birthday packages that day.
So do they convert? Yes, most definitely.
I just think like a lawyer throwing a post up, like, I
don't know how well that's you can't really measure that right?
(38:20):
But at the end of the day, it's engagement, it's dwell time.
So I always just say do it Like you always have to just do all
the right things, best practices.
You never know when Google's going to like update their, you
know, algorithms and put more weight towards something.
And then honestly, we don't knowhow AI mode is going to work.
(38:41):
You know, they're indexing everything.
So I would say like, don't ditchthe posts, like keep them in
there because you might be able to tell AI something about your
business that's not within your,you know, your attributes or
your category. Yeah.
Where do you think the the future of local search is going?
I've seen that's number one stretch.
(39:02):
BT is pulling more and more fromGoogle Business profiles.
I think they're showing more like Bing Places now.
They're actually showing some Google business profiles.
There's some merging of that data.
Do you think local search is gonna stay on Google and will it
be AI mode? How do you think that will
progress in advance? I do think local search is gonna
stay on Google because they haveall the rich data.
(39:23):
Yeah. And they have like API
integration. They've just like built this
like incredible ecosystem and they're really good at it.
I don't know if they lost local search.
It would be crazy. Like it's like, it would be
crazy, but like in but Apple Maps is to me, like they do have
potential, but they just like they take too long like and like
(39:47):
there's a lot of like support issues.
Like I recently had they've likethe Apple Maps just launched
where they're like have the order links and then all of a
sudden my clients are calling mebecause they're sending them to
DoorDash and they want their order links in there.
It took me like 2 months to get their order links inside Apple
Maps. And it like it was like a
technical glitch and I had to work through customer service.
(40:09):
It was just like really, really difficult.
And it's just like so annoying like that.
You don't have those kind of problems with Google Maps.
Like you just it's all the data is like more authentic.
It's more like reliable and likeyou.
And then they built that like local guides program where like
you're the not a verified business.
(40:29):
If Google will still rank you, like it doesn't matter.
Like if if you're getting reviews, like there's a local
deli down the road. For me that always shows up.
And like this is how I discovered popular times was a
ranking factor because they werealways so busy at this one time.
And no matter what they ranked like at this one specific time
for lunch and they're not verified.
(40:49):
They've even barely had like categories listed like but
people left them reviews and like that popular times feature
just like got them rent. Really.
Yeah, Popular. Can you, can you manipulate
that? I don't know.
That's just. You know what, like I thought
about it, you you might be able to like to like, let's say
you're at a shopping center and the business like next door to
(41:12):
you is a little bit more busy and you moved your mat pen over
to their. I'd like, would that make Google
think that you're more busy? No, Yeah, I hadn't never tested
that. That's like, you know, but I
did. I did think about that.
But you, you all you're you're always going to notice a boost
in rankings if Google knows in real time that you're busier
(41:32):
than usual. OK, cool, got it.
I, I wanted to go back to suspensions because I feel like
we didn't totally cover that. What are some of the biggest
reasons you've seen for profilesgetting suspended?
You know, I think like a lot of people just come to the forum
and they're like, I didn't do anything.
(41:52):
I've been open for 12 years, whyam I suspended?
I think Google's just like enhancing their AI models and
maybe like scanning and whateverit is that they're doing may
trigger a business or a whole category to go through.
Like let's, let's see if there'sa lot of, let's get rid of the
spam in this category and like clean it up.
(42:15):
And then they just kind of like knock a bunch of businesses out
And like, in a way, it's not a bad thing, right?
Like spam fighting has become less of a thing I've heard from
other experts because a lot of people are getting suspended and
just like they can't verify or they can't get unsuspended, they
don't have the right documents. So that's that's a good thing.
But I think in general, like it's just them cleaning up
(42:39):
specific categories. And then if and then some
categories are a lot more sensitive, like locksmiths and
garage doors have like a lot of spam.
And so getting those guys reinstated takes a lot more
effort than getting a restaurantor or shopping center or like
any other type of business unsuspended.
(42:59):
Like I'll notice like certain categories can get themselves
unspended through the appeal process, but then like a
locksmith will almost always getdenied and have to come to the
forum. Huh, interesting.
Yeah, OK, so, so a lot of times it's just happening, happening
randomly there. There's nothing like.
Is there anything that can prevent?
Stop that happening. Hey, you know, like they're not
(43:21):
really saying, you know, but I mean, this is just the pattern
that like will notice. And it's like, oh, I see a lot
of threads coming from locksmiths today.
Oh, I see a lot of threads coming from the garage door guys
today. So it's like Google did
something in that category that like did a scan, but like, and
then and then they're like, OK, I didn't do anything, but there
(43:43):
is a violation. There's something that triggered
the suspension. So it could be like you have no
website, your landing page or your website data doesn't match
your Google business profile, your business, maybe your
business, this name. I don't know if that triggers
the suspension to be honest. It could if it's super spammy
miss like mismatch categories, your business description,
(44:06):
whatever it is, or like showing your address, I don't know,
whatever. Like it's just having your
service area further than two hours.
Like a lot of sometimes people don't realize like you can't get
unsuspended if your service arealisted is like beyond the two
hour distance. So it's just kind of going
through all that, fixing it and like kind of advising that
(44:26):
business owner like, OK, fix this, fix this, checking their
website, making sure everything's In Sync.
Or maybe Google just can't recognize that business through
third party sources. It's like, so they think there's
like a high level of spam for that business, but it could just
be a small business owner that really never really invested in
(44:47):
marketing, right? It's like referrals and they're
getting their Google leads and they've been happy for the last
20 years. Wow, OK, so it it seems like it
really all comes down to trust and also some some owner
activity as well that we should fill out the profile completely.
We should be pretty active on it.
I guess you're kind of hinting at the at that, but does owner
(45:07):
activity play a role? Like do you have to be checking
the profile every so often and be updating it?
I'm sure that does play a role in the trust factor.
So, yeah, it's like, can Google trust that you're, you know,
that you're managing your profile, that you really do
exist? Like, yeah, I would, I would, I
would say that is a good point. Not replying to reviews, not
(45:29):
updating your data or never. Like that could be a signal to
Google like, hey, do we trust this business?
We can't find them on Yelp. We can't find them on Angie's
List. A lot of small businesses don't
even have like websites. They might went to a Facebook
page. And so when you have that in
place, you're just going to get suspended.
OK cool. So you have to make sure to
optimize. Right.
Like if Google, if you could prove to Google that you exist
(45:51):
and but even though you don't have all these other things in
place, but then I think the chances of you getting suspended
again down the line might be a little greater too for you
because you don't have that foundation that Google can trust
you. Yeah, I'm sure reviews play into
that as well, that a company with 1000 reviews is much less
likely to get suspended than onewith 10 reviews because that's
(46:14):
kind of votes for. And you'll, you'll never really
see a business get suspended andhas like driving directions,
website clicks, those kind of signals are like really big for
Google. And so that's why you don't see
like restaurants getting suspended because there's so
much activity, there's so much engagement.
But then you have these service based companies where nobody
driving to them and like are, you know, maybe calling, you
(46:36):
know, but that's about it. Absolutely.
OK, so it's it's super signals oriented of like how are people
interacting with the profile? Are people interacting with it
at all? Are you interacting with it
yourself as the owner? OK, cool.
All good stuff to know. We'll start to wrap up here.
I've got one final question for you Claudia, which is, and I'd
like to ask all my guests this is what is your final message to
(46:58):
maybe local business owners or local marketers?
What do you want to tell them? What what do they need to know?
A. Lot of people always ask me like
after they get suspended, shouldI not touch my profile?
I'm so scared. Should I just like not do
anything? I think that's that's wrong.
You should be engaged on your Google business profile.
Anytime Google enables a feature, I think you should try
(47:20):
it. Anytime there's like another
layer where you can clearly tellGoogle and it what it is that
you do. I think that you should, you
know, give it a try. Do all your optimizations, do
all the best practices, and thenjust be in it for the long haul.
Awesome. Love that.
Cool. Well, Claudia, this has been a
great show. Where can people find you and
your company? Reputationarm.com at that.
(47:44):
I'm on LinkedIn at Claudia Tomina can search my name.
I'm always giving really good tips on my posts and like
discussing some of those rankingfactors.
And you can subscribe to my newsletter on LinkedIn as well.
Awesome. Yeah, no, I totally vouched for
Claudia. She's been putting out a lot of
good content, so definitely go follow her on LinkedIn.
So cool. Those links will be in the
description and then anything else you'd like to plug or
(48:04):
promote. I am launching a new site in our
new UX for our SAS soon, so follow me on LinkedIn and I'll
announce that shortly. Awesome.
Cool. Well, it's been such a great
show. I've learned a lot from you,
Claudia, and thanks so much for coming on.
Thanks Amy. Thanks for having me of.
Course.
Host
Danny Leibrandt
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