October 28, 2025 • 23 mins
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Branded searches convert best. In this lesson, Meredith’s Husband walks local photographers through 12 must-do optimizations for a Google Business Profile—covering name consistency, photos, address vs. service area, products/prices, categories, descriptions, updates, reviews, social links, and image strategy—to boost first impressions and local “photographers near me” visibility.
Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction
[0:24] Why revisit Google Business Profile now
[2:05] Branded searches and conversion reality
[3:32] How GBP impacts local “near me” rankings
[5:01] Step 1 — Business name consistency
[6:00] Step 2 — Cover photo that actually crops well
[7:25] Step 3 — Service area vs. address (use a real address)
[10:15] Step 4 — Logo upload and preview
[11:10] Step 5 — Local phone number importance
[12:20] Step 6–7 — Products, prices, and categories
[15:05] Step 8 — “From the business” as a testimonial
[16:20] Step 9 — Monthly updates (why it helps)
[18:02] Step 10 — Reviews cadence and request method
[20:05] Step 11 — Attach social profiles (they’re back)
[21:30] Step 12 — Photos are the attention magnet
[23:15] Optional steps teaser + vote link
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Meredith's Husband (00:24):
Alright, we're gonna try something new
today.
So Meredith is in the midst ofher busy season, and she's going
to be shooting and editingthrough probably mid-December.
And the amount of time that shehas to spare between now and
then is very small.
So rather than our normalformat of Meredith and I
speaking, I'm going to share alesson from some upcoming
training that I have.
(00:44):
And this lesson in particularis something I've shared before
here on the podcast.
In fact, we did a full episodeabout it, but it was over a year
ago, and there have been somechanges since then.
So what I'm going to share isthe lesson that I created as a
result of doing that episode,really.
And it's essentially an updatedversion of that episode with
more current tips.
(01:05):
It's also, this is one of thevery first and most important
things that a local businessowner should do for Google.
So if you haven't done thisstuff, or even if you had, it's
probably worth revisiting justto make sure you are following
best practice.
All right.
I hope this helps.
All right, in this video, I'mgoing to talk about how to
optimize your Google businessprofile.
(01:26):
So in the last video, there wassome homework.
You went to, hopefully, youwent to Google Search Console
and you looked up whichkeywords, which queries were
most popular for your website.
How are people most oftenactually getting to your
website?
One thing that you may havefound is that people are
searching for your name or yourbrand name.
(01:48):
It's pretty common.
And in fact, you may have foundthat that's the most popular
query.
It's the most popular way thatpeople are finding your website.
That is also common, whetherthe numbers are small or whether
the numbers are big, becausepeople could be looking for you
by name for a number of reasons.
Could be they maybe have workedwith you in the past and they
just are trying to get to yourwebsite.
(02:08):
Could be they have seen yourname on social media or heard
your business name from a friendor heard about you somewhere
else, and now they'reinterested.
They need a photographer,they're thinking about hiring
you.
Could also be uh could be yourmom.
Could be it's like competitorslooking to see exactly what
you're offering.
At least some of those peopleare going to be looking for you
(02:29):
because they are interested inpotentially hiring you, and they
are doing at least some amountof research.
Okay, these are going to beprobably your best clients, the
ones who do a little bit ofresearch.
They're not just contacting youblindly.
They're trying to learn alittle bit first, and they
obviously have already heardabout you.
Okay, they they have yourbusiness name, they have your
(02:49):
personal name, and they'researching for it.
They are taking the next step.
We want to make a really strongfirst impression or a really
strong next impression on thosepeople.
Because not only do they arethey likely to be good clients,
they are also going to be muchhigher converting.
And that means those people,they have a much better chance
of actually contacting you thanpeople who find your website by
(03:13):
some other sort of search.
And this may be obvious, but Ihave seen this.
This is this is a super basickind of fact in my industry is
that what we call brandedsearches, somebody's searching
for your name or your brandname, your company name, they
they convert higher thananything else.
I can see that from looking atGoogle Analytics.
It's just a simple fact.
(03:34):
And the difference is verynoticeable.
So we want to make a very thebest first impression or next
impression that we can on thosepeople.
That's number one, why we aredoing this.
Number two, the second reasonwhy we are doing this is this
improves the odds of yourwebsite appearing in local
searches.
So when people do a search forphotographers near me, taking
(03:56):
these steps is going to improvethe odds that your website is
going to show up for searcheslike that.
Okay, so I have 12 steps, 12things that we can do here.
I think that I would call thesethe must-do items, and then
four additional items that areoptional.
Number one, your business name.
Whatever you put here in yourbusiness name, it's gonna need
to be consistent.
(04:16):
A few lessons from now, we'regonna talk about local business
citations and creating businesslistings on other websites and
directories.
The business name always needsto be exactly consistent.
If you that means if you use anLLC or an INC in your business
name, you're gonna want to useit everywhere.
And there's no benefit to that,by the way.
By putting that in a includingit in a business name, there's
(04:39):
no benefit to SEO.
So it's just your personalpreference.
But whatever you put here,you're we're gonna want to use
it everywhere.
And I make a habit of wheneverI'm doing this, I copy and
paste.
I actually copy from my GoogleBusiness profile.
I just copy and paste so thatthere I don't make any errors.
I do the same thing with myURL.
Uh good habit to get into ifyou can.
You you also always want yourURL to be perfectly consistent.
(05:03):
Okay, so business name, justmake sure that's something
that's your complete businessname and it's accurate.
Number two, the cover photo.
There is a, at least at thetime I'm recording this, this
changes occasionally with theirGoogle setup.
The cover photo is going toappear right at the top left of
your Google business profile,probably next to the map.
(05:24):
It is usually cropped intosquare dimensions.
But what you want to do here isyou want to put an image there
and then you want to open upanother browser window,
preferably in incognito mode, soyou are not logged into your
Google account, and see whatthat image looks like.
You don't want it to becropped.
If you upload an image withlike four by five dimensions or
(05:45):
something else and it's and it'scropped, that's not the first
impression that we want to make.
We want to make sure thatwhatever we put here is going to
look good.
Can be your logo if you want touse your logo, can be uh an
image of a friendly smiling faceif that's your type of
photography.
Whatever image you use here,you want it to be it.
(06:05):
Remember, it's gonna be thevery first impression, the
first, the first image thatpeople see after Googling your
name.
So this image should representyour business fairly well.
Okay, that's number two, yourcover photo.
Number three, your service areaversus address.
So Google gives you the optionhere of choosing a service area
where you would go to yourclients' locations.
(06:26):
And as a photographer, thatpretty good chance that might be
true.
That's one option, a servicearea.
And the other option is usingan address.
Now, what Google would say toyou as a photography, especially
if you go and visit clients attheir location, is that you
should choose a service areahere.
I'm gonna say that's really notin your best interest if you
want your website to appear inlocal searches.
(06:49):
The reason for that, thinkabout what local searches look
like.
If you do a search forphotographers near me, there's
gonna be a little list of threeto five businesses next to a
map.
And on that map, there aregoing to be pin markers, and
those pin markers are at theaddress of those businesses.
If you have a Google businessprofile that does not have an
(07:09):
address, you will not have apin.
If you don't have a pin, youdon't show up in local business
listings.
And I have seen this firsthandwith some of my early students,
they were using an address andGoogle Business, Google
suggested that they use aservice area instead, and they
did, and their traffic, theleads that they were getting
immediately went to zero.
(07:29):
They were getting all of theirleads through the through local
searches.
And so when they changed to aservice area, all of a sudden
they're no longer appearingthere.
So my advice here, if at allpossible, and I realize
sometimes it's just notpossible, but if at all
possible, use an address.
If you work from home and don'twant to use your home address,
I get it.
Neither do I, neither doesMeredith.
We want to find some sort ofaddress that we can use.
(07:51):
Do not, however, use a PO box,a post office box.
That does not work.
That will probably get yourlisting suspended.
But do look for some sort ofprivate solution.
There are, depending on whereyou live, there might be like
mailbox companies, you might beable to get a virtual office.
Maybe you, maybe you have astudio, like maybe you actually
(08:12):
have an address.
If you have an actual addressfor your that's associated with
your business, use that.
That's perfect.
There are some national chainsthat uh sell these sorts of this
address service solution tosmall businesses.
I don't know what's going to beavailable in your area, but
that is often a good solution.
Keep in mind when you're doingthat, there is often there's
(08:34):
gonna be a few uh hoops that youmight need to jump through.
You might need to validate yourum, you know, you might need to
send somebody your businesscertificate ID or something to
prove that you're a business.
And it's gonna seem like ahassle.
It is, it is a hassle, but it'sthere for a reason.
And the reason is that SEOs,especially representing local
businesses, for years have triedto spam this system.
(08:57):
And lesser quality SEOs havedone things like try to fake a
whole bunch of differentaddresses to improve odds of our
clients getting displayed inlocal results.
And so Google is trying toeliminate that or reduce that
amount of spam, that behavior.
And so getting a local addressoften is going to feel like a
hassle.
It's that way for a reason.
(09:17):
It's absolutely worth it.
Just know that when you'redoing it, there's a reason
you're doing it, and it mightseem like a hassle.
Hopefully that prevents some ofyour competitors from doing it,
and you will then have theadvantage.
And the only other thing tothink about is if you think
about the geographic area thatwhere you serve clients.
Try, if you can, to get anaddress right in the middle.
(09:39):
So if you're visualizing a mapand you have a circle on that
map and that's where you serveclients, a pin right in the
middle of that circle would beprobably what you want to do.
That's what that's gonna giveyou the best odds of appearing
in those local search results.
Okay, so that's number three,service area versus address.
Number four, your logo.
So at the time I am recordingthis, you can still upload your
(10:01):
logo to Google inside yourGoogle business profile, but
it's not being displayed on thefront end.
This not long ago, it was beingdisplayed.
Good rule of thumb here, uploadyour logo, use whatever
dimensions that Google suggests.
If they don't have asuggestion, again, these things
change with Google, but uploadyour logo again, go to your
(10:22):
incognito browser and take alook and see how it displays.
Also, here, we don't want tohave our logo cropped.
So it might be square, it mightbe four by five, whatever it
is, just make sure it's gonnalook good to users on a browser.
Okay, number five, uh yourbusiness info, your business
phone number is important.
And the reason it's important,you want to have a local area
(10:43):
code.
You don't want to have, likeMeredith, for example, has a
cell phone, but she moved fromLA so and she still has that
area code.
If that's the case, you wouldnot want to use that phone
number.
You want to have a local areacode.
It could be either a landlineor a cell phone, but you want it
to be local.
One option, depending on whereyou live, this might not be
easy.
I know in New York City, it'skind of hard sometimes to get a
(11:06):
local area code phone number,but uh Google Voice is one way
to do this.
Again, sometimes if you'redoing that, if you put in the
area code you want, they won'tbe available.
They will suggest like aneighboring city or something.
I would highly encourage you tolook for some sort of solution
where you can get a local areacode if you don't already have
(11:28):
one.
Okay, so that's number five,your uh business phone number.
Number six, products andprices.
So Google will allow you toplace in your business profile
uh your products and servicesand the prices.
Now they have gone back andforth.
I think initially it was justproducts, and then they added
products and services.
But even if it's even if theyhave gone back or will go back
(11:50):
to just products, you mightthink that as a photographer,
you don't have a product, youhave a service.
That that's close enough.
That's a product.
Your session is technically atype of product.
It's something that peoplepurchase.
I would say you probably have asession fee, you probably have
some sort of other fee forhowever you deliver the photos,
whether it's on a hard drive orin an album or whatever it is.
(12:12):
Those are products.
Products that you can includeyour prices so you can start to
educate people here, and you caninclude images.
You can include an image forevery product.
Again, remember, this is one ofthe only opportunities,
probably the only opportunitywhere you can control exactly
what image you are going todisplay on Google before people
get to your website.
Okay, you can't do that veryoften.
(12:33):
In fact, you can pretty reallynever do that.
So absolutely take thisopportunity to do that.
That's number six, yourproducts and services with
prices.
Number seven, productcategories.
So in addition to the productsand the services, you can also
have categories.
So for example, Meredith's aphotographer, or she has a
(12:53):
session fee, she has albums,wall art, digital files, those
are all products.
Product categories would besomething like children's
photography, pet photography,event photography.
Again, we can include images.
And here what's important isyou don't put prices on a
category, but the way you namethe product categories, and this
(13:15):
applies to the products andservices also, but the way you
name them is important becausethere's not a lot of space.
You're not working with a lotof, so you can't have a really
long product name or productcategory name.
It's going to be truncated,meaning Google's going to cut it
down to like, I don't know howmany characters, but it's going
to be, it's going to berelatively short.
So enter something, then again,go out to your incognito
(13:38):
browser, take a look, see whereit's truncated, make sure that
it still looks good and that itstill sounds like something
that's appealing after Googlehas shortened it.
A lot of times what peoplemight do is they'll say, like,
you know, fabulous, such andsuch.
And then what appears to userson the front end is just the
fabulous or part of the wordfabulous.
(13:59):
What you want to do is you wantto make sure that whatever it
is, whether it's uh an album orpet photography, you want to
make sure that those keywordsare up near the beginning so
that they don't get cut off.
That's still going to lookappealing to a person, to
somebody reading it.
And if nothing else, justconfirm in their mind
subconsciously that yeah, youhave what they are looking for.
(14:21):
Okay, so that's productcategories and product naming
number eight from the business.
So there is a section therecalled from the business.
I think on the back end ofGoogle Business Profile, this is
actually called businessdescription.
Again, Google changes thingslike this.
So business description or fromthe business, from the busage,
(14:42):
from the business.
It's a message from you,probably about your business.
Now, what people expect to seewhen they see a section like
this, you know, a businessdescription or from the
business, people expect to seesomething, some sort of
description like I've been inbusiness 20 years and this is
what I do, and et cetera, etcetera.
I like to do somethingdifferent to kind of stand out.
(15:03):
And personally, what I do is Iput a testimonial in this
section and I try to choose atestimonial that has a really
strong beginning.
And the reason I do that is tosort of capture people's
attention.
Because like I said, people areexpecting some sort of generic
business description.
If you put something differentthere, hopefully it captures
their attention because it'sjust not what they're expecting.
(15:24):
So that's what I like to do.
Whatever you do there, I wouldencourage you to give it a
strong, choose something with astrong beginning or create
something with a strongbeginning to capture people's
attention.
And definitely just make sureyou have something there.
Do not leave it blank.
Okay.
Number nine, updates.
So you can create updates herefor your Google business
profile, just like you would dofor Instagram or Facebook or
(15:47):
other social media platforms.
There's some debate here onwhether or not this helps
improve your odds of beingdisplayed.
My opinion is that, well, yeah,Google says this doesn't
improve your odds of beingdisplayed.
And of course, Google is goingto say that.
Inside the industry, we allexpect Google will say that.
My feeling and my colleagues'feeling is that it absolutely
(16:08):
cannot hurt, and it probablydoes help a little bit.
So what I would, well, what Ido personally is I take a
thumbnail from a recent podcastepisode and it has, you know, a
thumbnail and some text there,and I use that.
Another chance to display animage, another chance to send
sort of marketing message aboutwhat, you know, for me, I'm
educating people.
(16:28):
What do what do I talk about?
What are my topics?
For you, it might be someimages about weddings or
whatever type of photography youdo.
Something else you could dohere if you are active at all on
Instagram or Facebook or othersocial media, look back over the
last month or two or three andjust take a few updates that
were, you know, popular, yourwhatever, however popular they
(16:49):
were amongst your updates,choose the ones that were most
popular and post them on Google.
And I would say you don't needto do this more than once a
month.
I don't think there's anadvantage to being like really
active here, but Google willover time remove updates.
So if you put an update hereand leave it for six months or
12 months, at some point it'sgoing to be old and it's not
(17:12):
going to display anymore.
So I would say you want to dothis, I don't know, I have one a
month.
And it can be just an image anda caption if that's all you
want to do.
Again, an opportunity to putyour images in front of people
who are already searching foryou by name.
Okay.
I don't think you can go wrongin doing that.
That's number nine, updates.
Number 10, reviews.
And this is number 10, but it'sthese are not an order of
(17:33):
importance.
This is super important, andthat's reviews.
You really, really, really wantto have reviews for your
business.
I hope that's obvious.
And the trend has been over thelast few years, used to be that
reviews were not very importantin order to get into local
rankings.
Now I can't remember the lasttime I saw any sort of business
in local rankings that didn'thave reviews or that had poor
(17:54):
reviews.
So reviews are important forthat.
Reviews obviously importantpotential clients to see that
you have good reviews.
And the thing to be careful ofhere is to spread them out.
Don't feel like you need to geta whole bunch of views all at
once.
In fact, that is a red flag toGoogle that it's not natural.
That doesn't happen naturallyfor a business.
(18:15):
You don't go from no reviews toall of a sudden getting a whole
bunch of reviews.
And when that does happen,sometimes Google will assume
they are somehow spam or they'renot legit and they will take
them down.
Okay, so you don't want to dothat.
So it is much better to spreadyour reviews out.
Don't feel you need to go outand contact clients from years
ago.
In fact, I wouldn't bothertrying to do that.
(18:38):
Instead, put it something intoyour workflow where you can ask
your current clients and clientsmoving forward.
Choose some time.
I like to ask for a review whenI know a client is happy about
something.
Doesn't matter what it is.
If they're in a good mood aboutsomething that I have done,
that's when I ask them for areview.
And something else that I thinkgoes a long way in how
(19:01):
successful your request for areview will be, don't use a
template here.
I say put it into yourworkflow, but don't have like a
checkbox where you send somebodya template asking for a review.
The success rate of those is somuch lower.
Just write a personal note.
It can be simple, quick, can bealong with some other good news
that you are sharing with aclient.
(19:22):
Just make it personal.
It doesn't need to be perfect.
I have found that like even thesmallest personal notes,
especially when they're notperfect, they have a better
chance of people helping youout.
So make this something that youdo probably, you know, now with
whatever clients you're workingwith now, or maybe just very
recently have worked with andmoving forward.
That's number 10, reviews.
(19:42):
Number 11, your social mediaprofiles.
So this is something elseGoogle has gone back and forth
with that used to allow you toattach your social media
profiles to your Google businessprofile.
And then they said, oh, we'regoing to stop doing that.
We're going to do itautomatically.
We're going to determine whichsocial media profiles belong to
you.
And they did a terrible job ofthat.
(20:05):
I don't know what they did, butthere was all sorts of problems
with people having the wrongsocial media profiles attributed
to their business.
A lot of times it was either asimilar name or similar business
name or the exact same businessname, but in a different state.
Whatever the case, it didn't gowell.
And so Google has gone back nowto allowing you to enter your
(20:25):
own social media profileprofiles on your Google business
profile.
Absolutely do this.
It helps demonstrate to Googleyour sort of ecosystem.
All of your profiles will belinked together.
This is something that's justgood for all of SEO.
Absolutely do this as long asyou do have some social media
profiles.
And that can be Meta,Instagram, Facebook.
(20:45):
It can be TikTok.
Actually, we'll see whathappens.
Right now, TikTok is kind of upin the air with their future
moving forward.
It can also be YouTube.
I think LinkedIn is an optionthere.
If you don't use LinkedIn, I dorecommend you get a LinkedIn
page.
I know as a photographer,you're a B2C, you're dealing
with families or individuals.
A lot of times you might thinkthat a LinkedIn profile is not
(21:06):
appropriate.
It absolutely is.
But please do it.
Even if you don't use LinkedInyourself, the people you hire,
they they there's a good chancethey do.
And it just makes your businesslook more legit in the online
world, especially to Google.
Okay, so that's number 11.
Social media profiles.
Number 12.
Number 12 is sort of a summary,but it's this is really
(21:29):
important.
Photos.
Okay.
People love photos.
You're a photographer.
You should have photos.
I can tell you this for a factfrom looking at heat, what we
call heat maps.
And a heat map is if you'veever seen like a an image of a
website, and on that image islike colors kind of swirling
around, that's a heat map.
(21:50):
And what it does is it's meantto tell website owners, like
marketers and developers, whatareas of a website attract the
most attention.
Either by the way, people arelooking at it or what they are
clicking on, and it's images.
Images always attract the mostattention.
So in creating your Googlebusiness profile here, just know
(22:11):
these images are they're gonnabe the first things that people
glance at.
Even if they only look at itfor a tiny fraction of a second
before then scanning text,they're gonna look at the images
first.
Like I said, this is the onlyopportunity you're going to have
to choose very specificallywhich images you want to display
on Google before people get toyour site.
You don't have that option.
(22:31):
So your Google Business Profileis the opportunity for you to
do this.
Add images wherever you can.
The more the better.
And in fact, that's probablytrue for all the information
here.
Not just images, but anywhereyou can add text, probably going
to be beneficial to do so.
All right, there are a few moreoptional things that you can
add to your Google Businessprofile in that lesson, but it
(22:52):
does go on for another 10minutes or so.
And I realize that this isalready longer than our typical
episode.
So let me know if you like thisformat, if you want to hear the
rest of those.
I'll put a link below where youcan cast a vote, and I'll
either include those optionalsteps in an upcoming episode or
just link to that entire lessonwhen it is launched on my
(23:13):
website.
But for now, I hope that helps.
Alright, we're gonna try something new
today.
So Meredith is in the midst ofher busy season, and she's going
to be shooting and editingthrough probably mid-December.
And the amount of time that shehas to spare between now and
then is very small.
So rather than our normalformat of Meredith and I
speaking, I'm going to share alesson from some upcoming
training that I have.
(00:44):
And this lesson in particularis something I've shared before
here on the podcast.
In fact, we did a full episodeabout it, but it was over a year
ago, and there have been somechanges since then.
So what I'm going to share isthe lesson that I created as a
result of doing that episode,really.
And it's essentially an updatedversion of that episode with
more current tips.
(01:05):
It's also, this is one of thevery first and most important
things that a local businessowner should do for Google.
So if you haven't done thisstuff, or even if you had, it's
probably worth revisiting justto make sure you are following
best practice.
All right.
I hope this helps.
All right, in this video, I'mgoing to talk about how to
optimize your Google businessprofile.
(01:26):
So in the last video, there wassome homework.
You went to, hopefully, youwent to Google Search Console
and you looked up whichkeywords, which queries were
most popular for your website.
How are people most oftenactually getting to your
website?
One thing that you may havefound is that people are
searching for your name or yourbrand name.
(01:48):
It's pretty common.
And in fact, you may have foundthat that's the most popular
query.
It's the most popular way thatpeople are finding your website.
That is also common, whetherthe numbers are small or whether
the numbers are big, becausepeople could be looking for you
by name for a number of reasons.
Could be they maybe have workedwith you in the past and they
just are trying to get to yourwebsite.
(02:08):
Could be they have seen yourname on social media or heard
your business name from a friendor heard about you somewhere
else, and now they'reinterested.
They need a photographer,they're thinking about hiring
you.
Could also be uh could be yourmom.
Could be it's like competitorslooking to see exactly what
you're offering.
At least some of those peopleare going to be looking for you
(02:29):
because they are interested inpotentially hiring you, and they
are doing at least some amountof research.
Okay, these are going to beprobably your best clients, the
ones who do a little bit ofresearch.
They're not just contacting youblindly.
They're trying to learn alittle bit first, and they
obviously have already heardabout you.
Okay, they they have yourbusiness name, they have your
(02:49):
personal name, and they'researching for it.
They are taking the next step.
We want to make a really strongfirst impression or a really
strong next impression on thosepeople.
Because not only do they arethey likely to be good clients,
they are also going to be muchhigher converting.
And that means those people,they have a much better chance
of actually contacting you thanpeople who find your website by
(03:13):
some other sort of search.
And this may be obvious, but Ihave seen this.
This is this is a super basickind of fact in my industry is
that what we call brandedsearches, somebody's searching
for your name or your brandname, your company name, they
they convert higher thananything else.
I can see that from looking atGoogle Analytics.
It's just a simple fact.
(03:34):
And the difference is verynoticeable.
So we want to make a very thebest first impression or next
impression that we can on thosepeople.
That's number one, why we aredoing this.
Number two, the second reasonwhy we are doing this is this
improves the odds of yourwebsite appearing in local
searches.
So when people do a search forphotographers near me, taking
(03:56):
these steps is going to improvethe odds that your website is
going to show up for searcheslike that.
Okay, so I have 12 steps, 12things that we can do here.
I think that I would call thesethe must-do items, and then
four additional items that areoptional.
Number one, your business name.
Whatever you put here in yourbusiness name, it's gonna need
to be consistent.
(04:16):
A few lessons from now, we'regonna talk about local business
citations and creating businesslistings on other websites and
directories.
The business name always needsto be exactly consistent.
If you that means if you use anLLC or an INC in your business
name, you're gonna want to useit everywhere.
And there's no benefit to that,by the way.
By putting that in a includingit in a business name, there's
(04:39):
no benefit to SEO.
So it's just your personalpreference.
But whatever you put here,you're we're gonna want to use
it everywhere.
And I make a habit of wheneverI'm doing this, I copy and
paste.
I actually copy from my GoogleBusiness profile.
I just copy and paste so thatthere I don't make any errors.
I do the same thing with myURL.
Uh good habit to get into ifyou can.
You you also always want yourURL to be perfectly consistent.
(05:03):
Okay, so business name, justmake sure that's something
that's your complete businessname and it's accurate.
Number two, the cover photo.
There is a, at least at thetime I'm recording this, this
changes occasionally with theirGoogle setup.
The cover photo is going toappear right at the top left of
your Google business profile,probably next to the map.
(05:24):
It is usually cropped intosquare dimensions.
But what you want to do here isyou want to put an image there
and then you want to open upanother browser window,
preferably in incognito mode, soyou are not logged into your
Google account, and see whatthat image looks like.
You don't want it to becropped.
If you upload an image withlike four by five dimensions or
(05:45):
something else and it's and it'scropped, that's not the first
impression that we want to make.
We want to make sure thatwhatever we put here is going to
look good.
Can be your logo if you want touse your logo, can be uh an
image of a friendly smiling faceif that's your type of
photography.
Whatever image you use here,you want it to be it.
(06:05):
Remember, it's gonna be thevery first impression, the
first, the first image thatpeople see after Googling your
name.
So this image should representyour business fairly well.
Okay, that's number two, yourcover photo.
Number three, your service areaversus address.
So Google gives you the optionhere of choosing a service area
where you would go to yourclients' locations.
(06:26):
And as a photographer, thatpretty good chance that might be
true.
That's one option, a servicearea.
And the other option is usingan address.
Now, what Google would say toyou as a photography, especially
if you go and visit clients attheir location, is that you
should choose a service areahere.
I'm gonna say that's really notin your best interest if you
want your website to appear inlocal searches.
(06:49):
The reason for that, thinkabout what local searches look
like.
If you do a search forphotographers near me, there's
gonna be a little list of threeto five businesses next to a
map.
And on that map, there aregoing to be pin markers, and
those pin markers are at theaddress of those businesses.
If you have a Google businessprofile that does not have an
(07:09):
address, you will not have apin.
If you don't have a pin, youdon't show up in local business
listings.
And I have seen this firsthandwith some of my early students,
they were using an address andGoogle Business, Google
suggested that they use aservice area instead, and they
did, and their traffic, theleads that they were getting
immediately went to zero.
(07:29):
They were getting all of theirleads through the through local
searches.
And so when they changed to aservice area, all of a sudden
they're no longer appearingthere.
So my advice here, if at allpossible, and I realize
sometimes it's just notpossible, but if at all
possible, use an address.
If you work from home and don'twant to use your home address,
I get it.
Neither do I, neither doesMeredith.
We want to find some sort ofaddress that we can use.
(07:51):
Do not, however, use a PO box,a post office box.
That does not work.
That will probably get yourlisting suspended.
But do look for some sort ofprivate solution.
There are, depending on whereyou live, there might be like
mailbox companies, you might beable to get a virtual office.
Maybe you, maybe you have astudio, like maybe you actually
(08:12):
have an address.
If you have an actual addressfor your that's associated with
your business, use that.
That's perfect.
There are some national chainsthat uh sell these sorts of this
address service solution tosmall businesses.
I don't know what's going to beavailable in your area, but
that is often a good solution.
Keep in mind when you're doingthat, there is often there's
(08:34):
gonna be a few uh hoops that youmight need to jump through.
You might need to validate yourum, you know, you might need to
send somebody your businesscertificate ID or something to
prove that you're a business.
And it's gonna seem like ahassle.
It is, it is a hassle, but it'sthere for a reason.
And the reason is that SEOs,especially representing local
businesses, for years have triedto spam this system.
(08:57):
And lesser quality SEOs havedone things like try to fake a
whole bunch of differentaddresses to improve odds of our
clients getting displayed inlocal results.
And so Google is trying toeliminate that or reduce that
amount of spam, that behavior.
And so getting a local addressoften is going to feel like a
hassle.
It's that way for a reason.
(09:17):
It's absolutely worth it.
Just know that when you'redoing it, there's a reason
you're doing it, and it mightseem like a hassle.
Hopefully that prevents some ofyour competitors from doing it,
and you will then have theadvantage.
And the only other thing tothink about is if you think
about the geographic area thatwhere you serve clients.
Try, if you can, to get anaddress right in the middle.
(09:39):
So if you're visualizing a mapand you have a circle on that
map and that's where you serveclients, a pin right in the
middle of that circle would beprobably what you want to do.
That's what that's gonna giveyou the best odds of appearing
in those local search results.
Okay, so that's number three,service area versus address.
Number four, your logo.
So at the time I am recordingthis, you can still upload your
(10:01):
logo to Google inside yourGoogle business profile, but
it's not being displayed on thefront end.
This not long ago, it was beingdisplayed.
Good rule of thumb here, uploadyour logo, use whatever
dimensions that Google suggests.
If they don't have asuggestion, again, these things
change with Google, but uploadyour logo again, go to your
(10:22):
incognito browser and take alook and see how it displays.
Also, here, we don't want tohave our logo cropped.
So it might be square, it mightbe four by five, whatever it
is, just make sure it's gonnalook good to users on a browser.
Okay, number five, uh yourbusiness info, your business
phone number is important.
And the reason it's important,you want to have a local area
(10:43):
code.
You don't want to have, likeMeredith, for example, has a
cell phone, but she moved fromLA so and she still has that
area code.
If that's the case, you wouldnot want to use that phone
number.
You want to have a local areacode.
It could be either a landlineor a cell phone, but you want it
to be local.
One option, depending on whereyou live, this might not be
easy.
I know in New York City, it'skind of hard sometimes to get a
(11:06):
local area code phone number,but uh Google Voice is one way
to do this.
Again, sometimes if you'redoing that, if you put in the
area code you want, they won'tbe available.
They will suggest like aneighboring city or something.
I would highly encourage you tolook for some sort of solution
where you can get a local areacode if you don't already have
(11:28):
one.
Okay, so that's number five,your uh business phone number.
Number six, products andprices.
So Google will allow you toplace in your business profile
uh your products and servicesand the prices.
Now they have gone back andforth.
I think initially it was justproducts, and then they added
products and services.
But even if it's even if theyhave gone back or will go back
(11:50):
to just products, you mightthink that as a photographer,
you don't have a product, youhave a service.
That that's close enough.
That's a product.
Your session is technically atype of product.
It's something that peoplepurchase.
I would say you probably have asession fee, you probably have
some sort of other fee forhowever you deliver the photos,
whether it's on a hard drive orin an album or whatever it is.
(12:12):
Those are products.
Products that you can includeyour prices so you can start to
educate people here, and you caninclude images.
You can include an image forevery product.
Again, remember, this is one ofthe only opportunities,
probably the only opportunitywhere you can control exactly
what image you are going todisplay on Google before people
get to your website.
Okay, you can't do that veryoften.
(12:33):
In fact, you can pretty reallynever do that.
So absolutely take thisopportunity to do that.
That's number six, yourproducts and services with
prices.
Number seven, productcategories.
So in addition to the productsand the services, you can also
have categories.
So for example, Meredith's aphotographer, or she has a
(12:53):
session fee, she has albums,wall art, digital files, those
are all products.
Product categories would besomething like children's
photography, pet photography,event photography.
Again, we can include images.
And here what's important isyou don't put prices on a
category, but the way you namethe product categories, and this
(13:15):
applies to the products andservices also, but the way you
name them is important becausethere's not a lot of space.
You're not working with a lotof, so you can't have a really
long product name or productcategory name.
It's going to be truncated,meaning Google's going to cut it
down to like, I don't know howmany characters, but it's going
to be, it's going to berelatively short.
So enter something, then again,go out to your incognito
(13:38):
browser, take a look, see whereit's truncated, make sure that
it still looks good and that itstill sounds like something
that's appealing after Googlehas shortened it.
A lot of times what peoplemight do is they'll say, like,
you know, fabulous, such andsuch.
And then what appears to userson the front end is just the
fabulous or part of the wordfabulous.
(13:59):
What you want to do is you wantto make sure that whatever it
is, whether it's uh an album orpet photography, you want to
make sure that those keywordsare up near the beginning so
that they don't get cut off.
That's still going to lookappealing to a person, to
somebody reading it.
And if nothing else, justconfirm in their mind
subconsciously that yeah, youhave what they are looking for.
(14:21):
Okay, so that's productcategories and product naming
number eight from the business.
So there is a section therecalled from the business.
I think on the back end ofGoogle Business Profile, this is
actually called businessdescription.
Again, Google changes thingslike this.
So business description or fromthe business, from the busage,
(14:42):
from the business.
It's a message from you,probably about your business.
Now, what people expect to seewhen they see a section like
this, you know, a businessdescription or from the
business, people expect to seesomething, some sort of
description like I've been inbusiness 20 years and this is
what I do, and et cetera, etcetera.
I like to do somethingdifferent to kind of stand out.
(15:03):
And personally, what I do is Iput a testimonial in this
section and I try to choose atestimonial that has a really
strong beginning.
And the reason I do that is tosort of capture people's
attention.
Because like I said, people areexpecting some sort of generic
business description.
If you put something differentthere, hopefully it captures
their attention because it'sjust not what they're expecting.
(15:24):
So that's what I like to do.
Whatever you do there, I wouldencourage you to give it a
strong, choose something with astrong beginning or create
something with a strongbeginning to capture people's
attention.
And definitely just make sureyou have something there.
Do not leave it blank.
Okay.
Number nine, updates.
So you can create updates herefor your Google business
profile, just like you would dofor Instagram or Facebook or
(15:47):
other social media platforms.
There's some debate here onwhether or not this helps
improve your odds of beingdisplayed.
My opinion is that, well, yeah,Google says this doesn't
improve your odds of beingdisplayed.
And of course, Google is goingto say that.
Inside the industry, we allexpect Google will say that.
My feeling and my colleagues'feeling is that it absolutely
(16:08):
cannot hurt, and it probablydoes help a little bit.
So what I would, well, what Ido personally is I take a
thumbnail from a recent podcastepisode and it has, you know, a
thumbnail and some text there,and I use that.
Another chance to display animage, another chance to send
sort of marketing message aboutwhat, you know, for me, I'm
educating people.
(16:28):
What do what do I talk about?
What are my topics?
For you, it might be someimages about weddings or
whatever type of photography youdo.
Something else you could dohere if you are active at all on
Instagram or Facebook or othersocial media, look back over the
last month or two or three andjust take a few updates that
were, you know, popular, yourwhatever, however popular they
(16:49):
were amongst your updates,choose the ones that were most
popular and post them on Google.
And I would say you don't needto do this more than once a
month.
I don't think there's anadvantage to being like really
active here, but Google willover time remove updates.
So if you put an update hereand leave it for six months or
12 months, at some point it'sgoing to be old and it's not
(17:12):
going to display anymore.
So I would say you want to dothis, I don't know, I have one a
month.
And it can be just an image anda caption if that's all you
want to do.
Again, an opportunity to putyour images in front of people
who are already searching foryou by name.
Okay.
I don't think you can go wrongin doing that.
That's number nine, updates.
Number 10, reviews.
And this is number 10, but it'sthese are not an order of
(17:33):
importance.
This is super important, andthat's reviews.
You really, really, really wantto have reviews for your
business.
I hope that's obvious.
And the trend has been over thelast few years, used to be that
reviews were not very importantin order to get into local
rankings.
Now I can't remember the lasttime I saw any sort of business
in local rankings that didn'thave reviews or that had poor
(17:54):
reviews.
So reviews are important forthat.
Reviews obviously importantpotential clients to see that
you have good reviews.
And the thing to be careful ofhere is to spread them out.
Don't feel like you need to geta whole bunch of views all at
once.
In fact, that is a red flag toGoogle that it's not natural.
That doesn't happen naturallyfor a business.
(18:15):
You don't go from no reviews toall of a sudden getting a whole
bunch of reviews.
And when that does happen,sometimes Google will assume
they are somehow spam or they'renot legit and they will take
them down.
Okay, so you don't want to dothat.
So it is much better to spreadyour reviews out.
Don't feel you need to go outand contact clients from years
ago.
In fact, I wouldn't bothertrying to do that.
(18:38):
Instead, put it something intoyour workflow where you can ask
your current clients and clientsmoving forward.
Choose some time.
I like to ask for a review whenI know a client is happy about
something.
Doesn't matter what it is.
If they're in a good mood aboutsomething that I have done,
that's when I ask them for areview.
And something else that I thinkgoes a long way in how
(19:01):
successful your request for areview will be, don't use a
template here.
I say put it into yourworkflow, but don't have like a
checkbox where you send somebodya template asking for a review.
The success rate of those is somuch lower.
Just write a personal note.
It can be simple, quick, can bealong with some other good news
that you are sharing with aclient.
(19:22):
Just make it personal.
It doesn't need to be perfect.
I have found that like even thesmallest personal notes,
especially when they're notperfect, they have a better
chance of people helping youout.
So make this something that youdo probably, you know, now with
whatever clients you're workingwith now, or maybe just very
recently have worked with andmoving forward.
That's number 10, reviews.
(19:42):
Number 11, your social mediaprofiles.
So this is something elseGoogle has gone back and forth
with that used to allow you toattach your social media
profiles to your Google businessprofile.
And then they said, oh, we'regoing to stop doing that.
We're going to do itautomatically.
We're going to determine whichsocial media profiles belong to
you.
And they did a terrible job ofthat.
(20:05):
I don't know what they did, butthere was all sorts of problems
with people having the wrongsocial media profiles attributed
to their business.
A lot of times it was either asimilar name or similar business
name or the exact same businessname, but in a different state.
Whatever the case, it didn't gowell.
And so Google has gone back nowto allowing you to enter your
(20:25):
own social media profileprofiles on your Google business
profile.
Absolutely do this.
It helps demonstrate to Googleyour sort of ecosystem.
All of your profiles will belinked together.
This is something that's justgood for all of SEO.
Absolutely do this as long asyou do have some social media
profiles.
And that can be Meta,Instagram, Facebook.
(20:45):
It can be TikTok.
Actually, we'll see whathappens.
Right now, TikTok is kind of upin the air with their future
moving forward.
It can also be YouTube.
I think LinkedIn is an optionthere.
If you don't use LinkedIn, I dorecommend you get a LinkedIn
page.
I know as a photographer,you're a B2C, you're dealing
with families or individuals.
A lot of times you might thinkthat a LinkedIn profile is not
(21:06):
appropriate.
It absolutely is.
But please do it.
Even if you don't use LinkedInyourself, the people you hire,
they they there's a good chancethey do.
And it just makes your businesslook more legit in the online
world, especially to Google.
Okay, so that's number 11.
Social media profiles.
Number 12.
Number 12 is sort of a summary,but it's this is really
(21:29):
important.
Photos.
Okay.
People love photos.
You're a photographer.
You should have photos.
I can tell you this for a factfrom looking at heat, what we
call heat maps.
And a heat map is if you'veever seen like a an image of a
website, and on that image islike colors kind of swirling
around, that's a heat map.
(21:50):
And what it does is it's meantto tell website owners, like
marketers and developers, whatareas of a website attract the
most attention.
Either by the way, people arelooking at it or what they are
clicking on, and it's images.
Images always attract the mostattention.
So in creating your Googlebusiness profile here, just know
(22:11):
these images are they're gonnabe the first things that people
glance at.
Even if they only look at itfor a tiny fraction of a second
before then scanning text,they're gonna look at the images
first.
Like I said, this is the onlyopportunity you're going to have
to choose very specificallywhich images you want to display
on Google before people get toyour site.
You don't have that option.
(22:31):
So your Google Business Profileis the opportunity for you to
do this.
Add images wherever you can.
The more the better.
And in fact, that's probablytrue for all the information
here.
Not just images, but anywhereyou can add text, probably going
to be beneficial to do so.
All right, there are a few moreoptional things that you can
add to your Google Businessprofile in that lesson, but it
(22:52):
does go on for another 10minutes or so.
And I realize that this isalready longer than our typical
episode.
So let me know if you like thisformat, if you want to hear the
rest of those.
I'll put a link below where youcan cast a vote, and I'll
either include those optionalsteps in an upcoming episode or
just link to that entire lessonwhen it is launched on my
(23:13):
website.
But for now, I hope that helps.
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