For example, when searching for a bakery, they’re not going to show them results that are more than an hour’s drive away. They’re going to show them results that are in their immediate vicinity. Claiming your listing also means that no one else could just go in and change your hours, contact information, or website. An unethical competitor could change your business phone number to their phone number and your website to their website, essentially taking all of your leads for themselves. Let’s discuss why a Google Maps strategy can and should be an impactful part of your company’s marketing plan. When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Work on increasing your page’s dwell time
Ignoring local SEO can result in missed opportunities with local customers actively searching for services, leading to lost revenue. Positive customer reviews are critical as they not only build trust but also significantly influence GMB rankings. Regularly reviewing customer feedback helps identify specific aspects of your service or profile that may require enhancement.
Keyword rankings
- The more active and engaged you are with your reviews, the more trust you build with both Google and potential customers.
- One of the best ways to target relevant keywords is by coming up with a content marketing plan.
- Now that we understand how to improve your Google Maps ranking let’s discuss the reasons why you should do it.
- The Google algorithm accepts exact-match anchor texts for internal links, so use them as you like.
“In turn, Google’s algorithm can and will continue to recommend the website as a valuable resource,” Gonzales explains. It’s also important to follow Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). To rank at the top of search results, content should reflect all four of these elements. Use these signals as a guide to aim for higher rankings in Google search results. Parts of the URL can be displayed in search results as breadcrumbs, so users can also use the URLs to understand whether a result will be useful for them.
Use the 11 ranking factors above to increase the chance of your content appearing on the first page of Google. Outbound links, or links from your content to other websites, can also affect your ranking. Linking to sites that have authority on the topic can indicate trustworthiness, so it’s a good idea to link to high-quality sites.
In 2018, BERT created waves in the SEO industry as a significant update for Google that was reported to impact about 10% of search queries at the time. This is part of the rank refining where Google will try to return the most relevant results to a query. It also allows Google to return results for queries with no previous record of searches. Launched in 2015, RankBrain is one of Google’s machine learning systems that can connect words to concepts and helps Google understand the intent of a search query. The easiest way to define between system and signal is to say Google’s ranking systems can be thought of as the machine learning layers that are applied to refine search results.
Maintaining a strong local SEO presence is essential for enhancing your Google My Business ranking and ensuring business growth. Neglecting local SEO can lead to a significant drop in visibility, resulting in fewer customer inquiries and reduced foot traffic to your business. Avoiding these common mistakes is essential to maintaining a strong online presence and enhancing your business’s visibility.
The majority of consumers will submit feedback if requested multiple times. Once you re-verify your business via postcard, Google will move your map marker to your new location. If your office address is in a prime location of a central metropolitan area, your listing will receive many more impressions than a business located on the outskirts. For example, if you were to build links to a suspended profile, those links would be rendered useless. Google’s algorithm is far too sophisticated to provide you credit for duplicate content pages.
It is important to focus on foundational SEO that incorporates location based keywords and be sure to take advantage of Google My Business listings. If you want to really impress Pigeon, work on building high-quality directory listings with consistent data, and work hard to establish positive user-generated reviews. In this article titled ‘how to rank on Google’, we discussed the top 16 techniques that could rank our websites well on search engines. Focusing on SEO Anomaly these techniques alone will drive more organic traffic to your website and improve your search rankings without risking a Google penalty. An inactive Google My Business profile can harm both online reputation and search rankings. Therefore, businesses must regularly update their profiles and adjust their strategies based on performance data to stay competitive and visible in local search results.
Guest Blogging for Multi-Location Clients and Building Trust
Similarly, image sitemaps specifically provide search engines with metadata about the images on your site. Creating and submitting an image sitemap ensures that search engines accurately crawl and index your images. This can improve image search rankings and increase visibility in relevant search queries. If you have two pages that cover similar topics and target the same set of keywords, you are likely to run into a duplicate content issue.
