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With that said, don’t get
discouraged if you do find a few mistakes. The good news is it’s fairly
easy to fix all of these.
My goal here is to help
you identify what’s wrong and what’s preventing you from ranking high
in Google’s local results, and then it’s up to you to take action to
get everything cleaned up.
Alright, let’s get
started with the easiest mistake to fix…
1. No Google My
Business Profile
When you think of
search engine optimization (SEO), then you immediately think of your
website ranking in Google’s results. However, with local SEO, there’s a
bit of a twist.
Search for “nearby
dentists” and you’ll see a big map in the upper right corner. Plus,
you’ll see information for dental offices listed in the main results
(i.e. name, address, phone number, reviews, etc.) .
Here’s the thing… that
information is from each business’s Google My Business profile page,
not their website!
So if you do not yet
have a Google My Business profile page, you’re missing out. It’s 100%
free to set this up and shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes of your
time. Click here to learn more
and get set up today.
Don’t forget the very
last step which is to verify your business listing. That’s an important
step to ensure you’re the owner of your page so you (and no one else)
can make edits in the future.
2. Duplicate
Listings
The next common mistake
I see is having duplicate Google My Business profile pages.
Google hates duplicate
content in their search results. It’s a bad experience for their users
to see the same information twice in their results, and it’s a waste of
Google’s resources to analyze and store duplicate information.
That’s why creating
duplicate listings is against Google’s terms of service. Each business
location should only have one Google My Business profile page. To see
if you have more than one page, use the Moz Local tool.
Simply type in your
business name and address and Moz’s tool will let you know if there are
some duplicate listings floating around online. If there are, then
contact Google to get them removed as quickly as possible so they don’t
drag down your rankings.
3. Missing
Relevant Categories
OK, now let’s look at
the most common (and often most costly) mistake made on the actual
Google My Business profile page. In my experience, the biggest mistake
is missing relevant categories.
Don’t rush this critical
step when you’re setting up your page.
Think of categories
like sections of the Yellow Pages. The more sections you advertise in,
the more likely your prospects are to find you.
So the more relevant categories,
the better. Note that it’s against Google’s terms to include irrelevant
categories so be careful when you select your categories.
Google doesn’t make
this super easy so I recommend you take a look at this big list to
find all the relevant categories for your business. Another tip is to
review the categories top-ranking local businesses have selected in
their profiles.
4. Missing
Contact Information On Your Website
Go to your website’s
contact page and confirm all of your contact information is listed on
the page.
More specifically, make
sure that your business Name, Address, and Phone number are listed as
text (not an image!). This ensures that Google can easily read your
contact information and verify its accuracy.
Google doesn’t want to
show incorrect information in their search results. That would be
devastating for their credibility, and over time they would lose users.
So one of the measures
Google takes to ensure accuracy is to compare the information listed on
your website versus the information listed on your Google My Business
profile page. If your website and profile aren’t displaying the same
exact contact information, you’ll want to edit your website and/or your
Google My Business profile to make them consistent.
This leads us to
mistake #5…
5. Inconsistent
NAP Information Online
Mistake #5 is
inconsistent NAP, which is simply an acronym for Name, Address, and
Phone number.
As I mentioned above,
it’s important to have the same contact information listed on both your
website and your Google My Business page.
But that’s not all…
Google takes this a
giant step further and compares your contact information listed on your
website versus the information listed on other websites across the
entire internet!
That means you must
have consistent NAP on every single webpage that lists your contact
information. Mainly we’re talking about business directories since
those are the types of websites most likely to display your contact
information publicly online.
To check for
inconsistent NAP, again go use the Moz Local search tool. Simply type
in your business information and the tool will quickly tell you if you
have any problems.
6. Missing Citations
A citation is simply a
mention of your NAP on another website.
In mistake #5 above, we
emphasized the importance of consistency across all your online
citations. Well just because you have consistency doesn’t mean you’re
in the clear.
It’s possible you’re
missing some important citations that are hurting your chances of
ranking high in Google.
To check if you’re
missing important citations, you can start by using the Moz Local
search tool. If you find there are opportunities, then simply add all
of your business information to the websites.
OK, that’s enough about
your NAP and citations. Let’s move on to the mistakes that aren’t so
easy to fix…
7. No Customer
Reviews
Most businesses struggle
to get customer reviews online. So if you’re lacking reviews on your
Google My Business profile, then don’t beat yourself up too bad because
you’re not alone.
The problem is that it
takes some real effort on your customers’ end to add a review.
I’m sorry to say
there’s no silver bullet solution here. All you can do is ask (via
email, in-person and over the phone) and make it as easy as possible
for every customer to leave a review.
Of those 3 methods,
we’ve found that asking via email — along with a link and directions —
is the most effective method because your customer doesn’t have to find
your profile, you’re leading them right to it.
Getting positive
reviews will likely be a slow process, but over time it adds up and
will give you a real competitive advantage that is difficult to
replicate.
8. Low Quality,
Thin Website Content
The remaining 4
mistakes are not directly related to your Google My Business profile.
That’s because Google changed their algorithm to incorporate more
signals, like the content on your website.
Your website plays an
important role in how high your Google My Business profile will rank in
the search results. If your website is full of low quality, thin
website content (less than 500 words per page, as a general rule of
thumb), then you’re going to struggle to rank in Google.
If you think about this
from Google’s perspective then it makes a lot of sense…
Google’s mission is to
give searchers the most relevant webpages that are most likely to
answer the searchers’ questions. Generally, webpages with more content
provide more information than webpages with less content. That’s why
it’s so important to review all your key webpages and make sure they
have at least 500 words of relevant content.
9. No
High-Quality, Relevant Links
Links from other
high-quality, relevant websites have always been a major factor in SEO,
and more recently Google is using links in their local ranking
algorithm.
That means you can’t
just rely on an optimized Google My Business profile page and
citations. You also have to invest in tactics to get high quality,
relevant links.
You’re probably
wondering how do you get other websites to link to your website?
The first step we
always recommend is to get your business listed in quality, relevant
directories. Directories can help to lay a foundation of links, and
they also provide citations (mentions of your Name, Address, and Phone
number).
Over the long-term, the
best way to attract quality links is to publish and to promote great
content. I know it’s probably not what you want to hear, but the best
way to get other websites to link to your website is to create
something worth linking to. If you try to use shortcuts, then you’ll
likely get yourself into trouble down the road.
10. Ignoring
Social Media
Over the years, there
has been some disagreement among experts regarding the impact of social
media on SEO. Take a look at David Mihm’s local SEO ranking factors
from 2018 and you’ll see that social media activity is one of the many
signals Google uses to rank businesses.(In
contrast, the BrightLocal 2020 local SEO
ranking factors article doesn't consider social media).
There’s a lot of debate
about this, but regardless of whether you agree that social media
activity directly impacts rankings, there’s no denying the fact that
social media is a great opportunity to create more exposure and buzz
about your business.
As mentioned above, the
best way to get links to your site is with great content. And one of
the best ways to promote your content to get it in front of your target
audience is via social media. While we
don't consider social media a primary driver of local SEO success, we
think it's a mistake to completely ignore social media.
11. No
Mobile-Optimized Website
The final mistake is
not creating a mobile-optimized website.
Local SEO and mobile go
hand in hand because more and more people are using their mobile
devices to search for local businesses on the go.
I personally do this
all the time…
Even when I’m home, I’ll
use my mobile device rather than go and turn on my computer and wait
for it to load up. As more of your prospects turn to mobile devices,
they are going to expect to see a mobile-optimized website.
Google has already
started to experiment with labels in their search results to tell
searchers which results have mobile-friendly webpages. Then back in
April 2015, Google updated their algorithm to include
mobile-friendliness signals in their ranking algorithm. And more
recently, in 2018, Google moved to mobile-first indexing, which means
that your mobile website will be the primary website Google analyzes
for ranking purposes. And for a while now
(since July 1, 2019), Google has enabled mobile-first indexing by
default for all new websites.
So if you haven’t
already, you need to create a mobile-optimized website in order to
compete in the local search results in the coming months and years.
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