Google My Business and Google Maps: how to do local marketing on maps
According to a recent study, 80% of Google searches with "local intent" result in a conversion (that is, a purchase in a shop, a phone call, an email asking for information...). With this figure in hand, you need to find a way to attract the attention of potential customers at a local level. How? Through Google Maps and your business's Google My Business listing!
Google My Business is a platform that Google makes available to local businesses to give customers key information such as address, telephone number, opening hours... Among the various pieces of information available in the dashboard are also reviews, photos and the description of the business and its services. If the listing is filled in correctly and in all its parts, ranking, visibility, traffic to the website and, last but not least, conversions increase as a result.
All the measures for customising your Google My Business listing are part of Local SEO, that is, the online positioning of a business at local level on search engines, with the aim of obtaining greater organic visibility in a well-defined geographical area. A technique that is useful for all businesses that provide services within a few km of their premises.
The local algorithm, in fact, takes into account different factors from Google's search algorithm: proximity (how close the business is to the user), prominence (how popular/authoritative the business is) and relevance (is the business pertinent to the search made?).
The first step to optimise your Google My Business listing, in order to improve its ranking on Google Maps, is to obtain a good number of complete and thorough reviews. The opinion of those who have already used your product or service continues to be one of the most important factors in your business's ranking, helping potential customers in their decision-making.
Links leading to your website are also particularly important: one tip is to make use of local relationships with businesses related to yours (but not competitors), creating a small network of links to your business (articles on the blogs of sites that talk about products or services related to yours...).
Finally, statistics should not be underestimated: by knowing the channels and search terms through which your customers reach your business, you can improve your online presence by optimising precisely those channels and those keywords on your website.
To secure a place among the top results on maps, another strategy you can apply is local advertising (also known as geomarketing), that is, placing paid ads only at local level, based on the location of the user making the search and their proximity to the business. A function that is particularly useful on smartphones, which are the most widely used tool for searching for products or services when away from home or travelling.
This type of optimisation is continuous, ongoing work, which may take several attempts before achieving satisfactory results. The secret is not to stop, to test changes and to monitor results. Our communication agency in Cantù, which for years has been working on the online positioning of websites and Google My Business listings, can help with this. Call us for a consultation!
