Have you heard that 80 percent of local searches result in conversions? If you’re not using the opportunity to rank for local searches, you’re missing out on the chance to get leads, draw in-store traffic, generate sales, and increase revenues. By marketing on google maps, you can reach a wider audience than ever. You can also target specific locations, which is great if your business has a physical location. In this article, you’ll learn how to market on Google Maps for better rankings.
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Google Maps Marketing: What is It?
When people look for a business near them, they often turn to their phone’s GPS or search engine. When they do so, they look for information about businesses nearby. They may look for reviews, hours of operation, directions, contact info, or other details. If you own a physical store, chances are good that someone will look up your address online. So, you must ensure that your website shows up when people type in your address.
Why Use Google Maps Marketing?
You can reach more customers with a map-based approach. According to a study by Google, 81% of smartphone users use their phone’s GPS to find places nearby. That number jumps to 95% among 18-24-year-olds. Your business could benefit from being found on Google Maps. For example, it might help you attract new customers searching for your services. It could also help you improve customer service.
Factors That Determine Your Ranking
When you’re optimizing for Google Maps, there are three main things that matter. These three factors can influence when and where your business appears on Google Maps:
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Proximity
The first factor is proximity. It matters how close your business is to the searcher. The closer your business is to the searcher, the higher your chances of appearing on the results page.
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Reviews
The positive and negative reviews your business has are also a big deal. Positive reviews tend to appear at the top of the list. Negative reviews appear below positive ones.
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Location Accuracy
Location accuracy refers to whether your business’s location matches its listing on Google Maps. If your business is listed as being located in a different place than where you are, it won’t show up in the right spot.
Try These Google Maps Marketing Guides
Here are seven tips to rank well, drive more traffic and secure more customers via Google maps.
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Optimize Your Listing
First, ensure that your business is properly optimized for Google Maps. To do so, follow these guidelines:
- Make sure you correctly list your business name, address, and phone number.
- Add photos of the storefront and interior.
- Ensure that your business description is accurate and complete.
To improve your listing’s appearance in Google Maps searches, you need to optimize it properly.
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Add A Custom Icon
A custom icon is an image that represents your business. You can add one to your listing by uploading an image to Google My Business. Custom icons are useful because they allow you to represent your brand visually. You can choose between several different types of icons, including a star, heart, or flower. Adding a custom icon helps to increase your visibility on Google Maps.
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Optimize your local SEO
Local SEO is about making sure that your business is visible in local search results. When people search for businesses near them, they expect to be able to find those businesses easily. Optimizing your local SEO involves doing two things:
- Provide a clear and accurate business address.
- Adding relevant keywords to your business name, address, and website URL.
For example, if you own a restaurant called “Burgers & Fries”, make sure that your address includes the keywords “burgers” and “fries”. You should also include other keywords related to your business, such as “restaurant”, “fast food”, “food”, etc.
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Optimize your mobile optimization
Mobile-friendly websites are important for any business, but especially for small businesses. Mobile users spend almost 53.3% of their time online on smartphones and tablets. If you don’t have a mobile-optimized site, you could lose out on potential customers who use tablets or smartphones to look for products and services.
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Mind your reviews
Any business can set up a Google Business Page, update its basic information, and add lots of relevant, local content to get started. Another critically important factor in determining whether and where a business appears in Google Maps is its customer reviews. Any business wants positive reviews from happy customers. But negative reviews can hurt your business too.
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Use Google My Business
Google My Business (GMB) allows you to manage all aspects of your business profile, including adding new listings, editing existing ones, and managing reviews. You’ll want to create a GMB account before you start optimizing your listing. This way, you can access your GMB dashboard whenever you’re ready to edit your listing.
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Make your location easy to find
People often look for nearby businesses when they’re looking for something specific. For example, if someone needs to buy a gift for a friend, they might first check to see which stores are close to her home. When people search for places like this, they expect to be directed to the closest store. If you don’t provide directions to your business, you may miss out on these sales opportunities.
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Build local backlinks
Backlinks anchor your website from another website. They help improve your rankings in Google’s search engine. To build backlinks, you must publish high-quality articles on blogs and sites relevant to your industry. Then, ask bloggers and webmasters to link to your article.
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Pay attention to the SERPs and the long tail
You should always monitor your local business performance regarding whether or where they rank within Google Maps and SERPs based on the keywords you’re trying to be found for. If you want to manually check for yourself whether your site ranks well for certain keywords, you can either use Google’s webmaster tool or one of several rank-tracking tools.
Create your google maps marketing plan
Google Maps marketing is an excellent way for your business to appear in more local searches and generate more in-person visits and sales. Investing in a dedicated SEO management service to do all marketing on Google Maps for you helps drive more local traffic to your business.
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