72% of consumers who search online for local businesses end up visiting stores within their residence’ five-mile radius. Further, 80% of local mobile searches always lead to an in-store purchase. If these statistics are anything to go by, then local SEO traffic is something your business can't overlook.
Are you wondering how to maximise sales through a google search? Then perhaps you need to harness the power of Google Maps Marketing for your local business. Most businesses often look at SEO from a rather broad point of view, which is misleading.
With Google Maps Marketing, your business can convert leads into real sales faster. This eases the burden of last-mile delivery and increases your overall local conversion rates. Read on for all the details on how to utilise Google Maps as a critical SEO strategy in 2020.
What Is Google Map Marketing?
Most businesses don't have a clue of what Google Map SEO refers to from a marketing point of view. But this refers to the optimisation of your enterprises' presence on Google Maps. The idea is to ensure that your company ranks highest whenever customers make searches for local businesses.
With Google Maps Marketing, your company’s details, including the name of business, contacts, and directions, will appear among the first three searches whenever a user makes a related search. Reliable studies indicate that more than 90% of online users search on Google before making a purchase.
Has your business been struggling to make headway with lead conversion? It may be time to consider Google Maps as a probable SEO strategy. But you may be wondering, “How can I be found on Google?”
A Guide on How to Be Found on Google Maps
Here’s how to incorporate your business on Google Maps and capitalise on the customers looking for services and products at the local level.
Sign in to Your Google Account
The first step should be signing into your Google account, which may be as simple as opening a Gmail account. You should then navigate to “Google my Business” and then click on sign in. Once you have signed in, you should then proceed to register your business.
Create Your Business
You’ll then need to insert your business name by searching through Google for suggestions. If the business is already in the listing on Google, the search engine will detect and inform you.
Submit Your Website URL
Most businesses imagine that with an optimised website, lead conversion is a guarantee. However, companies need to submit their website URL to the Google search engine to support the process of data collection and segmentation. Google search engine crawls through billions of pages on the web before indexing content.
Your business is not unique, which means that there may be hundreds of other companies in your area, offering similar services or products. As such, you need to submit your website URL to Google to ensure that the search engine indexes your business.
Add Your Google Maps Information
One of the essential components for your Google my business listing is your address. You need to get your address right if you hope to capitalise on Google Maps Marketing. While the business name is critical, other details such as street address matter the most.
You need to add your Google Maps information with the utmost accuracy. Google will ask you whether you want to add a location for a brick–and-mortar-business. With the observable shift towards click and mortar businesses, adding your physical location is critical.
Choose Your Business Category
Your business needs to fit into a specific category to ease Google’s indexing and ranking. You may also add multiple categories over time to your business categories. Google offers a list of sectors and industries you can use to list your business.
Verify Your Google My Business Account
Google requires a wide range of information to ensure that your business gets the most accurate ranking on the search engine. Once you enter all the critical information, you only need to verify the company account, and you'll be on the path to visibility.
Select the Right Keywords
Keywords play a critical role in the process of Google indexing. You need to understand the importance of incorporating keywords in your content, titles, and Meta tags. Using appropriate keywords is critical in ensuring that Google understands your business.
Pay attention to your choice of keywords to confirm that you attract the right target audience. You need to keep your location, audiences, and products in mind when settling for your keywords. Google Maps Marketing relies on keywords to index your product offerings in-line with the searches within your area.
Add Your Website to Local Directories
The tag “near me” appears in more than 97% of consumer searches in their quest for services and products in their locality. Optimising your site for local directories is, therefore, a deal-breaker. A map for your business location is critical towards ensuring that you get the best out of the local searches for services.
Encourage Online Reviews
Once you have done everything right, the last step is to encourage online reviews. Positive reviews are critical and appear alongside your listing within Google Maps. The more reviews you get from satisfied customers, the higher the chance of attracting more clients.
Why Is Google Maps Marketing Important?
Most local businesses grapple with this question when choosing an SEO strategy. With a correctly set out Google Maps Marketing approach, you have the benefit of converting more than 47% of all local searches into sales. This will translate to a trickle-down effect on the level of revenue gained.
Using Google Maps for your business builds trust with your clients. Humanizing your brand’s location has the effect of fostering faith among potential clients towards your brand. Customers tend to feel more confident when dealing with a business that has a physical location.
Businesses that capitalise on local SEO leap immense benefits from local buyers. Most customers appreciate the convenience of shopping locally. If you want to keep your local SEO marketing on the go, it’s time to incorporate Google Maps into your business model.
The Approach to Marketing Is Shifting Rapidly, and Your Business Needs to Align Accordingly
Marketing is a critical tool in the course of pushing your services and products. However, with the rapidly evolving digital marketing context, it's vital to transition in tandem with the times. Incorporating Google Maps Marketing is one such critical step towards taking full advantage of the local market.
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