How to optimize Google My Business listings for multi-location businesses
Being listed on Google My Enterprise (GMB) is a vital a part of any native search engine optimisation technique.
However how can companies with a number of places ensure they aren’t penalized in search rankings?
Produced in affiliation with SweetIQ.
Google My Enterprise
Google My Enterprise was rolled out in 2014 to make it simpler for native companies to be discovered by way of search. It had an added advantage of permitting companies to remain on prime of critiques, and to carry out analytics on interactions like clicks, views, calls and requests for instructions.
In different phrases, it turned step one in any native search marketing technique.
As we speak, a properly-keep GMB itemizing stays an important supply of visitors and, finally, income – particularly for companies competing for location-particular key phrases.
Google’s ‘three pack’ of native search outcomes, which is triggered by search phrases with native intent like “eating places Venice Seashore”, is given considerably extra prominence than natural leads to each desktop and cellular SERPs. Actually, natural outcomes are usually not even seen above the fold for cellular customers.
Google’s cellular SERP for ‘eating places Venice seashore’ (left) vs ‘Venice seashore’ (proper). Screenshots courtesy of Andy Favell
Important for search engine optimization
Since Google lowered the variety of native outcomes from 7 to three in 2015, it has grow to be extra necessary than ever for companies to function as excessive as attainable in these outcomes. And with 1 in three Google searches now having native intent (based on digital marketing skilled Jordan Kasteler) there’s extra visitors up for grabs than ever.
On the flip-aspect, competitors for this visitors is fierce, which means errors can value you dearly. The Native Search Affiliation estimates that over $10bn value of potential annual gross sales are misplaced due to lacking or conflicting info in Google My Enterprise listings.
For companies with a number of places, this can be a actual drawback; every enterprise location has a singular handle and make contact with particulars. How can massive companies guarantee they aren’t penalized for conflicting info on their Google My Enterprise profile?
First steps
Fortunately, Google is nicely conscious of this drawback, and permits enterprise house owners to say multi-location enterprise listings. Nevertheless, with a view to be verified by Google as such, a couple of circumstances should first be met. A enterprise should:
- Have no less than 10 places
- Not be a service enterprise
- Not be an company managing a number of shoppers
The native three-pack for ‘pizza supply New York’ returns Domino’s Pizza – a sequence with many hundred places
Optimize your multi-location enterprise
After claiming your multi-location enterprise on GMB, the subsequent step is to optimize your itemizing. However earlier than you are able to do this, you should first perceive what elements affect your probability of showing within the native ‘three pack’.
An important of those is accuracy throughout all platforms. This implies ensuring each piece of details about what you are promoting is constant throughout all of the web sites it seems on, together with Yellow Pages, Yelp, Fb, Foursquare, Apple Maps, Hotfrog and, in fact, your personal website.
Google bots crawl all of those pages and, when encountering details about your enterprise, will examine it to your GMB itemizing to determine its validity. Any inconsistencies will increase a pink flag concerning the accuracy of your info and can possible result in your GMB itemizing being penalized within the rankings.
How do you guarantee accuracy between your listings?
1. Declare and confirm all of your places utilizing a single, distinctive GMB account.
Ensure you delete any duplicate listings or accounts which will have been created by different employees members in different places.
2. Guarantee your corporation identify, handle and telephone quantity (‘NAP’) are a precise match wherever they seem.
The simplest method to obtain that is to easily copy and paste out of your GMB itemizing.
three. Optimize your retailer locator in your central web site so it’s crawlable by Google.
Google considers your website probably the most ‘official’ supply of data relating to your organization, so making certain Google can entry it’s important.
four. Use a microsite for every of your retailer places.
This provides every location a singular reference and separate About web page – every with an correct NAP that Google can crawl.
5. Use a Native Advertising Platform to handle all of this info.
It permits you to see what Google sees, and verify and edit knowledge for all of your retailer location from a single interface – making certain full accuracy throughout all platform. Most may also present recommendation on optimizing retailer locators on your website, together with detailed analytics on consumer interactions, visitors sources and extra.
To study extra about optimizing GMB listings for multi-location companies, and to know how one can flip GMB knowledge into actionable insights, obtain the SweetIQ Information to Google My Enterprise.
Content material produced in affiliation with SweetIQ. Click on right here to learn our collaborative content material tips.
