In today’s episode, we host Aaron and Matt, two subject-matter experts in the Google business profile space. Appropriately, today’s topic is about leveraging your Google business profile for local SEO. 

Aaron and Matt’s career background: They met in 2019 while consulting before Aaron became an equal shareholder at Matt’s company. Aaron gained immense marketing experience from a young age at his family-owned business. He got inspired to become a serial entrepreneur, launching a design studio, game cafés, and video-game lounge. He handled many marketing for these businesses and helped various local businesses with their marketing efforts.

What is Google business profile: Matt unpacks Google business profile, describing it as the first point of contact for a new client with a business upon searching on Google. In this regard, business profiles are the most prominent on the web, which plays a big role in giving the business visibility. To optimize Google business profile, Aaron recommends that a business should first take ownership of the profile. Consequently, they should provide the catalog of products and services that the business offers so that they reflect on Google search results.

Techniques for ranking high your Google business profile: In order to gain a competitive advantage through top ranking on Google, Aaron advises that you should get it right with your service category. He also recommends adding other relevant service categories but taking great care to capture Google’s top ranking. (The low-hanging fruit is to list all your list of services and product offerings).

How to optimize SEO on Google business profile: Matt indicates the hours of operation for a business as a major SEO keyword on Google business profile. This is crucial because a customer searching for a specific business near them will first get results for business in operation at the time. Secondly, he notes the stream of reviews that benefit from Google links, QR codes, and positive reviews from customers. He argues that recent reviews are more beneficial than old ones, reassuring customers that they are getting value for their money. Aaron expounds on the keyword tools to leverage, including ChatGPT and SM rationing. It helps to maintain consistency in posting on the Google business profile and keeping in touch with customer reviews. Furthermore, it is important to provide relevant captions for images for Google to capture the content. (For great results, you don’t brush your teeth all day once a year; rather, every day: the goal is consistency in posting and updating).

Duplicating content from other third-party social media platforms: Matt argues that it is important to have a strategy around content duplicity. He notes that there are various tools to help with cross-promotion, tailoring every message appropriately to specific platforms. Aaron adds that the perfect scenario would be creating specific content for each platform. However, due to limited time, scope, and budget, he recommends that a business duplicate content with care for starters.

Time codes

• (0:07) Introduction of topic and guest experts
• (0:48) Aaron and Matt’s career background
• (05:14) What is Google business profile
•  (07:56) Techniques for ranking high in your Google business profile
• (09:17) How to optimize SEO on Google business profile:
• (14:12) Duplicating content from other third-party social media platforms
• (16:33) Best practices for photo captioning in Google business profile
• (18:23) Best practices for generating reviews
• (24:37) Matt and Aaron’s contact information
• (25:13) Their choice of brand ambassador