If you can measure something than you can improve on it, right? This applies to your web page SEO tracking as well. There are several aspects of SEO that you can measure and by doing so will help you improve when trying to meet your goals.

Goals are important in themselves. Whether it is your goals or your clients business goals, it is an important element to establish for success. When building for a client they could have different goals than other clients. Make sure you understand these goals so you can properly assess your SEO tracking approach.

Establishing Client Goals for SEO Tracking

When working with a business it is important to create and understand the goals of the business client. Some good questions to ask your client are:

• Can you give us a brief history of your company?
• What is the monetary value of a newly qualified lead?
• What are your most profitable products/services (in order)?

Make sure that when establishing these goals that they are measurable. This is why we ask about the monetary value of a lead and the most profitable products. It is also important to be specific in your goals. Broad and vague goals are never followed through like a specific goal. For example, instead of having a goal stating “I want new followers,” be more specific like “I want 500 new followers in the next 30 days.”

Engagement Metrics

There are several elements that you should be measuring when understanding data while SEO tracking. It is important to understand these elements and how viewers engage within your pages.

Your conversion rate is the number of conversions divided by the number of unique visits. This can be applied to anything from a sale to an email set up. Knowing this information can help in defining your return on investment (ROI).

The time on page element describes how long a viewer spends on your page. This can be effective in judging how your content rates to viewers. For example, if you have a 1000-2000 word article and the viewers only stay on the page for 6 seconds then they’re clearly not absorbing all of the information you have to offer. But at the same time there are pages like the Contact page that wouldn’t expect a long time on page.

Pages per visit is an important metric if your goal is to have your visitor see multiple pages on your site before leaving. If your page is independent and doesn’t relate to other pages than its not bad to have a low metric.

Bounce rate is when a visitor clicks on your page but leaves immediately without actually looking at any of your content. This metric isn’t used alone to determine your page success. If you had a brick and mortar business the visitor may have just been searching for an address or call number so they could visit in person.

A better metric to use to analyze your site is Scroll Depth. This shows how far the visitor actually scrolled down your page. Did they reach the important content or leave before reading it. This is effective in judging the lay out or success of your page.

Analyzing Traffic

Ranking is important for SEO but its not enough to be at the top of a Google SERP. Your business still needs to get clicks and have organic traffic to your page. Google Analytics is a great tool You can use to use information for SEO tracking.

Google Analytics allows you to observe and track an insane amount of data. If you don’t know what you’re looking for it could be a bit overwhelming. We will cover some of the more basic and important data types.

Organic traffic to your page can be sorted by channel. By isolating the traffic channels you can tell where the traffic is coming from or explain a rapid fluctuation. For example, if you run an add campaign and the campaign ends, you may get a drastic change to the amount of traffic to your site.

You can also break down your site and analyze the performance of each page as opposed to just an overall site statistic.

Your Click-Through-Rate shows the percentage of people that clicked onto your page from a search result. This can be effective in determine the performance of your title information and meta descriptions.

Evaluating SEO Tracking Opportunities

Besides Google Analytics, there are many other useful tracking tools available out there. By Understanding this data and how your site is structured you can begin to use that data to find some good SEO tracking opportunities.

With Google Search Console you can detect website errors, opportunities and user engagement. It is a free tool so visit the link to sign up.

Lighthouse Audit is another Google tool. You can use Lighthouse to measure web performance and accessibility.This will help you understand how a site is performing and what kind of updates you can make to your site.

By Evaluating your different pages of your site you can improve the overall perceived quality of your site. This could mean updating or revamping an old page to be more up-to-date or relevant or evening removing old pages that don’t get visits anymore. This would overall help your SEO.

SEO tracking isn’t a one size fits all. Many campaigns you start will be less successful than others. Some won’t be successful at all. But keep at it. Use the knowledge you now have to complete trial and errors until you determine what is successful. Keep an eye out for those trends and utilize tools like Google Analytics.

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In order for us to understand how to get your page visible to viewers we need to understand how search engines work. The biggest piece of the SEO puzzle is figurign out how to get your site seen and show up in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Search engines have 3 primary functions:

1. Crawl- Scour the web for content.
2. Index- Store and organize found content.
3. Rank- Provide the best pieces of content that answer the search query.

Search Engine Crawling

 There are plenty of content sources out on the web. These can be web pages, PDF files, images and videos. The search engine will send out a group of robots, Sometimes called crawlers or spiders, to scour the websites out there for new and updated content.

These crawlers will start with a few pages then branch out by following links on those pages to find URLs to new pages. They create a massive database that is used for when a user starts a search of a specific topic.

Search Engine Indexing

The index is the organization of the massive database that the search engine has developed through crawling. By organizing the data into indexes it cuts down the time it would take to finish a search significantly.

The crawlers keep the database up-to-date to maintain the reliability of the index. There are many factors that come into creating the index, such as design structures and data structures but that is information we do not need to cover.

Search Engine Ranking

After finding the sites with information most relevant to the search query the engine orders the results to be displayed on the SERP. This is known as ranking. Overall, the higher in the SERP the website is ranked, the more relevant it is to the query searched by the user.

Though there are several different search engines out there including Bing, Yahoo and others, the majority of developers focus on Google. Google is used by the vast majority of people when searching for something on the web. This could be web searches, images or even Google Maps searches. More than 90% of searches are made using Google. Even Youtube is a product of Google.

Crawling: Make Sure Search Engines Can Find Your Pages

Ensuring that the search engine crawlers can even find your site is a critical first step of SEO. One way to find out if the crawlers can find your pages is by going to search and using “site:domainname.com”. This will display which of your web pages will even be accessible when crawling.

Some pages can be hidden from the crawler robots and can not be found. There are several reasons this may happen. Some reasons your site can not be found by crawlers are:

• Your site is too new and hasn’t been crawled yet.
• Your site has no external links from other websites.
• Your sites navigation is improperly structured.
• Your site could be penalized by Google for spammy actions.

Sometimes the search engine is unable to find some of your sites important content or URLs. If your site requires a log in to access certain information then the search robot will not be able to access that page.

Some developers rely on a search algorithm and think by adding a search bar that any user would be able to find what they need. This not only hinders the users experience on your web page but also limits the crawlers attempting to navigate your site. If there aren’t links or an easily structures site architecture than the crawlers will not be able to find all of your content.

Indexing: How Search Engines Store Your Pages

Just because your site can now be crawled doesn’t mean it can be indexed. After a crawler finds a page the search engine would open it like a browser would, then searches through the information on the page to figure out where to store the information. The way this information is stored is the index.

Pages are searched and cached in different frequencies based on the popularity of the site and how often the site updates or publishes posts. For example, nytimes.com will be crawled much more frequently then say a local business website for a towing company or restaurant.

Pages can also be removed from an index. Several reasons can cause this to happen. For example, if your site has a noindex meta tag added or if the site requires a password to reach a URL your site could be removed from the index.

Ranking: How Search Engines Rank Your URL

The process of listing search results of a query by most relevant to least relevant is known as ranking. This is how the search engine, like Google, ensures the searcher finds the best information for what they’re searching for.

Search engines use an algorithm to sort the most relevant information to be presented to the user. These algorithms are constantly updated but are to make the search engines more effective in delivering results. Google updates their algorithm every day but the updates are usually tweaks here and there until a larger update is created.

If your site has taken a dive due to an update or you are trying to keep up-to-date on the algorithm you can check out Google’s Quality Guideline or Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

These algorithms are effective now but used to be rudimentary in the past. This caused pages to over spam their sites with keywords or make them bold in order to rank higher on Google. This doesn’t work anymore and is frowned upon. More on keyword use here.

Links and SEO

Backlinks or “inbound links” are links on a page that lead to your website or vice versa. Internal links are links on your page that lead to another one of your pages. The more natural backlinks your site has from other websites acts like “word of mouth” and creates rapport for your site.

Google has a part of its algorithm called PageRank which uses backlinks and internal links to rank the authority and relevance of your site. Bottom line, the more natural backlinks exist to your site the better your site will rank.

Content and SEO

Links are very helpful but are meaningless if they lead to an irrelevant or empty URL. Content can be anything from text on a page, images, or videos. The search engine searches the content on your page to determine its relevance to the present search query.

Search engines are also focused on the user and their satisfaction. Because of this the search engine will search for words that are relevant to their search. This includes “alt text” in images and videos or any other content available on the page.

Engagement Metrics: Click Data

Another part of SEO is the actual data of how users engage your site. Some believe high engagement is caused by good SEO and some believe good engagement causes good SEO. It is clear that how your users engage your site will improve your SEO.

Several elements factor into User Engagement:

• Clicks (visits from a search)
• Amount of time the user spends on your page before leaving
• Bounce rate (percentage of visits where users only viewed on page on your site before leaving)
• Pogo-Sticking (clicking on an organic result then quickly bouncing back to the SERP to click on another result)

Since user engagement can make a ranking effect it is important to create your page to attract a user and keep them engaged in your site.

Local Business and SEO

If the user is searching for a local business, some search engines like Google have their own proprietary index for those searches. Google’s feature for these indexes is Google My Business. You can learn more on Google My Business and optimizing your business listing here.

Google uses 3 main factors when utilizing local searches:

• Relevance
• Distance
• Prominence

Relevance is how well the business the user is searching for matches the search query. To make sure your Google My Business listing is relevant in searches make sure your information is filled out completely and accurately.

The distance factor pertains to your geo-distance to the surrounding businesses being searched. Google places emphasis on your location with location services with Google Maps.

Prominence factor is Google wanting to reward businesses in the real world. This includes how the business performs online and offline as well as some other factors.

Now more than ever, search influences are being influenced by real world successes and applications. This could be user reviews or links etc.

Next we are going to focus on Keyword Research.

If you are looking for more information on setting up Google My Business check out Importance of Google My Business by S & S Business Consultants.

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Besides creating quality content, building links is crucial to SEO tracking success. By linking other credible pages and having them link to your pages builds authority with the search engines. For the majority of the time credible pages will link credible pages while spammy pages will link spammy pages.

What are Links?

 Inbound links, or back links, are the reputation of the internet. When another page uses an inbound link directing the reader to one of your web pages they are basically saying, “check out this author, they know what they’re talking about.” It acts almost like a word of mouth and will help build your brand. At the same time by doing this yourself you are also showing your readers that another author could further help their investigation.

Internal links work similarly but direct readers to another page on the same domain, for example, different pages on your website. As long as you use internal links in a natural way and not a spammy way, the search engine will interpret that linked page as important and help your SEO tracking.

Link Profile

 Your pages link profile in an analysis of your inbound links. This includes the number of links you have, the quality of those links and the diversity of those links.

You should always try to maintain a healthy link profile. Some people learn about links and figure out how to manipulate them to try to boost their rankings. This is against Google’s Rules and Regulations and Google can de-index your page. By maintaining organic link follows and developing real readers who are interested will benefit your pages in the long run.

Editorial links are placed by another page that wants to link your page to their page. Earning these links from other users is great for establishing authority on search engines. This is also why its important to create better content than what has already been created.

The source of editorial links also matters to SEO tracking. If the page that is linking to your page is relevant to the same topics of your pages than it would be more beneficial than having an irrelevant site linking your page.

Some Things to Avoid

 Avoid a spammy profile. Filling your content with unnatural links might sound like a good idea to get search engines to boost your rankings but it will actually do the opposite. Google will penalize spammy link profiles.

Avoid purchased links. Though Google cant actually tell if links are purchased or traded they have ways of suspecting purchased links. This includes trading good or services for links.

Link exchanges are allowed but shouldn’t be used in mass amounts. A link exchange is when you share someone else’ link on your page in exchange for them sharing your link on their page. This can be beneficial but if over used, Google will penalize your page.

Building High Quality Back links

 Links should always be organic, build over time and follow the search engines algorithms. Building links can come from many different sources or methods. For example, if you have a partner you consistently work with you can offer to write up a testimonial for them. They can display this testimonial on their page with a back link to your page.

By writing a blog you have an opportunity to create new, unique content on a consistent basis. Blogs can also create discussions and earn links from other blogs. This is one of the few methods recommended by Google.

Creating unique content will assist in building a following for your pages. These organic editorial link opportunities are crucial in success of your SEO. Creating highly detailed, unique content is not an easy task but it is well worth it. Some goals of this content is to elicit strong emotion, be location specific, support something new, or address a timely need or issue.

Creating such a specific piece of content will interest readers. It could make them want to share it with friends or colleagues. These back links will also build trust in the community.

Local Business and Community

 As a local business it is smart to get involved with the community. Building relationships with your local community will help build trust in your brand. This could be holding a competition or giveaway, posting jobs or offering internships, and hosting events or seminars.

Building real world relationships can go a long way in building your own online presence and SEO tracking. You could even figure out ways in the real world to work with another business which you could use to link each other online. For more about the Importance of Google My Business visit our other article by G Map Pros.

Some Tips For Effective Link Building

Keep your content unique and memorable. This creates authenticity to your readers. You also want to be personal and genuine with your content.

Being newsworthy is also a bonus. It could be a simple aspect like offering a giveaway or presenting a new product. This contributes to branding and helps build your presence online.

Final Notes

Spam is a universal issue. Whether its in building back links or using keywords, it is a negative way to effect your pages SEO. Create content that you would want to read, not content that would just effect your SEO.

Next important aspect is tracking and analyzing data pertaining to your pages. Google Analytics is a effective tool in utilizing this data. More in another article.

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Moving forward in or SEO guide we will discuss keywords. Using keywords is important to both creating great content and satisfying the search engines. When designing your page you want to use SEO keywords strategically to target within your sites content.

Keywords are great for answering questions about your audience. Questions like:

• What are people searching for?
• How many are searching for it?
• In what format do they want that information?

By answering these questions you can gear your keywords more effectively to your audience and find the most effective way to reach them. Once you understand your audience you will be able to strategize your SEO approach.

Asking Questions

Before you can help build a business through SEO you have to learn and understand the business as well as it’s target audience. There are several questions you need to answer when trying to figure out a target audience.

• What types of the business’ product are people searching for?
• Who is searching for these products?
• When are these people searching for these products? (Is there a seasonal fluctuation?)
• How are these people searching for this product? (What words do they use? What questions do they ask? Are they using mobile or desktop?)
• Why are people searching for this product?
• Where are potential customers located? (Locally? Nationally? Internationally?)

This is a planning step that is often left neglected. But by remembering to utilize this step you can make your content much more targeted and effective.

What Terms are People Using When Searching?

Finding Terms or Keywords

You may have your own way of describing something but how are the potential customers searching for that same thing? Are they using technical terms or are they searching using a more natural tone and some slang? Understanding this will make the difference between a successful click or not even being visible.

Starting off you will have some obvious keywords ideas you want to use that describe the product or business you are working with. These words are great starting words but use them as starting words and research from there. Use a SEO keywords search tool and find out how those words and similar words perform on search engines already. Like mentioned earlier, your audience may describe things differently than you would. Also by using a search tool you may find some variations that you hadn’t already thought of.

It is also important to understand search volumes of keywords. Some keywords may have a high search volume which would mean high competition and the opposite for low search volume keywords. The higher the search volume of a keyword the more work would be required to achieve high ranking. If your competition is bigger companies, they usually hold the top 10 spots and could take years to beat their ranks. This also means it may be more effective to target less popular, highly specific keywords called long-tail keywords.

Another mentioning point is websites do not rank for keywords, they’re pages do. So use some variation. You could have some pages that focus on high competition words while others focus on low competition words. By keeping circulation between your pages the visitors can easily transition between your pages and further explore.

Long-Tail SEO Keywords

Besides having high competition on popular keywords, you also have to account for ambiguous intent. Some of these keywords are just so broad that they do not match what a potential customer is actually looking for. That is where long-tail keywords come in. By being more specific you will get less views but those views will have higher potential to convert.

Search Volume Strategy

Make sure you check out what keywords your direct competitors are using. You may have a list of keywords that you would like to use but it may be a better idea to use the ones that they aren’t. The other option is to use the keywords they are using and aim to scoop up their missed opportunities. It all depends on the situation.

Sometimes certain keywords are effected by season. For example, any Christmas themed keywords like “Christmas box” would peak later in the year from October to December. You can utilize this to bring holiday traffic to your SEO.

Then there are regional keywords. Not only do they have different dialects in different regions but they have different locales that you could target.

SEO Searchers Intent

Google bases its ranking on intent of the search and every query has one. There are 5 major categories of intent.

In Informational queries the user is searching for information. This could be a name or fact about somebody or even some historical information to complete a school paper.

Navigational queries are used to find a specific location of where something is located. For example, a search to find the homepage of NFL or even Facebook.

With Transaction queries the searcher is looking to make a purchase. This could be a plane or train ticket and searching for the best ticket to fit the user’s needs.

Using commercial investigation is when the user is comparing products or businesses of their interest. For example, a gamer may be looking fro a new console and would search the differences between a Playstation 4 and an Xbox One.

Finally, Local queries are for finding a local business such as a coffee cafe or restaurant.

Google has closely watched and analyzed the trillions of searches made on its search engine and will display the most common results. But there is also a locale aspect presented in it. For example, if you searched for “flower dress” you may see a shopping carousel of flower dress products but you will also see nearby shopping locations that may provide this product.

SEO Keywords Value

There are many accessible tools available to research the value of a keyword. One of these tools is Google Keyword Planner. Google Keyword Planner is the most common starting place for SEO beginners. It’s one downfall is it lumps keywords together into large keyword search buckets creating restrictions.

Google Trends is another tool that helps find seasonal fluctuations in keywords.

Google Correlate is a tool that allows you to see queries whose frequency follows a similar keyword to your keyword.

Conclusion

Now that you have a basic understanding of keywords it is time to use them and optimize your web pages. SEO is a learning process all the way but following one concept at a time is the way to successful SEO.

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Today we are beginning a SEO guide to help business owner understand what SEO is and how it benefits their business. Over the course of the next few posts we will cover a range of topics in this SEO guide including:

• Keyword Research
• How Search Engines work
• Web Page SEO
• Analyzing and Tracking SEO
• Building links

 What Is SEO?

 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing both quality and quantity of website traffic. This is beneficial to businesses because by increasing your local search rank in search engines you can appear first in front of more potential customers or clients. The primary results of effective SEO is organic traffic to your site.

SEO is about more than just search engines. By understanding your target market and how they search can greatly improve how your website ranks on your local search engine. Using proper keywords that would reflect how users would search for your business is just one way SEO actually works.

How Do Search Engines Work?

By scouring the web and analyzing billions of pieces of data and content, a search engine does it’s best to deliver results that best reflect your search query. Basically, search engines are machines that help find answers.

There are massive types of content created and published on the web. Some of these include PDF files, Images (png or jpeg), video and actual web pages. Search engines “crawl” through and “index” these contents and this creates “ranking” for your local search engines. We will cover more on these terms here on this SEO guide.

Organic Search Results

 Organic search results come directly from searching on the web, not paid advertising. These results are directly influenced by SEO and how effective a site is optimized.

An example of non-organic results would be an advertised result shown at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). These results are from businesses paying to promote their site in specific search results.

Google offers some extra features on SERPs that are still organic. For example, there are Snippets (a promoted organic result that appears in an answer box) and related questions boxes. Though they may look like they’re paid ads they remain organic and influenced by SEO.

Why Is SEO Important?

Over the past couple years, paid advertising and social media advertising have grown to be very effective but search engine results still remain the top generator of online traffic.

One of the benefits of SEO is that when properly set up and ranking is built, your website can generate more traffic over time. Meanwhile, using social media and paid advertising means more funding is needed to consistently pay for these ads and only last while the ad is running.

Proper SEO also has a click through advantage. When a viewer searches on the web they are more inclined to actually click through and read more about the information that they are searching for. Social media and paid advertising has a much lower click through rate as their ads are of opportunity. A viewer might be interested for a second but its not information they were actually searching for.

By properly setting up your website for SEO you can assist the search engines in effectively “indexing” your page and increasing your ranking on SERPs.

Representing Your Local Business

Google has a huge feature on their search engine called Google My Business (GMB). With GMB your business can have its own listing in local search engines that better represent your business. Whether you have a storefront or a service that requires you to travel to your client, you have this amazing option available to your business.

Some guidelines and requirements for using GMB are:

• Your business must contain a physical address, even if its your home address, and you must be able to see or discuss business with customers face-to-face.
• You must accurately represent your company information including your business name, location, contact information, website information and more.

As a respective business owner this shouldn’t be difficult as all of this information should be easily available to you. Clarity and honest representation is also a way to build trust with potential customers.

You do not want to over stuff your GMB listing with false information or keywords that you think would help your SEO. It will not. Do not use PO boxes or false addresses for your business. Finally do not abuse the review system on your GMB listing. Google reviews these Google My Business listings and can flag or remove information that you have posted.

More information on Google My Business check out this GMB post by S & S Business Consultants.

Understanding Your Business Goals

By communicating with your client you can identify and pinpoint exactly what their goals are. This information will allow you to identify what areas of SEO you should focus on, where conversions rates matter etc.

Some clients goals could be:

• Sales
• More calls
• Email sign-ups
• Downloads

By focusing on its specific goals you can use our SEO guide to help your client reach and achieve these goals. SEO accomplishes more than just visitation numbers. By learning and utilizing it properly you can directly effect many aspects of business goals.

Moving forward we are going to learn how to be more data driven and effective in your SEO efforts. In the next post of our SEO Guide we are going to discuss how search engines work.

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Google My Business Posts are mainly used to help local businesses connect with customers in their area. Businesses use these posts to display relevant information about the business, their products, special announcements and offers directly on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). If a user searches for your business directly, the active posts will be displayed in the same area as your GMB listing’s contact and location information. We are going to cover how to optimize your GMB posts.

Most posts stay active for 7 days unless the business takes it down before that. Event Posts will stay active for the duration of the event dates. The Posts feature is completely FREE and easy to manage so make surer you utilize this feature to help grow your business.

There are several factors that can effect your success of using GMB posts. Below we are going to cover some we find important.

Using the Right Images

Images are a great way to attract more attention to your posts. You want to make sure the images you’re using are both relevant and captivating. The best size to use is 750 x 750 px. You are able to use as small as 250 x 250 px but if aything smaller than that the image wont be accepted.

If your image is being used to promote a product or special such as food you want to use a more closer focused, crystal clear image. Also make sure the image subject is weighted to the center in case of any cutoffs.

Headlines and Titles

Your headline is the most important element when creating your post. It is the first thing that your viewer sees when looking at your post so it needs to be bold and enticing. The headline has to make your viewer want to click on the post eager to read on.

Your headline needs to show your reader what you are offering and why people should care. This is relevant because all headlines and titles are competing for placement on the SERPs. Your character amount for your headline is limited so make sure your headline is concise.

Headlines are not easy to come up with. A good technique is to try to come up with 20 different titles for a specific post and pick which one stands out the most. Again, make sure that headline is an attention grabber.

Descriptions and Details

Like the headline, you want to ensure your descriptions are clear and concise. Your description in total should be at least 150- 300 characters long but you need to convey the important information within the first 80. In the thumbnail view of the post is where your description will be cutoff. Finally, make sure your descriptions are SEO conscious.

Making your description concise yet descriptive is key in optimizing your GMB posts.

Call- To- Action

A Call- To- Action (CTA) is a line of text or a button that tells the viewer to do something in order to continue reading or explore the site further. They can be used to drive the viewer to a conversion page where they can contact you directly, buy a product, request a quote or anything else you want them to do. It is also a tool to increase your site’s click through rate. Your goal is for your viewers to spend more time exploring your site as this will increase your SEO presence and overall help the visibility of your site.

It is best to be clear and concise here as well. You want to avoid commercial slang or any kind of promotional slang and be direct with your viewer. This can avoid confusion and keep your potential customer engaged in what your business offers.

Click Tracking

Your CTA button’s URL is what Google Analytics uses to get information about the viewer who visited your post. This all happens on the back-end of your GMB post. Google posts do not directly integrate with Google Analytics so it is difficult to log information deeper than views and clicks.

Using UTM codes you can better analyze and see which post campaigns have been more successful than other creating trends for you to see and capitalize on.

Google’s Campaign URL Builder is your first step in click tracking.

With this information set up your more capable of seeing who clicked on your site and which of them actually converted on your site.

Scheduling

Consistently posting relevant information is important to your success using GMB posts. It is best practice to build a plan for the type of content you are posting and how often.

As mentioned above, event posts will stay active for the duration of the event. But other post types like product promotion or offer posts only stay active for 7 days so its important to make sure your creating new posts and continuing to keep something displayed on your GMB listing.

Using scheduling is a good way to ensure your posts continue and can set up when they get posted. There are a few third party tools that you can use to schedule your posts for your GMB.

OneUp is a scheduling software that can be used in Google My Business as well as the primary social media platforms. Though it isn’t free, it is a great tool to keep posts scheduled and consistent.

Conclusion

Overall these elements are all important to writing posts for your GMB listing. The major aspect of this formula being SEO- friendly writing that will assist your business listing placement. Optimizing your GMB posts is extremely beneficial to your businesses growth and success.

Trial and error is a major aspect of success so be sure you have your Google Analytics properly set up and are using the information to rate your post engagement. Learn more about the types of GMB posts here.

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Many businesses are still missing out on a great feature within their Google My Business (GMB) listings. Posting on your GMB listing has many benefits and can help build your business and gain more customers and clients. Learn about the different types of GMB posts and how to win over your clients.

There are 5 different types of posts and we are going through each of them and explaining their many benefits and uses. The 5 types of posts are:

• Whats New Posts
• Event Posts
• Offer Posts
• Welcome Offer Posts
• Product Posts

Whats New Posts

With a Whats New post you can showcase any new business updates, new team members, blog posts, any reviews or testimonials and anything else happening at your business. All of these updates can help bring attention to your business. It is also huge in building trust with your customers and clients.

A Whats New post is allotted up to 1500 characters when writing your posts. It also offers opportunity to utilize images or videos. Both images and videos are extremely important when creating posts. Your posts are more likely to grab a viewers attention and keep them on your listing when they see an image or video. Suggested size of your images or videos is 1200 x 900 px and max file size of a video is 100 MB.

A Call to Action (CTA), is a line of text or image that prompts your visitors to click and perform a specific action. A Whats New post offers several CTA opportunities for your listing including:

• Book
• Learn More
• Order Online
• Buy
• Sign Up
• Call Now (use the primary number of your GMB listing)
• Add a Button Optional (If you don’t want to add a link)

New posts will stay active for 7 days and will be displayed above any existing posts that have yet to expire. After 7 days your posts do not disappear. Instead they show up under post navigation on mobile searches and under the “View All” if on a desktop. Most of these types of GMB posts follow similar guidelines but some are unique.

In the Knowledge Panel of the listing your visitors can find a thumbnail preview of the post before clicking to see the entire post. There are a limited number of characters available for thumbnail text and this could be cut by using a CTA such as “Learn More.”

Events Posts

If your business is involved in, attending, supporting or hosting an event you can promote that event using an event post. It could be any sort of worthy event whether it is in store, a charity, or part of your local neighborhood. This is the better of the types of GMB Posts for when your business is holding an event.

In your event post you can use up to 58 characters to create a title. If you use all 58 characters allotted your title will be cut off in the thumbnail view of the post. When your title or CTA in the thumbnail get cut off you will see a “. . .” displaying the cut off. The thumbnail can be effected by CTA buttons, text and dates.

Like the What’s New post, Event posts can also use images and video. The same dimension recommendations and video sizes apply. If you use the built in photo editor make sure your optimizing the dimensions of the image or video otherwise the editor will display an unsightly black background behind the upload.

Event title also work like What’s New titles and allow 58 characters. When writing the body or description your allotted 1500 characters. Some businesses like to create short and sweet posts while some like to use the full available space.

Using Start/End dates you can select the appropriate dates for the event. Though you don’t have to include an end date on your event, if you create a new post it will still take precedent over your never ending event post pushing it down on the display hierarchy. Along with dates you can add times for your events. Like dates, they have a start and an end time and can be displayed down to the minute.

Event posts also offer CTA buttons. All & CTA buttons that are available in the What’s New posts are available for event posts.

Events in the business profile are not connected to Google Event Posts. These events come from other third party sources like Eventbrite or even your own website and marked up using Event Shema or structred data markup. You can take advantage of this by creating an event on your business website and make an event post on your GMB with exact details and link it to the schema markup on your website.

Offers Posts

Offer posts allow you to promote sales, offerings, or discounts currently offered by your business. These posts include a bright yellow tag (visible on both mobile and desktop) that are very attention grabbing.

Images and videos work just like above and are recommended to make your offer more compelling to your viewers. Your title and details sections of the post also operate the same way as previously mentioned posts. Your allotted 58 characters for your title and 1500 characters for your details section.

Coupons are an optional addition for Offers posts. Not only making your post more enticing and exclusive, coupons can help you track the exact conversions your business is getting through your GMB listing.

Another optional feature of Offer posts is a “link to redeem offer” button. This works as your CTA of the post. This adds a URL to a landing page that provides your searchers with additional information about your offer including how they can redeem the offer. If this option is used it will be displayed as a “Redeem Online” button.

If creating an offer posting for a client its strongly recommended to add the Terms and Conditions feature. It can be as simple as “See website and contact us for rules and regulations.” You want to make sure the viewers are quickly able to be informed.

Welcome Offer Posts

Released in June 2019, Welcome Offer posts were introduced to convert followers to customers. This offer is only available to viewers who opt to follow your business on the Google Maps app. Since its only displayed on the maps app your business needs to download the app in order to create this type of post. Unlike the regular Offers post, there is no yellow tag.

The Welcome Offer types of GMB posts follow the same criteria as the regular offers post for the title, details, start/end dates, images and videos and terms and conditions.

A new feature of these posts is adding a website. By adding a URL you can create a link to a landing page that includes more information on the offer and if its redeemable online. Unlike the Offer posts, there is no “Redeem Online” button.

Product Posts

Product posts provide the opportunity to promote and highlight specific items that your business offers or sells. These posts have their own navigation heading in mobile searches.

Instead of a post title you have a Product name. The name does work just like the title with a 58 character max. Besides that change your other options are the same. The post can stille include images or videos, descriptions and CTA options. An optional feature is the price description. You can have an exact amount, a min to max slider or opt to exclude a price of the product.

What’s the Best Post Type?

Each post type has its specific uses so one isn’t better than the other. All types of GMB Posts have the potential to show up as Post Mentions in the local finder results. This can help your overall click through rates and turn into increased business.

Its time to utilize posts in your GMB listing. Go make your brand stand out in search results and increase engagement with your listing. Learn more about post optimization on another article by G Map Pros here.

The post Types of GMB Posts & Features appeared first on Kansas City Local SEO, Google My Business Optimization Services.

The post Types of GMB Posts & Features appeared first on Kansas City Local SEO, Google My Business Optimization Services.

Google My Business is one of the most powerful SEO strategies a business can use to improve their local search rankings. It is also a great way to connect online with potential customers and clients. Since its beginning, Google has worked hard to provide new features to help local businesses. One of the more recent of these features id the use of GMB posts.

Posts on your GMB listing in the business’ Knowledge Panel. When a visitor clicks on the post it expands into a larger box to grab the users attention and increase your click through rate.

Some tips when creating a post that will overall help your GMB listing performance:

• Keep your posts clean and concise. 80-100 word posts are whats recommended, but if you use the full 300 words keep in mind that not all of the description will be displayed.
• Make sure to keep keywords and important information towards the beginning of the paragraph. This helps with Search Engine Optimization.
• Stick to images without text in them in case the image gets cutoff.
• 750 x 750 px is the recommended size for images and cant be smaller than 250 x 250 px.
• Make sure the landing page you’re sending your customers to is relevant to the post and meets the potential customer’s expectations.

 The knowledge panel of your listing takes up a lot of the page when users search for your business. Use this as an opportunity to create great, engaging posts that grab your viewer’s attention.

Your GMB post speaks directly to your viewer so make sure your message is worthwhile. Do not waste your post space with hashtags as this doesn’t help your listing’s SEO, and looks spammy to the viewer. Instead focus on good information that would be valuable to the reader.

Scheduling and Timing

Timing and scheduling are important when it comes to posting. By creating a scheduling plan you can ensure you are consistently adding content to your listing.

The timing is relevant for other posts like events or upcoming promotions. If for example, you’re having a Veteran’s Day sale, it would be a good idea to publish your post a week before the promotion to make sure you get plenty of attention before the promotion occurs.

Get Creative with Images

 If you have a design team, get them involved on creating content for your posts. Use your teams to create an eye grabbing product image. Out wow the competition by making your contact more than just a typical camera taken image. Set up proper areas to take great images, utilize proper lighting and use image editing software if you need to.

If you do not have a design team Google is there to help. Google’s Small Thanks with Google helps small businesses use reviews to create design materials you can download and use on your GMB posts and even social media.

Even though your posts aren’t active after 7 days, they will still be visible in a carousel format where viewers still see your awesome images.

Content Selection

Along with your images, your content is also important. Sometimes it is hard to come up with ideas for what types of content to post. Some quick ideas to get you started:

• Highlight one of your favorite employees and what makes them stand out.
• Mention upcoming trade shows or events your business is participating in.
• Highlight a new product or a product that has a special offer.
• Run a contest or giveaway and promote it in a post.

The possibilities are endless. The biggest component is staying relevant to your brand and building your business. Content can be awesome but if it is off the wall than it wouldn’t benefit you or your business.

Track Your Posts

Your GMB Dashboard is a good starting point to track to activity of your posts but its also a good idea to use custom URLs with Google Analytics to track deeper information and find trends between the types of posts you publish. Some types of posts or keywords could perform better than other and information like this is important in connecting with your users.

Tracking your posts can help you with finding how customers search for your business, actions they’ve taken on your page, where customers view your business as well as other information like how many views you have on photos.

Conclusion

All of these factors can help your business be more successful and benefit your SEO. Be sure to create great quality content and images to really grab your viewers attention. Always take advantage of the tools that are available to you. Always learn more about the importance of GMB.

The post Win Over Your Customers with GMB Posts appeared first on Kansas City Local SEO, Google My Business Optimization Services.

The post Win Over Your Customers with GMB Posts appeared first on Kansas City Local SEO, Google My Business Optimization Services.

As a local business, maximizing your exposure on your local search engine is your top priority. Registering your business on Google My Business (GMB) should be your first step. By building a business profile with Google My Business your potential customers can discover a plethora of information without even visiting your site. This includes your business name, contact information, location as well as photos and reviews.

Google has also added many features your business page should take advantage of that help grab viewer’s attention and help boost your rank in local search results. If you haven’t yet created a GMB profile for your business you can do so here- https://www.google.com/business.

Make Sure Your Profile is Complete

Google will ask for some valuable basic information about your business including your business name, phone numbers, address and map location. This information is important as it helps potential clients and customers find your business.

One thing to be aware of is that other users can “suggest” an edit to the information of your business so make sure your information is accurate. Google does send notifications to inform the profile owners of any changes or updates. By consistently checking on your profile and its updates you can ensure that your business information stays correct. These updates can be checked under the “Google Updates” tab then “Review Updates.”

Google also encourages viewers that know about your business to answers questions about your business. These responses are shown on your business page and many business owners get concerned that this could have a negative impact on their business. Google’s philosophy is that answered questions and reviews help build community, trust and a more complete profile.

Either way it is important to consistently monitor and maintain your business profile just to be safe. Once your business profile is listed and verified you want to begin optimizing your Google My Business.

Google My Business Posts

Posts in GMB are similar to small ads or even social media posts that appear in your business listing. Businesses use them to add personality or relevant information to their business profile. To quote Google themselves:

“With Posts, you can share timely, relevant updates right on Google Search and Maps to help your business stand out to potential customers. And by including custom calls-to-action directly on your business listing, you can choose how to connect with your customers.”

Common uses for GMB posts include:

– Sharing daily or weekly specials and promotions.

– Promote upcoming events.

– Showcasing top or popular products or services.

– Sharing an awesome blog or link to another site.

Posts “go dark” after 7 days so timing and consistent posting is important. A good way to ensure you remember to maintain your posting is paying attention to Google’s reminders. Also remember posts show up prominently on mobile searches so make sure your posts are maintained to make sure your site stands out.

Google’s Booking Button

If your business relies on your customers making appointments or uses a scheduling software customers can now book directly from your Google My Business listing. This adds a convenience factor so potential customers do not have to even leave the page to another site. Be sure to take advantage of this integrated GMB feature, it’ll make it simpler to gain new customers or clients.

Google My Business Messaging

Customers and potential customers can now send text messages to your business when using a mobile search on chrome. This is a great way to interact with your customers with important information or answering questions.

To use this feature go to the “Messaging” tab on your GMB dashboard. Here you can set up a contact number to receive these messages and even an automated response for your potential customer. If you prefer to keep your personal phone information and business separate you can use Google’s Allo app. This app will use the same phone information used in your GMB profile except send the messages to an app instead of your direct phone number.

Google My Business Online Reviews

Google encourages business owners to ask their customers or clients for online reviews. Online reviews can help build trust with potential clients, and impact click through rates and search engine ranking.

Google does have its own guidelines for posting reviews and requesting customers to leave an online review. Whatever you do, do not bribe in exchange for a review. It is not only against Google’s guidelines but against laws of reviews in general. You can review Google’s guidelines here, Google’s guidelines for Google My Business reviews.

Photos and Videos

Adding photos and videos are a great way to build your brand and even show some behind the scenes action of your business. Take this as an opportunity to share images and videos of your employees in action or products directly pertaining to your business. You shouldn’t use stock photos or videos you would use for marketing or promotions. Google can also remove videos if the video isn’t relevant to the business location.

When using videos keep them short and sweet. A 30- second video length is recommended as human attention span is relatively short. Google does state that videos can take up to 24 hours to display but most will show up after a few minutes.

Google does have some general Google My Business Video Guidelines to follow. These include video duration, file size and video resolutions.

Business Descriptions

Business owners can now include a business description on their Google My Business listing. By using up to 750 characters owners can now describe what they offer, some business history or any other helpful information for viewers. Keep in mind only the first 250 characters will show up before getting cut-off in the knowledge panel.

Like everything else, Google provides us with Google Business Description Guidelines. Make sure you review these rules because Google does review business descriptions. On mobile devices the descriptions appear in the About tab while on desktop the descriptions appear in the Knowledge Panel.

Menus/ Services

If your business provides services such as spa and wellness services or salon services such as hair or nails you can utilize the Services list in Google My Business. This feature allows businesses to categorize and list out all of their provided services (or food items) along with the prices of each.

This feature is only available for food and drink, health, beauty, and other services businesses that do not have a third party “menu” link. You can use this feature by finding the Info tab on your GMB dashboard and click the “Services” section.

Get the Most Out of Your Business

The more engagement and interaction you have with your Google My Business listing the better your chances of ranking higher on your local search engines and organic rankings. Google is constantly adding and updating features to GMB. Be sure to utilize these opportunities and features to continue to optimize your Google My Business listing.

The post Importance of Using Google My Business appeared first on Kansas City Local SEO, Google My Business Optimization Services.

The post Importance of Using Google My Business appeared first on Kansas City Local SEO, Google My Business Optimization Services.