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Using Google My Business to boost your SEO for trade businesses

22 March 2023
Jessica by Jessica

How to take your SEO to the next level with Google My Business

As a tradie, you would understand how important it is to reach local clients in your area. After all, our businesses rely on local customers to keep things moving. Whilst there are many different ways to reach local clients, one of the most effective is to utilise SEO strategies. SEO stands for search engine optimisation, which essentially involves priming your online content for local clients to find, by using location and service-specific keywords. SEO is a vital component of your digital marketing.  One good way to improve your SEO on the Mornington Peninsula is to use Google My Business, also known as GMB. GMB is a free online tool that allows businesses to manage and improve their online presence on Google. You can manage your business information, reviews, and photos for people to view online. By using GMB, you can increase your visibility in Google search results and Google Maps, making it easier for local customers to find your business. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss how to use Google My Business to boost your local SEO for trade businesses.

Step 1 - Claim and verify your business listing

The first step to using GMB is to claim and verify your business listing. To do this, go to Google Business and click on the “Manage Now” button. Then, search for your business name and follow the steps to claim and verify your listing. Once your listing is verified by Google, you can start optimising it for local searches and gearing it towards SEO on the Mornington Peninsula. Make sure to fill out all of the relevant information about your business, including your address, phone number, website, service areas and business hours. Ensure that your hours are accurate, but lengthy where possible. If your competitor is open an hour later than you, this could push them higher up the ranks.

Step 2 - Optimise your business information for local SEO

To optimise your GMB listing for SEO on the Mornington Peninsula, you need to include relevant keywords in your business information. This includes your business name, description, and categories. For example, if you’re a painter in Mornington, your business description should include keywords that describe your services and the location, such as “residential painter Mornington” and “Commercial painter Mornington Peninsula”. In addition to this, you should also select categories that are relevant to your business, such as “painter” or maybe “plasterer”. By including these relevant keywords in your business description and subsequent information, you increase your chances of showing up in local search results for those keywords. In order to optimise your profile, you’ll need to fill out every section such as service areas with as much information as you can list about your business. You should also ensure that all of your grammar is correct in order to rank your listing higher than your competitors. If this something you’d like some assistance with, we offer GMB set-ups and optimisation at Carter Marketing. As an SEO agency on the Mornington Peninsula, this is our area of expertise. Contact us to get started today.

Step 3 – Add images

It’s important to add photos and videos to showcase your work and give potential clients an idea of what it’s like to engage your business for their project. This is essential if you’re looking to rank your listing higher up in search results. The images you upload should be named with keywords prior to uploading for the best results. It also helps to take the photos within your service area, or geotag them accordingly. This way, Google can verify that you’re operating within your service area.

Google has specific requirements for images to be uploaded to a listing. Here are the recommended image sizes and types for a Google My Business listing:

  • Profile Photo: 250 x 250 pixels (minimum 120 x 120 pixels), JPG or PNG format, maximum file size of 5MB.
  • Cover Photo: 1080 x 608 pixels, JPG or PNG format, maximum file size of 5MB.
  • Logo: 250 x 250 pixels (minimum 120 x 120 pixels), JPG or PNG format, maximum file size of 5MB.
  • Additional Photos: 720 x 720 pixels, JPG or PNG format, maximum file size of 5MB.

Step 4 - Ask your clients to leave reviews

One of the most important factors in local SEO is customer reviews. The more positive reviews you have on your GMB listing, the higher your business is likely to rank in search results. These will also contain location-specific keywords, which will help your ranking. To encourage your clients to leave reviews, you should ask them directly. You can do this in person or via an email, and you can even include a link directly to your GMB listing to make it easier for customers to write you one. Ensure that you respond to all reviews, both positive and negative. This shows that you care about your customers’ feedback, and that you’re willing to address any issues or problems they may have experienced. The number of reviews a business receives can depend on the type, volume and area of the work you’re doing. However, according to a study by BrightLocal, the average GMB listing across all industries has 73 reviews. They play a big role in your ranking, so get your reviews up!

Need to get your review link to send to your customers? Here’s how to do it:

  • Log in to your Google My Business account.
  • Select the location you want to manage.
  • Click on the "Home" menu on the left side of the screen.
  • Scroll down to the "Get more reviews" section and click on the "Share review form" button.
  • A new window will open with your review link. Copy this link and use it to share with your customers.

Step 5 - Use Google posts to promote your business

Google Posts is a feature in GMB that allows you to share updates about your business, such as promotions, events, and blog posts. These posts appear in your GMB listing and can help you stand out in search results. To use Google Posts, go to your GMB dashboard and click on the “Posts” tab. Once here, you have the ability to create a new post, which features a title, image and description for you to fill in. You can also add a call-to-action button, such as “Read more” or “Contact us today.” When you’re creating new posts, make sure to include service and location-specific keywords and a clear call-to-action. This will help your business to attract potential clients and encourage them to take the first step in contacting you.

Step 6 - Track your performance with insights

Finally, it’s important to track your GMB performance by going to the performance section of your profile. The performance section provides data on how customers find your business, and how they have interacted with it on Google. This will tell you how many views your listing has had over certain time periods, how customers are searching for your business, and what they have clicked on your listing. Through tracking your performance, you can see what parts of your listing are working and what parts are not, giving you the ability to make informed changes that will improve your SEO on the Mornington Peninsula. If you find you’re not ranking as high as you would like, you can do a competitor analysis to work out what your competitors have that you don’t. Use this to build on your profile and fill it out to the best of your abilities.

Get the best SEO company on the Mornington Peninsula to do it for you

As a busy tradie, you probably don’t have the time to be setting up and spending hours optimising your GMB listing to improve your SEO. That’s where we come in. At Carter Marketing, we’re a marketing agency on the Mornington Peninsula that specialises in SEO for tradies. We know exactly how to optimise your content to ensure that it is as visible as possible to people searching for your services. If you’re looking for marketing for tradies on the Mornington Peninsula, we’ve got you covered. Contact us today to see what we could do for your business.

Check out our blogs for more helpful marketing tips and tricks for tradies!