Google My Business can be a very powerful tool for any business with a focus on their local area. If you can achieve a first page ranking for any of your chosen terms on Google Maps, it is all but guaranteed that prospective customers will view your business before almost any other.
Please see below for a recent example:
However it is very important to ensure that your listing is created correctly without cutting any corners.
A Common Mistake
Through the ‘Google My Business’ dashboard, users have the ability to set their radius of service around their physical address. This option is designed to allow customers to see how far a business is prepared to travel in order to visit a customer.
However, some business owners choose to be a little too greedy and instead of setting a realistic and accurate radius, set their radius to its maximum in the hope of ranking across several locations. The reality of the situation is that this will not work and you will instead find that you are only likely to rank around the actual, physical location of your business.
Setting A Realistic Radius
Rather than trying to trick Google into giving you rankings across a broader area than you should be eligible for, you should instead use a radius setting which realistically and accurately highlights the catchment area of your business. If your business legitimately covers a huge service area, that is fine, however you should not expect to receive any cross-location ranking boost just because of it.
The reality is that if you want to rank across several locations, you need a physical site in each major city that’s actually utilised and occupied by your team.
Please Note – There is a ‘black hat’ practice which involves purchasing virtual addresses purely for the location pin. This is something that should not be attempted as it goes directly against Google’s quality guidelines.
Further Information
Footprint specialise in creating individually tailored web marketing solutions designed to help take your business to another level. If you’d like to speak to us regarding any of our services, give us a call on 01883 372488 or contact us via Facebook and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.
