10 Top Tips To Help Boost Local SEO
Google My Business listings, the listings that appear in Google Maps, are more important than ever before for many businesses. Offering some of the most visible listings in Google’s organic search results, these listings are free (for now anyway!) and are often generated based upon the location of the person making the search.
Studies indicate that natural listings and Google Maps represent a significant percentage of the clicks made by web users when they are looking for a local product or service. At Footprint Digital our services are tailored to get maximise the visibility of your business in Google’s search results.
A Key Weapon
With this in mind, GMB listings are a key weapon in the local SEO arsenal of any business. However, whilst very important, this is not to say that this should be the only target area for businesses looking to crack their local market.
Focus On These 10 Tips
To help give you a few pointers, we have outlined 10 top tips to help maximise your online presence in your local area. Including GMB tips, web design tips and other areas as well, make the 10 areas below your primary focus. Even better, leave it to us!
- Make sure that you complete all available fields for your Google My Business listing
- Ensure consistency of your business NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) online
- Post regularly on Social Media channels along with utilising the post option on Google My Business
- Optimise the URL of your website
- Utilise relevant META details
- Add location/geo pages to your website
- Add a local slant to your content
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
- Optimise all online directory listings (citations)
- Improve your internal linking structure
Further Information
If you’d like to speak to us regarding our ability to design you a quality website or perhaps how to maximise the potential of your existing website, please give us a call on 01883 372488 or contact us via Facebook and we’ll be happy to talk you through your options.
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Google Is Using AI To Update Certain Listings
Google has shared how it’s using artificial intelligence, including its restaurant-calling Duplex tech, to try and keep business hours up to date on Google Maps. The company says that if it is confident enough in the AI’s prediction of what a business’s hours should be, it will update the information in Maps.
In a blog post, Google outlines the various factors it’s AI analyzes to determine whether it should do these updates. First, it looks at when the business profile was last updated, other similar shops’ hours, and Popular Times data to decide how likely it is that the hours are incorrect. For example: if Google sees that a lot of people visit the shop when it’s supposedly closed, that may be a red flag.
Google spokesperson Genevieve Park told The Verge that Google will “only publish business hours when we have a high degree of confidence that they’re accurate.” If the AI thinks the hours may be incorrect but doesn’t have a solid prediction, it adds a notice that the hours may have changed.
Park also said that Google doesn’t explicitly tell users when hours were updated by its AI and explained that AI is used pretty much everywhere else in Google Maps. It seems like Google’s pretty bullish on its AI-driven approach. In its post, the company says it’s “on track to update the hours for over 20 million businesses around the globe in the next six months.”
Google also says it’s piloting another use of AI in Maps to help keep speed limits up to date. In the US, I’ll try to see if its partners have taken images of stretches of road that have speed limit signs and will have AI help its operations team identify the sign and the speed limit posted on it.
While it’s no surprise that Google’s using AI for these problems, it is interesting to see how many interlocking systems are involved. There’s computer vision, pattern recognition in location trends, and analyzing data about similar locations (which, of course, also involves figuring out what the similar locations even are), all to quietly try and keep up with how often businesses change their hours and make sure it knows the speed limit on certain stretches of road.
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Contact Us
If you would like to put your social media requirements in the hands of a company that will take it forward, please contact Footprint Digital on Tel. No. 01883 372488 today.
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Did You Know That Google Earth Has A Timelapse Tool
Google Earth comes loaded with plenty of cool features, including a timelapse tool that can show you how our planet has changed.
Alphabet’s Google Earth is one of the handiest tools to exist in our time. Google Earth can show you how your hometown has changed in recent years
The service uses satellite imaging to let you explore all corners of the world – some in 3D – from your computer. And as of last April, users can now access a clever timelapse feature that shows how their neighbourhood has changed over the last 37 years. Googler sourced more than 24 million satellite photos taken over four decades for the tool.
This feature aims to show “not just problems but also solutions,” per a Google blog post.
Hilarious Google Maps scene shows Street View cameraman travelling in a strange way
Rebecca Moore, the director of Google Earth, further noted that the Google Earth’s timelapse tool can also display “mesmerizingly beautiful natural phenomena that unfold over decades”. The tech giant has plans to add new images to the project continuously over the next decade.
Google is working closely with Nasa, the US Geological Survey’s Landsat program, and the European Union’s Copernicus program on the project. Meanwhile, the timelapse feature is being powered by Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab.
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Contact Us
If you would like to put your social media requirements in the hands of a company that will take it forward, please contact Footprint Digital on Tel. No. 01883 372488 today.
