You’re a small business owner looking to hire a firm to handle SEO for you. You go to Google, type in ‘SEO services near me’, and hit the ‘enter’ key. The results Google returns rely heavily on Google Business profile information. Local firms without a profile aren’t going to rank as highly.
A Google Business profile is non-negotiable for any business that hopes to make use of local SEO. This is due to the way Google determines which local businesses to display in organic searches. So if nothing else, you’re local SEO provider should make sure you have a strong Google Business profile that features complete and up-to-date information.
Easy to Create a Profile
The nice thing about the Google Business profile is that it really is no big deal in terms of creating and maintaining one. Think of it almost like an online survey. You sign into your Google account, then navigate over to the Google Business section and start entering information.
You’ll enter things like your business name, address, and phone number. You’ll describe your business and enter operating hours. It actually doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to set up a business profile, but the payoff couldn’t be huge. When a Google Business profile is part of a local SEO strategy, a company’s chances of reaching that local audience only go up.
3 Key Search Parameters
No one really knows how many ranking factors go into a typical Google search. Some say it could be several hundred. Salt Lake City’s Webtek Digital Marketing says SEO providers do their best to understand and utilize the most common ranking factors. This includes separate Google Business parameters for local SEO.
Google is nice enough to let us in and three such parameters, applied over and above their normal ranking factors to facilitate productive local searches. You can find them on the Google Business Profile Help page. Here they are:
1. Relevance
In the internet search world, relevance refers to how closely search results align to what a person is searching for. So in local SEO, Google wants companies whose products and services match user searches. If a user is searching for a local Chinese restaurant with takeout, Google doesn’t want to return Italian restaurants with no takeout. The most relevant restaurants would be exactly what the user is searching for.
2. Distance
Distance is pretty self-explanatory. Google’s desire is to return results as close to the person searching is possible. It can do that in one of two ways. If a searcher enters a particular location, like a zip code for instance, Google will search for relevant businesses as close to that zip code as possible. When no location information is entered by the searcher, Google will use embedded information like IP address, GPS, etc.
3. Prominence
Last but not least is prominence. This is defined by Google as “how well known a business is.” Prominence is determined in a couple of ways, including how ‘famous’ a business or property might be. But Google also considers all the information it has on a particular business from a profile page, local news articles, local directories, and so forth. The more references it can find to a local business, the higher the prominence ranking.
Whether someone is looking for ‘SEO services near me’ or the best local Chinese restaurant with takeout, the Google Business profile heavily influences the results they see in organic searches. Therefore, any company hoping to leverage the power of local SEO should have a Google Business profile.
