Hey, Nick Ponte here. I own a Maui advertising agency, and we’ve helped business after business in our local community to establish strong marketing strategies and increase customer leads. We recently discussed methods for Maui business owners to take to increase results from their SEO strategies. This week, we continue that conversation.
Building and maintaining quality SEO is crucial to your marketing strategy. Small businesses require a strong SEO strategy more than ever. Our strategy establishes SEO for companies with Google My Business profiles in mind.
One of our clients, a waste management company, recently had us rebuild their website. As a digital advertising agency on Maui, we considered their local rankings and looked at their Google My Business profile. With the limited optimization of keywords and content, they had little to no presence on SERPs.
We took the time to help them create a GMB profile, so customers could easily find their information. We also created a fresh SEO strategy for local Maui customers to find their website more easily. Now, this company has significantly increased traffic, as well as an optimized website to bring in more interest from Maui locals.
What’s the big deal about a Google My Business profile? Should you invest your time and energy in creating one?
Also Read: 3 Tips for Small Business Owners to Optimize Google My Business
The Importance of Maintaining Good SEO
Trying to pinpoint problems when status in local rankings has dropped can become a frustrating process. With so many possibilities that can happen over time, it can become difficult to keep up with maintaining rankings.
GMB should also be considered when evaluating your SEO maintenance. It makes a huge difference for your rankings when Google has your business information and users can easily access it.
Google My Business also allows users to see ratings and reviews. Research shows that positive reviews strongly influence whether a user will choose to patronize a business. If you don’t have any, potential customers might turn away because they don’t know if your business has enough credibility.
When a free, simple tool like GMB gets underutilized, a business loses opportunities. Consider a local coffee roasting company that pops up on Google Maps. The location is visible. However, they never updated anything on their GMB profile, so it’s hard to tell their operating hours, what products they have available to the public, or if they’re actually still in business.
As a business, you don’t want users asking those questions. If you’re going to attract new customers, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to find information about you. Unfortunately, many businesses find that difficult. They’re unaware of what customers look for and miss opportunities as a result.
Fortunately, it’s not actually hard to implement the right SEO, once you know what to include. It takes some upkeep, but it shouldn’t steal hours from your week. If you find it a time-consuming task or a daunting challenge, we’ve got experts at our Maui advertising agency that can help you create SEO geared for success.
In the meantime, check out the following tips to help you get started.
Also Read: Local SEO: Making Your Brand Famous in Your Location
How Maui Businesses Can Maintain SEO Quality
Use these tips from our SEO strategy to take your own up a few notches:
- Create a GMB Listing
If you haven’t already created a Google My Business profile, make sure you prioritize that. Take advantage of that free tool, as well as the others within Google’s business suite. Keep your profile updated according to any changes to your business.
Additionally, make sure the information on your website is complete and matches that on the profile. Include your location in the header and your contact information in the footer. A great way to help Google’s evaluation of your site is to add the location map in the footer of your website.
- Regularly Maintain GMB Profile’s Accuracy
Did your hours change? Update that on your Google My Business profile. Did you have any changes to your location or contact information since you created the profile? Definitely update that, too. Many people find local businesses through apps like Google Maps, which gives location, directions, hours of operation, and an overview of services. If your information is outdated, customers won’t have an accurate understanding of your business or how to get in touch.
Unfortunately, sometimes modifications happen to Google profiles without us knowing. It’s an annoying problem, but this means we, as business owners, have to regularly check that everything looks good.
How can you know if you’re affected by a local algorithm change? Use a tool like Bright Local’s Local Flux. Check to see if anything has changed when you search for common keywords. Are competitors outranking you that weren’t previously? Are there certain keywords that you don’t rank highly on? Take note, so you can evaluate changes you need to make to keep up.
- Use a Professional Advertising Agency
With so many details that need attention, it can feel hard to keep up. Our advertising experts know how to search out the most challenging issues and find solutions for your SEO – even determining potential problems and troubleshooting them.
Our Maui advertising agency has a great record of helping local businesses diagnose problems with rankings.
If you want to learn more or want help, reach out to us today!
Further Reading: 3 Ways to Use New Google Features for Local SEO in 2022
Photos Courtesy of Connor Simonson & Tim Mossholder