Improve the visibility of your business listing on Google

Relevance, prominence, distance are key to Google My Business success

Assumption: we’ll assume you’ve claimed and verified your listing.

Is your business listed on Google My Business but not showing up in Google Search or Google maps?  Here’s how to improve the visibility of your business listing and help customers find you, not your competitors.

First it helps to understand how Google evaluates business listings.  They look at three things: how relevant your business is to search phrases (keywords) that are actually used; how established your business is online (they call it prominence); and how far your business is from the location of the search.

The last one can be tricky so ensure you have:

1. consistent NAP (name, address; phone) on your website
2. Include in your XML Sitemap a KML file that includes Latitude/Longitude

If you don’ have either of these then it’s hard for Google to interpret where you are, so your best current chance of showing up is to make sure your business is in the right category and make it prominent. 

You can be listed in more than one category, but the closer you can get to an accurate category for your business, the more chance you have that Google will mention you in the search results.  So don’t just go for a broad category like “retail”, go for “book shop” and, if relevant, list the type of books you stock, or things other than books – for example maps or stationery – that you sell.

Increase your prominence

To make your business more prominent, and thus improve the visibility of your business listing, share your location link and business page with your customers.  There are two ways to do this. 

1. find your business listing on Google Maps using your business name and or phone number, click on the Share icon and use the link to share your listing with your customers
2. go to your Google My Business dashboard, click on View Locations, copy the link in the address bar and share it with your customers by email, on your blog, or however else you communicate with them.

Your customers can help raise your prominence by leaving reviews for you.  They just find you on Google Maps and click on the Write a Review button below the search box.  Replying to reviews is always a good plan, so keep an eye open for new ones. 

Customer reviews help to build trust with potential buyers; they also raise your Google prominence, which means you’ll show higher up than your competitors in the listings on the little map on the search results page. That said it’s only really once you’ve 6 or more reviews that this starts to improve a ranking. So don’t be shy to ask for them!

Location, location, location

To improve the visibility of your business listing and make your business stand out from the crowd, go to your Google My Business dashboard and click on the “Manage location” button.  That’s where you edit your information, add photos and generally make your business look good.

If your business is photogenic, add some pics that show off your products or services.  You’ll need a logo, cover picture and “identity” photo to start with, but you can add up to 7 pictures for each location to showcase your best products, your staff, the shop frontage, or whatever.

Google shows the searcher the most local business in the relevant category.  In other words, if your business is in Perth and the searcher is in Aberdeen, you’re going to have to be in a niche business to show up.  If you restore antique golf clubs you may appear in the search results, despite the distance; if you run an Italian restaurant or a nail bar you probably won’t.  If both your Italian restaurant and the searcher are in Perth, the Italian restaurant with the most prominence will show up at the top of the listing.

There’s more help available on the Google My Business site with lots of great video content– or just come in and talk to us at Inspire.  We’ll be happy talk you through everything without jargon or obfuscation and show you how to improve the visibility of your business listing to get powerful results.