13 Actionable Tips to Optimize the New Google Questions & Answers

13 Quick Tips to Optimize the New Google Q & A

The new Google Places Q & A offers a lot of potential for both helping and hurting a business. Here are some thoughts on how your business should approach this new and untried feature in the Google Local Knowledge Panel.

How will New Google Q & A Work?

Usually, A Q&A website is a website where the site creators use the images of pop culture icons to answer input from the site's visitors, usually in question/answer format; Like Quora and Yahoo Answer.

Tips - 1: Give Informative Answers

Treat New Google Q&A as an opportunity to solve a potential customer’s future problem. The better you answer, the more likely your customer will upvote your answer and this will help your get new clients and more brand awareness.

Tips - 2: Get out in front of them.

Crowd sourcing can be intimidating to the typical business but its best if you approach this, like reviews and photos, proactively. Having good Q & A’s posted will limit the opportunity for mischief.

Tips - 3: Start Now.

Write out some questions that you can post to your listing. This will give the early postings a chance to be upvoted more over time.

Tips - 4: Make sure that You really Write Frequently Asked Questions.

It's imperative that you listen to incoming phone calls and list out the actual questions that clients frequently ask before they come into the store. This will save you and them time which is one of the things that purchase funnel optimization is about. The obvious candidates here are the very real concerns about parking questions, special hours, appointments and other conveniences.

Tips - 5: Think long tail as well.

Once you have identified the low hanging fruit, brainstorm some of the less frequently asked questions (but asked) about some of your less well known services. “Does this bakery offer gluten free choices?” I am NOT saying to treat this as a keyword spamming opportunity. It isn’t but going niche can be helpful.

Tips - 6: Communicate

Engage with Q&A visitors. Upvote great answers, follow people who are interested in your topics. Show that you’re genuinely interested in developing your credibility. Stop trying to sell and start focusing on leading, influencing and connecting instead.

Tips - 7: Plan for Scanning.

Customers are a busy lot and you want to be sure that both the questions are easy to read and the answer are brief but accurate. Be brief and too the point. These need to be short answers to real questions.

Tips - 8: Write for Your Audience

A lot of businesses and marketers automatically go into sales mode when they see someone with a problem that their product can fix. But that’s not the approach you want to take. Here’s the problem with trying to immediately sell to someone who asks a question:

1. People hate being sold to
2. It doesn’t seem genuine
3. You want to build a relationship first
4. It turns you into a salesperson, not an authority/expert

Instead of shoving your products and services down their throat, come up with a well written, valuable piece of content that addresses their question. Remember, you’re not just responding to the one person who asked the question. You’re responding to potentially thousands of your future customers who might buy your services or products.

Tips - 9: Customers Voice

Write them using your customers voice. These are meant to be accessible and easy to understand, not marketing pieces.

Tips - 10: Make the Answers Useful

Make them useful to both parties, your business and the customer. Obviously the goal here to facilitate interactions between the right kind of customer and your business.

Tips - 11: Control Yourself

Control yourself and don’t over do it. Its best if there are fewer rather than more. (I am not yet sure what that means but…)

Tips - 12: Make A Plan for Disaster.

This is a crowd sourced environment after all and we all know that weird and unpleasant things can arise. Write down a plan so that in the heat of the moment you don’t do something stupid. Usually the first step is to take a breath and call a trusted advisor (to talk you off of the cliff).

Tips - 13: Monitor and Update

Monitor your Knowledge Panel for new questions. If they are legit be the first to answer. Use your Google My Business login and the answer will be noted as from the business owner. This is likely going to be a problem for multi location chains as their is no API or in dashboard notification but it is necessary. Hopefully Google will prioritize the development of tools to deal with this both proactively and at scale.

What's your tips? Please share your opinion in the comment form and Follow me at Quora and Yahoo Answer.

Google Rolling Out Questions & Answers

Google Rolling Out Questions & Answers In Google Business Listings

Google has announced and started to roll out Places Questions & Answers, a crowd sourced and business sourced Q & A product for local Knowledge Panels. Tim Capper has a great summary as well that is worth the read.

Essentially the product is designed to allow Google to offer additional FAQ type content via the Knowledge Panel that answers consumers most frequent and “long tail” questions about a Place.

The product is initially rolling out on Android Google Maps only. At some point in the near future it will be available on all mobile browsers as well.

Here is Google’s description of the product that was provided during a preview of the product:

What

Questions and Answers allow business owners to answer questions directly from potential customers. Merchants can also anticipate FAQ’s by adding commonly asked questions and their answers.

Merchants and other users can both thumb up content to boost its ranking and flag content that is incorrect or spam.

Why

Users have many place-specific questions that are going unanswered right now. By allowing them to ask the business owner and each other, we can help them make decisions more quickly.

Example questions our users have about places:

• “What dishes should I try?”
• “What should I definitely do/see?”
• “How much seating is there for large groups or special events?”
• “Is there space to park a baby stroller?”
• “What’s the lighting like inside?”
• “Is delivery or take-out offered?”
• “Which credit cards are accepted?”
• “Is this a good date night restaurant?”
• “Are service animals allowed?”
• “Can I bring my kids here?”
• “Where should I look for parking?”
• “Do I need reservations for a Friday night?”
• “Are there coupons?”

Great in concept for Google and perhaps the consumer, but the devil is for sure in the details as to whether it will be good for the business.

Google has said that moderation will be much like reviews in being mostly automated with some human curation. If the product fails the failure is likely to be in the moderation and more importantly, spam moderation details.

If antagonistic competitors figure out the moderation rules, I see it as very likely that passive aggressive negative information could easily be posted. Will staff in India be able to understand the subtlety?

And of course there is always the “lets turn everything into an ugly promotional tool” mindset that many have that could pollute the waters with incredibly spammy content.

As the product is currently designed (it feels given the very limited release and limited interfaces more like a beta,) it puts the difficult task of monitoring directly on the shoulder of the business owner. They need to continually goto their Android Maps app and check to see if the questions are meaningful and if they need to answer the question or whether the consumer answer is adequate.

Posts and Websites “felt” very business friendly. This on the other hand will feel like a poke in the eye to most businesses. Being required to regularly go back and check the crowd sourced status of a listing due to fear of the “crowd” might be off base, is one more task that appears to offer little of value to the business and will take additional (and very limited)time.

Like reviews, I don’t doubt though that effectively embraced and managed it can help a business. I am just not sure most of them will see it that way.

On a more strategic level for Google, this product is one more piece of content that will be residing within the Knowledge Panel for the business… first NAP and photos, then reviews, reviews from the web, then Posts and now “Places Q & A”.

Like Google Destinations in the travel industry, it is an effort to create ever more granular content that will keep consumers within Google’s subtly “walled garden” and further limit the likelihood of their visiting your website.

Short haul it could increase conversions, if properly handled, and that would be a good thing… until the gate keeper starts charging more for the privilege or sends the traffic elsewhere.

Here is a FAQ with details that we know about Places Q & A (assembled with the help of the many TCs in Google’s My Business Forum).

Q: Places? That sounds like back to future.
A: It is. Branding has never been Google’s strong point.

Q: Will the product be used for “ranking”?
A: Who knows. Google loves data and they love good data even more. If it is good data, I could imagine that it might some day.

Q: Will the data be good?
A: Your guess is as good as mine.

Q: Who can participate in the launch?
A: This is a Global launch to all Android Users on Google Maps – so there aren’t any testers. Business owners and consumers are targeted for asking and answering.

Q: Is it visible in the GMB dashboard?
A: No, not yet.

Q: Are there any active notifications to the business owner?
A: Yes merchants get notifications through the Android Maps app.

Q: Do you get email notifications if you have a new question and do they go to owners AND managers AND Comms managers?
A: Owners and managers will get push notifications from Google Maps on Android if a question is asked or answered by a user.

Q: Is it visible on desktop browsers?
A: No

Q: Is it visible to iPhone users
A: No, only Android users on the Maps App (for now)

Q: Is there moderation of any kind?
A: Yes. Google will moderate some things automatically (bad words, gibberish), and users will also have the ability to flag. It will be a similar process as the photos/reviews flagging.

Q: Will the moderations work?
 A: If it is like reviews and photos…. it will be opaque and frustrating to business owners but time will tell.

Q: Will the merchant receive any notifications as to the resolution of a spam or flagging report?
A: The review process is similar to photos/reviews. I.E no.

Q: Can a user delete question?
A: Merchant can’t delete a question from another user, they can flag it though.

Q: Can a user delete their own question?
A: I am not sure. I think so.

Q: What if there are competing/different answers?
A: Since the business would be logged into the GMB account when they reply, Google will display messaging that lets people know it’s the owner/business replying.

Q: How does Google determine the “best” answer?
A: We don’t really know. However like on Quora, there is an upvoting option and Google loves data…. if you test it let me know.

Q: Where and how will this display?
A: It shows up within the listing on the maps app for Android users

Q: Will it show in organic search on the desktop?
A: TBD

Q: Is there a limit to the number of questions and or answers?
A: There are no limit to the FAQ’s

Q: When will this be available to the iPhone Google App?
A: That’s not known at this point

Q: What are the rules on taking down a question?
A: Guidelines match reviews pretty closely — for factual questions, Google can take things down that are flagged as incorrect. The rules around spam and abuse are similar to reviews.

Q: Can businesses opt-out?
A: No. Don’t be naive.

Q: Can links be embedded in a question or answer?
A: No, no links allowed.

Q: How does Q & A affect ranking?
A: It doesn’t affect ranking. But Google loves data….

Q: Are you able to post or answer questions via the API?
A: Not currently.

Q: We have hundreds of businesses, how can we post common questions to all of our location listings?
A: Brute force, one at a time

Q: We have hundreds of locations how can we monitor questions.
A: Buy your staff Androids and man the bunkers. If you are lucky, since it is initially limited to Android Maps, there will be few.

Q: What’s to stop merchants from asking their own questions and then have their employees vote up the answers to the top
A: They could do that – nothing to stop them, though it would probably be better if they replied from the GMB account so that it would identify the response as one from the business owner.

Q: Are all business listings eligible for Q & A?
A: Any reviewable place will allow for Q&A.

Q: Will Google use these questions to add to attributes, add answers to Home etc?
A: It is not known at this time but Google loves data….

Q: How about age restricted businesses, Hospitals, financial etc. Will they have Q & A?
A: Any reviewable place will allow for Q&A – a very small number of businesses don’t support questions and answers.

Q: Can you see the Q&As on all platforms and only add new Q&As on Android Mobile?
A: You can only see Q&A on the platforms that you can add Q&A on. So at launch, they will only be visible on Android Google Maps.

How to Add Your “Under Construction” Business to Google Maps

Guide to Add Your “Under Construction” Business to Google Maps

Google is quite explicit in their guidelines that you can’t verify a listing via Google My Business prior to it opening. Apparently though, there is a new option within Google Maps Android to add a business under construction and indicate the date in the future that it will be open.

Here is the relevant “rule” from the guidelines that clearly prohibits a business from attempting to verify a business before it is open:

Ineligible businesses

The following businesses aren’t eligible for a business listing:

• Businesses that are under construction or that have not yet opened to the public.

While the Add a Place feature in Google Maps doesn’t offer as much control as the Google My Business dashboard verification, it does offer a way to be sure that your soon to open business is visible on day one. Whether this feature will be rolled out to the desktop, iPhone or the Dashboard is not clear.

Google My Business Expands Optional URLS for Appointments, Reservations & Ordering Ahead

Google Expands Optional URLS for Appointments, Reservations & Ordering Ahead for GMB

Joel Headley of PatientPop pointed out on Twitter that Google had added the ability to add a “make an appointment” URL to physician listings and other verticals, It appears that they have expanded these in various verticals and not just physicians as well as adding vertical specific options.

Professionals such as lawyers, doctors, insurance agencies, consulting firm & psychologists as well as construction, computer repair, flooring and plumbing companied have the ability to add the make an appointment URL. I am sure that many other categories do as well. The only listing where I didn’t see an option was a bricks and mortar lawn and garden location.

Restaurants are also now allowed to add both a reservation and an order ahead URL to their listings.

Update 4/10: Google has published an updated Help page: Local Business URLS. On it they note that there are the following types of URLS available:

• Booking an appointment
• Placing an order
• Reserving a table
• Searching for items
• Viewing the menu

They also note that

In some cases, links to certain third-party booking services will appear automatically on business listings. These links cannot be edited in Google My Business.

I have not seen the searching for items option, if you have I would like to know what the context was. It also isn’t clear to me if the business already has a 3rd party booking service link whether they can add their own book an appointment link and whether they will co-exist or not. Please let me know.

Google My Business Released Website Builder To All Countries

Google Business Websites are currently being rolled out globally by Google My Business. The new Google business websites are completely free and available to all businesses that have a verified Google business page. The Google business website is a single page, mobile friendly site with business information being extracted directly from the Google business listing to the website.

Available for Google My Business users, this new feature will provide templated, editable websites for SMBs created from their data and photos on Google Maps. The tech giant makes use of small businesses listing to build the website, taking care of the design and makes sure that their website is easily found in Search and Maps.

According to Google, the websites created with ‘Website With Google My Business’ tool will help businesses connect more easily with their customers and guide them on what exactly they want them to do next, like maybe call their business, book an appointment, or even sign up for mailing list to remain updated on all the latest products/services that the business comes up with.

As part of the website builder tool, Google even gifts the businesses their own free domain or they also have the option of buying a domain of their own choice with Google Domains right from ‘Google My Business’.

What is Google Business Websites?

Google Business websites are free single page, mobile friendly websites for businesses. A Google business website is only available to businesses that have a Google business page. If you do not have a Google business listing you can start here. If your business has an unclaimed listing, you will need to claim the business listing to gain access.

You will be eligible for the website as soon as you have created the business listing, even whilst waiting for verification, however if the listing gets suspended, then the website will be 404’d.

What Google My Business Website Builder Offer You?

• Custom domain name
• It's mobile friendly
• Drives calls and visits
• Automatically updates
• You can manage it on your mobile phone
• You can easily place ads on them

How to Create a Business Website with Google My Business Website Builder?

Your Google business website can be up and running is seven pain free steps. The main parts of the site are auto populated based on information already available in the Google business page, with the only real functionality being Images, Headline, Subheading and Body Copy.

• Log into your Google My Business Dashboard
• Manage Location
• Select Website in Main Menu
• Select Theme
• Header Image Extracted from Owner Photos
• Text Edit – Headline, Description, Summary Header, Summary Body
• Add Photos for Footer Images
• Settings – Create Domain Name
• Publish

Is Google Business Websites SEO Friendly?

The Free Google Website builder for GMB does not offer any real “SEO” optimization features at the moment. The intention behind the Google My Business website was to allow small businesses in developing countries the chance to create a simple, single page, mobile friendly website, that users could find out more about the business then the Google business page provided.

Depending on how this new google tool received by businesses globally, will depend on how Google develops their My Business Website builder.

How to improve rankings on google maps; Top 10 tips for Local SEO

Local business owners we talk to love to embrace the do-it-yourself attitude, so we thought it would be a good post to present the basics for do-it-yourself online marketing for local businesses. We often here: “Why should I pay someone if I can do it myself?” Of course, that’s usually if we had all the time in the world. Unfortunately, Local SEO can become time consuming very quickly, especially due to the complexity of the fragmented local search market.

However, it is possible for owners to work on a little bit each month to improve their rankings on Google Maps for Local SEO, or improve their Yelp profile (Online Reputation Management) to reach new traffic, or add fresh content or a blog to their website (Search Engine Optimization) in order to improve their Google Search Rankings. Part of the do-it-yourself marketing strategy is to prioritize your efforts based on what you’re trying to achieve and the amount of work that goes into each effort. Many of our customers seem to ask a lot of the same questions, so we wanted to put together this list and prioritize it for those that are just getting started.

Local SEO in the context of this article is the activity of updating your company’s business listings and content (on both local search sites and your website) in order to improve your rankings on sites like Google Maps, Yelp, and other local sites and search engines. After you have mastered, Local SEO, then you can start tackling Social Media Optimization (SMO), but that’s for another time. Here we go, hope you’ve had your coffee today!

CLAIM YOUR LISTING

Everything starts with this. Claiming your listing can have an immediate impact on improving your rankings on Google Maps and others. Also, you need to have control of your listings for effective online reputation management. In addition, you don’t want anyone (especially a competitor) to hijack your listings. Be sure to perform a vanity search on Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Bing Maps, Yelp, Citysearch and Yellowpages.com. Add listings where you’re not listed and claim all the listings you found. You will need to go through a simple verification process.

DETERMINE YOUR RANKINGS

Where do you rank when you search for your primary category and local city? Are you in the first couple pages? Start by getting a good understanding of where you rank today in order to set some goals and track your performance. If you have a website, check your web search rankings for your category/keywords. If you don’t have a site, get one! Even if you don’t really need a site to drive business, it will help with validating your business and listings for local search optimization (Local SEO). You can get a very basic site up and running pretty cheap these days.

UPDATE/ADD CONTENT

Update your listings. Be sure your information is accurate and consistent. Consistency of your business details is important throughout the web. Avoid using call tracking numbers if possible. Add photos and videos. Create/add a video on YouTube and link to it on your Google Place Page. This content can help improve your rankings, but will also differentiate you from others and provide with control over your online reputation. This content improves how a potential customer sees you, hopefully motivating them to take the next step (call or stop by). Be sure to update your categories as well. Mike Blumenthal has a great tool to help you before you login and update your Google listing. You should try to add as many categories that are still relevant to your products/services. Complete as much info as you feel comfortable and maintain accuracy (Hours, Payment Types, Menus, Email). This will help you with both improving rankings as well as online reputation management.

ACHIEVE BUSINESS LISTING NIRVANA

Consistency is vital across the web when it comes to business details. However, there are so many sites with your listings today, it can become overwhelming. If you’ve ever moved or changed your business name, then you’re old data could still be moving around the web. However, you can start at the source. Most business listings come from 3 primary listing databases. This is a great way to add your listings and clean up old data. Consistency will help search engines aggregate all references to your business (establishing “trust” for your location and listing, which can help improve your rankings for your local business). If a site has conflicting information it can’t be tagged to your business properly as a citation, losing the value of that reference from an SEO perspective. Only with true consistency everywhere can you achieve business listing nirvana! Add/update listings on these top 2 databases. Axciom is the third, but they don't allow self-provisioning.

UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE’S CONTACT PAGE

Be sure that search engines can find your location data. At a minimum, your contact information should be in clear HTML (not an image or flash). To really comply and ensure that search engines can find you accurately, provide your contact information in an hCard or add a KML to the site. You can create a KML file (like a sitemap) to Google directly via the Google Webmaster Tools. For those of you that now have a blank stare on your face-ask your webmaster, local seo consultant, or your nephew to look into it. Here are some easy to follow blogs explaining each along with links to the tools.

UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE PAGE TITLE TAGS

On your home page and throughout your site, be sure to include targeted keywords (your categories and services) in the title tags along with your most targeted geolocation keywords (cities, neighborhoods, etc). This is very important if you are trying to improve your rankings and for General Web Search Results and optimize for your website. You may also want to have your internal site links/URLs updated to have some of these keywords integrated there as well. This will let search engines better understand what you do and what locations you serve, resulting in a greater relevance for these keywords. This greater relevance will results in higher rankings for the keywords you are targeting. Once these steps are completed and picked up by the search engines, go back and check your rankings again. For your contact page, be sure to have your business name in your title tag and listed on your page near your business details. This will provide greater validation and authority that you are the owner of these business details. If you have multiple locations, consider creating a separate page, URL and title tag for each location. (For example: www.tamaleheaven.com/contact/sanfranciscomexican) That way when a user searches for your services in that city, you’ll be highly optimized for that specific location.

GET CITATIONS/INBOUND LINKS

It’s time for you to tune your PR skills. If you’ve made it this far, then it’s likely you really are really intent on SEO. Citations are references to your business including your address or phone number and they can have a big impact on improving rankings on Google Maps. Inbound links are other sites that link to your site and this can tell search engines how important/respected your site is by others. This, in turn, can impact your rankings on general web search results. At this point, you have likely received inbound links by accident. Hopefully you’ve had some articles written about you or joined your local BBB. But for SEO, you need to kick in the PR machine. Effective SEO strategy today is often more about what is going on “offsite”. This means that search engines use content found throughout the web about your site/business to help validate it and increase the value of your site/service. For web search, this is called Page Rank. The other important thing to understand is that different sites that point to yours have different values. So if you have a New York Times review linking to your site or business listing, this is much more valuable than Mary’s Family Blog who just loves your Butter Cream Pie. The Times article is exponentially more valuable. But quantity is important too, so don’t spend all your time hounding the New York Times food editors. There are much easier ways to get started. For building inbound links and citations, take any of your competitor’s sites and see where they have links and ask for coverage. Yahoo’s Site Explorer is free and one of the most comprehensive. A well known paid tool is available from MOZ called Linkscape.

GET REVIEWS

If you don’t have any reviews, get some. If you already have some, get some more! Drive a review campaign either quarterly or monthly. If you have a customer database, send out an email. Or print some business cards with reminders on them for people to review when they get home. Put it on the back of your appointment reminder cards. Make it easy. You can try to offer an incentive, but this can be a delicate line, so be careful with this approach. I suggest you just give great customer service and just ask nicely! Be sure to have your reviews posted spread across various sites, including Yelp, Google, Bing, Citysearch, etc. Not only do reviews do have an effect on local search rankings, but more importantly, they create a positive online reputation for prospective customers looking for your services. Be sure to address any negative reviews immediately by reaching out to customer and try to turn that negative into a positive. If they have an iPhone or smartphone, get them to do it before they leave!

SCOUT THE COMPETITION

Once you’ve done some of the basic blocking and tackling mentioned above, you can start to scope out the competition in order to get some clues on what’s working for them. For mapping sites, review what competitors are in the top 3 on Google Maps. Things to look at include:

• # of citations (Quantity and Quality, such as BBB)
• Review quantity and quality (Overall Rating)
• Content (Photos, Videos, Hours of Operation, Email, Categories)
• User Content (# of times an end user has tagged the listing)

For general web search, you’ll want to look at some of the following. Keep in mind; this is just a place to start. There is a lot more analysis that can be done once you’ve mastered this.

1. Page Titles (Do they include keywords for services and localities.
2. Page Description (Do they have a brief, but effective description of the site so searches are inclined to click when they see it in the search results page)
3. URLs (Do they have keywords included in any urls)
4. Keyword Density (Are they repeating keywords evenly throughout the copy)
5. Fresh Content (Do they have a blog and/or regularly post new articles)

TRACKING AND ANALYTICS

One of the most important aspects to any effecting marketing plan is to measure results along the way. We are big believer in the value of analytics to measure performance and learn what is most effective for your business. That is why we built chatmeter, so please sign up today if you have not already. The chatmeter will report your monthly rankings on both local and web search sites, measure customer feedback across multiple review sites, and indicate the amount of chatter you’re getting from blogs and social media sites. In addition, be sure to check your Local Business Center for reports on your Google listings. A great tool for your website is Google Analytics. It’s free, easy to use, and very comprehensive. If you are driving traffic to your site at all, then you must have a measurement tool in place. These tools can be great ways to measure the effectiveness of your do-it-yourself marketing strategy. If you’ve made it through this whole post, congratulations! Either now, you’re well on your way to a do-it yourself online marketing strategy, or your ready to call for backup.

If you’re interested in a FREE Consultation with an Local SEO Professional, then please contact us.

Do It Yourself Local SEO For The Small Business Owner

Learn How To Rank In The Search Engines As a Small Business Following This Step by Step Course.

Do you want to learn how to rank your business higher in Google Search?

Do you own a small business?

Do you just want to do the work on your own? 

This is the perfect course for you.

I've created a step-by-step course that walks you through everything you need to know about boosting your visibility in the Google local map pack.

In August of 2015 Google changed the "local 7 pack" into the "local 3 pack".

It's now more important than ever to be working on Local Search Optimization for your business.

Only 3 businesses are now shown within the local business pack when typical "service + city" terms are used in Google search.

In this course I walk you through the basics of:

• Setting up your website for local search
• Setting up your Google+ business page
• Adding your business to important website directories such as Yelp
• Setting up basic social media profiles such as Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn for business.
• I walk you through several tools that can be used for tracking your rankings and auditing your business for search.
• I show you the importance of content and how to optimize it for your business
• I provide ways to generate more reviews for your business on Google, Yelp and others.
• I show you some other websites you can use to generate new clients for your business.

If you've been struggling with SEO for many years as a local business, this is the course for you!

What are the requirements?

• You will need a basic website built with either Wordpress, Squarespace or another easy to use content management system
• A willingness to learn, implement, read and take consistent action

What am I going to get from this course?

• Understand what Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is
• The Basics of setting up a small business website with Wordpress or Squarespace
• The importance of having a mobile friendly website
• How to setup and use Google+ for Business
• You will understand what important sites you should list your business on
• The importance of building business profiles across the internet
• Basic elements of on-page and off-page SEO
• How to outsource content writing for your website
• How to get more reviews for your Google business page

Who is the target audience?

• Small businesses who are willing to put in the work to rank locally
• Those who are interested in dominating the search results for their local city
• If you are a business owner that lacks time to take action, this course might not be for you but it will help you understand the concepts of local SEO if you are unable to implement.

Ways to Adjust Adjust Your SEO Strategy After Google Local 3 Pack Shake Up

Adjust Your Local SEO Strategy - Google Local 3 Pack Shake Up

In early August, Google made some major changes to its "Local Pack" search results by opting to show three results instead of seven. Here are some ways to adjust strategy in order to stay on top of local search.

Google's decision to show fewer listings seems to be motivated by mobile. "Three-pack" search results make desktop searches mirror those on mobile with more space for map results and reviews, but less contenders for top rankings. However, search results are hyper-localized, meaning that the three-pack changes pretty often.

Plus, there's an opinion that the top 20 sites listed in the map view seems to be unaffected by the upgrade. This leaves some opportunity for businesses that don't make the top three, though some opposite cases have also been reported.


Have a Strong Presence on Local Platforms

Local searches are optimized based on the user’s location, so that users see the highest ranked businesses in their areas. The first step to gaining this local search ranking is having a strong presence in local search platforms or relevant review websites. A few of the top ones to consider include;

Google My Business: Google My Business, previously known as Google Places, used to be the first stop for anyone looking to make a dent in local search. One thing that is hugely popular on Google My Business is Google Click to Call, which generates about 30 million calls a month.

Yelp: Yelp is a popular review site that allows your customers to leave reviews of your business for everyone else to see. Not only will Yelp give you an opportunity to get great feedback from your customers, it will also allow you to set keywords for your local area.

Trip Advisor: Trip Advisor is relevant to those in the travel or hospitality industry. It allows users to review your business, upload photos and give you a rating out of five. It also gives you the ability to address any negative reviews.

The list of local search platforms is ever-expanding, and is specific your industry and what is popular with your target market. To get the best out of your local SEO campaign, you should use local search outlets as much as you use global sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. When it comes to local search, 45% of all searches are specifically goal oriented; meaning these users are ready and willing to buy.

Localize Your Information

On your website itself, and on your social media platforms, your content should be localized. The first step in doing this is ensuring your business address appears in a searchable part of the page (for example: not as an image). Your content should be locally specific as well, with the location of your business occasionally referenced in the text.

Make Sure You Go Mobile

Another thing to consider isn’t just how heavy your local presence is, but how your site looks when you get those users there. About 61% of mobile searches result in a purchase. If these highly motivated leads can’t easily navigate your site, those purchases are going to your competitors instead. As up to 25% of all internet traffic originates from a mobile device, it is imperative that your website accommodates these users.

Fully integrating local search into your campaign requires three important steps. Your site and your social media sites should include some local information. You should have a strong presence on local search platforms. Finally, you need to have a site that is easily accessible on a mobile device. Those businesses that embrace local and mobile search as part of their campaign are the ones who will manage to stay competitive in the constantly evolving digital marketplace.

Reviews Matter

Google has removed phone numbers and exact addresses from search results, but starred reviews remain. Therefore, businesses hoping to both crack the top three and see traffic from that ranking need to make sure they've got a high volume of good reviews, according to Shotland.

"Based on the current display, particularly the local finder, it does appear that ratings and reviews are much more prominent in the UI," Shotland says. "So focusing on making sure your business has a high rating with a decent amount of reviews should be a priority."

Double Down on Link-Earning

Once you break into that hyper-specialized top three, Rozek says, you're going to want to stay there. And increasing link-earning efforts is one of the best ways to stay on top of local search results.

"Even if you inhabit a smaller pond, you'll still want to become a bigger fish. So to that end, I'd suggest doubling down on your link-earning efforts," Rozek says. "Start with easy links, like joining at least one local Chamber of Commerce, joining an industry or professional organization, and maybe getting accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Of course, there's an infinite number of other good links you can get, but those are a solid start and often overlooked."

Make Sure Local Efforts Fit Into Overall Strategy

Changes like the three-pack updates are a given, and the best defense is a good offense, according to Mike Blumenthal, owner and local expert at Blumenthals. Local search efforts have to be integrated with a strong overall strategy to make an impact.

"I have long been a proponent of a mixed approach to local search that involves a strong website, a strong local presence, and strong locally-focused marketing campaign that keeps the brand prominence of your business high," Blumenthal says. "If you follow this tactic consistently, you will have the best on-going position to deal with the constant change."

For more about how to prepare your local business for the three pack upgrade, read our full Local 3-Pack SEO Guide.

Google Local Listing 3-pack: What Does This Means for Local Businesses?

Based on relevance, distance, and prominence Google may show one or more maps results for our search query. Traditionally the local maps results composed of 7 business information which we often call 7-pack. On Thursday, August 6th, we began to notice that the traditional 7-packs that frequently showed up in the google local search results were suddenly replaced with 3-packs in the search results.

The new local 3-pack results appearing right below the AdWords and the top of the organic results as usual, which users can click to view full business details with address, phone, photos, hours, reviews, and directions, or click ‘more + search term’ for a full list of business within the local area.

Why These Update?

Google’s focus has been shifting heavily towards mobile friendly search results over the past year and I guess 3-packs update is just Google local results display format changes to fit across various device. Google's 3-packs brings desktop the same user experience as mobile users have been getting in a while.

Here is how the new local pack appears on mobile.

What has actually changed in Google local SERPs?

• Only 3 businesses instead 7.
• No business addresses and phone numbers, click to call option in mobile device.
• Google+ Links Removed.
• Business Category Added.
• Business Hours Added.
• “Google Reviews” Renamed to "reviews"
• No flyout business cards. 

You can read about all the changes from my this post.

What Does It Means for Local Businesses?

This is going to be tough for Local businesses. It mean if your business are not listed in top 3 listing, the chance is very low to get leads from google local search results. Ultimately, I think it will result in more Local businesses looking to increase visibility via Adwords. I also heard a rumor that google want to push adwords ads (I read in WebmasterWorld and Warrior Forum) by this update as they heavily promoting adwords vouchers at the same time update took place.

Why?
Do you think google just made this changes overnight without their extensive internal research? No, I don't think so, Google's data team must found something interesting like local top 3 listing might get all the CTR. That's why google knocked out 4 out of 7 from the local results, What do you think?

How to Get Listed in Google 3-Pack

Want to Be Part of the Google Local 3-Pack and Stay safe? Read This Local 3-Pack SEO Guide.
These Local SEO Guide are for businesses who want to list their business in google local 3-Pack or stick to top 3 listing. You'll find this guide strenuous but ensure your local business placement in Google’s 3-Pack.

Depending on your business, Google Page, how your website is set-up and optimized, you might not be able to implement all of these tactics, but implementing even 70% of them is enough for most local businesses to rank in the Google 3-Pack.

1. Create, verify and Optimize your Google+ Local page
2. Optimize Your Website for Your Business
3. Get Local Business Listings (Citations)
4. Get Reviews on your Google+ Local page and on 3rd party websites
5. Create and Share Local Content
6. Find Local Link Opportunities
7. Constantly Test & Optimize

Tactic #1: Create, verify and Optimize your Google+ Local Page

Google+ Local Page is your direct connection to your customers, whether they’re searching for your business through Google Search, Maps or Google+.

Google+ Local Page dominate in local search results and your competitors are already there, so we want you there too. A verified and optimized Local Page integrates your online business presence to one easy place. Follow this steps to create and optimize your Google+ Local Page:

• Create, verify or consolidate your Business listings from Google My Business.
• Select your  business category carefully, The Business Category you choose for your listing is now showing in 3-pack right below your business title.
• Use a real physical address and a local phone number, not an 800 number.
• Put as much business information as you can including images and video as required to achieve 100% completion rating.

Tactic #2: Optimize Your Website for Your Business

An optimized website helps search engines identify and rank businesses by their geographical location in relation to a search query. This is not overly difficult, but many local business owners tend to overlook it as it require a great effort. Website On Page signals has 21.0% impact in local search as per Moz research.

My On Page optimization checklist for local business will help your business rank in google 3-pack as well as increase your website organic ranking. The following optimization techniques will ensure that your website is properly optimized for Google Local 3-pack.

• Include your business NAP in prominent place.
• Give your pages geo-specific, descriptive meta tags (meta title and description) including your zip/postal code.
• Make sure you have contact information, including your NAP, in text on every page of your site.
• Embed google map and driving direction on your website.
• Add your location to your image alt text.
• Add Schema markup in your website where possible.

Tactic #3: Get Local Business Listings (Citations)

Local Business Listings are defined as mentions of your business’s name, address and phone number (aka NAP) on other webpages—even if there is no link point to your website. An example of a citation might be an online local business directory where your business is listed, but not linked to your website.

When it come to Local Map Ranking, Local Business Listings (Aka Citations) are a key component of the ranking algorithms in Google and Bing Local Search. According to Moz 2014 Local Search Ranking Factors, Citation is the 3rd biggest ranking signal and make up 15.5% of the overall ranking factors.

Citation volume and the number of other business listings referencing your business location(s) are important in google local 3-pack; however, consistency and accuracy will always take precedence over volume. Here's a list compiled by Hubspot of the 50 local business directories to submit your business

Tactic #4: Get Reviews on your Google+ Local page and on 3rd party websites

Reviews are one of the major ranking perspective in your local rankings in Google and elsewhere, and they’re one of the very important factors (It hold 9.8% weight in local search) in getting customers to choose you over your competitor.

This is truly important that your business have some positive reviews on Google+ Local page and on other popular third-party sites. When your consumer want to read reviews, they usually visit Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Yelp, CitySearch, Insider Pages, MerchantCircle, TripAdvisor, Better Business Bureau (BBB),  Foursquare, Manta, and Angie’s List.

Tactic #5: Create and Share Local Content

Create local content relevant to your business and the city you live in and share with the world via your website and social media. For example, you can write about an past local event where you participated or an upcoming event you're going to participating.

There’s endless opportunities when you use creative thinking about the events and businesses in your area of town. Just don't forget to include images, videos and link to the event site (If there's any website dedicated to that event). Want more Local Content Creation Idea, read Mike Ramsey Strategy.

Tactic #6: Find Local Link Opportunities

Moz found Link is the second important factor and has 18.3% impact in local search results. Links from local websites that point to your website impacts your sites ability to rank in 3-pack and make your website "authority" locally.

There are many ways to acquire local links like Sponsor a meetup group, Host a community event, donate to a local club or organization, from local newspaper site, etc. You can find an Interesting Local Link Building Guide from Casey Meraz Post on Moz.

Tactic #7: Constantly Test & Optimize

The previous six tactic that we have just discussed need to be constantly addressed. To dominate in Google Local 3-Pack you need to always be one step ahead of your competitors. There is always room for improvement, so don't be afraid to test and make changes. You would be surprised at how the smallest change can often result in the biggest change. What do you think?

Google Local Makeover: Local '7 Packs' Gone!

Old Google Local Search Result

7-Packs Now 3-Packs

Whether you call it Google Map Listing, Google Places Listing, Google Local Listing, Google Plus Listings, Google My Business Listings, or the Google '7 Pack', the set of seven listings that frequently appear at the top of Google local search results has changed notably in recent weeks.

It was predicted that sooner or later Google will switched to 3-pack from 7-pack layout when google first rolled out 3-pack listing for restaurants, nightlife, entertainment and hotels, back in November 2014 in the US search.

Google has been testing a new local listings format and officially launched the new format a couple of weeks ago. In the language of a Local Search Engine Optimization Expert, the 7-pack is now a 3-pack. The local pack is not just showing fewer business listings, It is also eliminates the address and phone number from individual results and redesigned to fit more with the mobile user interface.

Here is a picture of the new local pack, displaying only three results:

New Google Local Search Result

Exact Addresses Removed

Google has removed specific addresses from their local listings, instead only showing the street name. This requires a searcher to either click through to the website or the map listing in order to get the exact address.

Phone Numbers Removed

Google Searchers will no longer have easy access to the phone number of the business. They now need to click through the listing or get the number from the website. The mobile version (detailed below) doesn’t display the phone number but does have a “Call” option for each listing.

Google+ Links Removed

Google has also removed the Google+ links that we have all become familiar with. Because Google has pushed for local businesses to claim their page officially, this change is pretty interesting.

Business Category Added

The Business Category you choose for your listing is now showing in local search right below your business title. Category is critical to being considered relevant on any given search result and should be chosen carefully.

Store Hours Added

They have also added in store hours, including opening and closing times, depending on the time of day of the search.

Reviews No Longer Labelled “Google Reviews”

Gone are the labels on the reviews listing them as “Google Reviews.” Now they are simply called “reviews” with the number of reviews for each business still included.

No Flyouts

We are used to being able to scroll over local listings to see the local card for the business displayed on the right hand side. This no longer happens, to see the “Card”, you have to click through to the secondary local page.

Why The Change?

According to a Google spokesman: "We are constantly exploring the best way to bring a better search experience to our users. This update provides people with more relevant information, including photos, reviews and prices, for searches that have multiple results for a given location."

Where Clicks Go?

Unlike the previous layout, clicking the business name no longer takes you to the business' website. Instead you are redirected to an new expanded view of the local listings with the selected business' profile highlighted.

It should also be noted that while desktop results provide icon links for directions and the business' website, mobile searches provide a 'click to call' icon instead.

Mobile Google Local Search Result

How it Looks on Mobile?

Mobile also sees the complete address moved, with “Call” being the notable option here.

What Does This Mean for Local Businesses?

Well, that depends on how heavily your business relies on Google Local Listings and where you ranked before the change. If you relied heavily upon your local listings and were ranking fourth or lower, you may see fewer leads.

On the other hand, if your business ranks in the local top three listings, Google has effectively removed four of your nearest competitors and that could earn more clicks, calls, and visits for your business.

This also means that if you’re not in the top 3 listing, then you better start working on your local SEO Contest. I believe the update will now place an even higher emphasis on getting reviews and building out your citation profile.

Summary

If you are entirely relying on Google's local listings to drive traffic to your website, you're doing it wrong anyway. The businesses that are most successful with generating leads from search are those that are ranking well in local as well as organic listings. While Google's local listings used to be an option for those who ranked well, they now represent nothing more than a degraded user experience for your customers and Google's.