Nowadays no one doubts that local SEO is very important in a Digital Marketing strategy, since it is the best way for users to find a business with a physical premises on the internet.
We recently talked in this Google My Business blog about how it can improve the visibility of a local business, but we didn’t go into depth on certain aspects of Google’s directory for businesses that are very important.
In this article we will review the ways that a company has to know how the experience of customers in their businessis, thanks to the contributions of these in the Google My Business listings.
Table of Contents
Questions and Answers
A few years ago, Google added in the Knowledge Panel of search results an option where users can leave questions to a business in their Google My Business listing.
The answers can be answered by the business that owns the file, but they can also be answered by other users who have already had a relationship with the business and know the answer.
In this way, a user who is looking for a restaurant for example and has never been in it can ask for data related to the service such as the type of food, food for celiacs or other questions that may make it more palatable to go to the business.
Improve Local SEO Using Q&A
Everything counts when it comes to improving Local SEO,and using this Google My Business tool is an opportunity to do so. How? Well, with a little common sense:
- Adding the questions that are usually asked about the business. So users can already find answers to more common questions.
- Answering the questions of users,if it can be as soon as possible. Users value being taken into account.
- Ratifying the response provided by a user with a “like”. In this way the business confirms that the answer is correct and drawing attention to it, increasing confidence in the business.
The answers are always moderated by the Google My business team, but that does not mean that there are malicious people who give erroneous or unreliable answers. In this sense, a periodic review of the Q&A is recommended to have this contingency controlled.
Reviews
Reviews on Google My Business are one of the most important ranking factors for a local business.
A review is an opinion that the user leaves on GMB because they have purchased a product or service from the business in question. Reviews on Google My Business rate businesses with a star system,with a minimum of one star for the worst reviews and up to a maximum of five.
Apart from this score, the user has the option to leave a comment of their experience and with it can influence the decision of other users.
What are reviews for?
As we’ve said before, reviews on Google My Business are one of the key factors of Local SEO in the Mountain View giant’s business directory.
If a business has a lot of positive reviews, it will rank better than its competition and will come out in the Local Pack in Google searches, which are the first three local results shown.
They also serve to improve the brand image of a company and generate trust. If the reviews are good, it is very likely to influence the decision making of users who are potential customers.
They help to position in the first positions of the results in Google Maps,so that users who are close to a business have it easier to find what they are looking for.
How a review has to be to position Local SEO
Reviews that, apart from the star rating, have text, are the best for a GMB file to position. The features that a review has to have are:
- That it is a review with enough text and that has the possibility of response. In Arimetrics we always recommend answering all reviews, whether positive or negative, because they offer the possibility of including keywords that can improve the positioning of the GMB file and increase confidence in the business.
- If the review is written by a Local Guide of a very high level, it is possible that for Google it is relevant and that it shows the first one. In the Google Local Guides
program there are users who usually leave a lot of reviews in business, so a high-scoring one will be more influential than a normal user. - Apart from the Local Guides, if the user has many previous reviews he will have much more credibility than a user who only has one or two reviews.
- If, by chance, the keyword is included in the review, it is possible that the chances of positioning in the Local Pack increase.
Google and its policies with GMB reviews
We must not forget that these reviews are under the moderation of Google and that it is its team of specialists who give the go-ahead to a review.
Google’s policies for reviews on Google My Business are clear and strict. It is highly recommended to know them when making a claim since it depends on Google penalizing a file in the search engine.
The most important include illegal content, political, social or personal criticism. It is also forbidden for workers of a company to publish reviews of the business or competing companies to manipulate valuations.
You can only publish reviews based on the user’s personal experience, you can not write about third-party experiences.
As we have already said, you have to know google’s policy very well since reviews that do not comply with them can be reported or directly not published.
Photos
Within a review there is a very important element that makes it more truthful, the photos of the business.
The photos in the reviews have for us a separate chapter, because not all businesses give them the importance they have. That the customers of an establishment raise their own photos is synonymous with a good experience in the premises.
A review that, apart from everything we have discussed in the previous section, include photographs of the service, business or product are highly valued by Google when positioning a business.
It is one of the mechanisms that the search engine has to know if the review is real or not,since there are users who leave reviews and who have not really been in business.
Of course, we must not forget that the photos left by users in Google My Business can not be deleted by the manager of the tab. They can only be deleted if a claim to Google is escalated through the same tool.
Local SEO Specialists for Companies
We have seen how important it is that the customers of a business are happy so that Local SEO is one of the best positioning weapons in Google My Business.
In Arimetrics we are experts in Local SEO, with more than ten years of experience in the
SEO positioning of companies from different sectors.
