 Today on The Journey, we're going to talk about how to improve local rankings on Google My Business. Google My Business page, don't have one. Get one, this should be a number one priority for your business if you have a physical location. It's key to showing up in local business searches because it doesn't matter if someone is in Dallas, Texas, and they need a coffee and they find your coffee business that's in Tampa, Florida. You need people who live, work, eat and breathe and spend time near your physical location to be able to search and find your business. And thankfully, we're here to explain, well, mostly Emma, you're thankful for, on how to make changes to start showing up in local business searches. So Emma, what are local business searches? Local business searches, we're going to be talking about Google algorithms, which Google algorithms are designed to give people the most useful and relevant info as possible. I'm a huge fan. Just as you don't want your Tampa coffee shop business to show up in a search result for that person in Dallas, Google doesn't want a Dallas searcher to see the results for a business in Tampa. It goes hand in hand. So Google has designed its search algorithm to show local results to searchers based on their location. And these results show up in multiple ways. Organic search results are unpaid listings that appear on search engine result pages or SERPs because the website has strong SEO. Paid search results are listings that appear in SERPs as paid advertisements through search engine marketing. Google My Business results, on the other hand, are featured rich search results that highlight businesses that have Google My Business pages. And Google Guaranteed listings are results featured on search engine result pages that are part of the Paid Google Guarantee program. So if you want your business to show up in local search rankings, which I know you do, that's why you're here, you can start by optimizing your Google My Business page to be more relevant and be more prominent. Here are a few ways to do that. The first step to improve your business's local ranking using Google My Business is to create or claim your business information. And then from there, you want to enter complete data. Yes, all of it. Local results, they favor the most relevant results for each search. Businesses with complete info and accurate info are easier to match with the right searches, which makes total sense, right? So just make sure you've taken all the information about your business and have completed it on the Google My Business page. Plus, then users will know what you do, where you are, what time of day they can visit you. So that would be why you want to provide information such as physical address, phone number, the category in which you fall under, and also any attributes. You'll also want to verify your business location so that they're more likely to show up in local search results across Google products like maps and search. Also, be sure to keep your hours accurate. It seems like a no-brainer, but I've gone across town for a slice of pizza and the Google My Business page said the pizza joint was open. And let me tell you what, it wasn't. And I was devastated. So be sure to keep that information as up to date and as relevant as possible. If there are changes to your business hours, make sure it's reflected there. Update it regularly, including your open and close, your special hours, holidays. That's another big one. I'm always going to a Google My Business page to ensure like, hey, you know, it's St. Patrick's Day. Who's open? So make sure that's all accurate and it will give your customers more confidence that your business will be open when they arrive, unlike when I went to go get pizza. Super frustrating, right? And all you wanted was the pizza. But another thing you can do when it comes to optimizing your pages is to manage and respond to reviews. So respond to reviews that users leave about your business. They took the time to give their two cents, whether good or bad. But when you reply to reviews, it shows that you value your customers and their feedback. High quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility and increase the likelihood that a shopper will visit that location whether it be that same shopper or someone just perusing on Google search and ends up finding your business. That's so true, Naly. I always look to see if the business is actually responding to their customers. To me, it's a quick indicator of what their customer service is going to be like. And I also can kind of get a sense for the type of business it is, their voice, right? Their brand. So it's something I always spend time looking at when checking out reviews. Another tip, add photos. Now I'm a huge visual person, so when I'm choosing a new salon or a new dentist or even where to take my car to get repaired, I want to see photos of the business, the inside, the goods, the services. Tell the story of your business and what a great way to do that with photos. Plus, accurate and appealing pictures may also show shoppers that your business offers what they're searching for. I know that's helped me out as a consumer in the past. In addition to updating your Google My Business page, here are a few more things that you can do to help boost those rankings right now. So optimize your homepage's meta title and description. You use meta tags to tell search engines more about a webpage. You also use them to tease the pages to searchers as this is the information that they see when they view your website and local business searches. Optimize both the meta title and description on your homepage to target for keywords for your business and the city where you're located. And make sure all other SEO elements are in place. While there are unique tactics to help your website improve its local SEO search engine optimization, you can't forget about the other SEO elements. I know having strong onsite as well as offsite and technical SEO is key to getting your brand to show up in a local business search ahead of your competition. So focus on creating search-friendly onsite content, getting links back to your site, and meeting technical SEO requirements to improve your local search rankings. Another thing to consider is launching paid ads or Google guaranteed placements. All the other tips in this roundup are designed to help you peer more promptly in organic search results and Google My Business placements. But you don't have to rely on just these methods alone. If you're struggling to boost your organic local search visibility, consider launching these paid options either through Google Ads or Google Guaranteed Program to get your business closer to the top of these search engine result pages. So showing up in local business searches should absolutely be a top priority if you're a brick and mortar business and you're relying on bringing customers nearby into your business. Use these tips to optimize your online presence and help you show up when an interested customer is ready to spend money with a business like yours. All right, that's a wrap. You just learned how to improve your local ranking on Google My Business. Be sure to comment below and like this video. 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