Securing and maintaining visibility in Google’s local rankings doesn’t happen by chance. As digital agencies already know, it takes expertise, ongoing management and advanced Google Business Profile tools to reach the all-important top local pack positions. But what happens when your clients’ rankings start to drop? Let’s look at some key optimization strategies for obtaining long-term Google Business Profile (GBP) visibility.

Google Business Profile Optimization Strategies for Long-Term Success

Claiming one of the top three local pack positions is one of the biggest challenges for an agency. And if a business loses a top Google ranking, you’ll want to do everything in your power to get it back. In both cases, the issue can usually be found within one or more of the following GBP optimization strategies.

Is the Business Information Accurate?

Local business searches typically focus on specific products or services within a defined location. Google responds by prioritizing results based on three key factors.

• Proximity – the distance between the searcher and the business.
• Relevance – how well the business matches the search query.
• Prominence – the reputation and visibility of the business.

When you claim and monitor a Google Business Profile, you have the opportunity to precisely define almost every relevant factor. This optimization process covers everything from the name, address, phone number (NAP) and operating hours, to categories and the business description. Consequently, Google can identify your client’s website as the most useful for locally relevant queries.

Is the Business Trustworthy?

Google evaluates trust signals when determining whether to display a business. If your client has lost a prime local pack position, it’s possible that something is causing a lack of credibility. In this case, a good place to start is with an analysis of reputational health and authority. You could also check for inaccurate public edits that might have bypassed Google’s AI checks. Our Enhanced GBP Tools feature a Google Authority Score, GBP Sync to cross-reference a profile with our database, as well as a simple auto-rejection of public edits.

Are You Responding to Customers?

GBPs have various features where customer interaction could influence search visibility. For example, a series of poor reviews could significantly impact the click-through rate and lead eventually to a drop in rankings. In many cases, responding to reviews can resolve issues while demonstrating accessibility and a strong commitment to customer satisfaction. Engaging with questions and answers also helps develop a more customer-friendly profile.

Are You Using All the Available GBP Features?

GBPs provide a range of services to engage audiences and keep them active on a business’ profile. Google Posts lets you share updates, events and offers, keeping content fresh and relevant. Also, products, services and attributes give visitors far more information, allowing them to identify the appropriate business.

Do You Have a Reliable Listing Management Strategy?

Consistent, high-quality citations are crucial for building business authority and trust. However, creating listings is not a set-and-forget strategy. For a fast and accurate optimization strategy, agencies can use listing management services to build, monitor and manage a vast number of citations from a single location. This approach will ensure that business clients increase their prominence without risking the negative repercussions of inaccurate listing information.

Strategies for Long-Term Google Business Profile Visibility by @BernieColeman #SEO #GBP
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Leading Google Business Profile Tools for Digital Agencies

At Advice Local, we provide a comprehensive suite of GBP tools to help you manage business clients’ listings. From enhanced GBP tools to review monitoring, we have the local presence management solutions you need. Call (214) 310-1356 or request a demo.

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A local listing provides the first impression that many consumers will get of a brand. With ongoing listing management services in place, this initial encounter can be a positive experience. All too often, however, a failure to stay on top of updates inevitably leads to outdated contact information and incorrect opening hours—and a poor user experience. If your agency is providing local SEO to businesses, here’s why you need to regularly monitor listings.

Why Managing and Updating Business Listings Is a Must

It’s a common misconception (and wishful thinking) that local business listing management is a one-and-done event. Of course, your upfront work to create listings will certainly build a strong foundation for search visibility and customer trust. However, much of your client’s success will come from the ongoing management of these listings.

Business Listings vs. Backlinks

Backlinks are a cornerstone of SEO, signaling authority and credibility to search engines, and are considered votes of confidence for your website. While it might be tempting to view citations from business listings in the same light, there are important differences.

Google uses citations to verify the legitimacy of a business’ information. This is primarily the NAP data – name, address and phone number – along with other details like opening hours and services. Unlike backlinks (which can be effective even if left alone), business listings require ongoing management to ensure your information stays accurate.

Trust Matters to Search Engines

Anyone who has ever conducted a local business search will likely recognize the difference between a quality listing and a substandard one. When faced with no business description, a lack of reviews, missing opening hours and few or no images, both the search engines and the searcher will doubt the veracity of the data that’s presented. In short, these issues can absolutely harm your client’s trust with search engines. Follow our top strategies for building and maintaining local citations to resolve these problems.

Customer Experience Influences Brand Reputation

It’s not just search engines that rely on updated listings—consumers do too. After a person has researched the details of a business in advance, think of the frustration that potential customer experiences when they arrive to find the business closed for the day (or moved to a new location, or even closed permanently). We have all experienced this, and these poor experiences lead to negative reviews and a diminished brand reputation. Thankfully, you can avoid most of these issues through ongoing listings management.

Responding to Reviews Is Crucial

Checking reviews before buying is second nature to most of us today. Naturally, the star rating is a motivating factor in whether a person uses a product or service. However, the actions of the business also play a great role here. When a business actively responds to reviews and demonstrates interest in the customer experience, it stands out.

Business Listings Aren’t Static Pages Anymore

Business listings continue to evolve, introducing new features and often adding interactive elements. Google Business Profile (GBP) is the obvious example here, with options for sharing offers, events and updates. Failing to take advantage of these features with a consistent listings management strategy is absolutely a missed opportunity.

Listings Can Get A.I. Overview Visibility and Voice Search Results

These technologies rely on accurate information to provide users with up-to-date information.

Both AI and voice search results can only be as accurate as the information available to them. This means that business websites, directories (and more) need to be provided with accurate information.

If you’re new to this concept, our Voice Search Readiness Test is a great place to start.

Why Ongoing Management for Business #Listings Is Necessary by @BernieColeman #SEO
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Comprehensive Business Listing Management for Agencies

Advice Local creates top-quality listing management tools and services for digital agencies and local marketers. We help you build and maintain citations across leading search engines, directories and review sites. Call (214) 310-1356 or request a demo today.

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Today we’re looking at local SEO strategies that your agency should be implementing for your agency clients. With competition for search visibility stronger than ever, you need to be on top of on-site SEO, managing local listings, citation building, plus a host of other techniques. But with Google and the other search engines frequently updating their algorithms, what does it take to secure top search placement for your clients? Let’s explore the main elements of a new local SEO campaign.

6 Foundational Local SEO Strategies for Your New Agency Client

Your new agency client might be a startup with no search profile or an established business with a faltering SEO strategy (caused by lack of management or prior agency neglect). In either case, to help your local business client show up high in search results and even Google Maps, you’ll want a solid foundation built on experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. When it comes to local SEO strategies for businesses, establishing that foundation is imperative.

1. Research Local Keywords

The first stage of your local SEO campaign is to identify target keywords. For most local business clients, your focus will be on search terms related to the business or the services. Within these categories you have foundational keywords (the primary, high-volume terms), and long-tail keywords (secondary terms with lower volume and high intent).

2. On-Page Optimization Is Crucial

The home page, service pages and blog posts can all include primary keywords, supplementary terms and locations, but make sure to avoid keyword stuffing. Fortunately you can optimize pages without sacrificing the user experience. For example, including a location and service in the title tag, meta description and H1 tag signals to readers that your content is relevant to their needs. Internal linking and image alt text can also improve the site’s visibility for local searches.

3. Build Citations on Reputable Sites

Building citations for new clients begins with a thorough audit. A new business might have few citations, while an older company could have an outdated citation footprint that needs correction. We’ve recently outlined some top strategies for building and maintaining local citations. Among these steps, the most common challenge is creating high-quality citations on trustworthy directories. This is where our listing management service becomes invaluable to agencies seeking a simple solution to the time-consuming citation-building process.

4. Create Service and Location Pages

While analyzing your client’s competitors, you’ll likely find many websites listing business services on a single page (and failing to include dedicated location pages). Understand that taking the extra steps to create individual pages for primary services and relevant locations allows you to optimize for keywords and convert more visitors to buyers.

5. Develop a Review Strategy

In recent years reviews have undoubtedly become more important in a local SEO campaign. Consumers expect to see recent, positive reviews when they consider hiring a local business, and search engines are reluctant to list websites that lack consumer trust. For agencies, tracking client reviews and responding quickly should be a pillar of any SEO campaign. We make monitoring reviews easy for agencies with businesses listed in our dashboard.

6. Prioritize Google Business Profile

You can’t have a serious local SEO strategy without including a Google Business Profile (GBP). Google uses the GBP to collect accurate information about a business, with an optimized profile potentially getting featured in the Local Pack and Maps. If you want to go a step further, you can use our Enhanced GBP Tool to sync client data and access data insights. Ensuring that public edits don’t impact your client’s Google Business Profile is important too, and for agencies with businesses listed in our dashboard, we can auto reject public edits for you.

How to Begin a Local #SEO Campaign for a New Agency Client by @BernieColeman
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Local SEO Tools and Services for Agencies and Local Marketers

If you’re starting a local SEO campaign for a new business client, try local listing management software and solutions from Advice Local. We make building results-driven SEO campaigns for your clients easy with quality tools and services built for agencies. Call (214) 310-1356 or request a demo today.

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Online reviews are an essential factor in increasing local search visibility and shaping consumer decisions. As a leading listing management provider, we understand the critical importance of managing clients’ reputations on the platforms that matter most. A significant part of this process is the ability to monitor reviews and provide timely responses. But why are online reviews so crucial for your business clients?

The Benefits of Online Reviews for Local SEO

According to Google, local search results are primarily determined by three factors – relevance, distance and prominence. The third of these factors, prominence, considers how well-known a business is, the Google review count and review score. When determining prominence, famous brands might benefit from name recognition (where local companies might not). Local businesses can instead rely  on the quantity and sentiment of reviews published on trusted platforms.

The trust and credibility that Google and other search engines are looking for also determines how audiences respond. For example, if a business has a significant number of low star ratings or a limited number of reviews, users are more likely to choose a competitor. Low click-through rates signal to Google that the page is not a good match for the search query, and it will struggle to maintain a top search placement.

And relevance (as a local SEO factor) also plays its part here. When consumers add reviews to Google Business Profile (GBP), Yelp, Bing Places for Business and other authority platforms, the feedback often adds context to a business. Everything from product mentions to location references could potentially offer relevance, thus adding benefits for local SEO.

How Online Reviews Generate Customer Trust

Increasingly, online reviews are influencing whether or not consumers shop with a business. And even in small towns, local businesses now rely heavily on opinions left on GBP and other review sites, along with traditional word-of-mouth. As use of voice search, virtual assistants and mobile devices continues to expand, consulting online reviews will become the primary way people research and choose local products and services.

As we mentioned, low star ratings will negatively influence consumer decisions. Both positive and negative reviews carry weight, primarily due to the social proof gained from the experiences of existing customers. Authentic opinions from buyers validate the legitimacy and quality of a business, reducing the natural hesitation that a person has before making a purchase.

The final point on customer trust is less about the actual review and more about how a business responds. Whether the feedback is positive, neutral or negative, when a representative addresses reviewers it demonstrates attentiveness and care. Consumers are often more willing to trust a brand that actively engages with its customers, as it signals a commitment to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement.

How to Manage Reviews to Build Trust and Increase Visibility

Agencies managing a review strategy for clients will naturally desire a streamlined approach. And to bypass manually checking every review platform, software must be used. Our Enhanced GBP Tools and review monitoring platform lets you sync with your clients’ GBPs and track reviews on the major review sites. You can check reputation health, identify new reviews, then respond quickly for positive customer engagement.

How Online #Reviews Can Enhance Local #SEO and Customer Trust by @BernieColeman
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Try Our Review Monitoring and SEO Tools

For help monitoring and responding to online reviews, speak with the team at Advice Local. We develop the premier review monitoring, listing management and GBP tools. Call (214) 310-1356 or request a demo now.

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Local presence management is a cornerstone of modern SEO for brick-and-mortar businesses. By leveraging listing management services and other complementary techniques, agencies can build a lasting search presence for their clients. The best of these strategies will ensure that businesses improve local search rankings, increase visibility, build trust and credibility and enhance the customer experience overall.

Best Ways to Boost SEO With Local Presence Management

Local presence management refers to the tools and techniques that combine to increase the visibility of a business’ location. As Google and other search engines have improved their ability to recognize local intent, companies have more opportunity than ever to stand out on a city, regional or neighborhood level. Today let’s explore a simple strategy you can apply to business clients.

Optimize Google Business Profiles

Consumers searching for businesses will often look no further than the Google search results. From the Local Pack or Maps, people can directly find name, address and phone number (NAP) details, opening times, primary services, images, customer reviews and more. So whether they want to check if the location is open, get directions or book online, it’s all possible through a Google Business Profile (GBP). By optimizing this key pillar of local presence management, your clients can reach consumers who are ready to make a buying decision.

Claim and Manage Listings

A GBP needs to be optimized and managed, but there’s more – you also need to work with a comprehensive network of directories, review sites, mapping apps and other listing platforms. Essentially, local presence management succeeds or fails based on the accuracy of data. This is the reason why you need to work with a citation service that can claim and manage listings to ensure exact, consistent business details. And if you’re looking for the best local listing management provider, take a look at this comparison of citation services.

Localized On-Page Optimization

If location-based searches are a vital component of your clients’ SEO strategies, using a local on-page optimization approach is essential. Creating dedicated location pages will help satisfy Google’s goal of delivering highly targeted results and provide a relevant landing page for consumers. Even if a business has just a single branch, creating pages for surrounding cities allows you to target a broader range of locations.

It’s important to note that Google aims to deliver results that satisfy three factors – relevance, distance and prominence. However, if not enough local businesses meet all three criteria, Google may prioritize positively reviewed, relevant companies over hyperlocal results.

Reputation Management

Local businesses increasingly rely on a positive reputation to maintain a consistent SEO impact. With consumers being less likely to shop with a brand with a low star rating and a lack of fresh reviews, monitoring and responding to reviews is now an important factor in local presence management.

Apply E-A-T to Business Listings

Google’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness) framework evaluates the quality and value of online content. Factors like creating authoritative content, getting citations from quality platforms, plus maintaining accurate data across the web all help to meet Google’s content guidelines. For detailed insight on this subject you can read our report on applying E-A-T to a Google Business Profile.

How to Use Local Presence Management for Maximum #SEO Impact by @BernieColeman
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We Are Local Presence Management Specialists

At Advice Local, we help agencies and local marketers with a comprehensive set of digital marketing services. Speak with our team today for help with local presence management, listing distribution and review monitoring. Call (214) 310-1356 or request a demo now.

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