posts

Google My Business Posts Shelf-Life Hack: How to Keep Your Posts from Expiring Soon

September 30, 2018 by Phil 39 Comments

The jury’s out on how useful Google My Business posts are, but they have promise. I like ‘em so far. They’re quick and easy to create, and they show up in one of the very few areas of the brand-name search results that you can control.

The annoying thing is you have to keep adding posts. They expire every 7 days. What if you like the post you put up last week, and want to keep it around for longer? Nope.

You could always re-post the same thing, but you’d lose the all-too-basic stats Google shows you on each post. Also, an endless string of the same post would look odd to anyone who pulls up your older posts.

Having to come up with a new post every 7 days is an understandable reason not to bother with GMB posts at all. You don’t need another hamster-wheel activity.

Isn’t there any way to keep a post afloat for longer than 7 days?

Yes, there is. It’s a clever workaround courtesy of Brendan Bowie of My Guys Moving & Storage. It involves choosing the “Event” type of post when you create a Google My Business post.

As some observed a while ago, the “Event” type of post does not expire after 7 days. That’s been the case for as long as I’ve paid attention to GMB posts. What I didn’t know were 3 facts you can use to your advantage:

(1) you can call anything you post on an “event,” (2) the end of the “event” can be months away, and (3) if you do those things your GMB post won’t look strange in the search results.

The call-to-action button can be anything on Google’s list of calls-to-action.

The expiration date – the day the “event” ends – can be up to a year away. (Hat tip to Ben Fisher – see his comment.)

The even-smarter part is that Brendan first tested other types of posts, with different content and calls-to-action. The one that worked best (to date) became the “Event” type of post, with the far-off expiration date. Also, you can edit your post after you publish it, so that you’re not stuck with exactly the same stinkin’ thing for months.

—

What type of Google My Business post has worked well (or badly) for you?

Have you tried this “hack” yet?

Leave a comment!

Want to Guess How Many Local Businesses Use Google My Business Posts?

September 5, 2018 by Phil 20 Comments

Google My Business posts have been around since mid-2017. They seem to have caught on – more than many of Google’s “local business” features have – mostly because the payoff is clear: GMB posts stick out in your brand-name search results, and can nudge people toward the next step you’d like them to take.

Should you use Google My Business posts – for your business? On the one hand is the “Why not?” argument. You can give GMB posts a try for a few months and see if they’re worth the (small) effort.

On the other hand, the “Why bother?” argument also has merit. To wit:

If most businesses use GMB posts already, won’t customers tune them out?
If few businesses use GMB posts, have most business owners just concluded they’re a waste of time?
If few businesses use them, will Google retire GMB posts soon?

You probably don’t need another distraction – another thing to keep you from focusing on the stuff with clearer payoff to your local visibility.

This is where it helps to know specifically how many businesses use – or ever have used – Google My Business posts. I couldn’t find any numbers on that, and when possible I like a better understanding than, “Umm, not many” or “A lot, I guess.” So I did some research.

I looked at 2000 businesses in the Google Maps results, in 100 local markets. Those 100 markets covered 10 cities across the US, and focused on 10 categories of businesses. (More on my methodology in a minute.) I counted how many businesses had created a GMB post recently – within the last 7 days – and how many businesses had ever done a GMB post.

Here’s a summary of what I found – the numbers on businesses’ adoption of Google My Business posts:

Q: How many businesses have ever created a Google My Business post?
A: About 17%.

Q: How many businesses have posted recently and seem to post regularly?
A: About 4%.

Q: How many businesses posted at least once, but seem not to keep up with it?
A: About 13%.

Q: Of the businesses that do post on GMB, how many seem to do it regularly?
A: About 1 in 4.

Q: In how many local markets has at least one business (in the top 20) ever tried GMB posts?
A: About 91% of local markets. In only 9% of markets (that I looked at) nobody had ever posted.

Q: In an average first page of “Maps tab” results (20 local businesses), how many have ever tried GMB posts?
A: About 3 businesses.

Q: How saturated do local markets get, in terms of how many local businesses post on GMB?
A: The most I ever saw was 10 businesses out of the top 20. There were a few nines and a few eights. Again, the vast majority of businesses I looked at have never posted.

You can download my spreadsheet here. If you look at it, I’d love to hear any insights you glean that I didn’t mention.

Methodology and limitations

1. I looked only at businesses in the US. I imagine the adoption of (or dabbling in) GMB posts is a little lower outside of the US, but of course it just depends on the local market.

2. I looked only at larger and medium cities in the US. In some cases Google Maps drew results from the suburbs, but I didn’t search there or in less-populated areas. In my experience, adoption of Google My Business features (and the like) is lower outside of the larger cities.

3. I searched in Google Maps – in the “local finder” – so I could look at a larger sample of businesses. The alternative was to look at the top 3 businesses on page 1 of Google’s main search results, but Google’s main search results don’t show who’s using GMB posts. I’d have to click on each listing anyway. In the “Maps” view, I could pull up a list of 20, and very quickly check each business and see whether it had any GMB posts.

4. I focused on 10 industries, by way of 10 search terms: “dentist, “family lawyer,” “auto repair,” “roofing,” “animal hospital,” “preschool,” “electrician,” “real estate agent,” “music lessons, and “plastic surgeon.” Could I have looked at 100 industries? Sure, but I’d still be missing some categories, because there’s an infinity of them. So I chose to focus on the more-competitive spaces, with a bent toward the brutal markets. I’ve been in local search for 10 years, and picked the least-bad core sample I could. (If you do a study like this one, but look at different categories, I’ll be your biggest cheerleader.)

5. What about the red search terms on my spreadsheet? Those represent cases where the search term I originally chose (e.g. “Boston animal hospital”) didn’t produce a full page of 20 businesses in Google Maps. That would have shrunken the sample size a little, and skewed my data a little, so in those cases I just picked a different search term – one that did pull up 20 businesses on the first page of Maps.

6. Over time the number of businesses with a “fresh” GMB post (i.e. posted within the last 7 days) may decrease, or just not grow as quickly as the % of businesses in the “stale posts” column. The reason is simply that most businesses don’t stick with posting on GMB. Today’s business with a fresh post is next week’s business with a stale post.

7. Which categories of businesses post the most? I don’t know, because I’d need to have looked at all or at a couple hundred industries. But I can say that, of the categories I looked at, dental practices seemed the most post-happy.

8. How closely does GMB-posting activity correspond to rankings? I don’t know, because that wasn’t what I set out to find out here. That’s a discussion for another day. In any case, it would be tough to say, because a business owner who bothers to post on GMB probably has other local SEO irons in the fire.

9. What about the businesses that didn’t even make the first page of Maps results – the businesses ranked #21 and lower? I didn’t look at those. I suspect they post a little less than do businesses on the first page of Maps.

Observations (beyond the numbers)

Most businesses don’t keep up with Google My Business posts. Of the businesses I looked at, only 4% had posted within the past week, versus 13% that had posted at one time or another (less recently than within the last week). They don’t keep the posts coming. Google’s mother-hen reminders don’t work too well, apparently.

Because Google sends you a reminder every time your post is about to “expire,” my guess is business owners think that creating a new post is a big chore and a pain. Maybe they have few good photos to share, or they think a GMB post needs to be like a Facebook post. Or maybe they choose to post every 2 weeks. In any case, Google should add a “re-post this post” feature, or something like that.

Customers aren’t drowning in Google My Business posts (at least not yet). Do some businesses post too often? Yes. Are most posts well-done and worthy of searchers’ and customers’ attention? No. But most businesses haven’t overdone GMB posts, because most businesses (over 82%) haven’t used GMB posts.

Given how hard Google is pushing GMB posts, if there’s ever a time to give them a try, I’d say that time is now.

Enough businesses seem to use Google My Business posts that Google probably will keep the feature around, and maybe add to it over time. 17% may not sound like a high percentage. But if my cross-section of 2000 businesses is at all representative, then many millions of business owners have tried GMB posts at one time or another.

Google often kills off products and features both popular and unloved, so we can’t assume GMB posts will be around forever. But when I think of how slowly most business owners adopt new features, and how (relatively) new GMB posts are, I’d say the chances are good GMB posts will stay out of the Google graveyard.

Good further info on GMB posts

How to Create a Google My Business Post That Will Win You More Customers – Ben Fisher

12 Things to Know to Succeed with Google Posts – Joy Hawkins

Do Google Posts Impact Ranking? A Case Study – Joy Hawkins

—

Any researchable numbers or facts you’d like me to cover?

If you’ve looked at my data, did you reach any different or additional conclusions?

What’s the lowdown on Google My Business posts in your local market?

Any success stories?

Leave a comment!

Should You Make It a Page or a Post?

May 8, 2017 by Phil 20 Comments

You’ve got content you want to stick on your site. Maybe it’s about a specific service or product you offer, or it’s in-depth “educational” info, or it’s your answer to a frequently asked question, or it’s some attempt to reach people in a specific city, or something else.

You know what you want to put on your site, but aren’t as sure how best to weave it in: Should you create a static page or a blog post?

That depends on many factors – your goals, your preferences, and other specifics of the situation. More on those in a second.

You might have heard soundbites like “Google likes fresh content,” or “blog posts are search-engine-friendly,” or “every small business should have a blog,” or “blog posts rank better” (especially if you use WordPress or are considering it). Not necessarily. Those statements are true to one degree or another, depending on the situation, but in my experience reality is a little more complicated.

It’s complicated partly because the goal isn’t necessarily to get a page or post to rank, but maybe instead for it to (1) drive leads, (2) to impress however many people find it, or (3) to get shared and linked-to and help make your name. Or some combination of the above.

If you pressed me to suggest one to err on the side of using more, I’d go with pages. At least in my experience, static pages tend to rank a little better than do blog posts, and often go farther in converting the right leads into the right kinds of customers/clients/patients. If that’s true, I can only speculate as to why. That’s a topic for another day.

Anyway, if the question is “Should I create a page or a blog post for this info I want to put up?” and the answer is “It depends,” then what does it depend on? Well, here’s how I decide when to make a page vs. a post:

Make it a page if you:

Want to convert readers to customers/clients/patients right away (if possible). If your content has “commercial intent” it should probably be a page, rather than a post. People expect posts to be educational.
Want most or all visitors to see whatever you’ve written. Posts usually are a little harder to navigate to. Even if you have a prominent “Latest Posts” display, the posts you want everyone to see will probably get buried by more-recent posts sooner or later.

Plan to make it an evergreen resource – one you may significantly edit or add to later. Posts tend to have at least one indication as to when they were written. An old post with new, up-to-date info may confuse people.
Want it to rank for very specific keywords. Again, people generally expect blog posts to be informational. There’s just a little more footwork you can do on a page – and not have it look weird – from the title, to the name of the page, to the internal links you can weave in, and so on. Even more important: it’s possible any link-rustlin’ outreach you do will result in more links, if ultimately you’re asking people to link to your “resource” rather than to your “latest blog post.”
Want it to rank in a specific city, or for certain city-specific search terms, or both. (See this.)
Want to point AdWords traffic to it. If you’re running AdWords competently, most people who click on your ad have an imminent need for what you offer. Don’t confuse them by using a blog post (meant to appear kinda-sorta educational) as your landing page URL.
Need to be able to tell people the URL verbally. Blog post URLs tend to be longer and messier (example).
Need people to be able to type the URL.
Created it as a post already and now want to revive it. Let’s say you created a post 3 years ago, and it didn’t accomplish what you wanted it to, or it’s slipped in the rankings. Simply updating the URL and timestamp to reflect the current year won’t help you.
Care much which subdirectory it’s in.

Care much what’s in the URL slug.

Want it to appear as a sitelink in the search results for your brand name.

Don’t want people to leave comments, as they can on most blog posts.
Aren’t yet sure what to call it.
Plan to migrate to a new CMS soon.

Make it a post if you:

Want mostly non-customers and non-leads to consume your info. Sometimes the people who read and share and link to your posts aren’t people who will ever pay you a dime for anything. That’s how it is on my blog, for one: Many of the people who “spread the word” about my posts, site, and business aren’t my clients. That’s a good situation, and it’s a good situation for you, too. You want “cheerleaders” in addition to customers.
Feature news or other info with a shelf life shorter than that of a Slim Jim.

Think it will still look good in the search results even when the timestamp is 5 years old.

Can’t figure out a good way to incorporate a static page into your navigation.
Have a dedicated audience of people who expect posts from you. That’s why what you’re reading now is a post, and not a page 🙂
Want to make an announcement.
Offer a discount or make a special offer.
Are just testing out an idea and aren’t sure you want it to be a permanent fixture. A blog post can make a fine Petri dish.
Want to serialize your work.

—

What are some criteria you use to decide when to make a page vs. a post?

Do you have a resource where you’re not sure you got it right (and want a second opinion)?

Leave a comment!

Top-3 Local SEO “Content” Wins for People Who Hate to Write

July 30, 2015 by Phil 6 Comments

You shudder at the thought of having to write content for your site or pay someone to write it until the day you sell your business or buy Depends.

Don’t get me wrong: writing and sharing your best info over a period of months or years can have enormous payoff. My post “100 Practical Ideas for Small-Business Blog Posts” and its follow-up can help you on that.

You’ll probably find a way, if that’s what it takes for better local rankings and more customers. But must creating “content” feel like a trip to nowhere?

No.

Is there another way to make progress?

Yes.

Focus on one-time content first. Build on the content you have, the knowledge you have, and the site you have.

You’ll still have to write or get someone else to, but the point is you’re focusing on the highest-payoff work.

So, before you worry about what to create and share long-term, here’s what you should do on your site to make the most of a limited tolerance or budget for writing:

Priority 1: Perform “content CPR.”

Find short, undetailed pages on your site and beef them up with all the info a potential customer might want to know. Focus on pages where you describe a specific service you offer. If possible, find pages that rank very low on page 1 or somewhere on page 2. Those pages may just need a little life breathed into them to start moving in the rankings.

Not sure what to put on those pages? My post on “25 Principles of Building Effective City Pages for Local SEO” might get the juices flowing (even if you’re not creating “city” pages).

Priority 2: Fill in the gaps.

For example, do you have a giant “Services” page with one paragraph on each service you offer? Break it up. Create a separate page for each service, and go into more detail on each of those pages. You can keep the main “Services” page if you want: just add some links to the more-specific subpages.

In general, is there a service you want to promote that doesn’t have a page you’re really proud of?

That’s low-hanging fruit, especially if it’s a less-popular search term. The benefits of getting really granular with your pages are that (1) it’s an easy way to pick up rankings for niche terms (e.g. “blower door test Atlanta”), and that (2) the people who’d type in those niche terms probably aren’t tire-kickers, know exactly what they want, and are just looking for the right person or company.

(For more suggestions on busting out more pages, this other post of mine might help: 21 Pages a “Small Local Business” Site Needs for Tip-Top Local Visibility.)

Priority 3: Cannibalize your other resources.

Do you have underperforming microsites or old websites that have some decent info in them?

Did you put a lot of time into writing a blog post that not even your mom would read?

Did posters on your Facebook page ask questions that you get asked all the time, and that should maybe go on an FAQs page?

Do you have customer reviews that would be a shame not to show off on your site? (As I’ve explained, it’s OK to do that.)

Was the “about us” section on your Yelp page a labor of love?

If you think your site would be a higher-payoff place for anything you’ve written, online or offline, bring it on home.

—

Only once you’ve taken those 3 steps as far as they’ll go should you turn to creating blog posts, videos, or whatever other content on an ongoing basis. The timing matters. At least the one-time stuff can start paying off while you’re wrestling with the ongoing content-creation. Or you can just conserve your energy.

What are your “content priorities”?

Any you’d add to the list?

Leave a comment!

20 Local SEO Techniques You Overlooked (Almost)

February 26, 2015 by Phil 27 Comments

We local-SEO geeks talk about the same old basic principles a little too much: clean up your citations, don’t get penalized by Google, be mobile-friendly, earn “local” links, create “unique” content, deserve reviews, ask for reviews, etc.

It’s all good advice. I’ve devoted many of my blog posts in the last 4 years to unpacking that advice so it’s easy to act on.

The trouble is we’re repetitive. We’re almost as bad as the talking heads at CNN. We rarely move on to what you should do once you’re pretty solid on the basics – and there is a lot you can and should do.

(In fact, many of the overlooked wins can also help you even if you just started working on your local SEO.)

Here are 20 stones I find unturned way too often:

1. Nail the categories on your non-Google listings: Pick out the most-relevant ones, and as many of them as are applicable. Dig them up with Moz Local’s free “Category Research” area and with my category lists for Apple Maps and Yelp.

2. Do a second round of work on your citations. Do it a couple of months after the initial blob of work. You might be amazed at how many stragglers you find. Might be enough to motivate you for a third go-round.

3. Try to find and possibly hire a MapMaker editor to join the Forces of Good in your local anti-spam war. Of course, there’s no guarantee that even a MapMaker editor can stop your competitors’ spam offensive, but it’s worth a shot.

4. Become or get to know an “Elite” Yelper (like this recruit). Got a review that’s viciously personal, un-PC, or is obviously from an imposter? The Elite Yelper may know just how to phrase the takedown request for the best chances of a takedown. Also, because most Elite Yelpers don’t really have lives, Yelp seems to expect them to report data-errors (like wrong addresses), and usually acts on them.

5. Embedding on your website the Google map that’s featured on your Places page. Don’t embed a map of a generic address. You want Google to know people are looking up directions to you.

6. Get a Google Business View photo shoot. (10 reasons here.)

7. Pick the right itemtype for the blob of name / address / phone info that you’ve marked up with Schema.org markup. Or take a few extra minutes to go bananas with your Schema.

8. Join a couple of local and industry associations. I’m talking about your local Chamber of Commerce and the sorts of organizations you’d find if you Google the word that describes your business + “association” or “organization.” They’re often worth joining for the offline benefits, and you’ll probably get a good link.

9. Diversify the sites where you encourage customer reviews. The benefits are many.

10. Create a “Reviews” page. Use it to showcase your reviews (possibly with widgets and badges) and to ask any customers who visit the page to put in a good word. You can pretty easily create a page from scratch, or you can make a nice one with a service like Grade.us. Link to it in the signature of your emails, as a gentle way to encourage any customers you email to pick up a quill.

11. Write blog posts to answer super-specific questions that a customer might type into Google. Don’t try to rank for your main keywords (“How to Pick the Best Dentist in Cleveland: a Guide by Cleveland Dentists for Cleveland Dentist Patients”). It won’t work and you’ll look stupid. (Refer to this post and its follow-up.)

12. Get some barnacle SEO happening. By now, Will Scott’s concept isn’t new, but most business owners still don’t even try to do it. But just start with the basics: if you pick out all the right categories (see point #1) and encourage reviews on a variety of sites (see point #9) you’ll be in pretty good shape.

13. Use wildcard searches for keyword-research. (This one was new to me until very recently.)

14. Lengthen pages that aren’t ranking well – including and perhaps especially your homepage. Yes, this sounds old-school, and about as cool as a pocket protector. But I’m not telling you to add gibberish. Go into detail about what makes you different, describe your service / process, address concerns the reader might have, etc. Google likes having meat to sink its teeth into. One-paragraph Wonder Bread pages tend not to do as well.

15. Ask for reviews twice. People forget, and it’s a nice excuse to keep in touch. Follow up with customers you asked for a review – especially if they said they would. It’s easy to avoid making yourself a pest: just say you’d still appreciate their feedback, ask them if they have any questions for you, and thank them in advance.

16. Include links to sites where you have reviews. (Be sure to have those links open into a new browser tab, so nobody’s leaving your site.) Use review widgets and badges when you can.

17. Cannibalize underperforming microsites, bad blog posts, or other online carcasses. Grab (and edit as need be) any content that’s redeemable, and use it to make your site bigger and better.

18. Get listed on Apple Maps. Yes, everyone knows about aMaps by now, but I’m amazed at how many times I start working for clients and see only their competitors on Apple.

19. Try hard to reach non-English speakers, if applicable. Don’t just stick Se Habla Español (for example) in your footer as an afterthought. Include a paragraph in that language on your homepage and on your “Contact” page. Maybe create a whole page geared toward those customers. Be sure to use the hreflang tag if you have more than one version of the same page.

20. If you’re a local SEO-er, find steps your clients might be able to do better than you can. Don’t just look for more billable hours; look for the best person for the job, or the best combination of people. Don’t spend hours trying to dig up all their old phone numbers and addresses; ask them first. Whenever a writing task comes up, pump your clients for info. When you need to find link opportunities, send them my link questionnaire. They know the business better than you do. If you don’t get much cooperation, fine. At least you tried, and you’re giving them options. But I’ve found that most clients recognize when they’ve got just the right wrench for the oddly-shaped bolt.

—

What’s an “overlooked” local SEO tip you like?

Any that you’re considering but not sure about?

Leave a comment!

posts

Methodology and limitations

Observations (beyond the numbers)

Good further info on GMB posts

Make it a page if you:

Make it a post if you:

Priority 1: Perform “content CPR.”

Priority 2: Fill in the gaps.

Priority 3: Cannibalize your other resources.

Footer