Google Business Profile Audit Tutorial! My Secrets to 10x More Clients in 2023 revealed

if your Google Business profiles performance dashboard looks similar to this then I have some bad news for you you're doing something wrong I know what you're probably thinking I don't know what else to do well if this is the case it's probably time you audit your listing to find out what's stopping it from being found on Google and turn searches into customers I have run dozens of Google business profile audits across many different Industries and today I'm going to share with you the method I use when I audit my client's Google Business profiles to help

them get that phone ringing so you can do it yourself you don't need any particular skills everything I'm going to cover can be achieved by anyone and everyone at the end of this tutorial you'll know exactly what you need to look at where you are going wrong and how to fix it so your listing can rank higher on Google Maps and you can convert visitors into clients to make this tutorial as easy as possible I have organized it into chapters so so that even if you don't watch all of it today you can easily come

back to it later and start again from where you left off using the timestamps on the timeline of the video so let's get started with the first step step one check the accuracy of your listing information when auditing your Google business profile you should start by verifying the accuracy of your basic business information including your business name address and phone number this may seem like a futile exercise for many of you but you'd be surprised at the number of unwanted errors that can creep up on the profile just in case you didn't know anyone can

edit your Google listing and change the information of it which you may miss and result in misleading customers also sometimes Google automatically updates your listing with information it finds on third-party websites which could be out of date more specifically your opening hours adding your basic business information to the footer of your web pages for example will help prevent such automated changes as Google will be able to reconcile the information from your listing with what it can find on your website once you've completed the basic verification you can move on to step two step two knowing

which keywords to Target one of the first things I ask new clients before conducting an audit is what keywords are you trying to be found for surprisingly in a lot of cases I find that business owners are unable to answer these very basic questions how can you drive more customers to your business if you don't even know what they are looking for if you are one of these people here is a quick way to help you figure this out log into the account associated with your Google business profile from the in search interface click on

performance in the bottom right hand side corner of the pop-up window you'll see a list of the top keywords your business is ranking for click on see more to access the full breakdown it will also include the frequency of your listings appearance for each keyword this is the perfect starting point to find what keywords you should be focusing on as your listing already ranks for them make a list of the ones you feel are most relevant to your business if your listing is fairly new you you may not see a lot of keywords displayed on

this report so simply include additional keywords you believe your business should be found for on Google but are not present in the Google business profile keyword breakdown these keywords should be related to the service or products your business offers next you want to figure out which keywords you should be prioritizing from this list based on their popularity and how competitive they might be for this I suggest you use the free Google Keyword Planner tool although it is free to use you'll need to create a Google ads account first in order to access it there is

a link in the description below once you've created an account and logged in Click On Tools and settings from the navigation bar and from the drop down select Keyword Planner on the next page click on discover new keywords copy and paste the keyword list you've put together into the first field you're limited to 10 keywords so you may need to do this in several stages right under the keyword field click on the location link and add the area in which your business operates you can add more than one let's use Phoenix Arizona for example then

click on Save finally click on get results Google will give you an estimate of the average monthly searches for the keywords you've provided the level of competition for them and more try picking keywords with the highest volume and the lowest competition as your priority but don't forget to use common sense if you are an electrician and electrician near me is a highly competitive keyword you should still include it as a priority Target note that Google will also provide further keyword ideas based on your initial selection and you might want to pick some of these as

priority keywords keep your list quite small anything between 5 to 10 keywords should be more than enough once you've narrowed down the best keywords to Target it's time to check how well your Google business profile ranks for them on Google Maps this is what we are going to do in our next step step 3 check your Google Maps rankings by now you should have a precise idea of the keywords you'd like your Google listing to be found for so the next thing you want to do is to establish how well your listing ranks for them

on Google Maps to do this I personally use bright local bright local is a local SEO platform that provides a set of powerful local SEO tools to help you rank higher improve your reputation and generate more traffic and leads from local search and Google Maps results although bright local is not free they offer a 14-day free trial and I thoroughly recommend you give this a shot you won't need to enter any credit card details to set up an account there is a link in the description below last year bright local launched a brand new tool

called local search grade when using this tool you can figure out out where your business listing ranks Street by Street for your chosen keywords instead of getting a single ranking for an entire city this granular approach gives you an accurate idea about the performance of your listing and how far the visibility of your listing stretches across your location this is my go-to tool to truly understand how well a listing ranks the report is super easy to use and color coded highlighting your strengths and areas for improvement it also shows you who your true competitors are

on Google Maps and reveal some key information about them that you can use to your own Advantage more on this later what I love about this report is not only does it provide me with a comprehensive understanding of a business's performance but it also allows me to visually monitor progress all the time so I know if the work I'm doing is paying off to use the local search grid first create a bright local account and import your Google business profile details it should only take a few minutes right local will initially be crunching some data

relating to your profile just let it do its thing as it can take a little while in the meantime from the left hand side menu click on the rankings option and then on the local search grid by default you may already see a sample of keywords bright local has tracked for your business on the map based on your business category what you want to do here is create a report to track the priority keywords you've identified in step one for your business to use the search grid you'll need to purchase credits the number of credits

you'll need will vary based on the number of keywords you want to track and the size of the map area being monitored thankfully at the time of making this video bright local gives you a bunch of free credits you can use to create your very first report which is super useful to start setting up your report click on the action drop down and select the edit report setting your business should already be listed there if not add it click on map criteria and choose a measurement unit either miles or kilometers Define the distance between each

grid point I generally use 500 meters then defined your grade size I always go for 15 by 15. this combination will track your listing across a 3.5 kilometer radius of your business location which should be more than enough once you're done open the keyword section remove whatever is in there and add the keywords you selected in Step One if you don't want to go over the free credit limit make sure you don't add more than eight keywords to your list if you want to track more keywords you might want to reduce the size of your

grid in the general settings section choose ad hoc for the reporting frequency once you're done click on update report you should see a warning message saying you've made changes to your report settings and that it will cost credit to rerun it this is when you can use the free credit made available by bright local just click on the re-run this report link and then on the Run report button from the pop-up window after a few minutes write local will show you in detail how well your listing ranks for your selected keyword across Google Maps in

the geographical area around your business click on the select keyword button to check the performance for individual keywords now you should have a very clear idea if your listing is performing well or not if all you can see is green congratulations time to Target additional keywords if not let's see how you can optimize your Google listing to turn those orange dots and red into green ones before I do if you like this video so far remember to like it and if you are not a subscriber yet consider becoming one if you want to hear more

tips and tricks to promote your business online enough said step 4 optimize your listing for higher rankings there are only a few elements of your business profile that can affect your Google Maps listings rankings improving these will greatly improve your visibility on Google Map let's start with the first one your business name the business name element of your Google profile is one of the most influential ranking factors of your listing having the keywords you target as part of your business name will help your business rank high on Google Map for example if I search for

martial arts schools San Antonio you can see that all the top three results in the map pack have the keyword martial arts in their name which is no coincidence having said that according to Google's guidelines you cannot add keywords to your business name at will if it doesn't represent your business's real world name like in this example but what if you could have a look at this attorney located in Tucson they have used their family name as their business name but they also represent themselves as attorneys in the real world based on the outside signage

of their practice and also on their website this means it would be perfectly acceptable for them to add the keyword attorneys to their business name and rank higher on Google Maps when people are searching for an attorney in Tucson if you are not able to use this technique because you can't justify it legitimately here is something else you can do go to the local search grid ranking report and locate the table that outlines the top 10 competitors for one of the keywords you are tracking find out if any of the competitors ranking above you use

a business name that seems a little suspicious this one for example looks like the perfect candidate just click on the name it will open a window showing this particular businesses performance on Google Maps as well as the full business name I don't know about you but unless I am mistaken this name looks really dubious let's investigate further scroll down and click on the link right under the table it will open the Google listing for this business from there click on their website link check their website branding and how they represent themselves as you can see

this business is clearly not called 24 hour emergency electrician in London I'm in electrical contractor but simply alamin electrical contractor they are clearly trying to game the system when you come across such businesses just click on the flag button next to their name in bright local this will take you to Google form called the Google redressal form fill in the form and explain that the name this business is using is incorrect the Google spam team will review your claim Google should take action and force the business owner to remove the extra keywords from the name

this will cause their rankings to drop giving you a chance to rank higher than them and generate more leads don't think this is unethical lots of SEO Pros use this tactic which is completely legitimate time to check the next most powerful ranking component of your listing your business these categories there are two types of categories that tell Google what type of business you are your primary category which is displayed on your listing for everyone to see and your secondary categories which are hidden your primary category is the ranking factor that has the biggest impact on

where your listing ranks on Google Maps so choosing it correctly is very important while picking a primary category should be a straightforward exercise there are so many to choose from that sometimes it may be difficult to choose the right one one of the easiest way to find out if you selected the correct primary category is to check what your competitors have selected for themselves you could do this manually by searching your competitors on Google but that wouldn't be a very efficient way of using your time instead go to Bright local once again and bring up

your local search grid report scroll down to the competitors table and check the column primary categories to find out what your competitors are using make sure your primary category is in line with theirs right knuckle will also display the secondary categories your competitors have added to their listing find out which one of these are relevant to your business and add them to your listing too if you want to date your primary business category or add secondary categories to your listing log into your business profile from the insert interface click on the edit profile icon and

on the pencil right next to the business category label once you've taken care of categories you can move on to the next element that affects your Google Maps rankings your website link the website your Google listing links to is also an important ranking Factor first things first do not link your listing to a social media page it's against Google's guidelines and serves new benefits if you don't have a website and can't afford one use the free Google website builder which is available as part of your Google business profile if you have a fully fledged website

you can connect your listings to any of its pages but in a majority of cases you'll want to connect your listing to your homepage because it is the most popular one there is a strong correlation between how high your Google listing ranks and the page you link to therefore it is crucial that the content of the page aligns with your listing here is a typical example of a divorce attorney located in Wichita who is clearly targeting the keyword divorce attorney make sure you include variations of your keywords on the page too for instance this page

also talks about family lawyers a lot which is closely related to divorce attorney pay particular attention to the meta title of your page which is what will show in Google search results but also the main heading and subheadings which are all strong search engine optimization signals add your target keywords in those elements including your geographical location which in this case is Wichita if your competitors listings rank higher than you it may be because the content of the page they're listing links to is more relevant than yours to find out if this is the case go

and spy on them to do this head over to the Google Chrome Store and download a free extension called SEO minion once downloaded pin the Su minion extension to your taskbar so it is easily accessible find out what page your competitors listings linked to then click on SEO minion click on the analyze on-page SEO option you should now easily see what keyword they are using in the title of their page their main heading and server headings this should give you a good idea of how to craft your content better to outdo them time to look

at the last ranking element you should include when auditing your listing your Google reviews Google reviews are an essential part of your listing and critical to the success of your business not only do they influence the rankings of your listing on Google Maps but they are also instrumental in converting visitors into customers I will talk about the conversion aspect of reviews in a little bit more detail in a minute but for now let's focus on the ranking aspect there are various factors to take into consideration when analyzing your Google reviews such as how many you

have your overall average star rating the velocity at which you are getting them and how recent that they well and of course you should also take into consideration your competitors reviews doing this manually would take quite some time so instead we are going to use a couple of Chrome extensions to speed up the process head over to the Google Chrome Store and search for an extension called pleapper then install it once installed go to Google Maps and search for a keyword from your initial list this will bring up the top businesses competing for this particular

keyword a blue box containing information related to those listings should overlay automatically on top of the map this comes from the prepper extension you've just installed click on the review tab plepper will provide you with a detailed review analysis across all the businesses that rank for this keyword including the overall average rating the average number of reviews the maximum and minimum rating and the maximum and the minimum number of reviews this will give you a pretty good idea of where your listing stands amongst the competition how far behind you might be and which factor you

should focus your attention on but you'll also want to know how aggressive your competition is when Gathering reviews from their clients for this we're going to use a second extension called GMB everywhere with GMB everywhere you can generate various competitive analysis report including reviews I have put the link to the extension in the description of this video Once downloaded head over to Google Maps and either conduct a new search or refresh your previous screen GMB everywhere will overlay some information about your competitors directly under each individual listing and include the option to do a review

or simply click on the review audit button on the listing you're interested in and GMB everywhere will start crunching the data for it after a few seconds you will have access to report that reveals the review profile for that individual listing the most interesting part of the analysis is the review audit graph which shows the number of reviews accumulated over time use this graph to gauge the pace and intensity with which your competitors are collecting reviews and adapt your strategy accordingly now we've covered the elements that will help your listing rank higher on Google Maps

we need to entice Searchers who find you to want to do business with you this is what we are going to cover in our next step step 5 Google business profile converting factors having a listing that ranks high on Google Maps to attract more customers is only half the battle most potential customers will quickly review your listing to find out if your business is a good fit for what they are looking for you'll only have one shot to make a good first impression before they move on to the next one that's why you should spend

time enhancing your listing by showcasing your best features and enabling customers to quickly learn about you the elements I'm now going to run through in this chapter will help you create a compelling listing and increase your conversions over your competitors starting with photos a couple of years ago bright local conducted a study over 45 000 businesses to find out how important Google business profile photos are to local search performance the results revealed that although your photos will not help your listing rank businesses with more than 100 images on their Google profile get 520 more calls

2 700 more Direction requests and 1 000 more website clicks than the average business need I say more make sure you add plenty of images to your listing want to see are you fair against your competitors head over to Bright local once more this time select the GBP audit option from the left hand side menu by default bright local should have run an audit for your listing based on keywords related to your business click on the action drop down menu and select edit report scroll down to the search term box and replace any existing keyword

with your top priority keywords from your keyword research unfortunately it is limited to five update the report click on the action drop down menu then run the report again once the audit is completed you will see a summary of your Google business profile basic information next to the summary tab you'll find a single tab for each keyword you added to your report click on one of them very much as you saw in the local search grid report this will list the competitors who rank on Google Maps for these particular keywords the information you will get

from this table is very similar to what you saw before except that this time you can find the number of photos for each of your competitors listings try matching those numbers or even better add more to your listing than them while adding photos to your listing greatly contributes to the increase of customer engagement they also play a crucial role in Google reviews did you know that customers can include a full tool when leaving you a review reviews with photos tend to stick at the top of the review list for longer than normal reviews this means

they will greatly influence the perception of potential cost customers as it will be the first thing they see when checking your reputation encourage your clients to add photos to their reviews for Maximum Impact to make it simpler take photos yourself and send them to your customers when asking for a review to check if your competitors are encouraging customers to include photos in their reviews go to Google Maps and search for one of the keywords you are targeting from the list of results select one of your competitors listings and click on the review audit button once

the audit is done you'll be able to view the number of reviews that include photos for your competitors but photos are not the only media you should be focusing on you should also consider adding videos to your listing adding videos to your listing is not really new but Google Now displays them directly on your listing in the Google Maps app and place them automatically as users scroll through them since the vast majority of users use a mobile phone to search for a local business this will have a major impact on their decision making process another

chance to impress potential customers right off the bat is to add the products you sell to your profile like in this example as it really makes your listing pop you can add a detailed description to each product prices a link to where they can be bought and more adding products will increase your listings real estate on Google and even encourage visitors to buy them directly from your inventory even if you don't sell products you can use this feature check out this plumber is using this feature to promote is boiler services if you're a service-based type

of business you should also add all the services you provide to your listing although your services will only get displayed in local search results on mobile phones you shouldn't ignore them as it is yet another chance to attract customers if you want to know how your competitors handle both products and services on their profile bring up their listing and run in audit using GMB everywhere under other GMB details click on the product links this will display all the products this business has added to its listing you can use this information as a source of inspiration

go back to the audit page result and this time click on the services link this will emulate the results you would find on mobile phones click on the profile itself and then on the service tab you will now see all the services this business has added to its listing you can use this information to Benchmark your own business against your competitors or as an inspiration to create more content on your website for example another feature you must consider if you want to enhance your listing is Google posts Google posts sit right at the bottom of

your listing and allow you to create and share updates and information with customers directly you can include photos videos events offers and other relevant content that will further improve engagement no need to post every day instead aim to do one post a week preferably on offer as these tend to convert better compared to other types of posts if you want to spy on what your competitors are posting go back to the audit result of a listing and click on GMB post URL this will bring up all the posts this business has created go one step

further and do a thorough post analysis on one of your competitors listing click on the post audit button directly in search results you'll find out in details how frequently they post if they use images videos the length of their post and more this brings me to the end of this tutorial make sure you check every element I have described and optimize them to the best of your abilities as you do this I also advise you run a local search grid report regularly to check if your listing is improving which it should do I hope you

enjoyed the video if you did don't forget to like And subscribe and until next time happy marketing thank you [Music]