Since the addition of the Google Map Pack to commercial search results, we have seen some large shifts in attention coming from both business owners as well as agencies that work on optimizations. The fact that this section is the first to show up on search results has raised a bunch of questions regarding a possible change in perspective from the internet giant Google.

We have long known that Google stands by the quality of the information it provides for the world. You can even find official statements that they released to calm people down as they made changes to the way they display their advertisers. Google claims that they will always give a priority to organic search results, and so far we can agree to this. Even though sometimes they may make you wonder. 

The Google Map Pack is known as the current first section that shows up when you make almost any kind of commercial search query on Google.

This wasn’t always there, so it is important to note that Google can move or remove it at any point in time. Although we do not think that it will end up getting removed, there is a good chance that it will not always be found in the same spot as it current is. However, that hasn’t stopped marketers from capitalizing on this separate rank. Many out there have even shifted their focus entirely to just working on their Maps rank. We believe that the best route to take would really just be to work on both ranks as a combined effort towards maximum visibility. Many of the typical off-page methods you might already be using for your website can be adapted to include your GMB links, which is why we like to tie in that Maps rank with everything that we do.

You want to first start from your most important business listing, which would be your Google My Business. Your GMB should be verified over a physical address in the city you would like to target. This is quite simply the safest way to ensure that you do not end up getting your listing suspended as so many other small business owners have seen happen over the previous year. Currently, Google is a lot tougher on listings that appear spammy. In fact, certain business categories like roofing are currently unable to verify a new listing at all. To avoid any headaches with verification, use a real address that you have access to. Don’t worry, you can hide it from being visible on this listing anyways.

Fill out your GMB. All the way. Seriously! Take up all that free real estate and use it to talk about your services and to include some important keyterms that you are trying to target. In the video below, I run down all the steps that you should take to make sure that your GMB is fully optimized.

You can also opt-in to using the free GMB website that Google will host for free on their business.site domain. Just make sure that you have an actual business website listed as the URL for the listing. If you have a website that has no content on it, you may end up seeing this free site rank higher until you start your link building.

When you finish setting up your GMB all the way, consider downloading the app so that you can enable messaging, which allows you to show Google how quickly you like to reply to your customers.

Head over to the homepage for your website and make sure that you have embedded your GMB onto that page. Back this up with some content that relates to the local area, and you have properly established the connection that is required between your Google My Business Listing and your Business Website.

In the video example, you can see some extra on-page links that I have placed to further expand on the fact that the website is relevant to the given city. Strengthen the connection between your other listing by similarly linking them on your website where you see best fit.

These are the more important steps for setting up your listing so that it can have a strong chance at landing on top of the Google Map Pack after some proper off-page work. Make sure to check out the video below to see my full tutorial with bonus tips for improving your Geo-relevance.

Are you one of the lucky few business owners that has already achieved a top rank for their website?
SPO helps business owners by creating custom campaigns that actually allow you to further expand on your ranks after you have achieved what you were originally targeting. This means that your website can have even more intrinsic value as you continue to grow out your business.

There are many methods that we use to properly allow Google to recognize our work in new areas, however, none of them can be accomplished without the creation of service area pages. The video below will cover an example of how to build this type of structure for your website. Which is the best way to begin to spread your local authority to a larger radius around you.

It is worth noting that you will encounter varied levels of competition as you create your new pages, and these differences should be accounted for when planning out your off-page work.

It is also important to know that you cannot spread an authority across regions that are too far out of reach (example: 50 miles from top rank). Unless you are introducing some more advanced level of optimizations surrounding the use of multiple GMB listings.

Have you recently moved some pages around on your site?

It is not uncommon to make changes and updates to a business website, but there are many reasons why should be be careful with larger changes that can effect your visibility. If you have ranked your business website, and it is producing leads for you, this video is going to be crucial to make sure that you don’t make one of the largest mistakes that we see being made.

If you change your permalink structure, the links that were pointing to those pages are no longer connected like they were before.

Aside from making sure you set your redirects properly, you should use careful planning to make sure that your site is using the correct structure that Google loves.

Watch the video below to get filled in on the best way to structure your website if you have a local business.

In this video we explore some more advanced techniques to optimize the images that you may have for your business. There are many different optimizations that can be made, and most agencies will stop after only taking care of a few. When you have a large amount of pictures that you want to display, it can be tedious to do all of these steps, but we have seen the difference that it can make when being combined with your off-page efforts.

Renaming your image files is not the only way to send Google signals using your pics. You would usually want to start with resizing your pictures so that mobile users are not struggling to load your page. Then you can start to rename your images to something that makes more sense than the random characters that were assigned to it originally. Get creative with your keywords usage, and you too can send Google some important signals out there with all of the great pictures you took of your services.

To start off, we recommend using the .jpg format for your image. This is simply because it allows you to be able to edit the properties of the picture, which is what we need to do here. Then you need to pick a good name for your image. Here you can always do some analytical work to pull up popular ways that people are searching for the object in the image. Once you are comfortable with the main key term that you want to use for the image, then you can name it using “-“ to separate each word. For example: “fence-contractor-in-dallas.jpg”

That should do a big difference as far as ranking for that image. The next steps are basically for extra SEO points. Again, not every marketing firm will go the full length to make sure everything is done right. While not everyone goes in these next steps, it can be the difference between the top rank and the second just because other people are also doing the same optimizations. Next you should right click on your image file on your computer, and then click on properties. Once you navigate over to the details tab, you can find a whole lot of additional things that you can add to the META data of your image. In this section you will want to fill out everything, including a 5 star rating too. Take the name that you used for your file, and set that same line of text in the Title, Subject, and Comments of the META data. Then, go into the tags section, and add additional key terms that you want to associate.

Now youre ready to match all of that META data with the settings on your website. Make sure to compress your image if needed, but if you are ready, go ahead and upload the image onto your site. In the description for the image you will find three sections you need to edit: Title, Alt Text, and Description. Make all of these identical to that same title you chose for the file name. Now you are good to go! These steps will make sure that you are properly optimizing even the images for your site. This isn’t always done by other SEO people, so if you notice that your images don’t have any descriptions on them, you may need to start getting to work!