🌴 A Note From The Jungle
Hope you had a wonderful Labor day if you’re joining us from the States. If not, hope your Monday was Apetastic! Let’s stop monkeying around and get this weeks Coconotes…
🦍 Ask GMB Gorilla
Hey GMB Gorilla…I want to get more leads in a city that’s close to me, should I create a second Google Business Profile to get more leads?
Howdy human! It sounds like business is going well and you’re looking to cash in on growing demand in your industry by breaking into a new market. You’re smart to think that a new GBP could help generate new leads, but I’d caution a few things before you proceed. Let me explain.
Google is making it harder than ever before for legitimate businesses to get verified profiles on Google Maps. This means that businesses that are compliant with Google’s guidelines are often jumping over massive fires and hurdling streams to get their profile live.
While exhausting, it’s the current reality due to spammers. It also makes it that much more difficult to get a second profile live if you don’t have an actual physical presence in the geography. In years past it was much easier to get a virtual office address or use a tech’s residential address to get a GBP live. Today, that’s just not the case.
You can set up secondary profiles in other locations, but you need to do a bit of leg work. First, if you’re a service area business, make sure that you’re opening a location far enough away that there’s minimal to no service area overlap. If you’re trying for a physical address profile, make sure there’s clear physical signage on the exterior of the building.
Next, make sure to add the location to your website, then build profiles for the location on other business and industry directories, as well as other maps apps. Doing so will help provide a bit of online history for the business at the location...which can make verification a bit smoother.
Even with these steps you may have difficulty getting secondary GBP’s live if you’re not legitimately operating out of the location. Remember, GBPs are not like other business profiles that you can just add whenever and wherever you want. For that, you may need to consider Google Ads and organic SEO using local landing pages.
🌴 Jungle Watch
Google Testing a Local Business Comparison Feature in AI mode 🤯
AI Mode gives us a glimpse into the future of local search
Google is always testing: We saw this first mentioned by Brody Clark at SERP Alert, and we are able recreate this functionality with multiple searches. AI Mode is experimental and your result may vary, but give it a shot to see if they give you the ability.
Initial thoughts on the AI mode comparison: This functionality makes a lot of sense as we’ve always seen the end game of Google local search being more an Amazon style ecommerce experience versus traditional search as discovery. The more Google can keep the decision making on their page, the better they will be able to monetize.
This could be very popular with searchers: Most Google searchers are already likely doing some sort of mental comparisons when view the local pack, LSAs, etc so giving them a tool to make it easier and more transparent seems like a win. Of course functions like this will result in more zero click behavior and lessen the impact your website (and even full profile) can have on converting a user to a customer.
We definitely think you should keep an eye on this and similar new UI patterns…search is rapidly changing.
🍌 Banana Bites
Danny Sullivan, Google’s community liaison, gave a talk about the future of Google search at Wordcamp that’s worth a listen. YouTube
Fake Review Badge is now live in the US on any profile Google has found to be violation their terms. Reddit
Profile Suspended? Learn more about common reasons for Google Business Profile suspensions. GMB Gorilla
🆘 Need GBP Help?
GBP Optimization Service
Competitors outranking you? Want to show in the local pack? We can help!
One Time Fee: $749
Get Started: Click Me
GBP Reinstatement Service
Recently suspended? Reinstatement rejected? Let us swing in to help!
One Time Fee: $500
Get Started: Click Me
Did You Know? Gorillas are mostly herbivores and can eat up to 30KG of plants per day!
Till next time,