When we onboard a new client for our local SEO services, we follow the same playbook for each one. It’s how we consistently rank our clients in the top of Google Maps and the Google results.
Step 1: Create Google Business Profile
Though many business owners create their own Google Business Profile (GBP) before hiring us, there’s a surprising number of businesses that don’t have one.
For an effective SEO strategy, you need an optimized GBP so that you show up in Google Maps.
It has a significant impact your rankings in the Maps pack since it let’s Google know more about your business, like the area you serve and what you offer.
If we’re creating a brand new GBP for a client, here’s the basic process we work through –
- Look to see if the business is already listed on Google. If yes, claim the listing for the client. If not, we start a new GBP and enter in the name of the business as the client wants it to appear.
- Select the primary and secondary categories that are relevant to the business. We choose as many of these as make sense to maximize the potential here. Note that some categories open up additional options on the GBP, such as booking options for a hotel category or reservations for a restaurant category.
- Enter in the business address. This should be where customers can show up. If you don’t have a place of business like this, you can instead choose to be a service-area business and have your address hidden.
- Include your business phone number. Even if you don’t prefer to take calls, you need to have a working phone number in your GBP. Otherwise, potential clients might think you’re no longer in business.
- Put your website in the GBP. Not a Facebook page. Not an Instagram profile. A real business website. If you don’t have one, we offer to create a basic business website at an affordable price. Why is this needed? Because a large percentage of the population has social anxiety and would rather submit a quote form on your website than call you to get a quote.
- List your business hours. This should be the hours that you accept customers at your business location. If you don’t have a physical location, we list you as open 24 hours because that helps with ranking in Google Maps.
That’s just the basics of getting a Google Business Profile set up the right way. This isn’t where we stop though cause this alone won’t get you ranking high in Google Maps.
Step 2: Optimize The Google Business Profile
Once a business has the basics down for their Google Profile, it’s time to optimize for for ranking high in Google Maps. Essentially this is just filling out every possible field/option for the profile.
And using target keywords whenever possible.
When you load up a GBP with everything about your business, you end up with relevant keywords and all that works together to propel you higher up the rankings for the Maps results.
Here’s an example of a handyman service filling out everything they could find in their GBP.
The extra fields available to fill out varies based on the primary and secondary categories selected for the business.
- Add in Services, Products, and other business attributes that are relevant. For example, if you offer delivery.
- Upload photos to the GBP if you haven’t already done so. Even if you have, make an effort to regularly upload relevant images. Include photos of both the interior and exterior of your business. If you are a service-based business, then use before and after photos, as well as photos of your employees on the job.
- Don’t the leave the “From the Business” description area empty. This is the perfect place to tell potential customers about your business while sprinkling in relevant keywords to help Maps rankings.
- Add some questions and answers. Go ahead and ask your own questions, or have an employee do it, so that you can better optimize that GBP by using relevant keywords in the Q&A’s. Keep in mind that anyone can ask questions on your GBP, and anyone can answer them. So make sure you keep watch for questions left by other people so that you can answer them. The last thing you want is someone else leaving inaccurate information in this section of your GBP.
Step 3: Don’t Sleep On Reviews
Regular positive reviews benefit your ranking in Google Maps. So you should always encourage customers and clients to leave you a review in Google.
While you should definitely ask customers for a review, make sure you’re not offering incentives for doing so. Google can penalize you for this.
And always respond to your reviews in a timely manner. This shows that you have an active Google Business Profile, as well as showing customers that you appreciate the time they spend reviewing your business.
When responding to reviews, make sure to use relevant keywords such as “Happy to hear that Tim did a great job with your HVAC replacement in Durham.“
Step 4: Build Citations For The GBP
Citations are links/mentions on directory sites that have the same information as your GBP – your business name, address, phone number, hours, website, business description, etc. This is commonly referred to as NAP for name, address, & phone number.
Popular citation sites for businesses are things like Yelp and FourSquare.
The purpose of the citations is to send positive signals to Google that your business exists at the address and phone number you’ve given them. They validate your NAP for Google.
Citations might not seem like it, but they are very powerful. Many of them include a link to your website, which helps with ranking in Google organic search. And even without a link they help to improve the rankings of your business in Google Maps results.
We’ve had clients soar to the top of the Google Maps results simply from us building extra citations.
If a client comes to us with existing citations, we run a citations audit to look for NAP inconsistencies. Incorrect and outdated citations hurt Google Maps rankings and need to be updated.
Step 5: Identify Top Local Keywords For The Business Website
Once we’ve completed GBP optimizations for a local SEO client, we move on to the client website. That means we need to do an analysis of the local landscape and the client’s competition.
We identify the top local keywords that are relevant for the business so that we can come up with a ranking strategy. The types of keywords that we look for are both service and location relevant.
For example, things like “garage door repair Houston” and “garage door service Houston” are examples of what we might find for a Houston-area garage door company.
Once we’ve got our list of keywords, we’re ready to start targeting them.
Step 6: SEO Optimize The Business Website
With our list of target keywords, we get to work optimizing the business website so that it will rank higher in Google organic search results.
We use these target keywords all over the website:
- Site title tag
- Site meta description
- Site headings (H1, H2, H3, etc)
- ALT text for images
- URL slugs
- Anchor text for internal linking
Step 7: Build Landing Pages for Services & Locations
Most of our local business clients offer multiple core services and either work in or service multiple locations. For every service and every location, we need to build a conversion-optimized landing page.
Each new page we create needs to have a lead capture form prominently displayed to optimize for conversions.
Step 8: Build Backlinks To The Website
Since Google counts backlinks as sort of a vote of confidence for a website, we need to build more backlinks to the business website.
There are lot of ways to go about this, and our strategy depends on the competitiveness of the target keywords/markets and what the backlink profile already looks like for the site.
In no particular order, here are the types of backlinks we build:
- Sponsorship links
- Podcast links
- Niche Edits
- Guest Posts
- Local Guest Posts
- Foundational links (social media, etc.)
- HARO-style links
Step 9 (Optional): Get Reddit Backlinks
For clients who are in competitive niches, or who are looking for a rankings boost, more leads, or to show up in AI overviews and LLMs (like Perplexity), we use Reddit backlinks to accomplish those objectives.
Our strategic Reddit marketing strategy has been delivering great results for clients, as seen in the image below.
Reddit backlinks also have the bonus of being a high authority backlink for your website.
And since Reddit tends to rank high in the organic Google results, it’s a great way to get leads as people go to the Reddit result when searching your target keywords.
Step 10 (Optional): Facebook Groups Content Marketing
While it’s not ideal for every business, many local businesses can benefit from our Facebook Groups marketing service – especially home services businesses like roofers. and Christmas light installers.
After analyzing the service area for a local business, we identify all of the local Facebook Groups that we can use to market the business. Our copywriter creates compelling content introducing your business to the group subscribers.
This is done without spamming and instead creates authentic connections with your target market.
We also look for relevant provider questions where we can reply and promote your business. Examples of these questions are in the images below –
Facebook Groups marketing is the best lead gen opportunity that most local businesses are missing. The per-lead cost ends up being a LOT cheaper than using LSAs or Facebook Ads.
And, we offer a leads guarantee.
Final Tip
Make sure you are regularly updating your GBP to keep everything up-to-date. This is important not just for Maps rankings, but because anyone can request an update to the GBP. If you’re regularly updating it, then you’ll catch anything that’s inaccurate.
If you’d like our help with your local SEO, reach out to us at hey@growthcupid.com