Translating Google into Strategy: Explaining How Google My Business Works

Note: This is the second article in a series about Google search performance. You can read the first article in the series, Translating Google into Strategy: Google Search Performance – Gathering Data about Your Business’ Online Presence here. – Hanna Schoenrock, Managing Editor

In my last article, I discussed analyzing the Google Search Report sent to me every month. This article will discuss how my Google My Business listing is doing. This is where things can overlap and get a bit confusing. One report gives one number, and another report lists another. I want to help you understand what it means in conjunction with the previous report.

Getting started

What’s nice about the Google My Business report is that it does explain what the data means. In the last month, my Business listing — not my website — came up 864 times. This helps to give more clarity to the Google Search report. My URL isn’t showing up first page, but it looks like my business listing is. Again, this is a free tool that helps boost my rankings. Of those 864 people, only a small amount are searching for Cherished Keepsakes directly. Others are looking for products and services similar to mine, and I show up.

How do I show up specifically?

Most of it is through the search engine. A small amount is through a maps tool on mobile devices. That means a possible untapped resource that could boost my rankings is doing things that make me pop up on the map feature more. That would be adding more data that would show in a map like a snapshot of my products with keywords in the file name (since Google reads that), or a service description doubling down on incorporating search terms that can boost my rankings. This is crucial for any business that has a physical store. The section I’m really paying attention to is the photos section.

Google photos

Now this is different than the photos that show up in search results because those show up from my website. These photos are the ones posted in my business listing. This report is telling me two different things — both good and bad.

The good, the bad, the hidden gem

The good — I have more photos posted in my business listing than my competitors by more than double.

The bad — Though I have more pictures, people were looking more at my competitors than at me.

The Hidden Gem — I had a huge spike in viewings of my pictures that catapulted me well over my competitors.

The strategy

This data is intriguing to me because I know a lot of our business comes from the pictures people see of us. I want to improve our organic rankings through our photos, so I’m going to do exactly what Google is telling me to do! If you notice, there’s a camera icon telling me what to do to boost my rankings. It will reward me for obeying. But before I do that, I want to look deeper to see what photos boosted my rankings so high and so quickly and post more photos of that type.

Finding the answer

You can click on the photos section of your business listing to see what photos are giving you the most impressions. That’s where I found the answer. One family gave us a 5-star review and posted a photo of their buttons. In 4 weeks, that was viewed the most. Translation: people want to see more authentic shots. Thus, when asking families to leave reviews, I will encourage them to add pictures of their keepsakes to the review.

In the next article series, I will dive into the big kahuna — Google Analytics. Cheers!

Images courtesy of George Paul III and Pixabay.