Are you a small business owner? Want to optimize your business locally? The simple hack is creating Google Business Listing. However, creating a business profile is simply not enough. Well, you need to strategically input the management skills and editing techniques to make the local SEO efforts more effective!

So, how to gain management over GBP? Apart from creating a free business profile, you need to separately create a few Google My Business account!

This beginner guide provides end-to-end instruction of the GBP technique. So, business owners read the full blog and scale up your local business.

What is Google business profile?

Google Business Profile is a powerful SEO tool that enables you to manage and optimize your business profile on Google. Well, it is one of many important business directory listings.

To put it simply, business profiles appear in Google Maps and in local results of Google searches. By logging in to your business profile you can manage the details of your business. Creating a business profile is the same as adding a place to Google Maps. You will need a business name, location, and category. Once Google confirm the authentication they will create a business profile at that location.

Google Business profile is probably one of the best local SEO strategies that an eligible local business can use to improve its SERP. Well, claiming Google Business Profile is the primary step you should optimize, check, and update with new information for potential customers.

In addition, many businesses do not realize Google can make changes to the GBP – including address changes, updating business hours, and uploading photos and reviews.

Therefore, a Google Business Profile is a community profile – anyone can contribute to your Google Business Profile. In fact, Google encourages user-generated content including photos, videos, and reviews.

To improve your business reputation and increase local reach it is crucial to check your Google Business Profile to ensure there are no incorrect changes made to your profile. Also, keep an eye on Google Business Profile Updates 2024.

How do set up a Google business profile?

You can establish a Google My Business profile from your Smartphone. This tool helps you to enhance business visibility and boost effectiveness. Type ‘Google My Business’ on the search bar add your business details and wait for authentication. It only takes a few minutes to approve the profile.

Here’s how to use GBP for local marketing:

Engage with consumers

You will get various ways to interact with your customers from your business profile. You can also respond to reviews, enable direct messages, and set up alerts. In fact, you can also upload public posts just like social media platforms.

Highlight your business

A business profile does not show all the information your potential customers would look for! Using the GMB dashboard you can provide links to your website, product, pricing, attributes, and other details based on your unique business need. You can also use it to make edits and updates.

Improve insight

It is a great way to gain key insight into your audience and local search performance. You can find out the customer queries and a breakdown of the actions taken on the listing.

To make the most of the Google Business profile it is crucial to incorporate relevant keywords into the profile. However, make sure to incorporate them naturally as a part of a smart SEO strategy!

Why Google’s guideline is crucial?

If you have a Google Business profile you are playing on Google Playground! Hence, you need to follow the guidelines – otherwise, your profile will be suspended! You should also keep in mind that your competitor’s business profile would also qualify for GBP.

It is ideal to check the guidelines thoroughly once every three to four months. This will help you to make sure there are no changes to the guidelines that could impact your business profile. A small mistake can result in your business suspension. Hence, it is better to be informed of the rules.

How to manage a Google Business profile?

Use Google Business Profile Manager

If you are managing a multi-location business or you are an agency that manages multiple client locations – it is ideal to log in to the GBP manager dashboard.

With GBP Manager, you can easily manage multiple profiles in one dashboard. In fact, you can also manage multiple locations from Google Maps on your Smartphone.

Manage GBP directly from the search

In case, your business is in only one location – it is easy to manage GBP from the place. Apart from using your computer all day long – you can also manage it from Google Maps on your smartphone.

Wondering how to manage your profile from Search?

If you are logged in with your Gmail address – type in your business name in the search bar and your business profile and GBP merchant panel will appear.

You can also type ‘my business’ on the Google search bar and the merchant panel will show up. For a quick update, you can also manage your GBP listing on the Google Map application. In that case, you have to manage your business profile click on your picture, and click your business profile.

You will get the GBP merchant panel that would look almost identical to the desktop version. Tap on the ‘more’ or ‘less’ arrow to expand the options available to you!

Remember that the options you get in the merchant panel are category-specific – you can also find other features available.

If you manage multiple GBP – you can find these profiles by simply clicking on the top areas and getting the details of how to manage those profiles. It will open a list of all the GBPs you manage.

How to Optimize your Google Business Profile?

Have a look at the few things you can practice to optimize your Google Business Profile.

To start with, first, go to ‘Edit Profile to edit the main company information. Here, you can add and change information like category, description, opening date, hour, and more. Here, you should strictly follow the Google guidelines.

Target information

It is very crucial to include relevant keywords in your business profile if you want to improve SERP. Also replies to customer reviews and regular posting help in boosting your Google Business Profile.

Maintain quality information

Since every business has its Google Business Profile, you need to make sure yours is the best! The completeness and accuracy of the information impact the raking. Hence, make sure to provide the required information from the dashboard.

Build trust

It sincerely appeals to the trust component of Google’s algorithm. Make sure to keep the information updated and update the accurate business changes. Also, make sure you are genuinely active by regularly posting photos to the business profile.

Remember creating a Google My Business account does not give access to your business profile. After creating a Google My Business account you need to locate the separate business profile on Mal and select “own this business” or “claim this business” Link the right profile and go on! After completing the process, your GMB account will be connected with the GBP profile under your management.

The bottom line

Since SEO is very crucial for your business you should not take it easy! For any small business local targeting is the game changer. Google makes local SEO even easier with a robust business profile. Hence, a Google Business profile is essential to maximize visibility in the local market.

With a clear understanding of Google My Business how it works and how to use it – you can use the free tool for best local marketing results.

This guide covers all SEO aspects including technical SEO, on-page SEO, and Keyword research. There are some best strategies that define the roadmap of successful SEO. Well, it works for e-commerce stores, Shopify sites, and local businesses as well.

Read on to learn more about the checklist for on-page SEO and best meta tag practices to ensure the site structure matches your optimization effort.

And the best part? In case you are struggling with higher Google ranking in 2024 – you will love the checklist!

Why use an on-page SEO checklist?

Doing SEO is like conducting a symphony. There are endless SEO activities taking place across every website. Be it on-page or technical – it contributes to the larger success of the website. Just like a special formula – the best consultant and agency use an SEO checklist, templates, and other project management documents to make sure everything is on track.

Over time, the medium of SEO checklist has evolved into a complex and dynamically generated interface within the CMS system. It also offers AI functionality and integration with several tools.

The versatility of the strategy suggests it can be reworked to suit the requirements. For the sake of versatility – there are three high-level SEO checklists to elevate your brand’s website.

Managing shared documents

If you are in the industry, you must be familiar with using spreadsheets to keep track of the SEO progress. With the advancement of technology, we have the ability to leverage shared SEO. Well, this can be easily transferrable – complex and simple as required!

Real-time SEO

This is the new-generation SEO checklist – the dynamic one! The dynamic SEO checklist updates content in real time.

It also means whenever a change is made to the website – you will get a series of next steps to execute – it helps your content rank!

AI-powered SEO checklist

With the help of artificial intelligence, you get a dynamically generated checklist that helps to execute the SEO workload.

In fact, this type of list can also help to carry out the list itself, using AI inputs. Once they are generated – one can add and tick them off your list – in the CMS directly.

This way you can also increase usability significantly.

Implementing the SEO checklist

If you are not already using the SEO checklist to manage the workload – you should follow the listed style:

Increase profitability

If you own an agency or an account manager – the checklist can be efficient since it can be reused and adapted for every client.

This can also save your time on research and development – to make it available to clients and staff.

In fact, the checklist for SEO tasks can also help with more efficient onboarding for new clients and help you expand the offering and improve client satisfaction.

By using advanced and automated tools, the managers can upload client checklists, templates, and video tutorials directly to the CMS dashboard.

It also means the materials for client success are easily accessible to everyone working on the site – for all time.

If you manage a team and create a framework for SEO account management – it can help you retain clients for the long term. The more efficient your SEO agency would be the the more opportunity you will be able to deliver with high-value outcomes and increased profitability.

Make knowledge more accessible

Make templates and checklists highly accessible to the juniors and even to the clients. you should also help your team to accomplish goals and this checklist can also serve as a knowledge base and help your team grow! On the other hand, this approach helps to drive visibility on the SERP.

Work on quality assurance

It is wrong to assume that amateur SEO specialist only uses on-page SEO checklists. For any seasoned SEO, a checklist serves as a means to maintain the quality of implementation while working with multiple teams and stakeholders.

Experienced SEO professionals maintain a checklist to ensure consistency of delivery while handling day-to-day tasks. In fact, according to SEO specialists, if you maintain a checklist and templates it becomes a lot smoother to transfer knowledge and experience.

Spruce up technical SEO efforts

Update page experience

Any new page experience signal combines core web vitals with the existing search signal. It includes:

• Mobile-friendliness
• Safe-browsing
• HTTPS security
• Intrusive guidelines

What defines Google’s Core web vitals? It is comprised of three factors; let’s have a look:

1. First input delay: FID measures when people can interact with the page. To ensure a good user experience it is important to maintain the FID less than 100 ms.
2. Largest contentful paint: LCP defines the loading experience of the largest contentful element on the screen. It happened within 2.5 seconds to offer a good user experience.
3. Cumulative layout shift: CLS measures the visual stability of elements on the screen. Businesses should work on maintaining CLS of less than 1 sec.

One needs to measure the ranking factors in the Google Search Console. It highlights which URLs have potential issues.

You can avail of various ranges of tools to improve site speed and Core Web Vitals. Check tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to find out all the details. In addition, you can also check how different pages of your site are performing at various locations, operating systems, and devices.

Have a look at the level of optimization you can make to improve website speed:

• Implement lazy-loading for non-critical image
• Optimize image format for browser
• Improve JavaScript performance
• Find out the crawl errors

You need to make sure your site is free from crawl errors. It happens when a search engine tries to reach your website and fails.

Using online website crawl tools you can locate these issues. Once you crawl the site you can find out the crawl errors. Well, you can also check it with Google Search Console. You need to implement all the redirects with 301 redirects.

Go through the 4xx and 5xx error pages to find out where you want to redirect them

For better results, you should also look for i8nsance to redirect the chain or loop where the URL is redirected multiple times

Fix broken links

It is one of the crucial checklists for one-page SEO. Poor link causes poor user experience for your potential customers and search engines. Well, it can be frustrating for people to click any link and that doesn’t take them to the correct URL.

Here you should take a look at a couple of factors:

• Links that are 301 and 302 redirect to another page
• Links that go for the 4XX error page
• Orphaned pages (pages without any external and internal link
• The internal linking structure that is too deep

In order to fix broken links, it is important to update the target URL or remove the link altogether.

Avoid duplicate content

Content is the King. It determines the ultimate result of your SEO efforts. Hence, make sure there is no duplicate or thin content on the site. It can be caused by many factors like:

• Page replication from faceted navigation
• Scraped and copied content
• Having multiple versions of your site live

You must allow Google to index one version of your site.

Migrate your site to HTTPS

Back in 2014, Google announced HTTPS protocol was a ranking factor. Now, after a decade, if your site is still HTTP – it’s time to make a switch. It helps to protect your visitor data and ensure the data is encrypted. It helps to avoid hacking and data leaks.

The bottom line

Even small changes in your website can cause site health fluctuation. In fact, new pages, site migration, and redesigns do not always transfer over crucial SEO aspects like schema markup, robots.txt, and sitemap – hence, it’s better to move them to places where Google would not recognize them.

SEO strategists who are using formats of Google Sheets and MS Excel can only benefit from generative native applications and enhancement in the AI workspace race. In 2024, it’s time to see data-driven, AI-crafted guidance from the checklists to become more common. It’s better to download checklists, templates, and toolkits to develop a smoother SEO process and ramp up productivity.

Google recently introduced a new shopping feature that is powered by the extensive Google Shopping Graph, a comprehensive dataset of global shopping information. In addition to this, Google has made several updates to its Chrome browser, making it more shopping-oriented.

Back in the late 1990s, web portals were all the rage, with AOL being a prime example. However, they gradually fell out of favor as Google introduced its simple search box, doing away with the clutter typical of web portals at that time.
While Google doesn’t explicitly label it as a shopping portal, their new search feature aligns with the concept. It aggregates shopping information from across the internet, making it easily navigable for users.

Google has also revamped Chrome for both mobile and desktop, transforming them into more shopping-centric web browsers. Among the noteworthy features are the ability to bookmark products to a shopping list folder, and the introduction of “price insights” on the desktop version of Chrome.

Google cites that eight out of ten shoppers are concerned about finding the best deals on holiday gifts. The objective of these new features is to offer users a broader range of deals on the products they seek.

Here are some of the new features that Google is rolling out:

• Search Enhancements Powered by the Google Shopping Graph
• A New Deals Page on Google Search
• New Features on Chrome for Discovering Discounts Across the Web
• A New Price Insights Tab in the Desktop Version of Chrome
• Additional Tools for Tracking Prices Across Different Merchants for the Same Products

New Google Search Deals Destination

To access this new shopping feature, users can search for “Shop Deals,” which leads them to a fresh search destination tailored for shopping deals. This destination resembles a portal and enables users to find the best prices on products across ten categories. These deals encompass markdowns, sales, and promotions in categories such as electronics, apparel, home and garden, toys, sports, health and beauty, travel, baby products, and pet supplies.

The Shop Deals page is structured as follows:

• A navigational menu offering access to ten shopping categories.
• A carousel of deals provided by specific stores.
• A listing of specific deals organized by more specific shopping subcategories.

Users can click on “More categories” to discover additional shopping options. The carousel of deals is personalized based on the user’s preferences, and it highlights popular stores with deals on the user’s preferred products.

New Shopping Features on Chrome Mobile & Desktop

Opening a new tab on Chrome will display deals on products users have recently shopped for, thanks to the “resume browsing” card. Additionally, a new “Discount tag icon” in the Chrome address bar informs users of available coupon codes on the shopping sites they visit. Merchants can manage where these coupon codes appear through their Merchant Center settings.

Shopping Insights Feature

Google is introducing the Chrome Shopping Insights feature to the desktop version. When available on a shopping site, a “Shopping insights” label appears in the Chrome address bar. Clicking on it opens a side panel with a new section displaying typical prices, a price history graph over the last 90 days, and an option to track price drops from various ecommerce stores offering the same product.
Google’s Price Insights support page explains this feature in detail, outlining how it assesses a product’s typical price and price changes based on data from sellers across the web, not just from Google Shopping.

Shopping Bell for Discount Notifications

In mobile Chrome, a shopping bell icon now appears next to product names. This icon sends price alerts to users if the price of a product drops on any retailer’s site, not just the retailer currently being browsed.

Key Takeaway

Google’s core mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. In a world where eight out of ten consumers are concerned about the prices of holiday gifts, these new shopping features align perfectly with that mission. While some merchants may have reservations about Google directing their shoppers to other retailers, it underscores the importance of building strong relationships and trust with consumers so that they prefer to shop with a trusted merchant.

In a recent discussion on Reddit, Google Search Advocate John Mueller shared valuable guidance on optimizing website performance and the challenges of improving Google’s PageSpeed Insights (PSI) scores.

The Reddit thread in question involved a user who sought advice after making substantial reductions in image and video file sizes, but without the expected improvement in PSI scores. Despite compressing images by 90% and videos by 80%, the user found their website’s speed score remained unchanged.

For context, PageSpeed Insights is a free tool provided by Google to assess the loading speeds of web pages. It examines various elements such as images, scripts, and code to generate a score on a scale from 0 to 100 and offers suggestions for performance enhancements.
Given the significance of page speed in the realms of search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience, achieving a high PSI score is a priority for many website owners and developers.

John Mueller’s PSI Optimization Tips

Mueller recommends several strategies to boost PSI scores effectively:

1. Conduct Individual Element Tests: To improve your PSI scores, Mueller suggests running tests to understand the impact of individual elements on your website’s performance. You can create a test page with one component, such as an image or video, and exclude it from search results using the noindex tag.
2. Isolate Specific Changes: By isolating specific changes on the test page, you can measure their individual effects before implementing them across your entire website. This controlled experiment can reveal the performance gains achieved through compressed files.
3. Identify Limiting Factors: If your test page doesn’t yield the same score as your live pages, it indicates that other factors are limiting performance. In such cases, Mueller recommends selectively removing elements that have already been optimized from a copy of the actual page to focus on enhancements for the remaining issues.
4. Consider Acceptable Scores: It’s important to note that your website’s current scores may already be within acceptable parameters. If your page speed falls within a “reasonable” range, extensive additional work may not be necessary. While Mueller doesn’t specify what these parameters are, it’s essential to assess whether further optimization is truly required.

Takeaways

Enhancing website performance often involves incremental testing and a patient approach. When aiming to improve your PageSpeed Insights scores, consider isolating webpage elements to evaluate their impact before implementing changes across your site. By tailoring your strategies to your website’s unique requirements, you can achieve and maintain favorable performance scores.

Remember, optimizing website performance is an ongoing process, and with the right tactics, you can ensure that your scores remain in the green zone, ultimately benefiting your SEO and user experience.