3 Tips For Ranking Higher On Google Maps In 2022

/in , /by

Whether you’re a local small business, a bigger brick and mortar, or anywhere in between, there is no arguing that your Google Maps ranking is one of the most important factors in your online presence. Did you know that 80% of local searches result in a conversion? If you aren’t taking advantage of the opportunity to rank in local searches coming up in 2022, you’re missing the chance to increase lead generation, attract more in-store traffic, and of course reach higher conversions and revenue.

But the hard hitting question: how do you maximize local search? Simple answer: marketing on Google Maps. Keep reading to learn what digital marketing strategy we recommend heading into 2022 and how to rank better on Google Maps to generate higher leads and generate more revenue.

Why your Google Maps listing matters

Google Maps is the most popular map app in the U.S. with over 150 million active users. Millions of people are on the app daily and searching for services to locate businesses meeting their needs. As you think to further market your business locally, you can make big strides in maximizing the benefits of Google Maps by ranking high in relevant searches.

In addition to how relevant this is to the daily smartphone user, consumers often arrive at business listings via direct brand searches, keyword searches, and local discovery searches. With so many ways to get discovered by consumers, optimization has several benefits, which includes:

  •  Providing customers with more ways to engage with your brand
  • Appearing in the local vicinity with high ratings
  • Boosting visibility of your business

Steps to higher ranking

  1. Optimize your listing
    This is the simplest yet most important aspect to increasing your visibility on Google Maps. This particular listing is what your audience sees when they search through Google Maps. If you want to help your listing appear higher in Google Maps search results, you must optimize your listing. This includes adding your business name, phone number, accurate opening hours, and all of the basics. Whether someone sees your information on your Google My Business listing, Facebook, or your website, this information should be the same across all platforms.
  2. Place products at the top of your listing
    Information just released by Google and Search Engine Land explains how you can now add product placement at the top of your Google Maps listing and your Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business. Read more from Search Engine Land on this topic here.
  3. Reviews are key to success
    It can’t be stressed enough how important reviews are to your Google Maps listing. Reviews are crucial to increasing your brand trust and developing transparency around your business. If the Google review is negative, you should always leave a response doing your best to resolve any issue.

Final thoughts

As trusted Google experts, our team is here to help with holistic digital marketing strategies including optimizing your Google Business Profile listing and ensuring you have the highest rank possible. Whether it is SEO tips, social media digital marketing, or paid media strategies, our goal is to make your business more successful. To get in contact with an audit and to see how you can improve your digital presence, get in touch with us here.

3 Steps for a Successful Holiday SEO

/in , , /by

A holiday season simply wouldn’t be complete without frantic shopping, especially online shopping. Regardless of if people are shopping on Black Friday, Cyber Monday or completely throughout the holiday shopping season, millions of customers rush to get their hands on gifts for friends and loved ones. That means retailers must be well prepared for your holiday SEO strategy.

One way to really stand out for e-commerce business owners and marketers is a top notch holiday SEO strategy. If your brand is looking to optimize for holiday-specific website traffic, here are the three main steps to take to make sure you’re ready.

A good indication of where to start for keyword research is with trends from 2020. You can find this in the Search Terms report in Google Search Console. First ask yourself:

  • Which pages generated the most traffic last year and likely to gain lots of traffic this year as well?
  • Which search queries were the most used to discover your products and deals?

After you’ve gathered this information, analyze data from other channels that your company is active on. In particular, definitely research the top referral sources — affiliates, social media websites, email campaigns. Determine which channels drove you the most conversions and prioritize them for this year’s strategy.

Google Search Console is much more suited for providing you with technical website data versus Google Analytics. Long explanation short, this tool reports how search crawlers ‘view’ your website and interact with it to explore and attempt to determine its value for users.

Identify keywords relevant for holidays

In order to have a successful SEO strategy, keyword research is an absolute must. Irrelevant keyword targeting or those with no purchase/product research intention translates to budget waste. Going after overly-competitive keywords that every other online store is after means low chances for success. To create your holiday keyword plan, we again recommend to search into historic data from last year. Did you see any interesting keywords that shoppers used to find you? A great place to look is the Google Search Console for these specific queries.

When it comes to holiday keyword research, make sure you are careful about which keywords you want to battle and win. During the holiday season, you’d need to rank fast. So don’t go after overly-competitive broach keywords such as “buy cosmetics online.” Why’s that you ask? The reason is because your company would be competing for shopper attention with carousel ad results, Amazon product listings and category pages from other national retailers.

Create landing pages for special launches

This will give you a significant leg up on SEO holiday queries. To increase your chances of showing up during the time of your holiday offers such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday-related search queries, it’s important to create pages that target relevant keywords. (That you’ve discovered during the previous step). In order to discover the best prices available for their query, users will often search for keyword combinations with “[brand name] or [product] deals, discounts, promos”.

You can research which options are trending in your product vertical using historical results from Google Trends. Depending on the industry your business is in, it may be beneficial to create a Black Friday or Cyber Monday page for each product you plan on offering at a discount.

Final thoughts

In addition to holiday SEO strategies and other digital marketing updates, we will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about how to make the most of your SEO during the holidays or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

 

Google Ads Will Combine Smart and Standard Display Campaigns

/in , /by

As your trusted Google news source, here’s the latest update: Google is set to combine smart and standard display campaigns into a single option, announced yesterday Wednesday September 15th. And to add another change into the mix, Google also announced they will be introducing optimized targeting to Display campaigns.

 

Smart and Standard Display campaigns 101

Smart campaigns were unveiled four years ago, and they were created to help users have a simpler way to reach your audience across millions of sites and apps. Smart Display campaigns are set apart from other forms of campaigns through using automation to find new and existing customers, tailor your creative and set optimal bids.

Following up Smart campaigns, the standard Display campaigns have beneficial features such as responsive display ads and automated bidding. The point of combining the two types of campaigns means that advertisers will have the opportunity to test even more types of ads.

The new Display campaign overview

Bonnie Pericolosi, the director of product management for Google Ads says, “In this new Display campaign experience, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to, with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences.” Now while setting up campaigns, advertisers will have the ability to choose what to automate or control manually, and they can change their automation choices at any time without having to create a new campaign.

Ginny Marvin, Google’s ads product liaison, discussed the update on Twitter, “No action is needed: Existing Smart & Standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time. Once this update is rolled out in your account, you’ll see the new Display campaign type option and workflow when you create a new campaign.” 

 Targeting update for Google Ads Display campaigns

In addition to this change, Google Ads will also introduce optimized targeting, which treats audience settings as signals to find audience segments that may improve campaign performance, to Display campaigns. Previously, this option was only available on Smart Display campaigns.

Why advertisers should care

There will be just one option to create Google Ads Display campaigns very soon. The new Display campaign type will have the same controls for bidding, ads and audiences that standard Display campaigns currently offer. And, as Marvin stated, existing Smart and standard Display campaigns aren’t affected by this change at this time.

More From Onimod Global

As certified Google experts, our team is here to assist your business with holistic digital marketing strategies including SEO and Google Ads, because our goal is to make you more sucessful. To get in contact for an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here.

 

 

3 Crucial SEO Tips for 2021

/in , , /by

Search engine optimization, SEO, by definition is: a strategy in digital marketing which aims to improve your ranking on search engines.

Sounds easy to conquer, but we all know it isn’t so simple. It’s extremely difficult to keep up with Google’s 500-600 algorithm updates annually. That means there is at least one update per day every year. Experts who dedicate their careers to unlocking the secret to search engine ranking optimization still are puzzled at the end of the day. Fear not, we are here to help guide you with the top 3 SEO tips for 2021 that will get you on the right track to ranking success.

1. Understand your website’s core vitals

Maybe you’ve never heard the phrase before, but the philosophy behind it is becoming more crucial to your SEO and ranking. In May of 2022, Google will roll out Page Experience, which is a brand new algorithm ranking pages based off of their “core web vital” scores. A brief overview of what to look out for here is: 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – Measures page speed. This is the time it takes for a page’s main content to load. The ideal LCP is 2.5 seconds or faster.

First Input Delay (FID) – Measures page responsiveness. This is the time it takes for a page to become interactive. The ideal FID is less than 100 ms. 

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – Measures visual stability. This is the amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content. The ideal CLS is less than .1.

2. Focus on featured snippets
If they aren’t already, featured snippets should be a priority to include in your SEO strategy for 2021. Also commonly referred to as the holy grail of search, featured snippets appear at the very top of search engine page results (SERP), or in position zero, in a rectangular box. You can’t technically “select” the content shown in a featured snippet, but you can optimize your content so it’s more likely to appear in a featured snippet. Here are a few recommendations.

Use questions: all content that you write needs to be composed with the user in mind. What would they search in Google in order to come across your content?

Long term keywords: the longer words in a search query, the higher chance it will return a featured snippet. Only 4.3% of single word keywords resulted in a featured snippet as compared to 17% of keywords made up of 5 words, and 55.5% of keywords made of 10 words.
Keep formats in mind: When it comes to featured snippets, there are four different formats: paragraph, list, table and video. While writing your content with the goal of achieving a featured snippet, keep these different formats in mind. Also remember, Google wants to display information easily and distinctly to searchers looking for a fast answer. So format for the speed reader.

3. Focus on user experience
 In 2021, user experience is more important than ever in terms of SEO. As mentioned in tip #1, the new focus on core web vitals is all about user experience. In addition to that, Google also takes into account bounce rate, dwell time, and click-through percentage. The goal is to have a user click on your result, spend time clicking on different pages, and spend at least 3 minutes on your site.

More From Onimod Global

As certified SEO experts, our team is here to assist your business with holistic digital marketing strategies including SEO, because our goal is to make you more sucessful. To get in contact for an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here.

Google Maps Marketing Strategy 101

/in , /by

Google Maps is one of the first things that people think of when you hear the phrase “local SEO.” When we think of any business that will have what I need, whether it’s furniture or food or office supplies, Google Maps is the go to. I know that the search results have plenty of information to pick the best option with Google reviews, star ratings, photos, and location information.

We’re here to give an overview of Google My Business and how you can move up in Google Maps rankings. These tools will give your Google My Business posts the ability to get additional reach locally. 

 

Google My Business Overview

First thing’s first, you need a Google My Business listing. Here is a simple checklist with everything you’ll need to include: 

  • You’re using your legal business name
  • You’ve chosen the primary category most relevant to your business and have added additional categories (if applicable)
  • Correct address is shown (if you’re not a service area business)
  • Address is hidden if you’re an service area business and service areas have been designated
  • Hours of operation have been added
  • Local phone number is being used
  • Website link is correct 
  • Appointment link has been added (if applicable)
  • Products have been added (if retail)
  • Services have been added (if you offer services)
  • Applicable attributes have been added
  • Business description has been added
  • Opening date has been added

This is going to be the first impression anyone has of your business, so it’s important to have all information accurate and up to date. Mike Blumenthal even coined the phrase “Google My Business is your new homepage” back in 2015.

 

Increasing Google Maps Rankings

Now that the basics are out of the way, you can begin a strategy for increasing your Google Maps rankings. Although marketing on Google Maps is free, you can boost your business’ visibility in search results with local search ads. 

With the use of these ads, you can push your business listing to the top of search queries for keywords relevant to your business. Google Maps ads use location targeting, so the most relevant audience in your near vicinity will show up for location-relevant searches. These ads appear in desktop and mobile searches. We recommend implementing these ads into your Google Ads strategy if you haven’t already done so. 

 

More From Onimod Global

As trusted Google experts, our team is here to help with holistic digital marketing strategies including all Google Ads, because our goal is to make your business more successful. To get in contact with an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here. 

Google To End Expanded Text Ads in 2022

/in , /by

You heard it here first, Google is officially set to sunset their expanding text ads, or ETAs, in July of 2022. According to an announcement from Sylvanus Bent, Product Manager, Google Ads, advertisers will no longer be able to create new ETAs or edit existing ETAs in Google Ads beginning in July 2022. “Your existing expanded text ads will continue to serve alongside responsive search ads, and you’ll still see reports on their performance going forward. Additionally, you’ll be able to pause and resume your expanded text ads or remove them if needed. You’ll also still be able to create and edit call ads and Dynamic Search Ads,” said Bent.

 

What to do in the meantime?

We know this news is coming pretty far in advance. What we recommend for now is to use ETA info for RSAs in the transition, which is also recommended by product managers at Google Ads. “To prepare for this change, we recommend that you have at least one responsive search ad in every ad group in your Search campaigns by June 30, 2022,” Bent suggested. Google’s announcement also has already included ways that advertisers can repurpose their ETA content for RSAs. Recommendations from Google’s team include the following:

  • Look through your ads and evaluate their success based on incremental impressions, clicks, and conversions your ad groups and campaigns receive
  • Repurpose high-performing content from your expanded text ads and focus on Ad strength
  • Pin headlines or descriptions to specific positions in your responsive search ads

This new Google update will mainly affect anyone in highly regulated fields.These are currently the industries that benefit from ETAs and will be the most impacted starting next year. 

 

Why this Extended Text Ads news is relevant 

This new update from Google is the latest move in order to make a big push in the automation through their ad products. In the announcement from Google, their team explains, “15% of search queries every day are new searches we’ve never seen before” and therefore “Automation is key to keeping pace with these trends.” While RSAs are in use by many advertisers, we also understand the control over ads that ETAs provide as well as other capabilities. The future phase-out of ETAs means advertisers are moving even further away from direct control over their accounts and having to work with the Google Ads machine learning and AI.

Before the full phase-out is complete, our experts recommend testing your ETA ad pieces in RSAs and figure out what works best so you’re not cut off completely from new ad creation when Google Ads stops allowing new ETAs. 

 

More from Onimod Global

As this is news almost a year in advance, the story is evolving and our experts at Onimod Global will keep you up to date on the latest information regarding expanding text ads and any other Google Ads updates to come. At Onimod Global, our experts have endless expertise when it comes to the latest news on Google updates. We’re here to discover what is the right and relevant information to make your ads successful. Got questions about ETAs, Google Ads, or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today. 

Google Now Shares What Factors Impact Specific Rankings

/in , /by

Google now shows why it ranked a specific search result. The new ‘About This Result’ feature shows searchers information about some of these most important factors used by Google Search to connect results to their queries. Read more

Google Launches New Integration with WooCommerce to Expand Ecommerce Offerings

/in /by

Google recently announced that they’re launching a new integration with WooCommerce that will allow their merchants to upload their product inventory across all of Google’s search and discovery surfaces. Last week, the extension went live for all 4.4 million of WooCommerce’s merchants.  

The Integration’s Features:

WooCommerce retailers can now sync their store with Google to list products for free, as well as run paid ads and track performance. When a store is synced with the Google Merchant Center, all information about the store and its products will be readily available to users when searching on a Google property. Information is also automatically updated when products are added or removed. 

Like regular search results, retailers can also pay for ads if they wish to be more visible in the listings. Retailers can also run free listing and paid campaigns simultaneously. 

The Benefits: 

The extension focuses on accomplishing three main objectives for retailers: 

  • Seamlessly connecting their store with Google Merchant Center 
  • Reaching online shoppers with free listings 
  • Boosting store traffic and sales with Smart Shopping Campaigns 

Final Thoughts 

As Google continues to work to get ahead of its search competitors, they have been making eCommerce a key focus. Given the integration’s reach and ubiquity, it’s likely to become a key destination for online shopping. This is why it’s essential for retailers to stay on top of these updates, ensuring they can maximize their exposure for those searching for their products. 

More from Onimod Global 

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

How to Improve Your Local Search Rankings on Google

/in , /by

Do you feel like your business’s visibility on Google is lacking? If your business isn’t showing up for relevant searches in your area, it’s time to reevaluate your local SEO strategy, specifically your efforts on Google My Business. This is one of the simplest tools you can use to improve your local Google ranking and quickly. 

If you don’t already have a robust Google My Business strategy, here are some things you can do to up your game. 

1. Enter Complete Data

Businesses with complete and accurate information are easy to match up with the right search queries. This is why it’s crucial to consistently keep your information up to date, especially if you’re making changes to your business. You want users to be able to easily tell what you do, where you are and when they can visit. Be sure to always have your address, contact information, business category and attributes filled out on your profile and up to date. 

2. Verify Your Location 

Verifying your location will make it more likely you show up in Maps and Search on Google. The simplest way to verify your location is through a postcard. To do this, all you have to do is request Google to send you a postcard to your business address. Before you request, be sure you have the following steps completed: 

  1. You have a standard Google Account for your business. 
  2. You have a Business Profile. 
  3. You have a Google My Business account.
  4. You’ve claimed your Business Profile. 
  5. You’ve verified ownership of your business. 

They usually arrive within 2 weeks. Once you’ve received the postcard, you’ll notice a verification code. You’ll enter this into your Google My Business profile and your location will be verified. 

3. Keep Your Hours Accurate 

Accurate hours let customers know when you’re available and give them confidence you’ll be open if they take the time to travel to you. Accurate hours are also another factor Google uses in determining if your business is legitimate, ranking your relevancy for each query accordingly. Be sure to update your hours regularly, including when you open and close and if you have special hours for holidays or events. 

4. Manage and Respond to Reviews 

One of the most critical factors to online rankings are customer reviews. A large number of genuine reviews lets customers know you’re a real and reputable company. To grow your number of reviews, frequently ask for customer feedback through email, on social and in person. Be sure to link your Google My Business Profile so they know where to leave the review. Responding to reviews can be just as important as getting them. This shows you listen to your customers and value their feedback. Google also highly favors business with a large number of positive reviews when it comes to relevant searches. 

5. Add Photos

To showcase your goods and services, and to tell the story of your business, add photos to your Business Profile. Accurate and appealing pictures may also show shoppers that your business offers what they’re searching for. These images may also appear in Google search results if a user is searching for your products or about your industry. Thus, growing your brand awareness and increasing your overall reach. 

Final Thoughts

At Onimod Global, we’re a trusted Google Partner. Meaning we specialize in all Google Ad areas including: 

  • Search Advertising 
  • Mobile Advertising 
  • Video Advertising 
  • Display Advertising 
  • Shopping Advertising 

If you need assistance in any area of Google Ads, SEO or SEM in general, contact us today. 

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.