Tips from the Expert: Getting your GBP Optimized with Maria Elena Duron

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How is your business appearing on Search Results? Is your business appearing on the 1st 100?

So a lot of people believe that Google Search is the world wide web and it is not. It’s the biggest library on the world wide web. And people will believe that the Google bot will just find them when they put something online and just give it a good 90 days and more than likely it will find you. But I do know that for small businesses, Cashflow is king and in 90 days, you could run out before you are able to even get in front of the right customer.

There are also a lot of people that think that Google is just not seeing them no matter what they do however missing the point that they may not be aware of how to get to the top of the search. 

So in this episode, I have invited another Google Expert, Maria Elena Duron to let us know how we can fully optimize our Google Business Profiles so we can make the most of it and be able to rise to the top of the search. Below are Elena’s Tips:

  1. Take a look at your site and how fast it responds.

Is your website mobile responsive? How fast does it load? 

Did you know that your site needs to load in four seconds or less, or you’re going to lose 53% of your traffic, which is huge when you’re working your butt off trying to get people from Facebook or anywhere else?

Look at your core web vitals. Look at the page speed insights and it will say all these things that are wrong with your website such as your JavaScript files being too big. 

Curious to know what signals you need to see to grow your brand? Here is an Office Hours Episode that talks about the 7 Google Signals to Increase your Website Ranking that will be helpful to check out.

Not sure how to get your feet wet with all that’s required? A Power Hour with Dennis Yu might be all that you need.

2. Do you really know who your target audience is?

3. Is your website nicely laid out so that people can recognize it?

4.  Did you take advantage of the Google Business Profile?

Many know it as Google my Business or GMB and you might be thinking that you need to have a storefront or a retail front to be able to use that but you can still be home-based and use it. How?

What you can do is enter your physical address to be able to get a postcard that looks like a W2 with perforations on the side and you are going to look for the confirmation code there. Once you confirm your address, what you’ll do then is unpublished the address and it will only show that you serve the area. 

In fact, as you’re setting up your business profile, it gives you the opportunity to say:

  •  Yes, I want people to come to my location
  •  No, I don’t. I serve my customers and clients and I deliver to their addresses.

And the second option is what you’ll choose. Even though your location may be all of CA county and Los Angeles Orange County, or it could be maybe you’re just in the Westlake Village area, wherever you are, you can designate that, but you have to make sure to get confirmed and verified first. So when people are looking for realtors in Westlake village or Semi Valley, or somewhere in the area that you’re at now, you will be seen. 

So send your home address and then unpublished. 

If you are a home-based business, that’s exactly what you need to do. 

The verification process does take at least five business days but sometimes really two weeks. The Google team will say that our standard answer is five business days, but it usually takes about two weeks for that profile postcard to get to you. 

If you are part of a chain such as a Mortage Broker, yes, you can still take advantage of the Google Business Profile. Maybe there are a dozen of you, but you still should have a Google Business Profile each because you’re still you, and just like Personal branding, you’re still you, and you may leave that brokerage or that real estate firm and go somewhere else but you still want people to do business with you. 

Most of the time, the actual owner of the firm will own the location, but you, as somebody who’s working with a firm, can still have a business profile on Google search and maps, and even show that you’re at that address, the same as the firm. 

What are some of the common mistakes that people make around things like GMB?

  • They think they’re competing with their own website, so they don’t want to do a business profile. They don’t want to do any of these things because they’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, I want everybody to look at my website and my website alone. I don’t want to compete with myself”, but really that’s a different frame of mind. 

Think about it as having the opportunity to have two or three racehorses in the same game. Giving yourself a better opportunity to win the race and win the business, and really become visible to your customers where they’re looking at.

I’m a big fan of the saying, “Fish where the fish are and wherever their eyeballs are, that’s where you need to be”. So it could be that yes, they see your site, but maybe they don’t and they see something else. 

The key is making sure that everything is back on your site. So on your business profile, make sure you have your website link there.

  • Don’t make the mistake of sending it to your homepage. That’s what a lot of people do. And that’s a big mistake they make. Not just in their business profile but also in their Google ads as they want to take their customer to their website homepage and show them everything. They get excited.

But it’s really more important to build your credibility and take them where you told them you’re going to take them. Once you are done with that, you earn the right to take them wherever you want to take them but first take them where you told them you’re going to take them. 

  • People setting up Google Business Profiles but not posting anything.

A lot of people don’t show up because they don’t have any content there. They didn’t tell people about themselves. They think that just setting up an account is enough but it is NOT.

When you are doing posts in your business profile, make sure all of that links back to your site. If you use the free website, which Google highly encourages people to do, make sure that you use it well. Treat it like a landing page that’s filled with Google juice and point to a page on your site.

What kind of results should we expect by using the free one-page that comes with your GBP? 

Look at insights and get an idea:

Are people clicking through?

What are they doing afterward?

How?

Link your Google Analytics with your Business Profile so you can see what happens when they come to that page of your site and watch the next action. See exactly what they do next to see if there are any places where they’re being stopped.

It also gives you a chance to look at the demographics, a little bit of the geographics of who they are, and now you can really start measuring. So give yourself a baseline first to see what it’s doing now. And then start looking to see if there are some improvements as you go. 

Do I need a programmer or someone else to link my GMB to Google Analytics or Google Search Console or is it something that an ordinary person can do?

Anyone can do it. There are a lot of resources available to you. You can go to grow.google.com or search on YouTube, there are things like Google academy, where you can actually go through workshops and prerecorded videos but what we find is that most businesses are way too busy and way overwhelmed.

  • Some posts don’t work for the Google My Business platform. 

The thing that you need to remember is who your audience is in your Business Profile. So you might be saying something funny, let’s say you’re posting something on Instagram and it’s saying, “Hey, what’s the one business tool you need every single day.” So you might have a little hand pointing down to make a comment because it’s keeping your post on Instagram really interactive but that’s not going to work in your Business Profile, because people don’t interact with that and people are searching for something specific, so you need to be the bearer of the solution. 

So they may not know that you have a product or service that can serve them, but they know they need a solution so they’re looking for that, or they’re looking for you specifically and they’re not interested in engaging. 

5. Youtube Channel

If you’re already posting things that are visual, you can always repurpose that for YouTube. And yes, YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. And it’s really good because they’re all owned by Google so you can link those two together as well.

If you’re doing anything on TikTok or Instagram, go ahead and put that into YouTube shorts. That makes those searchable. 

Use the hashtag shorts, put a good description that’s relevant and matches what people are looking for, and really describes what you do. And then come up with a posting schedule too. There’s so much within YouTube in and of itself to be able to do that. 

You can also do a Trailer. To give people an idea of what actually is happening on your YouTube channel and to even do a thank you featured video afterward, to let them know that you post something every Wednesday or what so your audience knows when to expect you and how you organize your YouTube channel.

Video is not going away. So if you can get on video, that would be great. And it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be posted. And then you can fine-tune from there. 

In Summary, you are trying to optimize because you are trying to confirm who you are which is putting more credibility on who you are too, which gives the algorithm the opportunity to put you up higher in Search Results. 

Above are all things that’ll help make your business unique. 

Remember: The big thing with the free website that Google Business Profile provides is that you need to focus on the fact that it’s not competing with your website because if you think that way, that would be like leaving money on the table. 

Why wouldn’t you want to get as much visibility as possible?

There is nothing bad with showing up on all 31 searches of organic searches on Google.

And if you tell me that you are not on the 1st page of Google, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but People don’t know you exist. 

So it’s nice to be able to show up in different places. And it really lends credibility and confirms that you are a business that they might want to take a closer look at when you show up on Google.

So start showing Google the credibility that you have by confirming all the information and remember that Google is the number one search engine for the reason of the fact the information is correct there and the only reason the information is correct there is because you–the business owner puts the information in and Google is able to verify that. 

So the more that there’s confirmation about your business and that the information is correct there, the higher the opportunity to be visible when somebody is searching for your product, service, or solution. 

So do not believe the myths out there, connect everything now and see how it grows your brand. 

What are some of the mistakes your brand is guilty of? 

Want to watch the full episode? Full Episode is now available in the Academy.

Ready to harness all the power we have in store for you in the Academy? Check out Office Hours! With just $297/Month, you Get Private Access to One of The Most Sought-After Digital Marketing Expert In The World+ full access to the Academy, and a weekly one-hour session with Dennis where you can ask anything!

Dennis Yu

About the Author

Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads.  He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the "million jobs" guy-- on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations.You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos-- down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He's spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel.You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths-- likely in a city near you.