Traffic From Search

Key Terms:

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is explained succinctly here.

Search Engine Results Page or SERP, which you can learn more about in this informative but short article.

The heart of SEO for most small-to-medium-sized businesses is their Google Business Profile (GBP), previously referred to as ‘Google My Business Page’. 

When there's a local search, usually the SERP shows some local business listings, with a map. The entire right-hand side of most SERP’s show businesses GBPs, not their website. And, the searcher will usually call, visit, or click through to one of the three businesses listed here.

Now, the business that is most likely to attract the most attention, isn't the business that is listed at the top, but it is based on the quantity and quality of the reviews that the business has. Reviews are important for ranking, but they are essential for getting people to notice your business, and follow through with a call or visit. We will come to reviews at the end.

It is highly preferable to be in the top three, even if you're not ranked number one.

In order to get into a position where you are regularly shown in the top businesses, you need to focus on a small handful of things.

1. Categories. Lots of businesses only select one category when setting up their GBP. Realistically, you probably tick 3-5 categories at least, so these should be added.

2. Complete profile. Your GBP must be filled out with essential information about your business, and useful information for your prospective customers.

3. Post. One post a week on your GBP is optimal to make sure that Google is certain that your profile is up-to-date.

4. Citations. Make sure that all of your business information is on as many citation sites as possible. The information must be congruent. Social media accounts linked to your website and GBP also count as citations.

5. Schema Markup. This gets a little technical here, but this is code that lets Google know who you are and what your business is. You must use JSON-LD format. This schema must be on one page of the website - the page that the GBP is linked to, whether that is your home page or landing page. It should be inserted as code into the head section of the page. 

You can do this yourself using Gemini or GhatGPT, by asking it the following:

 "Generate a JSON-LD schema markup for my small business website. My business is [business type, e.g., 'a digital marketing agency'] located in [city, state, country]. We offer [list of services] and operate from [opening hours]. Our contact details are [phone, email, website URL].

Include structured data for LocalBusiness with:

• Opening hours
  
  
  

• Services offered
  
  
  

• Contact information
  
  
  

• Social media profiles ([list of URLs])
  
  
  

• Customer reviews ([example reviews with ratings and reviewer names])
  
  
  

Ensure the schema is properly formatted and optimized for SEO."

Then, add the code it feeds back to you to the head of the appropriate webpage. If you don't know how, ask the AI to wk you tough it!

Once you've done that, go here to test it by entering your URL. If there are any errors or warnings, report this to ChatGPT, and ask it to edit. Then, paste the edited code in place of the first set and test it again. Repeat this until you get no warnings or errors.

This is a great start, and once this is done, there are a couple of things you can do to further improve your SEO that are outside the scope of this Google Doc, but which can be found here.

Circling back to the beginning; reviews.

Having good reviews is an essential aspect of getting calls and visits. A good review is:

• Recent

• Replied to

• 4-5 Stars

• Has an explanation for the star score

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