How Your Google Business Profile Impacts Your Website's SEO (and a Trick Boosts Your Conversion Rate Instantly)

Are you fully utilizing your Google Business Profile?

If not, you're missing out on valuable opportunities to grow your local SEO and attract more residents.

Plus, your GBP is free, efficient, and easy to use. 🦸🏼

Some communities don't bother with their Business Profile and instead focus their marketing dollars on ads and paid search.

That is great, but local SEO is a great way to take the pressure off your other sources and diversify your spend.

Here are some of the ins and outs of why you should optimize your Google Business Profile and a bonus trick to boost your conversions instantly.

How Google Business Profile Impacts Your Local SEO

Let's take a look at how your GBP impacts local SEO and what it really does.

According to Zanet, your GBP is the most influential ranking factor in local search sitting at 25%!

When you claim and update your Google Business Profile, you'll have more control over your online presence.

You can give compelling information about your community, but it must be accurate.

Google is picky about what you can add to your profile and won't let you mislead users in any way. Ensure everything is spelled correctly and the information is relevant, or Google might penalize you or force changes.

Of course, there are areas of your profile you don't have much control over, like Near Me Searches and Maps.

"Simply updating your profile with relevant information can boost your community's online presence and attract more residents (yes, even without a strategy)."

Tip💡: Even if you feel like it hasn't worked before, take the time to fully fill out your Google Business Profile to take advantage of local search. The results could lead to an uptick in conversions with low effort, just by filling it out completely and correctly!

Truth 💣: You're practically giving your competition more traffic by neglecting your Business Profile. They automatically have a leg up if they're maximizing their profile and you're not. Rankings are highly based on what your competition is doing. If there’s no one to beat, you’re #1 😉

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Why Residents Look at Your Google Business Profile

There are a few ways both prospective and current residents use your Google Business Profile. Here's a breakdown of what to expect:

This is broken down into 3 categories: Direct, Discovery, Branding.

1) Direct - these searches are likely by residents looking for the property phone number, or prospects ready to take the next step in the leasing process. An example of a direct search is “oak park apartments”

2) Discovery - these searches are usually by prospects looking for apartments to rent. You want to shoot for more than 50% of your searches to come from Discovery. This means you’re doing something right.

3) Branded - these are from people searching for a brand related to your business. Don’t expect to get many of these.

Now let's get more specific about how your profile engages residents.

You already know what Google searches do–they rank your website based on various factors, including keywords.

But Google Maps shows where your community is located, businesses, route planning, and features aerial photography and satellite imagery.

Prospective residents may heavily focus on Google Maps to see how far their community is to public transportation, their workplace, or look at images of the community.

Near Me Searches also make an impact. A prospective resident might use the search from their workplace to look for communities within a reasonable commute.

An example of a “near me” search is simply searching “apartments near me” or “apartments with tennis courts near me”.

In a study Google ran, they found that between 2015-17 “near me” searches exploded. These have been increasingly popular for some time now.

Current residents use this feature, too, to figure out where the nearest dry cleaner or Vietnamese restaurant is from their apartment.

You can't always do much about Google Maps or your Near Me Searches, but you can help shape local Intent Searches by keeping your profile updated.

Tip💡: Google assumes that local search queries, including "restaurants in Chicago," are local queries and will show relevant results. In other words, you'll probably rank higher than an article that references a restaurant in Chicago.

You also don't have to live locally. You can execute a search term from Charlotte about Chicago apartments, and Google will still assume you want local results.

Truth 💣: When it comes to finding prospective residents, local search reigns. Don't obsess over your overall Google ranking unless you're also going to fine-tune your local search results, including your Google Business Profile.

Instantly Boost Your Google Business Profile Conversions with a Single Trick

Conversion rates will vary, but statistically, more than 5% of Google My Business page traffic results in a conversion. That may not sound impressive at first glance, but you'll see around 59 actions per month just from your profile.

In the example above, you'll see that this business got 597 website visits, 313 visitors viewed directions to the business, and 45 called the business via GBP directly.

Want to get more out of your profile?

You can immediately increase your Google Business Profile conversions with a simple trick.

First, create a user account of your own. Next, ask questions within your community's Google profile page, like "What is the pet policy for [YOUR COMMUNITY NAME]?

Here’s what this might look like:

"Think about SEO as a way to answers your prospects questions as quickly and best as possible."

You can create an FAQ for your community that current or prospective residents engage with. They stay on your page longer, take more action, and raise conversions than before.

Your marketing team can also use these FAQs directly on your community website. It takes a few clocks to embed your Google Business Profile onto your website and give prospective residents more context.

Tip💡: If there's already content and questions on your FAQ page, the odds are prospective residents will also engage and add to those inquiries.

Truth 💣: Creating your own FAQs helps prospective residents decide whether or not to take the next steps with your community. You're missing out on valuable conversion opportunities if there's nothing there.

Optimize Your Business Profile Checklist

Ready to test the power of your Google Business Profile for your community?

Here's a checklist to get started:

1) Get your profile going by claiming or creating a new Google Business Profile listing here.

2) Prove your business is legitimate by following the directions to verify your listing. (trick tip: if your postcard doesn’t come ask support for video verification)

3) Add your business information, including your community name, address, updated hours, categories, phone number, and anything else.

4) Add professional-looking photos and videos of your units. Whenever possible, include a virtual tour of your community to give prospective residents a clear idea of what to expect.

5) Add FAQs to your listing to provide more information and potentially spark engagement.

6) Use new features as soon as they come out, to gain an edge over your competitors. Google loves this‼️

7) Use Google Posts regularly to give more information about your community and use relevant keywords when possible.

8) Enable Google Assistant and allow prospective residents to get in touch through direct messaging.

9) Link your Google My Business listing to your Google Ads to boost your listing to specific searchers.

10) Respond to both negative and positive reviews to gain valuable insights and improve your reputation as a responsive community.

Tip💡: Setting up your Google Business Profile isn't a set-it-and-forget-it experience. Schedule time to check in on your listing, messages, and reviews. It just takes a few minutes a day.

Truth 💣: You can't control things like the Google algorithm updates, but you do have control over your business profile. Empower your marketing efforts by making the most out of your profile.

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