Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising are like fishing nets, capturing potential clients as they browse the internet, pulling them towards your firm with enticing bait (keywords) and reeling them in with strategic targeting and optimisation.
SEO is like a trawl net, casting a wide radius to catch a large audience. PPC is like a gill net, used to target specific species, targeting specific audience segments for immediate results. With the right combination of SEO and PPC techniques, your firm can have a steady stream of potential clients hooked and ready to convert into loyal clients.
Want to know how SEO and PPC work together for the legal sector? Let’s dive in.
What is SEO for Law Firms?
Law firm SEO involves enhancing a law firm’s website and digital visibility to achieve a higher position in search engine results.
This consists of implementing technical, creative and analytical strategies to improve website content and site structure, acquiring reputable backlinks and targeting appropriate keywords related to your firm’s areas of expertise.
An optimised law website ranks higher on search engines like Google, allowing potential clients to find and contact your firm, ultimately leading to increased leads, conversions and revenue.
What is PPC for Law Firms?
PPC for law firms is a form of online advertising where you pay each time a potential client clicks on your ad. You’ll find PPC on search engine results pages (at the top), social media platforms and other websites.
With PPC, you target specific keywords and demographics but only pay for the clicks they receive. The ad’s quality and relevance, keyword popularity and your budget determine the cost of each click.
Why SEO and PPC is important for Law Firms
SEO is takes time to produce results with ongoing efforts needed to improve rankings. PPC provides immediate results but costs more money up front – once you stop paying, your website traffic dwindles.
SEO and PPC should be used together because when a law firm ranks highly organically and has paid ads at the top of the page, it is more likely to be seen by potential clients.
For example, a law firm specialising in divorce law can use SEO to optimise its website for keywords like “divorce solicitor” and “child custody lawyer.” It can also use PPC to target ads to reach people who have searched for these keywords on Google.
Speak to us about a SEO and PPC plans today – Let’s get more leads!
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How SEO strategies work for Law Firms
By consistently implementing these strategies, your law firm can increase its online presence and attract potential clients who are actively searching for your legal expertise:
Keyword Research: The first step in SEO is identifying relevant keywords and phrases that potential clients use to search for legal services. These keywords should be strategically incorporated into your website content, meta descriptions and image tags to improve your site’s relevance and visibility.
Content Creation: You can create blog posts, articles and other forms of content with specific keywords and structures whilst demonstrating your expertise in your practice area. You can also optimise for local search, so when a potential client types in “Child law Solicitor in Manchester,” for example, your family law website will pop up (for what area/s you operate in).
Local SEO: If you want to boost your online presence in location-based searches further, consider implementing local SEO techniques like enhancing your Google Business Profile, creating content specific to your area and gaining mentions on relevant local websites.
Mobile Optimization: Your law firm’s website should be optimised for mobile devices. This includes having a responsive design, fast loading times and mobile-friendly content. Why? Over 50% of web traffic comes from mobiles!
Link Building: When other websites link to yours, it shows that you are a trusted and authoritative source of information. This establishes credibility in your industry and boosts SERP rankings.
How PPC strategies work for Law Firms
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) strategies utilise targeted advertisements on search engines like Google and Bing, and social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.
These advertisements are based on relevant keywords and phrases specific to your law firm and its services. When someone searches for a related keyword or phrase, your firm’s ad appears at the top of the search results, labelled as “sponsored content” or “ad.”
You’re charged a certain amount each time someone clicks on the ad, hence the name “pay-per-click.” PPC strategies also allow you to target specific locations, demographics and behaviours, ensuring your ads reach their desired audience.
Such a targeted approach attracts potential clients actively searching for legal services who are more likely to be interested in your specific practice areas.
Another advantage of PPC is the ability to track and analyse ad performance. These metrics help you decide which keywords and demographics drive the most traffic and conversions, allowing them to refine your strategy for maximum impact.
Can you use PPC and SEO together?
Yes, PPC and SEO can be used together as part of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. These two separate tactics complete each other, ultimately driving more quality traffic and conversions to your website.
By targeting the same keywords through PPC and SEO, your business increases its chances of appearing in top positions on SERPs, augmenting clicks and conversions.
PPC and SEO data also inform each other’s strategies. For example, PPC data on keyword performance, ad headlines and other factors can help guide SEO efforts. In contrast, SEO data on keyword rankings and website traffic can inform PPC targeting and optimisation.
Does SEO or PPC have a greater ROI for Law Firms?
Generally, SEO has a higher ROI for law firms than PPC because it’s a long-term investment that generates organic traffic to your website for years to come. Once your website is out there, it is discoverable time and again.
On the other hand, PPC is expensive, especially if you’re targeting competitive keywords, and it only lasts as long as you can afford it. However, PPC is a good tactic to attract specific clients immediately.
Truthfully, it’s a bit of a trick question as you should use both unless budget is an issue, in which case you’ll want to weigh the pros and cons.
The pros and cons of SEO vs PPC for the legal sector
SEO Pros
Long-term investment: Once you start ranking for relevant keywords, you’ll continue getting traffic to your website for years, even if you stop investing in SEO.
Builds brand awareness and authority: When your website ranks well in search results, it shows potential clients that you’re a trusted expert.
SEO Cons
Takes time: Ranking for competitive keywords can take months or even years.
Complex and time-consuming: You’ll need to invest time and resources into creating high-quality content, optimising your website for search engines and building backlinks.
PPC Pros
Generates quick results: You can immediately start seeing results from your PPC campaigns.
Highly targeted: You can target your ads to specific audiences and keywords, which means you’re more likely to reach people interested in your services.
PPC Cons
PPC is expensive: The cost of PPC ads can vary depending on the competitiveness of the keywords you’re targeting – sometimes, it can cost hundreds per click.
Campaigns must be managed and optimised regularly: You need to monitor your spending and results and adjust your campaigns as needed.
How do you know whether your law firm should invest in SEO and/or PPC?
As a rule of thumb, you should invest in SEO first because its impact lasts longer, and then PPC. However, there are a few circumstantial considerations:
Your budget: SEO and PPC can be expensive, but SEO is typically a long-term investment. PPC can generate results more quickly, but you will need to continue to spend money on ads to maintain your visibility.
Goals: Do you want to increase brand awareness and generate more leads over time (SEO), or do you need immediate results (PPC)?
Competition: If several competitors already have an established online presence, it will take more time to gain traction with SEO alone. In this case, a PPC campaign momentarily levels the playing field.
Let Tao Digital take care of your SEO and PPC
Like expert fishermen skilfully select the perfect net to catch their target, our team is skilled at utilising SEO and PPC to attract potential clients to your firm. We have a case study, featured on the huge SEO platform Moz, about how we increased a Law Firm’s leads by 174%!
Don’t delay – reach out to us now and let us help you bring online success to your law firm.
Our Guide to PPC for Law Firms
PPC can be an extremely effective way for law firms to increase the number of leads they’re getting; but, how can law firms create a successful PPC campaign that delivers the desired results without breaking the bank?
What is PPC for law firms?
Pay-per-click, or PPC, is an online paid advertising model in which businesses pay a set amount of money each time a visitor clicks on their adverts. When undertaken correctly, PPC can help law firms achieve high quality leads.
PPC for law firms involves using platforms like Google and social media to drive targeted traffic to law firms’ websites or specific landing pages.
Should a law firm invest in SEO or PPC?
Both SEO and PPC are great marketing tactics for law firms, and it is a good idea to consider both. They both have a few things in common that can support each other for a successful marketing campaign, which is why many law firms will invest in each one.
Investing your time into SEO will inevitably help your PPC efforts. SEO is one of the best ways to get your law firm in front of the most relevant customers in your area. Since SEO helps to build credibility, users are more likely to click on your adverts since they know and recognise your brand.
Types of PPC strategies for law firms
There are several types of PPC strategies that law firms can utilise in order to achieve their goals.
Paid search marketing
Paid search marketing is one of the most common types of PPC advertising. Search engines such as Google and Bing will show your ads to users who search for specific keywords.
You can set up your campaigns by writing your ad copy, choosing relevant keywords with high search volumes and choosing, or creating, suitable landing pages on your site.
Display advertising
Display adverts are banners, images or text ads that appear on different websites and are selected to target a particular audience. These ads will link directly to your website and will take users to specific landing pages.
They generally have a lower click-through rate than search ads, but they can be useful for building brand awareness.
Social media advertising
Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, have high numbers of users who could be potential customers. PPC advertising on these platforms can help to achieve higher click-through rates to your website compared to other types of advertising.
Social media campaigns can help to increase awareness of your products or services, as well as being used to target specific demographics and their interests.
Retargeting advertising
Retargeting uses cookies on a user’s browser to show them specific ads based on their previous online search habits. For example, if a user searches for family lawyers, they could see display ads for family lawyers in their local area.
Retargeting can be included in:
Display advertising campaigns
Search advertising campaigns
Social media campaigns
Email marketing campaigns
How much should law firms spend on PPC?
Always a difficult one to answer. The industry is so varied, you may represent a very small niche legal offering such as ‘CCJ Removal services’ or ‘commercial auction conveyancing’. The PPC budgets will look a lot more appetising for these services than if you’re offering ‘residential conveyancing services’.
The key thing when planning budgets for PPC is not to pull it out of the air.
A lot of companies talk to us about managing their PPC campaigns and just suggest a budget of £1,000 per month, but this is just guesswork; or, even worse, all they can afford.
Let’s take the keyword “commercial property solicitor” as an example. Google ads keyword tool suggests that in the month of October 2023, there will be 7,000 searches, to get the best cost per lead you really need to have 100% coverage when people enter it into the search box.
To do this and be absolute top (number one in the search) all the time, Google says you need a budget of £6,100 per month. Now, this is the maximum you might spend, but it’s so important to think about the leads you might miss out on if you aren’t showing every time someone searches.
You could have run out of budget by 10AM, but the good leads might be the people searching at 2PM.
The best way to evaluate this is to start with a bigger budget and then reduce it based on the data you gain.
If you get better leads at 3PM, each day you can always increase the bid at that time of day and reduce it at other times.
There are a lot of factors that come into play when you are working out the ROI on a PPC campaign, not least the conversion rate of your landing page. If you convert 20% of those visitors into leads, you’ll be inundated with work, but if it’s a really bad landing page, you might get 1.5% and you’ll not have much work, but you’ll be draining your marketing budget very quickly too.
Speak to us about a PPC campaign today – Let’s get more leads!
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The benefits of PPC for law firms
Target audience reached
PPC campaigns allow you to precisely target your desired audience based on things such as location, demographics and search intent.
Granular targeting ensures your ads are shown to potential clients who are most likely to engage with your services. This results in higher quality leads and increased conversion rates compared to other channels.
Measurable results and ROI
A major benefit of PPC is that it is measurable. Analytical and tracking tools that are built into platforms mean you can get detailed reports that outline the performance of your campaign.
This usually includes metrics such as conversion rates, CTR and CPI. From this data, you can then continuously optimise your campaigns for maximum ROI.
Immediate results
As soon as your PPC campaign is launched, your ads can appear at the top of the search engine result pages. This will help your law firm to attract the attention of potential clients and push you higher in the rankings than your competitors.
This instant visibility can be particularly beneficial in highly competitive niche legal sectors which are vital to gain the edge over competitors.
Flexibility and scalability
With PPC, law firms can easily adjust their ad spend amount, pause underperforming campaigns or scale up successful campaigns. This flexibility allows law firms to optimise their marketing efforts and distribute their budget more effectively.
How to set up a PPC campaign for a law firm
It’s important as a law firm that you set up an effective PPC campaign, otherwise you may be wasting your time and money. Listed below are the steps you should take to set up a successful PPC campaign.
Set goals
The very first step you should take is setting yourself goals for your PPC campaign. Think about what you want to achieve from it, who your target audience is, where you’re going to place your ads and so on.
Some of the key parameters you should decide on before creating your campaign include:
Target audience
Ad placement (search engines, websites or social media)
Desired outcomes (brand awareness, sales, lead generation or traffic)
KPIS (conversion rates, signups and revenue generated)
Types of campaigns (display ads, social media ads or product listings)
What location do you want to target
What devices do you want to target (mobile, laptops, tablets)
Research and select the right keywords
It is vital that you choose the right keywords that are relevant to your niche and industry, otherwise, even if you do get a lot of clicks through from the advert, they are not likely to purchase from you.
You can carry out keyword research by using tools such as Ahrefs to find out which keywords that are relevant to your niche have a high search volume. You should be choosing highly relevant, low-cost and long-tail keywords in order to get the best results.
Create a campaign that resonates with your audience
Once you have set your goals and done the research, you can now move onto creating your ad campaign. There are a few major elements that you need to optimise: these are the ad copy, a CTA and the graphics.
For the ad copy, you will need to write persuasive and informative copy that will provide the user with information on what you offer and will therefore ensure that they want to click on your ad. Look at the specific keywords that you have found and create copy that is tailored to those words or query. The targeted copy should align with people’s pain points and entice them to click your ad.
Make sure the CTA is short and in line with your goals. For example, if you want more leads, then you should tailor your CTA to prompt people to get in touch or sign-up.
Each platform has its own specifications of the character limit for the ad copy, so always check with the platform you want to use before you start writing your copy.
Optimise PPC landing pages
Before you publish your ad campaign, you may want to create a landing page where people will be sent if they click on your ad. The landing page should be relevant to your ad, targeted and provide a seamless experience for the user.
Landing pages are important because they directly influence how users convert into paying customers. For example, if your landing page is not neatly presented and looks disorganised, people will click out from your website as they will likely be confused and won’t know how to navigate the page.
To create a landing page that will increase conversions, you should have:
A big headline containing the same information as your PPC ad
A clean and simple page design
Clear, actionable CTAs
Cohesive copy to match your ad
Show what is being offered in the ad
A/B testing you landing page to see what graphics, page layout, copy and CTAs work best
Review and test your PPC campaign
Just like with any other marketing campaign, PPC campaigns are not a one and done process. You will need to regularly review your campaign to check whether it is doing well or not and solve any problems. This will help you to optimise your ad campaign and get the desired results from it.
Here’s what you should do to review and optimise your PPC campaign:
Link your Google ads to Google Analytics to track the amount of traffic generated, the sales, lead generations, signups and so on.
If you have website ads, ask the host for the analytics data.
Check the reports to see if the data matches your goals for the campaign. For example, are you getting the number of email signups you expected?
If you’re not getting your desired results, you need to change up your keywords, modify the copy and so on.
If some keywords are underperforming, you can just completely remove them.
You should keep reviewing and testing your PPC ads until it produces the results you’re looking for.
How can law firms track the success of a PPC campaign?
As we’ve mentioned, PPC is measurable. Regularly tracking and analysing your PPC campaigns performance is essential for identifying areas which could be improved, as well as successful areas.
Law firms can track the success of their campaigns by looking at key performance metrics, such as click-through rates. These metrics can give valuable insights into the effectiveness of their campaigns and therefore make data backed decisions to amend or alter areas to improve results.
Law firms can also benefit from the help of tools such as Google Analytics to get a deeper understanding of their target audiences behaviour and their campaign performance.
When will you see results from a law firm PPC campaign?
Although PPC campaigns can show somewhat immediate results, as in a few days, they usually require around 2-3 months to work. Those initial months can be viewed as a trial period for your ad campaign, providing you with helpful data that you can use to improve the campaign.
You can use this data to improve your keywords, bids, audience targeting and much more. Law firms can also benefit from A/B testing, which may take some time to get decent comparable results. From here, you can then see which campaign has worked better and move forward with it.
PPC mistakes that the legal industry make
PPC may seem quite straightforward, but there are some things in which law firms may do incorrectly. This can lead to wasted time and money which could be avoided.
Not setting up remarketing
Remarketing, also known as retargeting, lets you show your PPC ads to users who have previously shown some initial interest in your services by visiting your website.
Users will often leave websites without converting, so remarketing works as a simple way to remind them to take the next step on your site.
Running campaigns for too long
It’s much easier to generate meaningful traffic to your site if you have a lot of short term, smaller advertising campaigns. Make sure you refresh your campaign every once in a while to achieve the best results that also align with your goals.
Using too many keywords in an ad
It may sound like a good idea to put as many keywords in your ads as possible, but it can do more harm than good. Using too many keywords can actually lower or diminish the relevancy of your ad.
To avoid this, use a small number of keywords, making sure that they are all relevant to your law firm’s message.
Keeping under-performing keywords
You should constantly be checking and reviewing your keywords to determine which ones perform the best and which ones don’t. Make sure your keywords are directly linked to your firm’s practices and landing page messages.
Ignoring the appearance
People are going to be most attracted to the visual elements of your campaign, rather than just the copy. This is why it is so important to have graphics that are equally as appealing as your message.
You want your ads to stand out to potential customers, and choosing relevant images, colours, graphics and fonts to your firm is the best way to achieve this.
Driving users to the irrelevant landing pages
Always make sure your landing pages are correctly optimised for conversions. An appropriately optimised landing page is one that provides users with what they’re looking for when they click on your targeted ads. It should be useful, full of original content and have clear CTAs.
For example, if your law firm has different locations across the country, make sure users are sent to the correct landing page relevant to their location.
Law firm PPC with Tao Digital
Interested in kickstarting a PPC campaign for your law firm? Have a chat with our team of experts to understand what could work for you. We’ll always run through your goals, expectations and current standing in order to offer the best solution, whether or not this is PPC.
Business Over Beers
Clear your schedule for the next edition of Business Over Beers! Dates now booked for the rest of 2024.
Tailored for the business-savvy minds and key decision-makers of Greater Manchester, Business Over Beers offers an opportunity to uncover new horizons while bolstering local enterprises – all within a relaxed, sociable environment. Fancy a glimpse of our previous gatherings? Feel free to dive into the video of one of our past events below.
It’s time to say farewell to traditional 60-second ‘speed networking’. Our approach is all about fostering genuine connections with other business owners in the area, all in a pressure-free, relaxed setting.
We’ll be back at our original venue, the Northern Monkey Bar, Pack Horse on 17 Nelson Square, Bolton BL1 1AQ , offering a vibrant backdrop for our engaging meet-up for the Greater Manchester business community.
Tickets, £20 as much as you can drink for 2 hours and we also have the non-alcoholic tickets for £1o too.
We can’t wait to raise a glass and share business insights with you!
Tickets can be secured from this link. Be sure to snag your spot!
Founder + MD of Tao Digital Marketing and Vofio Media ltd is an avid runner.
Competing in numerous Ironman Triathlons along with multi-day ultramarathons, the platform is the perfect vehicle to merge both passion and business.
Join Run Social helps thousands of Americans to find a local running club along with providing a wealth of useful resources to help with training, finding running races and a whole host of other information.
Vofio plan to expand what the platform offers over time to include the UK and potentially the rest of the world.
But for now conquering the USA is the priority.
Over the coming months we will be building a list of potential content creators for the site. If you know anyone who might be interested in contributing to the site please make sure you send them our way.
Video and SEO: How do they work together?
In today’s digital landscape, producing the right content is king in the battle for online attention and visibility.
From Youtube to websites, video content is now an essential component of any successful digital marketing strategy. But did you know that video content can also have a significant impact on your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts?
In this article, we’ll explore the relationship between video content and SEO along with how they work together to improve your website’s visibility and search engine rankings.
We’ll discuss the importance of video in SEO, how video content improves user engagement, and the role of video in Google’s search engine algorithm.
We will take a closer look at YouTube, the second biggest search engine, and how it can drive commercial goals for your business, whether your goal is lead generation, brand awareness or sales if you have an e-commerce function.
It won’t matter if you’re just starting to incorporate video into your digital marketing strategy or if you’re looking for ways to optimise your existing video content, this article will provide you with valuable insights and actionable tips to help you succeed.
The Importance Of Video In SEO
Videos are becoming increasingly important in digital marketing, especially when it comes to search (SEO). Video SEO can lead to higher organic search results and is now a crucial part of any marketing strategy.
The key to improving video ranking involves optimising various factors, including the video’s title, thumbnail, description, chapters and links.
Creating engaging thumbnails is particularly important as it entices users to click on the video. User metrics are very obviously a key part of the Youtube algorithm.
Keywords should be included in both the title and description of the video as they help boost visibility on search engines. It’s also a good idea to include a full transcript with videos as Google/Youtube can’t crawl a video (yet) and understand what is in it.
By leveraging SEO, businesses can increase their website traffic with quality leads whilst optimising their search strategies concurrently.
As video consumption continues to rise, ensure that you stay ahead of the curve by creating high-quality content that resonates with your audience. Use the tactics outlined above alongside quality content creation, ultimately driving more online engagement & visibility for your brand.
How Video Content Improves User Engagement
Video content is a powerful tool for improving user engagement. Optimising videos for SEO can help them rank higher on search engines, thus increasing visibility to potential viewers.
To maximise the reach, paid promotions on platforms such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram can supplement organic search efforts.
Creating engaging video content can lead to better conversions. User engagement is crucial for the success of video content and can be improved through strategies like playlists and series that keep users watching additional videos.
Quality video and audio are essential to guarantee your audience hangs around – these factors could directly impact the amount of time audiences spend viewing a piece of content.
Additionally, average video engagement measures how much of a video people watch and is an important factor to understand how valuable it is to the Youtube audience.
Youtube, The Second Biggest Search Engine; How Does It help your Commercial Goals?
Youtube is the second biggest search engine on the planet! People use it to find all sorts of information and answers to their problems.
By optimising your videos for Youtube, you are indirectly optimising them for Google search results at the same time. They are one and the same and as such, you can get 2 bites of the cherry if done right.
Say you are selling Cyber Insurance; the same questions people are entering in the Google search box will be very similar to those being searched on Youtube. Not only will they be similar searches, but as per one of my predictions back in 2022, 2023 has seen the Google gods push more and more video results on the first page of Google.
It makes complete business sense to be creating well researched video content that also matches your customers search intent, much the same way as you do when creating written blog content.
With the right optimisation techniques, video can help businesses generate leads, increase sales and build brand awareness.
Bear in mind that search traffic comes from high quality research; without the research, you’re flying blind when creating content. Well, that is if you want search traffic and not just an entertainment channel.
Consistent production of quality content that provides value and engages viewers should be high on the list of priorities for all businesses. The visual appeal of your videos play a vital role in attracting prospects to your business.
Just a few stats from Zupo clearly show how valuable Video content is to your overall Organic Search Acquisition strategy.
Video has an 11,000:1 probability of making it to the 1st page of Google. Text based results have a 500,000:1 probability of making it to the 1st page.
Blog posts with video have a 53x higher chance of ranking on the 1st page of Google.
88% of videos ranking on Google rank in the top 10 for YouTube for the same search.
Video search results have a 41% higher click through rate (CTR) than text based results.
Video results are 50x more likely to be organically ranked in Google than text based results.
The Role Of Video In Google’s Search Algorithm
In today’s digital world, video content has become an everyday occurrence on Google’s First page of search results.
Google are continually looking to improve the experience of their users. From adding generative AI answers through to adding different media to page one to help a user find exactly what they want, quickly.
Therefore, Google’s algorithm is starting to favour multimedia and video content more than it has previously, making it important for businesses to integrate high-quality videos into their marketing plan.
Not only does this improve the user experience, but can also generate more traffic to your website. More traffic should mean more leads – if it doesn’t, then speak to us about Conversion Rate Optimisation as something is wrong!
To make video content more “findable” by search engines, including a transcript is recommended. Video transcripts enable Google’s crawlers to understand the context of the video and its relevance to search terms.
This makes it easier for users searching for relevant information to find your content.
12 pieces of content are consumed by a prospect before they pick up the phone or complete a form on average. Make video one or a few of those touch points and your brand recognition increases.
In conclusion, businesses who are not incorporating high-quality videos into their online marketing strategy will be left behind.
It not only enhances user experience and engagement, but also potentially helps improve SEO rankings indirectly by increasing visitor’s engagement or dwell time on the site.
7 Reasons Why you Need an SEO Audit for your Site
Regularly reviewing your search engine optimisation (SEO) plans will help you to ensure that your website is optimised for search engines. Running an SEO audit is an essential part of keeping your SEO strategy up to date, which will eventually increase the traffic to your website.
What is an SEO audit for a website?
An SEO Audit is the process of outlining and analysing potential problems or faults that will have an impact on your site’s organic performance. These errors can potentially prevent your site from ranking highly on search engines like Google and Bing.
What kinds of websites need an SEO audit?
All websites can benefit from an SEO audit due to the fact that it provides vital insights into your website, identifying areas which need improvement so you can rank better in organic search results.
Search engines and algorithms can change on a regular basis, so it’s always good practice to review your website regularly and determine how those changes have impacted your site.
7 reasons why your site needs an SEO audit
Monitoring your competition
Having an understanding of your competition is always important for your business, especially if they are ranking above you on search engines.
SEO audits are a great way to obtain insights into your competitors’ websites, including their strengths and weaknesses. You can get insights on their rankings, determining what keywords they’re using and which specific ones they’re ranking for.
From here, you can see if it’s possible to implement the same keywords into your own SEO strategy.
You can also focus on the keywords that aren’t ranking well for your competitor and boost your rankings for these instead.
Keywords
Continuing with keywords, they are one of the best ways to see if your SEO strategy is working. Regular SEO audits will provide you with insights about your websites overall performance, and you can particularly focus on what keywords you rank for and how you rank for them.
Using SEO analysis, you can regularly update your website based on the performance of your keyword rankings and assess the progress of those updates.
Mobile optimisation and website loading time
Google uses mobile-first indexing on all of its websites, meaning that the mobile version of your site is reviewed first before your desktop site. Google then ranks your site based on how well your site performs on mobile devices. When it comes to your site’s loading time, Google also ranks based on a fast loading time.
An SEO Audit allows you to uncover these issues, allowing you to change elements of your site to ensure you have a faster loading time and a more mobile friendly site.
Broken pages
Conducting an SEO Audit allows you to diagnose the status of your website. You will be able to see if you have any broken links, redirects or any pages that cannot be found. It will also showcase any issues that are reducing your site’s traffic.
These problems can quickly be identified and resolved with an SEO audit.
Website traffic insights
With a full, in-depth SEO audit using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you can find out about your search volume, clicks and impressions that your site is generating on search pages.
An increase in clicks and impressions is always a good sign that your SEO strategy is working. Just be sure to regularly monitor this data so you can be aware of any changes in traffic.
Identify on-page issues
On-page SEO refers to any optimisation of a website content and structure to improve its rankings on search engine results pages. On-page SEO aims to make it as easy as possible for crawling bots to understand what a website is about and index the content accordingly.
Using an SEO audit for on-page issues allows you to check for errors in meta titles and descriptions, headers, content and internal linking. These are annoying problems that you may not notice without the help of an SEO audit.
Helps you build a content strategy
An SEO audit can help you better understand your website’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of your competitors. Using this information, you can develop a content strategy that is more effective and will help you achieve high rankings.
SEO audits can also help you identify opportunities to create unique content that will attract backlinks and improve your site’s overall authority.
Clearing the Path to Success:
A Case Study on Designing a Brand Identity and Website for JT Hearing Care
Joanne Tomkin, a Midwife at The Royal Bolton Hospital, approached us to design and build a website along with the task of creating branding for her ear wax removal company based in Bolton.
The main objective of the project was to create a brand identity that would establish trust and reliability among potential clients.
With this in mind, we worked closely with Joanne to create a website that would showcase her expertise and professionalism. Our team also developed a brand identity that would communicate the company’s values and mission. This case study will describe our approach to the project, the design and development process, and the results achieved.
Website platform
For the development of the website, we chose to use WordPress as the content management system (CMS). WordPress is an excellent choice for websites of all sizes and types, as it is easy to use and customise, and offers a vast selection of plugins and themes to extend its functionality.
We used Thrive Theme Builder for this website as we wanted to be as efficient as we could be and cost effective in the build phase.
In addition to WordPress, we also chose to host the website on Kinsta, a premium hosting platform for WordPress websites. Kinsta offers lightning-fast page load times, advanced security features, and excellent support, making it the perfect choice for a high-performing website like JT Hearing Care.
By using WordPress and Kinsta, we were able to create a website that not only looks great but also performs exceptionally well. The website is easy to navigate and provides users with all the information they need to make an informed decision about their ear wax removal needs.
Overall, we are very pleased with the choice of using WordPress and Kinsta hosting for the development of the JT Hearing Care website, as it helped us deliver a high-quality, reliable, and fast website to the client.
Next steps for JT Hearing Care
Local SEO, it is an essential part of any business that operates in a specific geographic location, such as JT Hearing Care. Local SEO helps businesses to appear in the local search results when users search for relevant keywords and phrases related to their business. This can help to drive traffic to the website, increase brand awareness, and ultimately generate more leads and sales.
To build a Local SEO presence for JT Hearing Care, we started by conducting keyword research to identify relevant local keywords and phrases. We then optimised the website’s content to include these keywords in a natural and organic way.
We also created and claimed the business listing on Google My Business, which is a free tool that helps businesses manage their online presence across Google, including Google Maps and Google Search. This listing includes the business’s name, address, phone number, and other relevant information, and helps users find and connect with the business easily.
We also created and optimised local citations for JT Hearing Care, which are mentions of the business’s name, address, and phone number on other websites, such as online directories, review sites, and social media platforms. These citations help to establish the business’s authority and credibility in the local area and can improve its ranking in the local search results.
Finally, we implemented a review management strategy to encourage customers to leave reviews of their experience with JT Hearing Care on platforms such as Google and Facebook. Positive reviews can help to improve the business’s visibility in the local search results and increase its credibility and trustworthiness with potential customers.
By implementing these Local SEO strategies, we can help JT Hearing Care to improve its visibility in the local search results, increase its online presence, and ultimately drive more traffic, leads, and sales to the website.
What Does an SEO Audit Include?
An SEO audit is vital for finding opportunities to improve a site’s search performance and overall page rankings. It involves finding on-page, technical, content and link related issues that need to be fixed or improved.
While each SEO audit may vary from each other, there are basic issues that site owners should always look for.
What should an SEO audit cover?
An SEO audit is the process of assessing how well your site is optimised for search engines, such as Google and Bing. The process outlines and analises potential problems or errors that will most likely impact organic performance.
There are a few key parts that an SEO audit should cover, including:
Checking your site for on-page SEO issues
Analysing the strength of current on-site, off-site and core technical elements
Ensuring your site is being crawled correctly, indexed and rendered by Google
Verifying that your site has good UX design (user experience)
Elements of technical SEO in an audit
A technical SEO audit examines various technical aspects of a website, ensuring they are following the best search operation practices. Technical audits are simply just a type of SEO audit, but they focus on issues related to your website that happen behind the scenes.
Elements of a technical SEO audit include:
Identifying crawl errors with a crawl report
Checking a sites load time
Ensuring a site is mobile friendly
Optimising titles and metadata
Checking images for accurate descriptions and ALT-text
What does an SEO audit include?
SEO audits can vary slightly from one another, but each one should analyse the basic technical SEO elements like server errors and metadata. However, every SEO audit should include technical and on-page audits.
While each SEO audit process can differ since there is no universal approach, there are a handful of basic issues that you should be looking for.
We’ve outlined below the essential features of SEO audits that you should be including in your checklist.
Check for manual actions: Manual actions are when a human reviewer at Google has determined that your site doesn’t comply with their webmaster guidelines. The result of this is that some or all of your site won’t be shown in Google’s search results.
You are unlikely to have manual actions unless you’ve done something seriously wrong. However, it should still be the first thing you check because if you have one, you’ll be stuck before you even start.
Check organic traffic: Google updates its search algorithms all the time, meaning it’s important to check organic traffic drops coinciding with the updates.
Check for HTTPS-related issues: HTTPS is a secure protocol for transferring data to and from visitors. You should be checking each page on your site using HTTPS by visiting them and ensuring there is a lock icon on the address bar.
Check indexability issues: Google search results come from its index, which is a database of web pages. Your pages need to be indexed to stand any chance at ranking.
Check for mobile-friendliness: Mobile-friendliness has been a huge ranking factor everywhere since Google moved to mobile-first indexing in 2019.
Check page speed: Page speed has been a small ranking factor on desktop since 2010 and mobile since 2018.
Check for broken pages: Having broken pages on your site is never good, and if these pages have backlinks, they are effectively being wasted because they point to nothing.
Check for sitemap issues: A sitemap lists the pages that you want search engines to index. It shouldn’t list things like redirects, non-canonicals or dead pages, as those send mixed signals to Google.
Check for declining content: Rankings will rarely last forever since content can become outdated, meaning the search traffic will often start to drop off. You can solve this by updating and republishing old content.
Check for content gaps: Content gaps occur when you miss important subtopics in your content. Not including this content means you won’t rank for as many long-tail keywords and potentially won’t rank as high as you could for your main target keywords.
What to expect after an SEO audit
Before you dive into conducting an SEO audit , you will want to know what to expect. Once an SEO audit has been conducted on your site, you will receive an audit report which is a final document outlining all of the issues with your current website.
This report will be analysed in order to identify low-hanging opportunities to improve your site in one of the five key areas. These areas include technical SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, competitor analysis and keyword research.
Using the data, SEO experts will interpret the raw data and suggest opportunities and strategies you can use to increase your overall traffic and visibility.
What is the difference between SEO analysis and an SEO audit?
SEO audits are long term processes in which you need to audit your entire site on-page, off-page, technical, user experience and other factors. It is the method of identifying your site’s fundamental issues which are affecting its performance and ranking.
SEO analysis however, observes all the factors above and determines how well you’re carrying out the site’s SEO strategy. It is almost impossible to make correct decisions in improving your site’s ranking in search engines without SEO analysis of your site.
Search engines are constantly evolving, and as a result of this, you should be actively ensuring that your website can keep up with these changes.
The best way to do this is by auditing your website, which helps to bridge the gap that affects your end-user experience and conversion rate.
What is a website audit?
A website audit often involves examining page performances prior to large-scale search engine optimisation (SEO) or site design.
Auditing your website can help to determine whether or not it’s best optimised to achieve your traffic goals, and can give you a sense of how you can improve it to reach these goals.
Audits are also often conducted after work on-site has been done. This helps to show progress, highlight under-appreciated areas and help to drive future online strategies.
Why are site audits important?
Site audits are important as they give a complete, detailed analysis into a website’s health, performance and speed.
Assessing these areas will give you full insight into the current effectiveness of your site. It will also show where you may be able to further optimise and/or improve your site, as well as identify issues that could be damaging to its health.
How different website audits are used
How a website audit is used for your own site will largely depend on your personal aims and objectives.
Here are the most common ways website audits are used:
Traffic analysis
With traffic analysis, we can look at where visitors are arriving from, where they came from, bounce back rates and other on-page engagement stats.
Based on the journey your visitors usually take, we can look at how your site’s design, content and functionality encourages conversion rates.
On-page optimisation
Your pages should be optimised with relevant and consistent keywords and your call-to-actions should be clear and compelling.
We will take a look at your content from a SEO perspective, looking for any potential unnecessary content or underdeveloped content to freshen up. Internal linking strategies may need to be formed to help users, and search engines, navigate your site efficiently.
Lead generation
We can audit your website to review the overall user experience and assess how well your website is optimised to generate leads. This involves taking a close look at lead generation mechanisms, such as call to actions and contact forms.
Here we will pinpoint obstacles your user faces when trying to engage with your site.
Social media
A social media audit involves looking at your organisation’s official social media accounts. This includes looking at the quality and quantity of your followers, who you’re following and the likes and shares of your most recent posts.
Taking a deeper look into your social media can help to define how your social presence impacts your website.
How do I know which audit I need for my website?
If you’re unsure which audit you need for your website, you should consider what goals you are looking to achieve by conducting an audit.
Consider:
What goals you are looking to achieve;
How many leads you are generating from your site currently and what you want to aim for;
Who your desired target audience is;
Current on-site and off-site issues, such as lack of call to actions, poor Core Web Vitals, struggling social platforms, underperforming content and so on.
From here, you should be able to have some sort of idea about the type of audit needed for your website.
If you’re still unsure, or you’re struggling to determine which audit is right for your site, an experienced search-marketing team, like us here at Tao Digital Marketing, will be able to help you. Our website auditing services are fully tailored to your website and needs.
Alternatively, get in touch with us if you think you’d benefit from some consultancy from our expert team.
Different types of website audits
A website audit is a full analysis of factors that impacts a site’s visibility on search engines, but a full website audit is not always necessary.
Listed below are some of the most common types of audits:
SEO Audit
An SEO audit is the process of outlining and analysing potential problems or issues on a site that impacts organic performance. These problems must be addressed, otherwise they can prevent your site from ranking highly on search engines like Google and Bing.
SEO audits include analysing components such as keywords, link profiles, image optimisation and goal conversions.
Technical Audit
A technical audit is simply just a type of SEO audit, but it focuses on the issues related to your website that happen behind the scenes.
Technical audits focus on the best practices for site visibility and ensuring all of the site meets all of the search engines requirements for crawling and indexing.
Content Audit
A content audit is the process of systematically assessing all of the content on your site. The main objective is to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your content strategy and adapt your current content plan to align with your marketing goals.
It also includes delivering strong insights into what messaging and tone of voice is converting and what isn’t.
We can offer advice as to what content needs to be updated, whether some pages are harmful and need to be removed, deleted or no-indexed.
Competitor Audit
A competitor audit is used to track your competitors, understand their approach and figure out what their brand is doing which yours isn’t.
The aim is to discover what techniques and methods are used for other companies within your industry and incorporate these into your own strategy in the right ways.
Audits like these highlight how many keywords competitors are ranking for, how much content they have in comparison to your site and where they place against you in terms of traffic.
Link Audit
A link audit is the process of analysing links pointing at your site to find potential problems or opportunities. You need to find the links, establish which ones are potentially harmful and which are good, and then develop the right strategy to deal with them.
Social Media Audit
A social media audit is the process of reviewing how well social media is working for your business. This audit is the process of reviewing certain metrics to analyse your current social media strategy.
These metrics can include information on demographics, engagement, locations, campaign performance and more. An audit like this can involve impressions, shares, likes, comments and other interactions.
Conversion Rate Audit
A conversion rate audit (CRO audit) is a full assessment of a customer’s journey on your site. The purpose of the audit is to identify the technical and usability-related problems that could be damaging your website’s conversion rate.
A typical CRO audit will focus on analysing the end-to-end customer experience, as well as digging deeper into a website’s analytics.
Why should your business invest in website auditing?
Investing in on-site audits can be highly beneficial to your ongoing business strategy. Knowing where you currently stand in the ever-expanding online market, and strategizing on how to best improve this, is where your business can stand out.
Have a chat with our team about website auditing and how insightful they can really be.
Our Guide to Google My Business
Having a Google My Business Profile is a great way to get in front of new customers and help towards local SEO.
In this guide, we’ll be answering some of the most frequently asked questions about Google My Business, with step-by-step instructions for some of the more in-depth questions. Keep reading to find out more.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business is essentially a business profile that appears on the side of Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) when someone searches for your businesses or your services in their area.
It’s essentially a brief overview of your business, including, but not limited to:
Business name
Address
Primary and secondary categories (your service offering – we’ll touch on this later)
Photos of the team/business/service offering
Location on Google Maps, sometimes an external shot of the business taken from Maps
Opening hours
Contact details
Website
Reviews
Q&A from users
Why is Google My Business important?
Google My Business is incredibly important – every business should have one as it helps potential new customers/clients find your business. For example, if you’re a coffee shop owner and a local types ‘coffee shops near me’ into Google, you will appear based on the location you have listed. These customers may never have come across you otherwise.
It also helps you to understand how your customers are finding/contacting you. Through looking at the analytics you can find out what keywords people search to find you, as well as getting insights on calls, reviews, bookings and more to understand how you connect with customers.
Does Google My Business help SEO?
Yes, it can help with SEO, particularly local SEO. Making sure your information is up to date and that you post regularly is highly likely to be a ranking factor that can help Google to understand your business offerings (Google would never give away its true ranking factors or we’d all be fighting for number one).
It’s important to make sure you optimise your listing as much as possible – we’ll touch on this later.
Is Google My Business free?
Yes, Google My Business, or Google Business Profile, is completely free! The ultimate aim of Google is to make it easy to use and help people to find the local businesses they are looking for. By listing your business, you’re helping people looking for your services and of course, Google – hence why it’s completely free.
Interestingly, as we write this in November 2022, Google has filed a lawsuit against a company who allegedly charged people for setting up GMB profiles. According to Search Engine Land, the company “threatened business owners that if they failed to pay (typically $99), their Business listings would be deactivated or marked as “permanently closed” and their positive reviews would be hidden – resulting in lost visibility and revenue.”
Do I have a Google My Business account already?
If you’re buying out a business or starting out as a Marketing Exec, you may be wondering whether the business already has an account. The simple way to tell is to Google the business – if the profile comes up, the business has one. This will be a case of claiming the listing, which we’ll touch on later.
If not, it’s time to set your profile up.
How to set up Google My Business
Here is our simple guide
Google My Business is incredibly easy to set up. The first step is to go onto Google, make sure you are logged into a Gmail account (or a Gmail-connected email address) and click the dots in the top right corner. From there, you’ll find an option to click ‘Business Profile’.
Then, you’ll see the page below. Click ‘manage now’.
You will then be taken to the next page. As you’ll be setting up a brand new account, click ‘Add your business to Google’.
You can then enter your business name and business category. The frustrating part of adding a business category is that there is no drop down menu, instead you start typing and then can only pick from a selection available.
For us, we typed in ‘Digital Marketing’ and this didn’t appear, however ‘Marketing Agency’ did as you can see below – it’s a case of guessing the terms Google may file your business under until you find an exact or close match to how you would describe your business.
To help with this, Vicki Mace, Digital Marketing Consultant from Insight Digital Copy, advises that you look at what your competitors have as their primary category. Do a search for a primary keyword, see what businesses appear and identify what category they belong to.
She suggests that you can further validate this by asking the following questions:
Would this category be the best fit for the services/products you offer?
Do people search for this service? In comparison to other categories, how popular is it?
Further on in the process you can add up to nine other business categories. Be mindful only to add categories related to your business – Google will suspend anyone adding irrelevant categories just to show up for more terms.
After you have entered your category, you will then be asked if you want to add a location. If you are mobile or based at your home address, you may want to avoid this for security purposes and only give it when you receive an enquiry. In this instance, you are classed as a ‘Service Area Business’ (SAB).
If you click no, you will be taken to a page that allows you to list multiple service areas, as below.
If you click yes, you will be taken to a page where you can enter the address of your business premises. You will then be asked if you offer deliveries/home or office visits, as well as how far you are willing to go. This helps to extend your location reach. You can always change these at a later date too.
You will then be prompted to add your contact details.
In order to stop fake listings and to ‘help maintain the integrity of all profiles’, Google then has to verify that you own the business by giving you a code. They will ask whether you want to receive the code via email, phone call or by post, just select whichever is your preference. You will be asked to verify using more than one method most of the time.
If you don’t want to verify immediately or can’t get the access code immediately (e.g. if you’re a Marketing Exec and need a Manager to send you the code), you can select ‘Verify Later’ – your profile won’t be visible until you verify, but you can still progress with the listing in the meantime.
After this, you have the option to add secondary categories and your opening hours. You will also be asked if you want to accept messages through Google – you will be notified of any messages via email.
You will be prompted to add a business description, which can be 750 characters (not words) max. You can skip this step, however we highly recommend you add this as it will help for SEO purposes. Be sure to include keywords, including those listed as your primary and secondary categories, but avoid keyword stuffing. It has to look natural.
This also needs to be unique content in order to be effective. Avoid copying and pasting from your website.
Finally, you’ll be asked to add some photos to the listing. If you provide a service, Amy Toman, a Google Product Expert, recommends showing staff providing that service (e.g. if you’re a plumbing company, don’t show boilers, show a member of staff fixing one). She also suggests that cover images should show either a storefront or humans. Use as many unique photos as possible – they’re more indicative of a business than stock images.
After this, once you’ve verified the business with the code, your listing will be live.
If you ever want to change details in the future, such as your categories or address, simply go onto your Business Profile, click the edit pen and you should have the option to change your details.
Verifying your Business Profile by Post
In order to avoid new fake listings, Google will send a postcard with a code on it to your address. This will also happen if you have an existing listing but change the address to a different one. Simply wait for the postcard to arrive, let your team know to keep an eye out for it and enter the code once it has arrived to validate the listing.
If you’re a Service Area Business, Elizabeth Rule, Local SEO Analyst Sterling Sky & GBP Gold Product Expert, suggests verifying your GBP listing to the address your business is officially registered at. After you verify the GBP listing, you can clear the address field so the address is not visible to the public on maps or search.
How to verify your Google My Business location without a postcard
As great as verifying by postcard is in terms of avoiding spam listings, there are a couple of issues with this – it can take five to seven days to arrive, and also if it gets lost in the post or the wrong person receives it, it can be difficult (if not impossible) to request a second one.
If, for whatever reason, you are unable to verify your location without a postcard, there are several alternatives:
Phone call/email based on the contact details you provided when setting up your account. Be wary of having an automated answering machine on your phone line as this will be an automated call that cannot ‘press three to be connected to a member of the team’. You will be given a five digit code that you will need to enter into your GMB profile.
Connecting your Google Search Console account to your Google My Business account, which can give you permission to immediately verify the listing – however this may not work for all industries.
In some industries, you may be able to verify via a video call with Google themselves, or submit a video walkthrough of the business meeting Google’s specifications (e.g. show the storefront or other employees working with you).
If none of the above steps are available or fail to work, you can submit a ticket to Google and request for them to manually verify your account. You may be asked to send photos of the business along with other evidence.
How to Claim a Google My Business profile
two factors must be in place first
There are many reasons you may want to claim an existing Business Profile listing, for example if you’re buying a business out, or perhaps taking over from a previous marketing manager.
In order for you to claim a listing, two factors must be in place first:
The existing listing must already be verified by its current owner
The current owner must add you as a manager first (if they do not know how to do this, you can send them Google’s official guidance here)
There is a difference between managing and owning (claiming) a business profile. Both have slightly different levels of permissions. Below is official guidance from Google on the difference:
After being added as a manager
Once you have been added as a manager, it can take up to seven days to be given manager capabilities within GMB.
In order to claim the profile, Google the name of the business and you should see a button saying ‘Claim/Own this Business?’, or type it in here and click ‘Request Access’ then fill in the form. The current owner will be then notified and can grant you permission to claim/own the profile.
If the current owner doesn’t respond within three days, Google may give you the option to claim the profile yourself. In this instance, open the original email confirmation from Google stating that you requested access. Then follow the on screen instructions to verify.
How to edit Google My Business
You can only edit the Business Profile listing if you are a manager or owner. To edit, navigate to the top right of the page again on Google, click on your profile picture and click ‘Business Profile’. You will then see the name of your business and a pencil button, click this to edit.
You will then be taken to a page where you can edit every element of your business, from your name through to categories, description and contact information.
Can I change my Google My Business name?
Yes, you can. Just navigate to the editing page as above, click the pencil icon next to your name and change it.
How to optimise Google Business Profile
There are many ways to optimise your business profile. The main factor to bear in mind is to make sure you fill in as many details as you can and keep it updated constantly.
Other factors to bear in mind:
Photos: Add photos on a regular basis, especially of the team whenever you get updated headshots or team members join/leave. Add photos of any new service or product offerings, too. This helps to show consistency to Google which can help you to appear above other profiles who haven’t updated for quite a while.
Create regular posts: Senior SEO Manager Abby Leigh Curtis recommends that you should post whenever you have events to promote, offers/deals you want to advertise, featured products, business updates (e.g. new hours or services), or even blogs. You should always include high-quality images to accompany your posts.
However, one of the only downsides of Google Posts is that you can only choose from a dropdown for the CTA button:
Use a local phone number: This can help to further verify that you’re a local business and is an easy way to encourage customers to call you.
Add videos: Video is becoming increasingly important to Google, especially as they added video as a separate section within the Google Search Console platform. We see this as a sign from Google to show the power and importance of video for the future of the search engine. Keep them under 30 seconds long to make sure that the file size isn’t too large.
Encourage reviews: Profiles with the most reviews tend to appear higher up when someone searches for your services. Ask your customers to give you reviews – this can really help you out (if they are positive, of course!).
Essentially, it’s all about keeping your profile up to date, giving as much information about your business as possible and keeping the positive reviews coming in.
How to Create a Post on Google Business Profile
In order to create a post on your Google Business Profile, simply make sure you’re logged in, Google the business name and scroll down a little. You should just see a large button allowing you to add a post.
Posts do have to be submitted manually, rather than scheduled – there is no way to schedule a post directly within Business Profile Manager, however there are various scheduling tools out there that can help with this.
How to rank higher on Google My Business
Ranking higher ties hand in hand with the optimisation tips we gave above. It’s all about keeping your information up to date, for example updating your hours during bank holidays or the festive period (Google often sends emails to prompt you to do this).
It’s also worth responding to your Google reviews and questions to show that you’re active, even if it’s just to say thank you.
Your website’s position in the SERP also determines how high up you will show in the listings, so general SEO for your website ties into this and is very important for more competitive search terms.
We like to use Brightlocal to help with building efforts. Brightlocal describe themselves as an ‘all-in-one local SEO, citations and reviews platform’. Within the software you can build citations (linking to your GBP) that can help with your rankings. Depending on the level of membership you have, it can also integrate with your social media profiles and Google Analytics.
My Google Business Profile got Suspended. What now?
Google may suspend Business Profiles that go against their guidelines. Breaching the guidelines includes, but is not limited to:
Promoting fraudulent or illegal activities
Low-quality content, e.g. misspelling or gibberish
Content containing swearing/offensive language
Focusing on special promotions, e.g. saying that everything is on sale or constantly saying that your products are 50% off
There are two types of suspensions: a soft suspension, where your listing is live but not verified (so you can’t manage and update it), and a hard suspension, where your listing doesn’t show up at all.
In October 2022 there was a major bug in the GBP system where hundreds of business owners had their Business Profiles suspended for no reason. Elizabeth Rule gives the following advice:
As we have seen recently with the suspension bug in GBP that there is not much, or anything, a business owner can do to prevent a suspension. There are things you can do to set yourself up for success to get the profile reinstated as quickly as possible if it does get suspended.
Here are some tips for Service Area Businesses to safeguard themselves in case they run into suspension issues:
Verify your service area GBP to an address you have business proof for. This proof can be utility bills in the business name, insurance certificates, business registration etc. You will need to have this proof if the profile is ever suspended or disabled. Even though your address is not visible, you need to provide proof to the address you verified the listing at to get reinstated.
Service Area Businesses should never use a virtual or shared space office to verify a listing. This is a clear violation of Google Guidelines as confirmed by Google in 2020.
Do not verify a GBP listing to an employee’s home. You may be able to get the listing live, but without valid business proof at the address you will never be able to get the listing reinstated if it gets suspended or disabled. Plus, if the employee ever leaves you have a listing verified to an address that you now have no connection to at all.
If you have multiple listings for the same business, make sure the service areas do not overlap. Even though the service area you add to the listing does not impact rankings, if you have two SAB listings with the same service area, Google considers this a violation of guidelines and one or both listings can be suspended.
Do not show your address if you are a pure Service Area Business. Even if the competition does or you think you can get away with it, if you ever need to contact support, they probably won’t help you if they notice you are an SAB with no signage that has the address showing.
Always make sure you have supporting documentation available in case of suspension; having it ready to submit with a reinstatement can cut down on the time your listing is offline.
Supporting documentation should provide a consistent story for the business (meaning the title and address, whether it shows or not). This could be insurance statements, a photo of the building with the logo of the business, your company registration number or similar. All should be from authoritative bodies, so usually not invoices.
Once you have submitted your evidence, it takes around three working days for Google to review and clear your request.
What are labels in Google My Business?
Labels in GBP are just for internal organisational purposes – outsiders can’t see them and they don’t help with rankings. They must be 50 characters or less.
The main reason you would use labels is if you have multiple different locations within GBP and want to quickly search for a profile. For example, if you’ve got coffee shops in Bolton, Manchester and Wigan all under the same name, you may want to just label them as these locations so that you can quickly search for them. It’s mainly for internal purposes.
How to add a Label into Google Business Profile
First, make sure you’re signed into Google, navigate to the Business Profile section and click ‘See Your Profile’. You’ll then be taken to the SERP with a summary of your profile. Click the three dots above the summary and select ‘Business Profile Settings’.
Then click ‘Advanced Settings’.
You can then add labels onto your profile.
How to delete a Google My Business listing
There are multiple reasons you may want to delete a Business Profile, for example if you are selling the business, rebranding, or perhaps the listing is an accidental duplicate. You can also leave the listing live but mark it as permanently closed.
It’s worth noting that the removal of a Business Profile is permanent. If you want to manage the profile again you’ll need to re-verify it again using the steps mentioned earlier on.
You don’t have to actually manage a business to remove it. Simply Google the name of your business/the business you want to remove, suggest an edit and click ‘Close or remove’, then follow the instructions on screen. This is where you would mark as permanently closed if the business is shutting down.
How to add Social Media to my Google My Business
There is no way to directly add your social media profiles to your Business Profile, however if they’re linked to on your website, Google may add them in this way.
If people are using the knowledge graph schema to add social profiles etc. on their websites this should pick up the social profiles much easier and show them in the “knowledge” panel for the brand/company. Rank Math’s helpful guide can assist you with this.
What are Attributes for Google My Business?
‘Attributes’ are various additional details that you can add to your profile in order to help potential customers further, for example detailing whether you offer outdoor dining or free WiFi. This can help you show up for more search terms, e.g. ‘Restaurants with free WiFi in Bolton’.
You can directly add these in, however many also come from your reviews, e.g. if your customers mention that you’re vegan friendly, this may appear as an attribute on your profile.
How to add Attributes to Google My Business
Navigate to Business Profile Manager and select Edit Profile, then Business Information. Select ‘More’ at the top.
Below is an example from one of our clients who owns a physical shop. You can see that they have detailed the sort of crowd that shops there, accessibility details, if the business is woman-owned, what sort of payments they accept etc.
Can you call the Google My Business team for support?
Google removed phone numbers from their support pages in 2019, so unfortunately there’s no way to call them directly now.
For support queries it’s best to go directly through their support page. From there you can select which profile you need help with, what the issue is and your contact options.
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