In 2022, it is important for new and old businesses to rank higher on Google Maps Ranking. By ranking higher than their competitors, companies can increase their visibility and increase traffic to their websites. As it is known, users generally choose only a few top Google map results. Thus, it is essential for a business to feature in one of the top places on Google listing. To do that, both individuals and businesses can take the help of a local SEO Company and Local SEO Services that can optimize the Google Maps Ranking of their business. SEO companies use a set of good practices to optimize the ranking of a business as mentioned below.
Top factors to Improve Google Maps Ranking employed by Local SEO Services:
● Number of Backlinks: Getting a good number of referring domains to your website’s URL is one of the important factors to improve Google Map ranking. It is a tried and tested method which is employed by all top local SEO services.
● High-Quality Links: Getting high-quality backlinks is another important factor that you need to consider. Many backlinks are good, but if they all lack quality, they are of no use. Thus, it is essential to ensure that you are getting high-quality and high-authority backlinks to your website. The quality of backlinks is based on their domain ratings. A Domain Rating of 50 and above is considered high quality.
● Optimize Google My Business: Just creating a business profile on Google My Business (GMB) is not enough. To achieve a higher rank, one needs to perform Google My Business optimization. To optimize GMB, users need to focus on two main parameters namely Optimizing the business profile on GMB and removing NAP discrepancies.
○ Optimize business profile on GMB: The first step of optimization is to fill in all the details asked by GMB about your business. Add all the relevant contact information. Add a detailed business description, and regularly publish photos and posts related to your business. Try to answer all the comments you get on Google.
○ Remove Business Discrepancies: By ensuring the consistency of NAP data (business name, address, and phone number) on external websites and directories, users can strengthen the rank of their business.
● Create Sub Categories in GMB: This step is especially important for multi-store outlets and franchise-based businesses. As the majority of multi-store outlet business consists of multiple categories which in themselves are separate business entities and offer additional opportunities to compete in the local search market, for example, Flipkart is registered as an online shopping store which is its main business category. Under its, main category one can find many small business categories like Electronics Product Store, Apparel Product Store, etc.
By creating a listing for subcategories along with the main category, users can get an edge over their competitors.
● Optimize Website Homepage: When you add your business on Google My Business, then you also need to provide the URL of your website. As with every aspect of GMB, you also need to optimize your website homepage to rank higher. To do that, users need to focus on four main aspects named Title tag, Description Tag, On-Site Content, and NAP.
○ Title Tag: A title tag should contain the Business name, area name where your business is located, and business category.
○ Description Tag: This tag carries a meta description of your business and homepage. So it must contain brief information related to your business like business name, area info, type of business, etc.
○ On-Site Content: The main content of your website should also reinforce the main aspects of your business. To do that, you can write the main keyword, business name, and business categories in bold. Besides this, you also need to focus on keywords, keyword density, and meta keywords while writing the main content.
○ NAP: Users need to add business contact information, business address, phone number, and other NAP elements on the website homepage to further strengthen the Google Map listing.
Apart from these major factors to improve Google Maps rankings, any good SEO Company optimizes many other small factors that can give your business an edge on Google Maps Ranking over your competitors.