4 out of 5 people find the local business they need through an online search. 50% of people who visited a businesses website visit that store within 24 hours.
With the Digital Transformation of business, the online presence of a brick-and-mortar store is more important than ever. Navigating the difficult world of SEO visibility, content marketing, and customer engagement can be tricky.
If you have a Google+ account for your business that isn’t working hard enough for you, here are 5 tricks to increase its productivity.
Keeping reading to master that Google+ account!
1. Control the Comments
Increasing customer engagement is always an important part of enhancing your online presence. If you’re getting people to comment and engage with your material, you’re in good shape!
With Google+, commenting is one of the best ways to ensure content gets shared. When someone has commented on a thread, they will get a notification every time someone responds.
Once you understand this, commenting can become a huge tool in your SEO arsenal. If you’re responding consistently and promptly to every comment made on your page, then everyone is being notified of it.
Another pro tip is to turn off the commenting ability on a thread. You can then have the last word on the thread and notify people that you’re starting a new topic related to the idea.
You can add everyone who likes your comment about closing the thread to the new circle. Now, you’ve started a new community. Plus, later you can go back and reactivate the commenting ability of a post and leave a comment with a related idea.
2. Comment to Increase SEO Visibility
Keeping a constant stream of fresh and useful content on Google+ can be difficult. It’s just not the easiest system for that.
But every Google+ account has a hard cover attached to it. That means that if you hover your mouse over the name of an account a detailed summary of that account will appear. This is called a hard cover.
If you are diligent about becoming an active commenter on a variety of threads, then you can increase your SEO visibility. More people will be exposed to your hard cover. So, they will see the details of your local business.
Search terms that are related to your business in your area and join the conversation. On Google+, it’s less about continually adding valuable content through posts. It’s more about adding valuable comments to already existing conversations.
This relieves the burden to continually create content. If you’re adding interesting content to conversations, people will be quick to add you to their circle.
3. Make Sure You Have A Business Listing
As far as search engines go, Google is pretty much number 1.
And Google has kindly created a way to add your own business listing. This means that when someone searches for a local business, instead of getting a random listing of businesses, they will see a series of local business profiles.
Several years ago, a business profile would have consisted of the business name, phone number and operational hours. But now there is room for more detail. The more detail you add, the better.
Having a fully completed Google business profile will do wonders to increase your SEO visibility. The more people you can get to click on your website or Google+ account, the more people will walk in your store.
You have the opportunity to control the message and control the brand. So take advantage of it.
4. Encourage Reviews
There is nothing better than a word of mouth good review. But you can’t make people talk about your business.
But you can encourage them to write about it.
A physical review left on your Google+ account is the best way to get people in the door. All of your reviews are compiled into a neat and easy-to-read bar graph. This graph shows potential customers what people think of you.
The power of that bar graph is insane. The more positive reviews you can rack up, the better. Having a large number of positive reviews will lend your business authority and up your rankings.
The more people will click “Write a Review” and give you positive feedback will increase your SEO visibility and Google rankings. More viewers, more customers.
5. Show, Don’t Tell
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Then how many words is a virtual tour worth?
Having high-quality images is one of the basic tenants of good SEO practices.
But taking advantage of Google’s top notch technology with a 360-degree tour of your premises will increase your SEO visibility exponentially. A 360-degree tour gets more clicks than simple still life photos of your business and products.
If you want to get people in the door, show them what it looks like through the door.
Having a high-quality virtual tour on your Google+ account, your Google business listing, and your website goes a long way to getting actual customers to come visit. You are building trust by getting potential customers more familiar with your business.
If people know what to expect, they are more likely to invest.
Let Your Google+ Account Work For You
Trying to master all online marketing practices at once can be overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to.
If you’re ready to invest a little time into your online presence, then it can easily work for you — not against you. Smart social media accounts are basically free advertising.
Take some time to learn about how different various social media services can service your business and don’t let those resources go to waste.
Google+ can seem a little trickier than Facebook or Instagram at first. But, the unique features of Google+ can be extra useful to tech-savvy business owners.
Start slow and try implementing one or two of these SEO tricks a week. You’ll soon start to see your organic traffic increase and I promise you’ll never regret investing in your Google+.
Contact us today to start to process by adding a 360 virtual tour to your account.