Most small- to mid-sized businesses know how crucial it is to optimize their locations on Google Business Profile (GBP) — formerly known 9 Big Google as Google My Business — to improve rankings for local searches and get more leads on Google Maps. However, with numerous items to edit and Google’s rapid rate of changes, it may be hard to determine what local ranking factors to focus on in 2023.
In this post, we look at the items on GBP that impact rankings — help you show up for more searches — and the items that don’t impact rankings but are still useful. Keep reading to find out more, and call to speak with an expert today!
High impact on rankings
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Business name, categories, landing page, address, and reviews.
Low to moderate impact on rankings: Photos, hours of operation, services, images and alt text on the landing page, review responses, and identity attributes.
No impact on rankings, some impact on engagement: Posts, products, messaging, booking, opening date, service areas, a local area phone number, FAQs or a Q&A section, answers in the Q&A section, and an optimized business description.
No impact: Keywords in reviews, keywords in review responses, keywords in posts, geotagging images, and keywords in the business description.
9 local ranking factors on Google Business Profile
We have found that the following eight items impact local keyword rankings. If you want to know how to optimize your Google Business Profile, these are what you should focus on. Some factors directly and dramatically influence rankings, while others have more of an indirect impact.
Local rankings are about more than being first in a rank tracker or for one search at a specific location or time. Local rankings vary based on location, time of day, past search history, and more, so we apply a broader definition of rankings.
We look at the items that impact how high you rank in the results as well as how often you’ll show up in the maps results, local finder results, and local packs.
Business Name
Your business name is one of the most important factors in determining local rankings. Adding keywords to your business name can even impact your local keyword rankings. However, you should not stuff your name with keywords — keyword stuffing goes against Google’s guidelines and could result in suspension.
Google’s Vicinity update in December 2021 lowered the impact of keyword stuffing your business name. However, the business name still affects rankings significantly, especially after the March 2022 local algorithm update, which was considered a correction to the Vicinity update and lessened its impact.
Categories
Both primary and secondary categories have a significant impact on rankings, so it is crucial that you choose them wisely.
Does the primary category impact rankings?The primary category holds more weight in terms of rankings than secondary categories. This segnment is one of the most impactful items that you can directly control on your profile. So, if you’re looking to rank well for relevant searches, you must use the best possible primary category.
Do secondary categories impact rankings?
While not as impactful as the primary category, secondary categories can still have a significant and immediate impact on local rankings. Adding additional categories will help you to show up for more searches, so monitoring competitors’ categories and adding additional relevant secondary categories is an effective strategy for 2024.
Like categories and your business name, your landing pages also affect your local rankings. Google looks at the content of the landing page as well as the link authority of the URL you choose. Often, your homepage will be the best option, even if it doesn’t have the best content for your primary products/services.
Rather than using a landing page from your site, you can also create a website through GBP. We’ve found that GBP websites do not get better rankings — and have limited functionality — so we recommend sticking to your site.
Address
Whether you’re running a storefront, service-area business, or hybrid, the address has a big impact on rankings.
Google ranks your business based on the location you use to verify the listing, and you’ll rank best close to that location and rank worse as you get further away. It is also much harder to rank for keywords that mention a specific city if the address is not considered part of the city.
There is another way in which the address can impact rankings. If there are two or more businesses at the same or neighboring addresses, then one of them can get filtered out of the local search results entirely.
It isn’t simple to update your business address, so only consider this factor if you’re moving your business or opening up a new location. To choose the best address for local rankings, ensure:
The address is in the city you want to rank
There is significant search volume in a small can you do seo yourself? yes! learn diy seo now radius around the address
You’re not right next door to another business with the same primary and secondary categories
5. Photos
Screenshot of the Google listing for Burger Yum with photos of the location and products
There is a bit of debate on whether GBP photos impact rankings. While some studies have found that adding photos does not impact rankings, Google states that adding photos to your Business Profile can help improve your local ranking.
The true answer is likely more complicated. There’s likely a ranking benefit in adding some photos to your listing over having none, but that does not mean there’s a continued benefit of adding additional or better photos.
No matter the impact on rankings, GBP images are still one of the most crucial optimizations in terms of increasing engagement, sales, or leads. Images are showing up more often for local searches. High-quality images are critical to gaining customer trust, and replacing stock photos with ones of your team or completed projects can help increase conversions.
Does Geotagging Images Impact Rankings?
Despite this being a commonly mentioned and aqb directory utilized strategy, geotagging images has no impact on rankings. At WebFX, we recommend against adding latitude and longitude information to your photos and instead using that time to focus on optimizations that will have an impact.
6. Reviews
Reviews are one of the most important local SEO ranking factors, and they help consumers choose you over other businesses. However, there are many misconceptions about which parts of reviews impact rankings and which don’t.
Screenshot of a review on Google
Does review count impact rankings?
This study found that a listing tends to rank higher once it hits 10 reviews. Increasing review quantity behind the first 10 still influences rankings to a lesser extent. Getting higher review counts also increases trust and credibility while beating the competition.
Does responding to reviews impact rankings?
Responding to reviews can have a minor impact on rankings. This Google support document on improving your local rankings states: “respond to reviews that users leave about your business. When you reply to reviews, it shows that you value your customers and their feedback.”
Does having keywords in reviews or responses impact rankings?
Contrary to popular belief, including keywords in reviews or review responses does not impact local rankings. Too many keywords can also make reviews read weirdly and sound spammy.
Like reviews themselves, there is no ranking benefit to adding keywords in review responses. So instead of using keywords in your review responses, make them sincere, personal, and concise.
Additional review factors and whether they influence rankings or not
The following local search ranking factors can help you understand and optimize reviews:
Review recency: Having recent reviews can help to improve rankings! The timeline depends on how competitive the industry is.
Screenshot of different services available on Google
9. Identity attributes
Surprisingly, identity attributes play a minor role in rankings, and it can help you show up for some more searches. Adding identity attributes, such as black-owned or veteran-owned, won’t help improve your rankings for general searches such as “home goods store near me.” However, it will help for searches directly related to the attribute, such as “black-owned home goods store near me.”
Screenshot of business attributes on Google
9 items that don’t influence local rankings
Many misconceptions exist about the items below, but we have found that they do not influence local rankings.
That doesn’t mean that optimizing these items is useless. In fact, many of these items are great for getting more calls or clicks to your website, so they should still absolutely be a part of your local SEO strategy.
Does promptly responding to messaging improve rankings?
Promptly responding to messaging also does not impact local rankings, but it is a must if you decide to enable messaging. Google may deactivate messaging if you’re not responding fast enough. Plus, responding quickly gives potential customers less time to look elsewhere.
Bookings
Like messaging, the GBP bookings feature also does not have any impact on rankings. The booking feature, also known as Reserve with Google, can be a good way to increase leads. This tool gives customers the ability to make appointments right from your profile.
Screenshot of Google My Business listings with opening dates or times. Service areas Whether you’re displaying an address or not, your listing will rank based on the address used to verify the listing.
