Google Maps: Helpful Tips And Tricks For Local Marketing Campaigns

Google Maps is known chiefly for its useful features that help people find the fastest routes to their destination, check traffic conditions, and find locations using Street View. In actuality, this tool can do much more to help local SEO experts and businesses in improving their local SEO rankings.

Below are some of the top features of Google Maps that one can use to improve their marketing strategy.

Messaging Customers From Google Maps And Search

Google allows businesses and site owners to message their customers in Maps and Search for faster and easier communication.

Businesses who have verified profiles can now message their customers directly from the Google Maps app, and the messages they receive from clients will show in the business messages section in the updates tab. One can turn this messaging feature on or off from the settings panel of Google My Business and Google Maps.

Soon, the search engine company will add another helpful feature that allows businesses to view and reply to customers’ messages via desktops by adding messages directly in Search.

Meanwhile, customers can use business messaging from search results while viewing a Google My Business profile. They can also click the “Message” button on a business’s profile and even initiate a conversation from any Google My Business post.

Viewing Google Maps Performance Insights

Google can monitor key marketing metrics through Google My Business’s performance insights. These insights can measure the number of customer engagements from Maps and Search to determine how well a business is performing. Moreover, they show businesses and site owners the queries that people use to find their products and services in Maps and Search.

The dataset tracks information such as:

• The number of searches that triggered a business profile
• The performance of a business and whether it is worse or better compared to last year
• A list of search terms that customers use to find a business profile
• The number of times people used the search term to trigger a business profile

The tool also includes data regarding the number of clients that searched a business via Maps separately from finding it via Google Search and whether they used a desktop computer or a mobile device.

All the performance data discussed above is available for up to six months.

Publishing To The Google Maps Community

Google Maps has a community feed in its Explore tab, which allows users to look up reviews, posts, and photos from the people they follow, local experts, and so on.

Businesses that also serve food and drink may post to the community feed by updating their profile with new information or by publishing a Google Post. Therefore, companies working in the food and drink industry must keep their listings regularly updated. The more often they publish content to their profile, the more often they will show up in other users’ community feed.

Submitting Imagery To Google Maps Street View

Google Maps also allows users to contribute imagery to Street View via mobile devices only. With the Street View feature, users can capture image after image while they move along a street or a route.

Once they have built a series of connected images recorded and published using the Street View app, Google will automatically put the series of photos together. The feature can be helpful for companies situated in places where there is not a lot of street view coverage. It can also be used to submit an updated Street View photo of the outside of a business.

Building Authority As A Google Maps Local Guide

Businesses can show that they are committed to helping their customers and improve their authority by becoming a Google Local Guide.

Google relies on Local Guides to answer questions, share photos, write reviews, edit or add places, and check facts on Google Maps. Local Guides receive rewards from the search engine company, such as special badges and points as rewards.

Although business brands cannot become Local Guides, business owners can make a personal Google account and join the Local Guide program. A specific Local Guide badge will show beside their name when they contribute to Google Maps. As time goes by, it can help business owners stand out and be known as people who indeed care about their local community.

One can become a Local Guide simply by signing up with a Google account. Maps will ask for the user’s current location, and afterwards, they are free to make contributions to Google Maps.

Finding Accessible Routes For Customers In Google Maps

Businesses must always present a solution for their customers’ accessibility needs, which includes having accessible ways to visit the business’s physical location.

Although anyone can easily search for directions in Google Maps to get to their destination, they do not immediately find the most accessible or fastest route. Therefore, businesses can help by listing the fastest routes possible from different areas of the city on their website.

Furthermore, users can access the “wheelchair accessible” routes in Google Maps just by changing their settings:

• Search for the company’s address into Google Maps
• Click on Directions and select the public transportation icon.
• Tap options and choose “wheelchair accessible” as a new route type.

Google Maps will automatically generate a list of the easiest routes to get to the local address the business owner typed in.

Improve Your Local SEO With Position1SEO

Taking advantage of Google Maps and other search engine features to get the best local SEO results can be too much for some businesses to handle on their own. This is especially true for smaller businesses that don’t have a lot of time or staff to spare. For such companies, hiring a reliable SEO company that offers affordable services can be the solution.

Here at Position1SEO, we can help you boost your search rankings, attract more visitors to your website, and eventually convert them into paying customers. You don’t have to pay for any advertising costs when working with us; our local SEO experts provide affordable, bespoke packages that help you target the right people who are ready to buy what you offer.

Unfortunately, only a few companies can help you in securing a position on Google’s Page 1 on the search results. But with Position1SEO, we can guarantee exactly that for your website using our no-stone-unturned approach, providing you with the highest rankings possible, no matter how many keywords you target.

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