Episode Transcript
Monica Pitts 0:04
Hello again, and welcome back to marketing with purpose. My name is Monica Pitts. And with me today I have Marilyn Jenkins, and she is going to educate us all about how to show up on Google. And I hear that all the time I hear I want to show up on Google from potential web design clients all the time. But it's kind of a tricky statement to make, because there's more than one way to show up on Google. And most people when they say that they mean, I want to show up on Google search. And they think that SEO is just all about your website. And it certainly is, it has a lot to do with your website. But there's there's a lot more to it, as well. And I know that we've all searched on Google and been presented with a map at the top of the search results page. Well, that map is one way that Google displays the local pack. And if you've ever wondered how to show up on that map, and I mean, if you are a local business you have well, 32% of the weight for being placed on that map is actually determined by a free tool offered by Google your Google business profile. And that also weights about 9% of your organic search results as well. So that's it's awesome like you you, you set it up, and it's going to, it's going to be a powerhouse for you. But just like everything else in Google, there is a trick to getting it set up correctly. So that way you can use it to its fullest potential. And today, we have expert, Marilyn Jenkins, CEO of MJ Media Group on the podcast to crack the code and teach us how to maximize our Google business profiles and its importance to local businesses. Now, here's the good news, too. Like she's going to tell us all about this. But if you need more information, she actually recently published a book that trains readers on this counterintuitive approach to optimizing their Google business profile that can help you generate new clients every single month. And you don't have to know anything about websites or social media or online marketing to make it work. And now we're going to learn all about it. And like I said, if you need more, get the book. Alright, so without further ado, Hello, and welcome to the podcast. Yeah,
Marilyn Jenkins 2:09
thank you so much. Thank you so much. So here
Monica Pitts 2:13
are our Google business profiles, like all you do, tell me just a tiny give me a glimpse of what is this that you do on a daily?
Marilyn Jenkins 2:22
Yeah, so I run an agency. And what we do is what I call Omnipresence marketing for our clients. So we do website optimization, Google business profile, paid ads on both Google and meta, and social media posting for our clients. So we help them with branding as well. But the Google business profile is a just is a huge part of the SEO part and being seen and found in your local map pack.
Monica Pitts 2:47
And I feel like most of my clients, when I tell them about it, they don't have any clue. They're like what they don't know. They like literally don't know. So let's start with a vocab lesson. What on earth is a Google business profile?
Marilyn Jenkins 3:02
Well, most people know it as a GMB a Google My Business. And there's been probably eight iterations of names. Google keeps renaming it as they did since 2000. Like five, I think it was Google Places back in the day. And so you know, it's Google business profile is like, and if you think about, you know, taking the Yellow Pages and importing it in and making a business listing for everybody that was in the yellow pages, it's kind of like that. If your business exists, there's probably a listing for you. You just need to claim it. Prove that you are who you say you are, and then optimize it so you can start showing up in the backpack. The problem is, is so many people were used to Google My Business being a place to store reviews, they never did anything else with it. So there's no engagement. Google doesn't see that. Okay, yeah, you've got reviews, but you're not doing anything else. So with the Google business profile, you have so many more things to
Monica Pitts 3:54
do. What's the narc pack.
Marilyn Jenkins 3:57
That is that three pack of and it's the there's there's obviously a lot when you click on the map, but when you do a local search, anyone does a local search on their phone or on their computer looking for something. The first three on the top of the search results are paid ads, we're used to that right, yeah, the second three is the map pack. Those are not paid. Now, Google, Google is sneaking in an ad every now and then if you say four on the map pack, one's going to be an ad they've started kind of sneaking that in. But then below that your organic search. And Google's has shown that 60 to 80% of the people that do a local search, stop and click on the map pack they don't go below it. So I mean, even much higher double the amount that click on ads will click on the map pack. So you need to definitely have that your Google business profile completed. And then be interactive with it, you know, update it. So Google sees you as engaged. Think of it as a little bit of a social media but the kicker here is it's free. You know, and and the more you engage He, the more you provide your Google business profile, more information about you, the more Google will make you more relevant in the in the, in that map pack.
Monica Pitts 5:08
I agree with you, I actually was just looking at a client's data from Google Search Console, and they are a business to consumer client, they're actually a plumber. And they rank really well, organically, actually, there's a lot of really, really general terms that they're ranking like, well, one or two, four, but then there's some that they do a lot of services in, but they don't get a lot of calls for. And they're there six, like that's not a bad spot to be, but especially if you're on a phone, that's a lot of scrolling to get down there. And so being in the map is important to them. Now, does every search yield the map pack? I don't always see it up there. What, what makes that
Marilyn Jenkins 5:50
typically, it's typically if it's a near me type thing, and you don't have to use the words near me. Like I was out with a friend and we were looking for an Italian restaurant. We didn't say near me, but we were on our phones. And we got a map. So most of the time, if it's a b2c? Well, most of the time there is a map, it's unusual, unless you're asking an educational type question. You know, if you're asking a generic question, you're most likely not going to get the map pack, because it doesn't relate to a location. But it is possible that if you have your question answered, set up on your Google business profile, and on your website, you might show up in an educational question, answer.
Monica Pitts 6:29
Those are cool. I actually was looking for last night I was searching for what size rug? Do I need to put underneath a king sized bed because I need to buy a new rug for underneath my bed? And I don't know what slides the last one was? Because I bought it years ago, like four years ago, right? And I was just scrolling. And then I got that educational question answer card. And I was like, Yes, this is awesome. I don't have to click through. So thank you. Thank you, whoever would answer
Marilyn Jenkins 6:59
it. Yeah. And that plays into the Google zero, click Search Now. So they're trying to keep everyone on their platform, so that you don't go away to get the information. So by you giving them as much information as you can in your Google business profile. And also on your website, they're going to index that and use you. And if you as the user, like say you ask an educational question, that there's a video on YouTube that will answer it, they'll give you that as the first search result with a timestamp to answer your question. So it's all about the user experience and keeping people happy on Google.
Monica Pitts 7:33
Now, search results, they look different for different services. We just talked about that and different types of questions and industries. How much impact does your work calling it the G B? P, that's the way you you refer to it sometimes, but your Google business profile, like have on if you show up or not? Is it like, a lot or a little? It's
Marilyn Jenkins 7:57
it's a lot for for local businesses, it's huge. There is it's like, I don't know, it's hard not to say a website. But it's kind of like a website with a blog built in. But it's all in one little card. Right. And there's business insights in the back room. In your management portal, you can see exactly how people are utilizing your Google business profile. You can have products and services listed. You can obviously hours of operation, question and answers. And I just tell clients if you've got if, if every client asked the same question, or the same three questions, think of your FAQs. Put that on your Google business profile, you know, upload photos, so do a one photo a week do, you know reply to a review, spend 10 minutes a week updating it once you've got it completely filled out. And that way Google sees you as engaged. Now, if you have a direct competitor that has more reviews than you, they are not engaged, you have the opportunity as potential to be above them in the map pack.
Monica Pitts 8:57
That's what it is. Because we were looking and my client had probably 30 More reviews than the lowest set of reviews on the map pack for their business. And I'm like, this is this is weird to me, because it used to be that it was all based on reviews, you know, like however many reviews that's usually the people up at the top had more reviews than anybody down below. So that's really inch. Okay. All right, you're solving problems for me already. This is awesome. So tell me, like just backtrack for a second. How did you become a digital marketer? Is it something that you've always done? Or is it something that you wandered into? Tell us your story? Well,
Marilyn Jenkins 9:41
I started my first internet company in 1999. So dating me there. And then once I exited that, I I just started doing consulting work and was helping small businesses with their websites and that sort of thing. And it just became from referrals, you know, running ads for people And, you know, I did a lot of this for myself as well, the different parts of digital marketing and through referrals, I've gotten more and more and built a team. And now that's, that's what we do.
Monica Pitts 10:10
And then what so when did you figure out this whole Google Business Profile optimization thing? Because you have a trick to it? And I can't even imagine all the science experiments you had to run to really figure it out. But like, how did how did you figure it out? Was it just you did it for yourself first, or I
Marilyn Jenkins 10:32
just did it for a couple of clients first, and they did a lot of research into it to make find out the The easiest and best way to do it, what the steps are to getting it done. I mean, all the information to Google has all of that on their support documents, but it's also dry read. Okay.
Monica Pitts 10:48
Some of it doesn't even make sense at the time you're like, so I gotta click on the clicker to get the click. And I'm like, But why do you just use the word click three times I'm very confused Google like why I always say that they give you steps, one through five, and then like nine and 10. And you're like, like, but I needed six, seven, and eight yo, like, I'm like, it's their new
Marilyn Jenkins 11:11
job. It's like, that's a bad SOP. But yeah, and then what I did notice as well, with my ads clients, and working with, I work with a lot of law firms and home services companies, obviously, all local based. And I found that some of the smaller firms weren't quite ready or smaller businesses weren't quite ready to run ads or spend a lot on marketing. And but they didn't know the power of their Google business profile. So after doing a few coaching sessions on that, I'm like, I'm so we'll just put this in a book. And so I put together the book with screenshots and everything, because, you know, a lot of people don't realize you need to actually claim your Google business profile or your competition can, why
Monica Pitts 11:52
they can claim it. No way.
Marilyn Jenkins 11:55
Yeah, so you need to claim it and verify it as quickly as you can. And there used to be the only way to verify was a mail postcard and have a verification code on it. There's several different ways now, you can get instant verification, depending on who you are, or where you are, it's random as to how that whether you're given that option. And some people have the option to doing a video. And what they don't say in very clear terms, it's a one, take video. So it's like have a shoot you in front of your your sign, then unlocking your front door, and then walking into whatever the place of business is, how always has to be one solid shot and under a minute. So there are some details with the with the video. But if you can't get verified, it can be a problem. So you have to then appeal and do all of that. So the key is to do it, right. Get it done, find the simplest way, if you have a choice of verifications and get verified, and you can actually reach out to somebody not by phone, you can never reach Google by phone now. But they
Monica Pitts 12:57
call you are. They're lying, that person is not Google. Exactly.
Marilyn Jenkins 13:01
There are in the Google business profile, there are actual human beings that are referred that are reviewing the verification. So you can reach into support and get help if you need it. But it's really quite easy to get everything done. And the key is just to get it done. So now you have it. And now start updating it, make sure your name, address and phone number are exactly the same as it is on your website. And the never don't take your name and say, Maryland Jenkins, plumber, Houston, Texas. Yeah, that's not the name of my business, right. And they're referencing your business. So your name needs to be the name of the company, it's never a place for your keywords, right. However, they used to have three categories, they now have up to 10. And you use those categories to be your your main keywords and prioritize them. Okay. And then you have a little about us. So there's so many places in there that that you can tell everything about your business, and I just say update something every week.
Monica Pitts 14:04
Okay, and in the About Us section, would you say you should use those keywords in the About Us section or just be like, yes, okay. Use keywords and you
Marilyn Jenkins 14:15
can even use your keywords as a reply to a review. So every you should review, you should reply to every review, whether it's positive or negative. And in that review, in that reply, you can say hey, thank you so much for visiting Maryland's you're using Maryland's plumbing in Houston, Texas. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. So yeah, you can throw your keywords into that. You don't want to be super spammy, it's gonna be readable, you know, but, but doing that sort of thing. Yeah. So
Monica Pitts 14:42
once you have it all set up, how long does it take to show up because I think that's that. So with organic SEO, like having your website physically show up, it takes a minute, because Google's got to index it and decide that you don't suck and my It sucks to show up for you. But how long does it take to get the business profile to show up? Is it fast,
Marilyn Jenkins 15:06
immediate and immediate? Now, it might not show up in the in the map pack? Yeah, immediately, it could be 60 days. But as soon as you update it and hit save, your Google business profile is updated. It's not like it's got to go through some process. You've put your information in there, and it's published live.
Monica Pitts 15:26
Now, if so, you said that most businesses probably already have a profile out there. And I know that a lot of my clients have profiles that someone set up for them, but they don't know how to log in, do you have any advice to retrieve their login information? Well,
Marilyn Jenkins 15:44
they, a lot of them, were originally set up by Google. That's why you may not have your login. It's just a listing. So what I suggest is go to Google, type in your business name and hit enter. And if the Google business profile shows up, click Choose claim this listing and click on that and make sure you're logged in with your appropriate Gmail account. And you should be given the opportunity to claim it and verify it. But
Monica Pitts 16:09
if it's already, can you at get in and you should be able to change your Yeah,
Marilyn Jenkins 16:17
it's the only question is, is it connected to your current Gmail account? Or was it connected to another Gmail account? Yes. Okay. So that would that would be the question. But if you've already claimed it, it should be connected to your main Gmail account. So I would only question how many Gmail accounts do you have? And try another one?
Monica Pitts 16:35
Yeah. And if it's like, one from a past employee, can you like move it to a new Gmail account? Or are you just stuck? You're
Marilyn Jenkins 16:43
stuck unless you can get that employee, so you can get the employee to add you as a manager, okay, and then take themselves off. Okay, right. For clients that we work with, we add our get them to add us as a manager. So that way we can go in and as a manager, you can't delete or whatever, right? You can't, but you can, you can add content, you can reply to stuff. But yeah, if someone already has taken it over, maybe a past employee, you need to have them, give it back to you. And there could be some way on Google with support that you can say this is mine, and that's an employee, and then you can re verify. But that'd be something to check with, with Google on. But if you've, if it's there, and you look for it, and it says, suggested edit, or own this business, click on that and go from there.
Monica Pitts 17:32
Now, a lot of businesses have multiple locations, like even a create, like our offices spread out across Missouri. So what do you do? If you have multiple locations? Does that mean that you just have one Google business profile? Or do you have one for each office?
Marilyn Jenkins 17:48
You can have one for each office, if customers will come to each office, have a different one for each office? And
Monica Pitts 17:56
then you would update each one, like you said, once a week, like just go in and touch it once a week. And I really do love when businesses update their hours? Like, can I set some type of like calendar notification for local businesses, like every single three day weekend, please go in and update your hours? Yeah, it'd be so great for the rest of us. Because then we know if you're open or not.
Marilyn Jenkins 18:21
Yeah, I've met a friend that had a store that out of the blue on Tuesdays, they stopped getting sales people just weren't coming in. They're like, you know, the last two or three Tuesdays, we're not doing much business, what's going on? One of their managers, team members went in and changed their hours showing a closed on Tuesday. Because apparently it was a discussion in a meeting. Well, they're not closed on Tuesday. So as soon as they turned it back on it, they're open on Tuesday, within literally the next Tuesday. They had sales. No way. It's that. Yeah, the hours make a difference, you know, and it's, it's, it was crazy, just that simple. But they're like what happened here,
Monica Pitts 19:00
and especially if it was like a bank holiday. And if you know that three quarters of the businesses in your community closed, like if you are, especially a business to consumer retail, or restaurant business, that kind of thing, like, adjust your hours Google does sometimes put in there. Like it'll say, this business may not be open, though, because of, you know, the holiday weekend or whatever. I can't remember the exact wording, but I've seen it up there. And then I'm like, Ooh, I don't know. Do I want to? Yeah, I want to drive 20 minutes and brisket. I don't know, you know, so I think it's I think it's now what if you work from home, a lot of businesses are home based businesses. How do you handle that with your Google business profile?
Marilyn Jenkins 19:44
So the question the next question I asked on top of that is are you a local business or are you a global business?
Monica Pitts 19:53
Okay,
Marilyn Jenkins 19:54
if you're global, like I am, I will not global but I'm across the US. so it doesn't behoove me to have a Google business profile, because no one's going to look me up and come to my office. Okay, and I work remote. So I don't want anybody to come into my office. But if you are, say, your local business that actually runs your inventory or whatever out of the garage, or an office in the house, it's probably relevant for you to be local, if you're selling local. So you can publish your Google business profile Google business profile and not show your address. Now, by not showing your address, you don't get the preferential treatment in the map pack, but at least your information is out there. And so it is valuable to a degree not as valuable as if you had an address. Now, I do have clients that use mailboxes, etc, type post boxes, not a Pio box, it's got to be a street address. So you know, those types of mail services, you can try that. And many of those do work.
Monica Pitts 20:59
And if you're a global business, then you don't, or like a national business, you just don't have a Google business profile. Well,
Marilyn Jenkins 21:07
I don't, it's just you could have one and to hold your reviews, but I just don't see it's valuable because you know, someone walking on the sidewalk looking for you. They're not going to that's just not relevant.
Monica Pitts 21:17
Yeah, I agree. I agree. So there's lots of different parts of your profile. You mentioned that, you know, you have your description, you have your categories, you have images, you have reviews, what's the most important part? What's the thing like if I fix just that, like if, if I can only fix one thing, what's the thing I'm gonna fix?
Marilyn Jenkins 21:42
Name, address and phone number have to be absolutely correct. And same as your website. That's huge. And your first category, photos and videos. Those are the big things right now that I would do. If you sell a product, or you sell a service, list those. Okay, you can put a photo and a video in each one. You don't have to do like blog posts. But I do suggest if you don't have anything to update this month, or this week, write a little article use AI to write an article and edit it and put that on there. Right. So you're putting something on there. Again, the q&a is it's hard to say which is most important, obviously, name, address and phone number. If your phone can handle chat, turn on the tap button. And you can start SMS conversations with people from Google.
Monica Pitts 22:26
No way. Yeah. So there's a website button,
Marilyn Jenkins 22:30
a chat button and a call now button. So or I think it's message. But yeah, use every single opportunity for people to reach you. I mean, back in the days when the internet was new. The big thing for building a website was make it easy to give me money or to take my money. Right? So if I'm going to a website to buy something, it's gotta be easy to pay for it, or I'm going somewhere else. So what I look at Google business profile is make it easy for them to reach you. Right now while you're on their phone screen.
Monica Pitts 23:00
I agree. I agree. And, okay, here's a great story, friends, I was in the market to buy a fence. Because one of my dogs was a runaway dog. She has since passed away, she did live a very long life. And she did eventually get a fence and it made my life so much better. But I like my yard is big. I cannot tell you how many people I tried to call with their Google Business Profile phone number, and it was out of order. They each lost out on like $10,000 I guess that's how much to put my fence up. And I mean, and people would be like, Oh, well, XYZ fencing company, and I would Google that fencing company, I would look for them in, you know, look for their Google business profile, I would look at their listings, I would call the phone numbers, all of them wrong, all of them wrong. Wow, there are so many people whose businesses are like this, though. Like they just don't have a clue. They don't have a clue. Okay, so images you meant you mentioned the images, are there certain types of images that are better than others? Obviously, ones that are relevant once I looked up a painting company and they had a pineapple like, like a sliced open pineapple is one of the images up in their Google business profile. It's like what is this? You guys? Oh my god roads? So image tips, is there something that that works better for the images that there have been other things
Marilyn Jenkins 24:26
think of the same thing is with video on social media know like and trust. First, I found the local business I want to picture the outside of my building with the sign so it's very clear, maybe pictures of the founder pictures of the team and video introduction. So it's you want them to see who you are. And you know where you're located. And you can even use the Google Streetview as one of your images. Okay. But yeah, get your your face out there. If there's teammates, like if you've got a receptionist, they're gonna say you're a salesman. Listen, they're gonna see when they come into your store, or a manager, that's first person they see have them on there, you know, have a picture of them on there be no bit be that local business that we all used to know when you walk down the street, there's Mary's coffee shop, you know, I mean, that kind of stuff make people feel like they know you. So
Monica Pitts 25:18
the funny thing is, is my receptionist is a dog. So I'm, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, I think that Quimby needs to be in my Google business profile, because when they walk into my office, she's gonna walk right up to them.
Marilyn Jenkins 25:33
Michelle, you should put a picture and put right underneath their receptionist going to be because she's the receptionist. And that's part of your personality. So that is part of the know, like, and trust. I
Monica Pitts 25:46
love and now I'm empowered. I can put my dogs that people love dogs. I, yeah, she walked in. My, my office is on the second floor. And sometimes the bottom floor door gets locked. And then my nine year old who rides the bus has to go into the other local businesses on the main floor, and be like, Hey, can I can you call my mom. And then I was going down together and Quimby came with me, and she just like walks right into this hair salon, and everybody's like, dog in here. That's why I love this town. Because you guys aren't offended right now by the fact that my dog just came on in. So one question that I do get a lot is about reviews. And so I wondered if you had any advice for people on how to get those reviews? And maybe before you give us the advice, though, I would like to know do does number of reviews still impact your listing on? Like your ranking on the map pack? Does it factored in? And is it important? I guess it
Marilyn Jenkins 26:52
is, it is factored in it is important. The reviews on your Google business profile have way more weight on your ranking than any reviews on Yelp, or trusted advisor or even anything like that. And it's been getting more and more valid, valid over the course of the years like through since 2015, you can see that it's greatly more more weighted. First off is don't try to get too many at one time, because you will be blocked and there'll be shattered. You won't be blocked, but they won't be visible. So what you want to do is just make it a habit, whether you can automate it or not make it a habit to email out every client, a direct link to the reviews. And I mean that pop up where all they have to do is fill it out, they don't need to click anything else. They choose five stars write something and hit enter. So you make it as easy as possible for them. Working into your process that after a sale after a job closes. Any whatever is an end of the your business with that person asked for a review. Now you want your goal is to get at least 10. Right. But now, if you haven't had any reviews, you don't want to get 10 Tomorrow, because go Google is gonna say that's not normal.
Monica Pitts 28:06
Okay, well, that makes so.
Marilyn Jenkins 28:10
Yeah, I mean, it's not if you've gotten one a week, and suddenly you get five in one day, what did you just do? Right, they're gonna, they're going to hold those AND gate those. So you want to make sure that you're getting them regularly. That's why I say work it into your process. If you're new to business, and you don't have clients to ask, ask your suppliers, because character reviews are valid. Ask your suppliers, the people you work with, ask your dentist, trade reviews with your dentist if you like him. He knows you as a good person. It's a character review.
Monica Pitts 28:43
Okay, I like this plan. And you said the pop up does this is a complete dorky thing to ask. I know. But is there a unique URL for the pop up sometimes popups? Yes, it's like
Marilyn Jenkins 28:56
super, super long. And it's a three commas. So what you want to do is go to your Google business profile, click on writer review, and that little thing pops up that has the five stars at the top, click the address bar, it's super, super long. copy that address and save it to a txt file so that you can use that email. Oh my gosh, give it to somebody and they click on that. It'll go, Google will load your Google business profile. And then about a second later, boom, that pops up.
Monica Pitts 29:25
That's awesome that it does that because a lot of the times pop ups don't behave like that. That's cool.
Marilyn Jenkins 29:30
I've never had a problem if you do that one if you do that link, so you want the pop up first and then copy the address and oh, it works just fine.
Monica Pitts 29:38
And friends, you can put that into a QR code to totally Absolutely. And if you don't know how to make a QR code, I totally made a video about it. And you can make up like if you just use Canva Canva has like this extension where you can make QR codes physically in Canva which is awesome because then you don't have to go someplace else and And you can update it to go to a different URL if you want to in the future. So it's pretty cool.
Marilyn Jenkins 30:05
It's really I mean, if I was a business, that business, a consumer that people walked in, I would have a QR code on the back of my cash register. Yeah,
Monica Pitts 30:12
that makes perfect. Yep. Yeah. Or even if you were a restaurant, you could put it inside of the pay folder. What's that thing called? Like the little folder? They put your credit card in? And your check in?
Marilyn Jenkins 30:27
Yeah, yeah, that's a great place for it. Exactly.
Monica Pitts 30:29
Explain it. Take this with you say nice things, talking about saying nice things, when there are bad reviews, because you said we need to, we need to reply to every review. Good or bad? How do you suggest people handle bad reviews? Because I think people are intimidated about asking for reviews. Because what if there are bad ones? And how do they handle that?
Marilyn Jenkins 30:49
Well, think about it this way, no one walks on water. So eventually, you're going to have a bad review. So if you respond to every single review, professionally, thanking people for their opinion, for visiting your business, whatever it happens to be, and a negative one comes in, you respond professionally, anyone that's looking to do business with you, they read all your reviews, they read your replies, they're going to take that one or two bad ones and take it with a grain of salt because they see how you're responding. And also, especially if someone gave you a one star review, but they've never done business with you be very professional about that. In your response, you know, I understand you're unhappy, but I don't, you've never done business with us, I'm happy to provide this service, if you want to come in. I mean, whatever, just be very professional about it. Again, that's the know I can trust. People will read your reviews, we read reviews on coffee machines on Amazon, of course, we read reviews for businesses. So you know, I want to see your attitude, the way you treat your customers and the way you treat people who maybe weren't a customer, by reading your responses to reviews. And it's something more than just thank you, you know, give me some wording to it, you know, use your keywords. But yeah, it's your professional response and people will people are some people are not logical. But you know, most people are pretty logical and nice people they can read and get go, okay, that person was having a bad day. But Maryland responded nicely. So let's go do business with Maryland. I mean, you know, yeah,
Monica Pitts 32:24
I agree. I have read a lot of reviews. And there's definitely ones where I'm literally laughing out loud. They're so funny. Because this human is such a troll. It doesn't even make sense. And yeah, those are the ones like, I'll read them to my husband. Because they're so funny. I wish that I could remember, like, there was one that was so over the top. I was like, holy cow. And I saved it and sent it to everybody because it was ridiculous.
Marilyn Jenkins 32:52
Well, then the funny thing was, is you get yeah, there's people that give bad reviews, and they've never actually been in the business. Yeah. And maybe they don't even live in that town. So you know, by you responding appropriately by being little, little. I don't know what's going on here. People that check your reviews will be like, Okay, well, that one should be thrown out. And you can't get a review thrown out.
Monica Pitts 33:14
Okay, that thank you for saying that. Because that was good. I'm just gonna ask that. Like, can you? Can you get it thrown out? No, the answer is no friends. No, no, dang, but
Marilyn Jenkins 33:25
respond to it. And then what you want to do is if you have less than four stars, respond to those and work your butt off to get new ones. Yeah, five star reviews. Yeah.
Monica Pitts 33:34
So once your Google business profile is set up, you said that we should be doing stuff with it once a week. Any ideas of like, what to post about? What do you want us to do with it as.
Marilyn Jenkins 33:54
So if I run if I have a service that I provide a service, I would add or update a service every week, if I provide a product, say I'm a pet store, and we have a special going on this week, that's what I'm going to talk about. You know, when it comes to products, I don't think there's a limit to the number of products you can list. List all your big products, you know, each week, put a new product on, we got great new rain vests from Fido, you know, whatever. And but list your products, list your services, think of this as an absolutely integral part of your online marketing that is free. Again, free. So spend 10 minutes a week and do that. If you find that somebody's asking a new question about a new service, make that on your q&a. I'll do those types of things. As
Monica Pitts 34:44
I was thinking it was going to be more like a social post. But it sounds like I'm actually building out my profile the way that I would build out a website by adding more stuff and more information for people to learn about my business. And in that way, then I can be found for more things in Google too. You and
Marilyn Jenkins 35:01
I agree that exactly in the posts are a great idea as well. I mean, if you've saying, Okay, I've got three services, I can't say anything more about my services, but you can talk about it in the post. So write a short article and put that as a Google post Google Google Business Profile post.
Monica Pitts 35:17
Now, are those articles when you post them up there are do they show up in search results? Or are they and they can, I've noticed that LinkedIn has LinkedIn articles have started showing up in searches, search results, which is different from other than YouTube, I don't get a lot of like results in my searches that are not websites, or ads or the map, right, but now LinkedIn is showing up and I like what
Marilyn Jenkins 35:50
LinkedIn is doing a lot. If you've noticed the last, I think two weeks, they now have aI buttons underneath long posts, not necessarily articles, but longer posts saying give me the takeaways. Ah, so they're having AI automatically on your feed give you the takeaways in that long post, the whole too long didn't read thing. Tell me what to auto read, you know, tell me what he was talking about.
Monica Pitts 36:13
So the LinkedIn articles are the ones that I've noticed showing up in my newsfeed. So I guess that was my question Will. And you said sometimes, like the posts, the article style posts that you can make in your Google business profile, they sometimes show up? Which will I bet that they're gonna start showing up more? It's Google. And it always favors its own content? Right? Let's be real. Exactly.
Marilyn Jenkins 36:35
And I use I would think of it as the so when you we talked earlier in the beginning about those educational questions, when you go to Google, and you type in a question about how to do blah, blah, blah, and it comes up the answer? And then down below, it says people also asked, yes. So by making your post questions that can be answered, as well as having that on your website, you have a potential of being that website in these additional questions. So there's one attorney, I think it's an I think he's in Colorado. And when you ask a specific question, he's the answer. And he's the next four suggested questions. Okay, well always also asked,
Monica Pitts 37:16
and then whenever I find that, I'm going to that website, I'm like that website's got what I want. And that's a thority. Baby. It sounds like there's a lot of correlation between the information that you would post about in your Google business profile, and what you should be putting on your website. But that's the same thing with Google ads, you set up a Google ad, and then when you send them to the website, it needs to be like, extremely related, right? Don't just send them to the contact page friends, not going to do what you want it to do. But okay, so I just need to think about that. It's like a mirror, just like with the content with my business name, address, and phone number, they need to be exactly the same. If I'm going to talk about it out on my Google business profile, I should have talked about it on my website, which actually probably makes it really easy to talk about it both places, because I can use really similar content in both places and make my life easier. Well,
Marilyn Jenkins 38:10
and duplicate content hasn't come up as an issue with that. Oh, and I would, I would imagine, it probably won't, because Google's going to prioritize the content that's on their platform.
Monica Pitts 38:21
Okay. On there, okay. Yeah, well, and if you can get it to show up, then that's awesome. It's awesome. I'm feeling more in control of my profile. Now, I feel like I need to go update it. I knew that was gonna happen, because I talked to you. Any last piece of advice, you want to give folks about setting up this really valuable resource that Google offers for free, and you know, your book? Yeah,
Marilyn Jenkins 38:53
I was gonna say, do it, just do it. And if you need to need some help, and step by step, go get my book. It's at maximize your gbp.com. And it walks you through the claiming it, the different types of things you can add to it, verifying it, the whole nine yards, what we want you to do is dominate your local local search and be in that top three. And by continually optimizing and adding to it, you can get into that top three, and you want to be known further afield than just like five miles from your location. But it's important to do that, my book helps you do that. And if you need to be able to hand that off to an employee, I do offer SOPs that you can give them that again, is step by step. So they do it correctly, but maximize your gbp.com That is
Monica Pitts 39:45
incredible. And I think that those those processes and operating procedures would also be incredibly valuable. Because I mean, as a business owner, you start you're like, Okay, this is really important. I need to figure out how to do this. I get it done and then I have to You've done it a couple of times, you're like, oh, man, there's another more important thing now that I have to do. I figured this out, but then you have to write those and hand them off to your team. And you've already done that work for them. So this could be a delegate, double task, my friends, delegate.
Marilyn Jenkins 40:17
I mean, it's hourly value, right? I mean, if you're the owner and founder and something comes up, that takes more precedent. Obviously, the GDP is important. But running your business is important as well. So being able to hand that task over, and there's over 35 SOPs there, so bits and pieces of it, if you want someone to do just one thing, it's it's easy enough to hand off, but keep it close in your in your business. And make sure that you own it, your website is the admin and you can add managers to work with you. Is
Monica Pitts 40:46
it a digital book, or is it a like it? It's printed currently digital book? Yeah,
Marilyn Jenkins 40:53
it's it'll be in paperback in a couple of months. But currently, it's it's digital. I did go one step further and have an audiobook as well. So if you're like me, and you podcasts when you're walking, you know, it's easier for me to listen to a book when I'm out for my walks.
Monica Pitts 41:07
But this sounds like a book that if I were going to listen to it, I would still need like the physical written version of it to make sure that I did all the things that you told me to do. Yeah,
Marilyn Jenkins 41:17
and you can bookmark PDFs now and all that. So I am looking forward to printing it and get it printed pretty soon, but I just wanted to get it out into the marketplace.
Monica Pitts 41:25
I think it'd be so proud when you can hold on to your book and be like, Yeah, you should do a photo shoot with it. You could cuddle with your book. Yeah, exactly. With your book. Okay, Lion King seems more like you cuddling seems like me. This is great, weird things we do with our books. Well, thank you so much for coming and hanging out with us. I'm so excited to add this episode to my resource library. Before we came on today, I was telling Maryland that I've had no less than three conversations just today, not today. But over the last week where I'm like, Oh my gosh, one of the things you really need to do is optimize your Google business profile. But I'm not the person to do it for you. And so I'm just really excited to be able to offer them this resource and a link to your book so that they can learn more. And thank you everyone for joining us. Subscribe. Yeah, that would be a great thing for you to do. If you subscribe, then you will get notified when more episodes like this drop in the future. You don't want to miss next week's episode next week, we are going to keep talking tech and we have useful and mega cool google chrome extensions that my team can't live without and there are so many of them and they're awesome and they're all free. So we had another like timesaving tech episode for you that can make a difference in your workflow. So thank you so much for hanging out with us and until next time, go forth and mark it with purpose.
