BrightLocal‘s recent study of 45,000 local businesses revealed some exciting insights about how this free service from Google can benefit a local business like a chiropractor or nutritionist. The most important finding of the study is that on average, a local business just like yours, is found in just over 1000 searches a month and 84 percent of them are discovery searches. In fact, the health and fitness category scores more than twice that at 2053 searches a month.
What is a discovery search? People search in one of two ways – when they know your name and type it into Google, that’s called a direct search. When they search for a keyword like a category, a service, or product description and they find your business, that’s called a discovery search,. They didn’t know about you before and now, thanks to Google My Business, they’ve discovered you.
The average business is found in 157 direct searches each month, and 852 discovery searches. So, you could be popping up in the searches of hundreds of people who are new to your practice each month.
Getting found does depend on whether you are ranking in the top three listings in the Googles maps section of a search.
And it’s vital that you do appear in this three-pack. Even being number one in the organic listings is too far down the page for a local business. There will be ads and Google My Business listings above you.
The main goal of using Google My Business and getting ranked well is to get the searcher to take an action. The study found that, on average, a typical business gets 59 actions from their GMB listing every month. That translates to 5% of GMB listing views resulting in some sort of action. This comes out to 56% visiting websites, 24% making calls and 20% requesting directions.
That’s a lot of calls and website visits you’re leaving on the table if your Google My Business listing is not performing as it should.
What do you have to do to cash in on this free tool?
- First you must claim your Google My Business listing. Many practices have already done this.
- Second, in order to grab one of the prized spots in that three-pack on page one for a search for a chiropractor or nutritionist in your area, your listing needs to be fully optimized so that Google will rank your listing higher in the search results. Posting content to the GMB feed each week to encourage the visitors to take an action, and increasing the number of your positive reviews are just two of the actions you can take to optimize your GMB listing.
In summary, a more optimized Google My Business will result in higher ranking and greater possibility of potential customers finding your practice and turning into new patients.
The key questions are:
- Have you claimed your GMB listing?
- How optimized is that listing?
- Is your listing getting seen in searches?
- Are you getting clicks and reaches?
If you answered no to any of these questions, we can help you fix that. Request a free analysis of your Google My Business listing, and we’ll provide you with a full report.
Send your request to info@unsmarketing.com or call (727) 442-7101
