While there are many parts to executing a strong search engine optimization campaign, we wanted to highlight the importance of your Google My Business Page and ensuring your citations are correct. But before we go into that, we also want to highlight something we stress over and over again with all of our potential clients and the industry as a whole: a great SEO Agency needs to also be a great development / web design firm. Whether the agency is performing SEO in Bend, OR or SEO in Eugene, Oregon or SEO in Medford, Oregon no digital marketing effort can be done without a solid understand of web development and web design.

I know what you are thinking, “why on earth would I need my marketing firm to be great at web design / web development?” The answer to the question is simple: conversion is king. No matter how much qualified traffic is driven to your site, if you cannot convert that traffic into sales, you are wasting your time and money. The way to convert them is through great content, effective call to actions and a great User Experience. While anyone can help you with the content, everything else requires a good web development / web design team THAT UNDERSTANDS marketing.

The unfortunate part is web design / web development is where most digital marketing / SEO agencies struggle. Thus, make sure you get detailed information on a firm’s experience in conversion optimization and what web development / web design projects / work they have done in the past.

Unstructured citations are those found on a site not designed to list businesses such as news sites. For example, if your business is mentioned (either with a link back to your website or not) in a news article or some type of blog (such as a food blog naming your restaurant as a good place to eat) or perhaps a social media posts. Those are all examples of unstructured citations and they can be very geographically specific. If we were performing SEO in Bend, OR for a client who owned a restaurant, we would ensure that any unstructured citations in restaurant reviews is correctly listed. Part of our SEO services is to track down all of your structured and unstructured citations and ensure they are correct.

What is Google My Business?

As any good SEO Agency will tell you your Google My Business (GMB) page (previously known as Google Local) is your business’s profile on Google and at the heart of any good Search Engine Optimization campaign. You do not need a professional to register for, claim or update your GMB, just go to the Google Business Page. If you hire an SEO Agency, part of their SEO services should be to add a host of information in your GMB page, such as business description, category of your business (plumber, beauty, medical, etc), description of your services, your website URL, contact information, and operating hours. When we are performing SEO in Bend, OR and other cities in the Portland metropolitan area we want to make sure that when someone performs a local query for the services / products you offer, the GMB will provide them with detailed information on your company.

A more advanced SEO Agency will as part of any advanced SEO Services package advise you on additional features of GMB such as GMB Attributes, GMB Q&Z and Google Reviews which it should be noted are not entirely controlled by the business owner and are in fact controlled more by the consumer.

Why is Google My Business So Important?

What makes GMB so important to any good search engine optimization is the number of places you want your information to show that uses GMB. Any time someone in Bend, Oregon or any other city runs a query both the local 3-pack and Google Maps search results grab from your GMB. Information like store hours, review ratings, address and photos are all bits of information that one can find in a “3-pack” result that is not shown in the organic results. Therefore, at the core of good local Search Engine Optimization is a detailed GMP page. A good SEO Agency will as part of their SEO Services help you to either “claim” or create your GMB and ensure all of the information is correct.

Additionally, although we think of GMB as a search engine optimization tool if someone in Bend, Oregon performs a branded search (googles your business’s name) your GMB Knowledge Panel will appear in the top right (desktop) or top (mobile) of the SERP an example of which is depicted to the right.

As part of a robust search engine optimization campaign, a good SEO agency will inform you that this knowledge panel can appear for a business even if its GMB is incomplete or unclaimed. However, as part of our SEO Services we ensure that your GMB is complete along with additional features such as Q&A and Google reviews are setup taking full advantage of everything GMB and the knowledge panel has to offer you in your Search Engine Optimization campaign.