I Ranked a Google My Business Listing N#1 in 96 hrs (With One Simple Change)

this google my business listing jumped all the way to the number one spot in google local maps and in the google map pack in just four days after i made one simple change to it find out how i made it happened hi my name is luke duran the founder of rankingacademy.co.uk if it's your first time here today why don't you subscribe and click on the bell button before the end of this video so you get notified next time i publish a new one so i managed to make this google my business this thing from being in no man's land on google local maps results to claiming the number one spot by doing one simple change which took me under one minute the listing in question is for a web design freelancer called leapfrog web design located in the london wimbledon area and this freelancer is actually me i was yes i started my own little web design venture many moons ago long before my youtube channel and created a google listing for it in the process this business is no longer operating but i still use the listing for testing purposes only to understand the impact of the change i monitored the progress of the listing using two tools the first one is the local rank tracker tool from whitespark.ca i really like this tool because you can easily break down the ranking performance of your listing on the google local finder the google map pack and google map itself and filter the results by locations and keywords you can even track rankings for bing i also use the google map scan tool from local falcon this tool is great if you want to understand the coverage area of your listing and how far your business visibility stretches on google maps you just need to add your listing to it the keyword for which you want to see where your business listing ranks on google maps then select the size of the area you want to check and run a scan within a couple of minutes local falcon will overlay the ranking results of your listing on google maps based on your business address this gives you a clear visual representation of how well your listing is doing locally by the way i have no affiliation with either of these tools and i am not making any money for mentioning them either i just think they are great tools and that's why i use them so if you want to check them out i have put links to both tools in the description below since the listing is for a web design business located around wimbledon my plan was to rank as high as possible for the target keyword you guessed it web design wimbledon which according to ubersuggest is searched around 90 times every month obviously i wanted the listing to rank locally but i also wanted to check if it would rank further afield and went to google maps to figure out what the closest neighborhoods would be based on postcodes the business is currently located in london sw18 and i decided to go along with two nearby postcodes sw17 and sw15 obviously i could have gone for a wider area but for the sake of this test i thought that was sufficient enough to summarize the criteria for this test was to figure out how well this listing would rank for the keyword web design wimbledon in london sw18 sw 17 and sw 15 which is what i set up in a white spark local rank tracker and here is what the outcome was as you can see from the graph on march 27th this year this listing was ranking in position number 11 in the google local finder in london sw 18 where the business is located i made the change on the 29th of march and only three days later it jumped to the number two position let's have a look at the other postcode starting with sw15 very similar scenario as the listing seemed to move between position two and three and now for the final postcode sw17 again very similar although it seems to plateau at number three let's now filter the results using the google map pack option i'm not sure i need to comment a great deal here as the results speak for themselves the listing is in a map pack for all three locations let's now look at our google map scan tool from local falcon to see how this translates on the map i set up the scan to check a two mile radius from the business address which covers the three postcodes i specified in a wide spark local rank tracker and here are the results prior to the change no ranking under five which is where the address of the business is and most rankings around position 10. let's now have a look at the same scan which i ran after making the change the story is very different everything has gone green and the listing is now ranking consistently at number two across the board although there may be a bit of discrepancy in results between the tools it clearly shows the impact this change has made for this listing which is likely to result in more traffic and potential new customers right okay i've kept you waiting long enough it's now time to reveal what i changed to get such dramatic results simple i just added the keyword web design wimbledon to the name of the business on the google listing yes that's all it took now you may think great i'm just going to add keywords to my own listing not so fast unfortunately this is totally against the google my business guidelines which clearly specified that your name should reflect your business's real world name as used consistently on your shop front website stationery and as known to customers in this case the business is called leapfrog web design and not leapfrog web design web design wimbledon which is clearly against the guidelines you can still decide to go ahead and add keywords to your business name because clearly it works as you can see from the test and that's why so many local businesses do it just go to google and search for any local business and i can guarantee you that within minutes you will find listings stuffed with keywords but there is a risk if you get caught by google your business might get suspended so what can you do there are two solutions to this problem here is the first one search for the keywords you want your business to rank for and look at the competitors you rank above you have they added keywords in their business names that shouldn't be there giving them an advantage over you if this is the case report them to google using the business redressal compliant form so hopefully google will correct these listings and in some cases even suspend them this should help you move up the ranking ladder to make your life easier you might want to use a tool like local falcon to quickly identify where the cheats are and where the biggest opportunities lie the nearer your listing is to the top three position the biggest the opportunity is to rank in the map pack for example my leapfrog web design listing ranks in the number five position here only two spots away from being listed in the map pack which would give my listing much greater visibility clicking on a dot shows me which businesses rank above me and what their business names are i'm pretty certain that the top two are not legitimate and have simply added the keyword website design to their name if they were to be corrected there is a great chance my listing would move up to a map back position the second solution is a bit more drastic and involves some significant changes since google's guidelines specify your name should reflect your business's real world name then the alternative is to change your business name altogether so you can legitimately include your target keywords in your listing without the risk of being suspended let me show you what i mean with an example if i search for the keyword nottingham cards for instance only one of these things shows up and check what their business name is nottingham cars and if i go on their website i can see this is their real business name whether they have done this deliberately or it was just a stroke of luck is totally irrelevant the visibility of their business in google for anyone searching for cars in nottingham would be sky high just because of it if you are watching this video and are just starting out and have yet to decide what you are going to call your business make sure you choose carefully as it will have a major impact on your visibility in google and just to prove this point as part of my experiment i ran a secondary test where i removed the keyword web design wimbledon from the listings business name and revert it back to just leapfrog web design sure enough within 48 hours the listing came back crashing down to where it was before but i didn't leave it there after a couple of days i changed the name again but this time i didn't even include the real business name and removed leapfrog web design all together leaving just my target keyword web design wimbledon in less than 24 hours the listing shot right back up to number two three days later it claimed the top spot in the three postcodes i was targeting and this is the final ranking results on the map not bad for just changing the name right but that's not all while tracking the performance of this listing for the keyword web design wimbledon i was also tracking other related keywords such as web designer wimbledon and web design company wimbledon and guess what they also shot right up and achieved two and three ranking positions it would therefore make sense for me to rename this business all together to web design wimbledon so i can legitimately add the keyword i am targeting to the google my business listing without the risk of being suspended especially since the domain name is available and would cost peanuts clearly this is a very simple example and based on a small volume of searches but if you are in verticals where keyword searches are significantly higher and each potential new customer is likely to spend a lot of money with you it might make sense to consider changing your name as an example if i search for the keyword dentist in toxin the number of monthly searches goes up to almost 3 000 making it a very attractive keyword to rank for and if i look at which business ranks number one for these search terms unsurprisingly it's a business called dentist of toxin coincidence i don't think so i hope you enjoyed this video remember to like and subscribe if you haven't done it yet if you have any questions post them in the comments below and until next time happy marketing [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Ranking Academy

Views: 47,268

Keywords: google my business, google my business tutorial, google my business tips and tricks, google my business seo tips, google my business tips, google my business seo, google my business optimization, google my business 2021, local seo google my business, google my business optimization tips, google my business secrets, local seo, google my business tutorial 2021, how to rank google my business, google business, google maps seo, how to rank number 1 on google

Id: PEpEbY1773Q

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021