Can local link building and citations as well as brand mentions online help rank my Google Business Profile maps listing?

Local link building and citations, as well as brand mentions online, can potentially help to improve the ranking of your Google Business Profile on Google Maps.

Local link building refers to the process of acquiring links from websites that are relevant to your business and are located in the same geographic area as your business. These links can help to improve the credibility and authority of your business in the eyes of Google, which can in turn improve your ranking on Google Maps.

Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number on other websites, even if they do not link to your website. Citations can help to improve your visibility on Google Maps by providing additional information about your business to Google and helping to verify the accuracy of your business information.

Brand mentions online refer to instances where your business is mentioned by name on other websites, social media platforms, or online directories. These mentions can help to improve your visibility on Google Maps by providing additional context about your business and increasing its overall online presence.

Local link building, citations, and brand mentions are just a few of the factors that can influence the ranking of your Google Business Profile on Google Maps. This helps to demonstrate to Google that your business is a trusted and authoritative source of information within your local community. Unstructured Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number on other websites that may not be listings but still mention your business’s NAP info in a way that may not be as structured as your standard business listings may be. These various types of citations help Google to confirm the accuracy of your business information and can also contribute to your ranking on Google Maps.

It’s important to note that while local link building, citations, and brand mentions can help to improve your ranking on Google Maps, they are just one part of the ranking algorithm. Google uses many algorithmic factors to determine the ranking of businesses on Google Maps, including but not limited to keyword relevance, the distance of listing to the searcher, and the prominence or authority of the business. Things like quality content, the accuracy of business information, NAP consistency, brand authority, trust signaling, and third-party reviews are also important. Therefore, it’s important to focus on providing a high-quality user experience and building a strong online presence through holistic SEO campaigns in order to improve your ranking on Google Maps.

We mentioned that Google uses a complex algorithm to determine the ranking of business profiles, and many other factors can also come into play. Learn more about how google determines local ranking from them here. However, lets focus on how Google uses three main factors to determine the ranking of businesses on Google Maps.Simply put, these factors include:

Relevance: Google looks at how well a business matches the search terms that a user has entered. For example, if a user searches for “pizza restaurant,” businesses that are more closely related to pizza restaurants will be ranked higher.

Distance: (AKA Proximity) Google takes into account the distance of a business from the location that the user has entered or is searching from. Businesses that are closer to the user will generally rank higher.

Prominence: Google also considers the overall prominence of a business. This can be based on various factors, including the number and quality of reviews that the business has received, the overall online presence of the business, and the number of citations and links pointing to the business.

Find out how your listing is ranking right now using our LIVE LocalGEOgrids rank tracking tool.

Google’s ranking algorithm is constantly evolving, and the specific, in-depth, factors that are used to determine ranking will change over time. Therefore, it’s important to focus on providing a high-quality user experience and building a strong brand authority in order to improve your ranking on Google Maps. It is also worth mentioning the need to hire a professional digital marketing agency like BIGdeal Marketing Solutions so that you can rest assured that your Local SEO campaigns are effective!

Here are a few additional things that you can do to improve the ranking of your Google Business Profile on Google Maps:

Make sure your business information is accurate and up-to-date: It’s important to ensure that your business name, address, and phone number are correct on your Google Business Profile. You should also include any relevant categories that apply to your business, such as the type of products or services that you offer.

Encourage customer reviews: Google uses customer reviews, indirectly, as one of the factors to determine the ranking of businesses on Google Maps. Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your Google Business Profile by providing excellent customer service and making it easy for them to leave a great review. Detailed and keyword-rich reviews can certainly help grab keyword relevance as well so this is an important step where a professional can assist with review management!

Optimize your website for local SEO: In addition to optimizing your Google Business Profile, it’s also important to optimize your website for local SEO. This includes including your business name, address, and phone number on your website, as well as incorporating local keywords and phrases into your website content. A well optimized location page is paramount to the success of a local GMB SEO campaign! We have that covered as well if you don’t want to do it yourself.

Build local links and citations: As mentioned earlier, local link building and citations can help to improve your ranking on Google Maps. You can build local links by reaching out to other local businesses or organizations and asking them to link back to your website. You can also build citations by ensuring that your business information is included on local directories and websites. Another good practice is to scraped the backlink profiles of the top performing competitors in search and go after the same links that are working for them. This a BIG part of our GBP Monthly Campaigns as we believe competitor parity is very important for continued results. 

Use ALL Google My Business features: Google Business Profile Listings offer a number of features through its GMB (now known as Google Business Profile)platform that can help to improve your ranking on Google Maps. For example, you can use the “Questions and Answers” feature to answer frequently asked questions about your business, and you can use the “Posts” feature to share updates and special offers with your customers.

By focusing on these strategies, you can improve the ranking of your Google Business Profile on Google Maps and increase the visibility of your business to potential customers.

Check back for more information as we take a deeper dive into Local SEO and the different things that we do to get your Google Maps Listing Ranking Better! Click here to take a deeper dive into how to do proper link building.