For HVAC and appliance repair businesses, a well-optimized Google Business Profile can make a significant difference in attracting new customers and increasing revenue. However, neglecting to update and optimize your profile can lead to missed opportunities and a decrease in online visibility.
Google is continuously changing and updating its features, which can impact the appearance and ranking of your Google Business Profile in search results. As a result, it’s critical to regularly monitor and optimize your profile to maintain or improve your ranking and performance.
By keeping an eye on your Google Business Profile, you can assess the progress and quality of your profile over time. Establishing a systematic review process can help you identify what strategies are working and what needs improvement. Monitoring the search landscape can also provide insight into new opportunities and challenges that may arise.
This guide outlines ten key aspects of your Google Business Profile that HVAC and appliance repair businesses should monitor for optimization opportunities. From regularly updating business information to managing customer reviews, optimizing your Google Business Profile can help attract new customers and boost revenue.
Why You Can't "Set and Forget" Your Google Business Profile
Neglecting your Google Business Profile (GBP) can lead to missed opportunities and lost revenue. Here are several reasons why it’s crucial to continually optimize and update your GBP:
- Changes in local search results: Google frequently updates its search algorithm, which can impact how your GBP appears in search results. Keeping your profile up-to-date can help you maintain or improve your ranking.
- Changes in buyer behavior: The way people search for and make purchasing decisions can change over time. Regularly monitoring your GBP can help you adapt to these changes and ensure your profile is catering to your target audience.
- Changes in GBP features: Google is continuously adding, testing, and retiring features on GBP. Staying up-to-date with these changes can help you take advantage of new opportunities to improve your profile.
- User-generated content (UGC): Consumers can leave reviews, post photos, and ask questions on your GBP. Managing and responding to this content can enhance your online reputation and increase customer engagement.
Overall, regularly monitoring and optimizing your Google Business Profile is essential for staying competitive in today’s digital landscape.
How Local Search Results Have Evolved Over Time
Below is a graphic that depicts the changes in local search results’ appearance from 2007 to 2015. The image shows the Local Pack’s transformation from a 7-Pack to a 3-Pack in 2015.
Although we have become accustomed to seeing three results in the Map Pack, Google has recently introduced large maps and a 5-Pack for specific queries:
Google’s 5-Pack presents more opportunities for users to interact with a business without clicking through to its website. This aligns with the concept of “Google as your new home page,” which has gained traction as Google continually adds new features and functionalities to keep users on their SERPs.
In conclusion, keeping track of the ever-changing appearance of local search results is essential to maintaining a strong online presence and attracting potential customers.
How Changes in Buyer Behavior Affect Businesses
As HVAC and appliance repair businesses, it’s important to understand how changes in buyer behavior can impact the way potential customers find and choose your services. Staying up-to-date on world events, technology, and other factors that influence consumer behavior can help you stay ahead of the competition and attract new customers.
One significant shift in buyer behavior is the increase in mobile phone use. This shift has led to changes in search behavior and user expectations, as well as how search results are presented. As a result, it’s critical to optimize your Google Business Profile for mobile users and ensure that your website is mobile-friendly.
Additionally, consumers are increasingly turning to online reviews and ratings when making purchasing decisions. This means that managing your online reputation and responding to customer reviews is essential for attracting new customers and retaining existing ones.
By staying on top of changes in buyer behavior and adjusting your marketing strategies accordingly, you can ensure that your HVAC or appliance repair business remains visible and competitive in a constantly evolving market.
Voice and Visual Search: The Future of Local Search
For HVAC and appliance repair businesses, optimizing visual content can be crucial in showcasing their products and services. For instance, including high-quality images of HVAC units or appliances on the website or Google Business Profile can attract potential customers searching for specific products. Additionally, using descriptive alt text and captions for these images can improve their visibility in visual search results.
Staying informed about the latest search behavior trends can also help HVAC and appliance repair businesses stay ahead of the curve. For example, if there is an increase in voice search queries for “emergency HVAC repair,” businesses may want to consider optimizing their website and GBPs to include phrases like “24/7 emergency HVAC repair” to ensure they appear in relevant voice search results.
Overall, as visual and voice search continue to evolve, it’s important for local businesses to adapt their digital marketing strategies to stay competitive in the local search landscape.
Enhancing Your Business with New Google Business Profile Features
The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically impacted the way businesses operate, and Google has been quick to respond by launching new features to help businesses adapt. This is a significant shift from Google’s historical approach to requests for new business features.
Many of the new features launched during the pandemic, such as Covid-19 Posts, health and safety attributes, and the ability to mark a business as temporarily closed, are still available and may become permanent fixtures of Google Business Profile. Additionally, the ‘More hours’ feature has proved to be incredibly useful for businesses that need to update their hours due to changing circumstances.
Google continues to surprise us with new features, sometimes without any explanation or announcement. These updates may go unnoticed until there’s a change in the dashboard or someone tweets about them. It’s also essential to keep in mind that some features may be retired, like short names.
As an HVAC or appliance repair business, it’s important to keep up with the latest GBP features and use them to your advantage. Utilizing features like health and safety attributes and Covid-19 Posts can show customers that your business is taking precautions and following guidelines. Keeping your hours up to date using the ‘More hours’ feature can also ensure that potential customers know when you’re open for business. Stay vigilant and keep an eye out for any new features that Google may release in the future. Features are often retired by Google and laid to rest in what is commonly referred to as the graveyard, as was the case with short names.
Engaging with Customers through User-generated Content in Local Search
In local search results, interactivity and user-generated content (UGC) play a crucial role. While we can’t control all the content that appears, we need to monitor and optimize everything that’s being displayed.
Reviews are a well-known form of UGC, but businesses often overlook the Q&A feature. Customers continue to ask and answer questions, so it’s essential to address them promptly and accurately.
Google messaging is another feature that businesses can use to engage with customers. With messaging available for many businesses, it’s becoming easier to manage conversations through the dashboard or third-party providers.
Moreover, Google recently updated the Maps app, allowing users to add their own photos and comments to the ‘updates’ tab. This new feature opens up the possibility of even more UGC from customers.
As a business owner, it’s crucial to stay on top of these changes to make the most out of the opportunities that UGC offers. To help you keep track, here are ten points for monitoring and optimizing your Google Business Profile.
1. Monitor the SERPs
As an HVAC or appliance repair business owner, it’s important to monitor how your Google Business Profile (GBP) appears in search results. This means keeping a close eye on the SERPs and asking yourself some crucial questions:
- How does my Google Business Profile look in regular search results?
- How does my Google Business Profile appear in the 3-Pack?
- How does my Google Business Profile look in the Local Finder?
- Are my competitors’ Google Business Profiles more impressive than mine?
It’s important to ensure that your GBP is always up-to-date and well-optimized to make the best possible impression on potential customers. By keeping an eye on the SERPs and your competitors’ profiles, you can identify areas where your own GBP needs improvement and make changes accordingly.
Top of Form
As an HVAC or appliance repair business owner, it’s important to ensure that your Google Business Profile (GBP) is visible and easily accessible to potential customers across different devices and platforms. To achieve this, you need to regularly monitor how your GBP appears on various search engines results pages (SERPs).
One way to monitor your GBP’s visibility is by conducting a branded and non-branded search. This allows you to see how your business appears when someone searches for your company name or when they search for a specific service you offer. Additionally, you should check how your GBP appears in the Map Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, and across different devices and operating systems.
Manually checking all of these elements could be time-consuming, especially if you have multiple businesses and locations. Therefore, I recommend automating the process using various tools available. By automating, you can easily track your rankings and keep a SERP screenshot of the results for desktop and mobile. This can help you make data-driven decisions to improve your GBP’s visibility and ranking.
As an HVAC or appliance repair business, it’s important to monitor how your Google Business Profile appears on different devices and platforms. You can do this by checking your profile on various search types such as branded and non-branded searches, Map Pack, Local Finder, and Google Maps. It’s also crucial to check your profile’s appearance on desktop and mobile devices with different operating systems and in various locations.
To automate this process, you can use a reporting tool to check your rankings and provide a SERP screenshot of the results for desktop and mobile devices. You can also use Mobile Moxie’s SERP Datalyser to monitor data across multiple locations and recognize disambiguation when searching for branded terms. This is particularly useful for explaining to clients why they’re seeing their own business profile in the top results.
2. Keep up with the Latest in Local Search
It’s crucial to stay up to date with the latest trends and changes in local search. By staying informed, we can adapt our strategies to better serve our clients and stay ahead of the competition.
One great resource for this is Think with Google, which provides insights into consumer trends, journeys, and new Google features. For HVAC and appliance repair businesses, this can help us understand our target audience and how they search for services like ours.
Other valuable resources like Sterling Sky, offer in-depth guides and timelines for staying up to date on Google Business Profile changes and SERP feature testing.
Additionally, the tl;dr marketing timeline newsletter is a useful tool for quickly catching up on search news.
For those looking to dive deeper into the world of local search, there are plenty of resources available, such as Twitter accounts to follow, podcasts to listen to, and newsletters to subscribe to. By staying informed, we can stay ahead of the curve and provide the best possible service to our clients.
3. Let Google Know You Want All Notifications
Keep track of any developments concerning your Google Business Profile as an HVAC or appliance repair company (GBP). Using Google alerts is one way to accomplish this.
Receiving notifications from Google regarding your business profile might be a confusing procedure. Keep an eye out for any warnings or jobs that require your attention, though. This can involve adding fresh client testimonials, updating the details of your company, or expanding your service area.
Make sure to tell Google that you want to be notified of any events involving your GBP so that you receive all the alerts you require. This will assist you in staying current with any critical upgrades and ensuring the seamless operation of your organization.
Email Notification Settings in Google Business Profile Manager
Maintaining your Google Business Profile (GBP) is essential for HVAC and appliance repair firms to draw in and keep clients. Setting up email notifications is one method to remain updated on GBP developments.
Log into your Google Business Profile Manager on a desktop computer to get going. You may then adjust your email notification settings to receive alerts for particular events that are significant to your company. This can involve alerts for fresh Q&A, reservations, or messages from prospective clients.
You may react to enquiries from potential customers and keep track of any action on your GBP by setting up email notifications. This can enhance your company’s internet visibility and reputation, which will ultimately generate more leads and income.
Message Notifications In Chrome On Desktop
As an HVAC or appliance repair business, it’s important to be available and responsive to customers who may need your services. One way to stay on top of incoming messages from potential customers is by enabling push notifications in Google Chrome on your desktop computer.
To do this, you’ll need to adjust your Chrome settings to allow push notifications for your Google Business Profile (GBP). This will allow you to receive real-time alerts whenever someone messages your business through your GBP.
By enabling push notifications, you can quickly respond to inquiries from potential customers and provide top-notch customer service. This can help improve your business’s online reputation and increase the likelihood of securing new business.
Overall, staying informed about activity on your Google Business Profile is crucial for HVAC or appliance repair businesses looking to grow and succeed in a competitive marketplace. By setting up message notifications in Chrome, you can stay on top of customer inquiries and provide timely, effective solutions to their needs.
Use A Third-Party Tool Or Use The API To Automate The Process
For HVAC businesses or AC repair and appliance repair businesses looking to efficiently manage notifications at scale, utilizing a third-party tool or automating the process using the appropriate API could be an effective solution. This allows for easier management of notifications, and potentially even custom-built solutions using the relevant API to meet specific business needs.
4. Utilize UTM Tracking To Measure
HVAC businesses, AC repair, and appliance repair businesses can benefit greatly from utilizing UTM tracking to measure the performance of their Google Business Profile. This helps answer important questions such as what’s working, what isn’t, and which features are driving traffic and conversions. By analyzing the data provided by Google Business Profile Insights, businesses can gain valuable insights into how people are interacting with their profile, and how changes made by Google can impact their conversions. This information can then be used to optimize their profile and improve their overall online presence.
Understanding the full impact of a Google Business Profile on an AC repair business or appliance repair business requires more than just the data provided by Google Business Profile Insights. Specifically, it’s important to understand how many people a Google Business Profile refers to the business website and what actions they take once there. This is where UTM tagging comes in.
By implementing UTM tagging, businesses can track traffic from Google Business Profiles and attribute it to specific channels and sources. Without UTM tagging, this traffic is often misattributed as either organic or direct traffic, and there’s no way to identify which part of the Google Business Profile the visitor came from.
UTM tagging allows AC repair business and appliance repair businesses to see which parts of their Google Business Profile are driving revenue and the types of conversions they are generating. This information can be used to optimize their profile and improve their online presence.
For businesses that haven’t yet set up UTM tagging, there are resources available, including a video that outlines the process and explains the benefits. By taking advantage of this tool, businesses can gain a better understanding of how their Google Business Profile is impacting their bottom line.
5. Monitor and Plan for Local Search Justifications
In today’s digital age, it’s important for HVAC businesses, AC repair and appliance repair businesses to utilize every advantage possible to stand out from the competition. One way to do this is by taking advantage of Google’s local justifications. These brief snippets of information are displayed on business listings in local searches and Google Maps to help potential customers find the exact services they need.
For example, if someone is searching for “AC repair near me,” they might see justifications like “emergency repair available 24/7” or “licensed and insured technicians” displayed on some listings. These justifications can make a significant impact on a user’s decision-making process.
To ensure your business is taking advantage of these justifications, it’s important to provide relevant information that matches what potential customers are searching for. Some examples of relevant justifications for HVAC businesses, AC repair, and appliance repair businesses include “free estimates,” “quick response times,” “expert technicians,” and “100% satisfaction guaranteed.”
By optimizing your Google Business Profile and website with this information, you can increase your chances of having your business’s justifications displayed in local search results. This can lead to more clicks, phone calls, and ultimately more business for your company.
When it comes to HVAC businesses, AC repair and appliance repair businesses, it’s important to understand how Local SEO justifications work in order to increase your visibility in search results. Search engines prioritize relevance, and justifications are a way to showcase the relevance of your business to potential customers.
By implementing local justifications in your Google Business Profile, you can make your business stand out and ensure that your relevance is immediately apparent. This can greatly increase your click-through rate and ultimately lead to more business.
While there hasn’t been much research on review justifications specifically, tests on other rich features such as product schema have shown a positive impact on click-through rate. It’s likely that local justifications would have a similar effect.
Understanding and implementing these justifications can make a big difference in your local search rankings and overall visibility.
How to Monitor and Optimize for Justification Opportunities
If you own an HVAC business or an appliance repair company, you can benefit greatly from using Google Search Console. It’s a tool that can help you see which search queries are leading potential customers to your Google Business Profile. By tagging your URLs with UTM parameters, you can also see non-branded search data that is triggering Map Pack results, which can be very useful information.
To get started, look at data for the last 16 months for queries that don’t include your brand name. By applying a page filter to show only UTM tagged URLs, you can see which primary website links, appointment links, and GBP offer posts are generating the most traffic.
Clicking on the ‘queries’ tab will show you the specific search queries that people are using to find your business.
Google Business Profile Insights data can be a goldmine of information for finding keywords that could be triggering justifications. Don’t overlook this valuable resource, as it can provide a lot of insight into the types of search terms that are most relevant to your business.
To go beyond your core target keywords, try to think about the various keyword modifiers that people might use when searching for HVAC or appliance repair services. This could include time modifiers such as the year or season, buy modifiers such as “cheap” or “offer,” owner modifiers such as “black-owned” or “woman-owned,” and audience modifiers such as “for children” or “wheelchair accessible.”
Attributes can also give you clues about what people search for and what’s important to them when making a purchase decision. Check your GBP attributes to see which ones are available for your listing.
You can also refer to a resource by Krystal Taing that lists all available attributes for a range of business types.
Another way to get clues about modifiers is to look at what Google is asking about your business via the “Know This Place” feature. Additionally, reviewing the attributes of your business and competitor businesses can provide further insights into what’s important to searchers within your niche.
Once you’ve identified a group of local keywords, you can map them out across various sources of justifications, starting with the ones that are easiest to influence, such as website justifications, post justifications (including offer posts), services justifications, and review justifications. This can help you optimize your Google Business Profile and increase visibility for potential customers searching for HVAC or appliance repair services in your area.
6. Photos
As an HVAC or appliance repair company, you know the importance of presenting a professional image to potential customers. In today’s visually-driven online culture, a single picture can speak volumes about your business. That’s why it’s essential to keep an eye on the photos associated with your Google Business Profile (GBP).
Your GBP is often the first impression customers will have of your business, and it’s crucial to ensure that the images displayed there are accurate and appropriate.
Monitor Customer-uploaded Images
You can easily monitor any customer-uploaded photos on your profile by sorting them by date and checking for compliance with Google’s photo and video guidelines.
Additionally, customers can upload photos and comments through the Google Maps app, which can appear in the ‘updates’ tab of your GBP. It’s important to regularly check these updates and respond to any comments or concerns promptly.
In short, monitoring your Google Business Profile photos is an essential part of managing your online presence and maintaining a positive reputation with potential customers.
Business-uploaded Images
As an HVAC or appliance repair business, it’s crucial to showcase your services and products through high-quality images.
Think about it:
- Do your pictures accurately represent the goods and services you now provide?
- Do the pictures of your employees accurately depict how they really look?
- Do your pictures suit the time of year?
- Are you routinely checking your pictures?
- Do you follow a timetable when uploading images?
Ensuring your images accurately reflect your offerings, your staff, and the season can make a big impact on potential customers. It’s important to regularly monitor and optimize your images to ensure they align with your business goals. Setting a schedule for image uploads can help you stay on top of this task.
When it comes to online search results, Google may choose a different image to display alongside your business listing than your chosen cover photo. For example, if someone searches for “air conditioner repair near me,” Google may showcase an image of your team fixing an AC unit rather than your business logo. This is why it’s important to have a variety of high-quality images that showcase your services and products, so that Google can choose the most relevant image for each search query.
Don’t risk losing potential customers because of poor quality or irrelevant images. Make sure to curate and optimize your business photos regularly to make a lasting impression on potential customers.
Monitoring Google Business Profile Cover Photos
For HVAC and appliance repair companies, having a visible and high-quality cover photo on your Google Business Profile is crucial for attracting potential customers. To ensure that your cover photo is visible and relevant, it’s important to monitor it regularly from various locations.
Using tools like Mobile Moxie can help you monitor your Google Business Profile image and notify you of any changes made.
However, it’s important to note that Google populates images from various sources, including Google Maps and Google Street View. This means that you need to ensure that your cover photo meets Google’s guidelines and accurately represents your business.
To monitor your cover photo effectively, it’s important to test it across different devices and locations that are relevant to your business. This can help you identify any issues with visibility or quality and allow you to update it accordingly in your Google My Business dashboard.
By regularly monitoring and updating your cover photo, you can ensure that your HVAC or appliance repair business stands out on Google and attracts potential customers. Remember, a high-quality and relevant cover photo can be the deciding factor for customers choosing your business over your competitors.
7. Google Business Profile Products
Google Business Profile Products is a useful tool for businesses in the HVAC and appliance repair industries to showcase their inventory on their Google My Business profile. This feature allows businesses to manually add their products and services to their profile without the need for integration with Google Merchant Center.
However, it’s important to note that not all business types are eligible for GBP Products. Businesses involved in alcohol, guns, cannabis, and adult entertainment are ineligible.
One of the benefits of using GBP Products is that it can make your profile stand out visually, and it provides a link to your website.
Google Business Profile Products is a useful tool for businesses in the HVAC and appliance repair industries to showcase their inventory on their Google My Business profile. This feature allows businesses to manually add their products and services to their profile without the need for integration with Google Merchant Center.
However, it’s important to note that not all business types are eligible for GBP Products. Businesses involved in alcohol, guns, cannabis, and adult entertainment are ineligible.
One of the benefits of using GBP Products is that it can make your profile stand out visually, and it provides a link to your website.
However, since GBP Products are manually curated, it’s important to ensure that the price, availability, URL, features, and images are regularly updated to avoid any discrepancies or outdated information.
It’s recommended to choose evergreen products that are important to the business but don’t frequently change or go out of stock. To make the process of adding products to your Google Business Profile easier, you can use a Google sheet to populate details of your products, including the URL. The sheet will then automatically tag up your GBP URLs with UTM tagging, and you can copy and paste the details into your profile.
By using this method, you’ll have a master copy of your product details in case of any issues or if multiple people in your organization are responsible for managing GBP Products. Ultimately, utilizing GBP Products can help improve the visibility of your business and increase the likelihood of attracting potential customers.
8. Google Business Profile Services
As an air conditioning or appliance repair business, it’s crucial to monitor and optimize the services section of your Google Business Profile (GBP). While it’s often overlooked since it’s only visible on mobile, it can be a valuable tool for potential customers searching for your services.
One thing to keep in mind is that the ‘provides’ justification is populated from GBP services, so it’s essential to ensure that your services are accurate and descriptive. You may see your services appearing as justifications in the search engine results pages (SERPs) that you monitor, making it even more critical to have compelling and concise wording.
Google frequently scrapes content to update the GBP services section, so it’s important to monitor and optimize it regularly. If you notice inaccuracies, promptly delete them.
As an air conditioning or appliance repair business, it’s essential to keep a master record of your services and the copy you’ve written for this section. This record will help you make revisions quickly and accurately when Google updates and changes the services section.
To make this process more manageable, consider adding a ‘services’ tab to your product spreadsheet. By doing so, you can ensure that your services are up-to-date, accurate, and compelling, helping you attract more potential customers to your business.
9. Q&A
Monitoring Q&A is Crucial for Your Repair Business
As an air conditioner or appliance repair business owner, it’s essential to monitor the Q&A section on your Google My Business listing. Ignoring it could mean missing out on potential customers or losing current ones.
Stay Alert with Google Notifications
To stay on top of the questions and answers, set up notifications in your Google My Business settings. This way, you’ll receive an alert when a new inquiry comes in, and you can respond promptly.
Utilize Third-Party Tools for Easy Monitoring
You can also use third-party tools like GatherUp or Postamatic to monitor and respond to questions. This will save you time and ensure that you don’t miss any inquiries.
Adhere to Google's Guidelines
Remember to follow Google’s guidelines when responding to Q&A. If you come across a question that violates their terms, report it and state why you’re flagging it.
Prepare a Common Q&A Sheet
To streamline your responses and save time, create a common Q&A sheet. This will give you a standard answer that you can modify as needed when responding to questions.
10. Monitoring Schedule
Last but not least, number 10 emphasizes the significance of creating a monitoring schedule for your AC repair or appliance repair business’s Google Business Profile.
Monitoring Checklist
You will need to pay attention to all the critical components of your Google Business Profile, including reviews, messaging, measurements, posts, and more. Here are some questions to consider:
Who will take responsibility for learning everything? What other aspects require monitoring besides the basics? What resources do you have internally? Who will be responsible for monitoring? What tools will be used to monitor? How often will monitoring occur?
To make things easier for you, we’ve created a resource that outlines a range of monitoring tasks and a suggested frequency for each:
GBP Monitoring
Work with your team to allocate resources, set monitoring frequency, and add any other Google Business Profile monitoring tasks. Best of luck optimizing your profile for success!
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Boost Your Online Visibility by Monitoring Your Google Business Profile with Our SEO Experts - Contact Us Today!
If you’re running an HVAC or appliance repair business, don’t make the mistake of neglecting your Google Business Profile. With the constant changes and updates to Google’s features, keeping your profile up-to-date and optimized is crucial to increasing your online visibility and attracting new customers. That’s where our HVAC SEO company comes in – we specialize in monitoring and optimizing your Google Business Profile to maintain or improve your ranking and performance. Don’t just “set and forget” your profile, establish a systematic review process and monitor key aspects like business information and customer reviews to identify opportunities for optimization. Let us help you stay ahead of the game and drive more revenue for your business. Contact our HVAC SEO company today to get started.
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