In my last blog post, I mentioned that Google has been making changes and that those changes are making it harder for you to connect with families and win the call.
Here’s a little background and some examples of what they’ve been doing.
The #1 clicked on part of the Google search results for any local business is the three Google My Business (GMB) listings directly under the map.
When someone searches for “funeral homes near me” or “funeral homes in <community name>”, the three listings under the map are your GMB results. If you are in a small town with less than three funeral homes this isn’t a problem for you.
But if you have more than three funeral homes there’s a good chance that your listing will not appear on page one.
It is extremely important that you show up in the top three of the GMB results. But here’s where it gets tricky…
Google is constantly changing their “super secret” rules for how they rank local business. They used to do it purely off of who is closest to the center of town. That is no longer the case.
The rules are never published but Google has acknowledged that there are now 20+ factors which influence how your business will rank.
Fortunately, I have Nathan on my team who specializes in Google My Business rankings and he stays on top of the constant changes.
But here’s what Nathan’s encountering in the listings he manages for my clients….
Google has been encountering “technical difficulties” and has restored some listings from old backups. Suddenly a properly configured listing is gone and a version from 2010 is in its’ place which no longer complies with the 2019 rules, so it drops down in the rankings.
They had more “technical difficulties” and suddenly where our client shows up on the map is wrong.
They had even more “technical difficulties” and suddenly our client’s hours of operation are wrong.
These types of things make it a challenge to stay in the top three.
Why would Google do this? To encourage businesses to use their paid services.
Shortly after a series of these “technical difficulties” Google sent out a survey asking businesses if they would be interested in paying for a higher-ranking Google My Business listing.
Coincidence??? I think not!!
Hmmmm…..so they create a problem and then offer to fix it for a fee. No wonder they make so much money!!
One of the bonuses I include with my new book the Funeral Business Builder Master Plan, is a second book called Google Ranking Secrets. This book provides some great information on how to improve your ranking on Google. Click here to check it out.
If you are not showing up in the first three Google My Business listings in your community, you are losing out on calls that could be coming your way.
To help out we’ve put together a short Google Audit service. I’ll have Nathan run his analysis tools against your listing to identify the problems and plot a course of action.
We will report our findings back to you and you can decide whether it’s worth fixing your listing or to bite the bullet and start paying Google.
Click here to order a Google Audit service (by the way it’s on $99)
Google’s getting ready to roll out a major update this summer which is going to significantly impact your organic ranking. That’s the results underneath the Google My Business listings.
More on that change next week.
More to come…
John
John Callaghan, Funeral Success Marketing, 888 504 2980
FuneralSuccess.com
WinMoreCalls.com (webinar)
FuneralBusinessBuilder.com (membership site)
FuneralBusinessBuilder.com/book (new book)
FuneralBusinessBuilder.com/google-audit (Google Audit service)
