For many businesses in Calgary, a call, website visit, or even directions request can come down to simple proximity. When customers look for a business or service nearby, the businesses that show up well on Google Maps tend to get those clicks, calls, and visits first. But in a competitive local market, having a Google Business Profile isn’t enough on its own.
Start With Local Understanding
If you’re hiring someone to help with your local visibility, don’t just look for an agency that can tell you how to get on page one. Calgary businesses should partner with a local SEO company that understands:
- How your business operates
- Who your customers are and where they’re located
- What you can and can’t do to improve your visibility without jeopardizing your Google Business Profile
A local SEO company should be able to explain (in layman’s terms) all of the ways they’ll be working to improve your visibility on Google Maps and local search results pages, including but not limited to:
- Google Business Profile optimization (business and service categories, business description, photos, encouraging reviews, etc.)
- Optimizing your website for local search (content on your website that references your service area(s), fixing any crawlability/indexing issues, etc.)
- Cleaning up your business’ name, address, and phone number information so it’s consistent throughout the web. Check this page to know more.
All of these elements – your website, your online reputation, your business information, and your local relevance – work together to signal to search engines what your business is about and who you can help, so look for a local SEO company that appreciates this, too.
Get Accuracy and Eligibility Right
Before chatting about strategies, ask how your local SEO company makes sure that Google Business Profiles are in line with Google’s guidelines. Taking shortcuts could see your business’ profile(s) get suspended, meaning you’ll lose visibility and spend time on getting your listing reinstated.
For example, if your business’ profile shows an address, it should be an address where your business actually operates. If customers can visit your business at that address, great – keep showing that address on your profile. If your business travels around Calgary to service customers, though, and there’s no brick-and-mortar location that customers can visit, your Google Business Profile setup will look a little different.
A good local SEO company will ask you questions like:
- Can customers visit your business at your listed address, or do you go to customers?
- Which neighborhood(s)/communities around Calgary are your best customers/clients from?
- Are you listing the right service areas?
- If customers called the phone number listed on your Google Business Profile during your listed hours, would someone pick up?
- If you have multiple locations, do you offer different services at each location?
These details aren’t nitpicky – they ensure that your business’ profile(s) can accurately represent your business(es) and that potential customers can have trust in the information they’re finding about your business online.
Know What to Expect from a Local SEO Company
No reputable local SEO company will be able to guarantee #1 rankings on Google Maps – your local rankings can fluctuate for a number of reasons outside of your control (prominence, competition, the searcher’s proximity, the exact keywords being searched, and more).
Instead, look for a local SEO company that will start with an in-depth audit of your Google Business Profile(s), website, competition, customer journey, and local search landscape, following a process like the one outlined at https://www.ahrefs.com/blog/local-seo-audit, before recommending next steps. A Calgary-based restaurant in a densely populated neighbourhood in inner-city Calgary will have very different local SEO needs than, say, a contractor that services a handful of communities outside of Calgary’s city limits.
From there, a good local SEO company should be able to tell you specifically what they noticed (inaccurate/incomplete business information, duplicate profiles, sub-par website pages, opportunities for optimizing your business categories, barriers to earning reviews, etc.) as opposed to speaking in broad strokes about “improving” or “boosting” your local SEO.
Depending on your starting point, you may want to consider working with your local SEO company for at least 90 days before you see any kind of reliable trend data – changes need to be implemented, crawled/indexed by search engines, customers need to engage with your business in new ways, etc. before you’ll start to see any real shifts in your local visibility.
Take Customer Reviews Seriously
Another super important aspect of optimizing your Google Business Profile(s) is collecting and responding to customer reviews, and these can play a huge role in whether or not a potential customer chooses to call, message, or visit your website after finding your business online.
A reputable local SEO company will help you set up a streamlined process for collecting reviews from actual customers, whether that means tweaking your review solicitation language, coaching your front-line staff on when and how to ask for reviews, or figuring out the best time to ask customers for a review. You should stay away from any local SEO company that offers to collect reviews in bulk, incentivizes reviews, or collects reviews from people that haven’t actually availed themselves of your products or services.
Make sure your local SEO company has a plan in place for responding to customer reviews (both the positive and negative) in a timely, professional manner that doesn’t violate customer privacy and shows future customers that you take their business seriously. Cut-and-paste review responses don’t inspire much confidence.
Look for Reporting That Means Something
Make sure you understand what your local SEO company will and won’t be reporting on and how those metrics tie in to real-life business goals and KPIs. You should evaluate a Google Maps SEO agency by the business outcomes it reports, not profile views alone.
Keep Communication and Ownership Clear
Before you sign on the dotted line with any local SEO company, make sure you’re on the same page about:
- Account/listing ownership (your business should ALWAYS have access to its own listings/accounts, even if you’re hiring a local SEO company to manage them for you)
- Frequency of service (how often will your local SEO company be making changes/optimizations to your Google Business Profile(s), your website, etc.?)
- Frequency of communication (how often will you be hearing from your local SEO company? Make sure you’ll be in touch with someone familiar with your account, and that you’ll be able to keep your local SEO company in the loop about changes that might influence your local SEO efforts – changes in hours/services/staffing, construction, new locations, weather, seasonal demand, local happenings, etc.)