Google wants to make everyone happy. It’s at its most profitable when everyone is happy; when people get what they’re searching for. 


When businesses get more visibility on the search engine, they’re more inclined to use it (and eventually pay for that advertising, which is rapidly approaching $100 billion a year).


Accordingly, Google constantly introduces new tools and features that businesses can use to improve their visibility. One of them, Google My Business, promises to help local companies get more visibility (and search engine accuracy) than ever before.


Google My Business uses many factors to determine rankings for businesses. Here the three most important ones:

  • Relevance
  • Distance
  • Prominence


Relevance

Relevance determines how well your business fits the search intent of the customer. Is your focus identical to what the customer needs or are you a bit opaque about what your business does? Vagueness doesn’t rank. Be as clear as you can be. Keep your focus.


Distance

Distance is a well-known factor for ranking local businesses. You can’t rank in a local search for (painter melbourne) when you have located your company in Mooroolbark ( a suburb on Melbourne). The exact way Google determines which businesses to show in a local search is unknown, and it can be pretty hard to rank in a given area. The other factors play a significant role as well. It helps not just to say you are located in a particular area, but also to show it by creating local-oriented content around your business on your site. Google uses what’s known about the location of the searcher to present the most relevant local businesses.


Prominence

Prominence is all about the activity around your listing; this could be the number of reviews, events, local content et cetera. It also helps if you can get loads of quality links to your site. It is somewhat hard to determine what prominence means exactly, but one thing is sure: no one likes dead profiles. You have to keep it updated with new photos and manage your reviews. As said before, this works in tandem with your site, so make sure both listings align and that you publish SEO optimised content.


Some companies have a Google My Business SEO service, that is designed to publish highly optimised SEO friendly content - inline with proprietary SEO style guide to give your business a better chance at being found on Google.