Content Marketing Ideas for Your Google My Business Listing with Brian Barwig @BrianBarwig #vcbuzz

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Google My Business offers a few opportunities for business to add unique content about their business.

These include “About your business” area, posts, Q&A and more.

How to use these content opportunities correctly and which ones should be prioritized?

Let’s discuss!

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About Brian Barwig @BrianBarwig

Brian Barwig @BrianBarwig is a self taught Local SEO and Digital Marketer.

He created his blog in 2014 in the efforts to try and spread some of his digital marketing knowledge.

Presently, Brian is working for a Local SEO agency, @SterlingSky, as a Local Search Analyst and Account Manager.

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you become a digital marketer? Please share your career story!

I started working for a ticket broker (scalper) in 2005. We bought tickets and then sold them via StubHub mostly. Secondary websites, like StubHub, take a huge amount of fees from buyers/sellers during the transaction process.

Our company did not have their own website, as they deemed it unnecessary at the time. I wanted to see how we could build our own website and begin competing with the secondary sellers. We built a website but it didn’t rank, obviously.

I began looking into the SEO space in about 2006. My digital career took off from there. I left the ticket broker company shortly after, started my own company with a friend, and started in the Local SEO game in about 2009.

I worked solely on my own company for 10 years, then went to a Fortune 100 company, then to a couple smaller Local SEO companies which is where I currently work – @sterlingskyinc

I didn’t like the big, corporate life. Small agencies helping small to medium sized businesses suit me just right. Hence our GMB chat.

They didn’t really think it was necessary since we sold almost exclusively to secondary markets. We made good money doing that and they figured SEO would be a huge expense.

Q2 When working on content for a GMB listing, which opportunities do you prioritize?

For the GMB listing itself, always fill out all of the pertinent information – NAPW, categories, hours, Products, Services, Attributes, Description, Opening date, & photos. Those are crucial, some are Local ranking factors, & all will show up in the Knowledge Panel.

Google Posts is a way to add more content and relevance to your business listing, though it is not a ranking factor from what we have seen.

Adding geo-targeted content to your website will have a positive impact on your local rankings, so that should also be a priority.

I always stress filling out every aspect of your GMB listing though. Google may not use or show the info now, but they may in the future – ie, Posts, Opening date, Description, etc.

Currently, it is being called Google Business Profile Manager. Im sticking with GMB though…haha

I like to have a GMB listing whenever I can. You never know when someone will be looking for a service and find your listing. The more places you can be, the better

They can be useful, especially for discounts, sales, coupons, etc. It can be difficult for business owners as the Posts expire within a week most times, so updating can be a hassle.

You can add a bunch of information prior to fully getting verified, but it is during the verification process. Once you request a postcard, hold off adding any more info until you verify fully.

Correct, though you can add a CTN to GMB (profile business manager) and it won’t affect the listing.

Q3 Do you have any keyword optimization strategy when it comes to GMB content? I imagine people search local businesses differently that how they do it when searching for general queries.

I like to geo-target the pages and content. Try to add your location and keywords to the Title, Meta, Headers and content. Don’t spam the content, but the Google Local algo is a bit different than the Organic algo.

The local algo tends to reward different aspects of content. The more you can tell Google where you are located and what you do/sell, the better off you will be.

This is a good strategy. Nice work. They keyword strategies should be similar to Organic SEO, I just like to geo-target whenever possible

Mostly yes, but you can still use a home business as brick and mortar or SAB. PO Boxes should not be used. There are some other black hat ways but we don’t participate in that. Good way to get suspended as well.

Q4 When analyzing a GMB listing, is there any way to quickly improve its visibility? Apart from reviews, is there a hack to effectively optimize a GMB listing?

Similar to the answer I gave in Q1, fill out everything in the GMB profile to its fullest extent. NAPW is crucial, as is the Primary Category you choose. Keyword stuffing the business name can work wonders and Google rarely punishes for doing so.

That last part may not go over so well, but it works. Adding keywords in your website content, specifically to the page you’re linking to in GMB, can also help your Local rankings.

Lastly, spam fighting still works as well. Google has not been taking much action on spam in Lawyer listings recently but it can work great in other industries. You can use the spam form in GMB to report listings.

Spam redressal form

In addition, @darrenshaw_ and @whitespark just released the 2021 Local Search Ranking Factors. This has a ton of information on how to rank from some of the top Local SEOs in the game.

Good question and a bit out of my league actually. I believe those are for Local Service Ads if Im not mistaken. The LSA’s are great if you can break into the top 3. Better than PPC if you ask me.

Q5 What are your favorite local marketing tools?

I think this is going to be alot of the same players we all use. Daily I’m using Ahrefs, SEMRush (links, content ideas), PlacesScout (local grid rank tracking), Screaming Frog, Sitebulb (technical issues), BrightLocal

I also use several chrome extensions – SEOMinion, GMBspy, GS Location Changer, and Plepler

GMBSpy lets you see competitor categories on GMB, GS Location Changer lets you change your location on Google to make it easier to spy on local markets, SEO Minioin is a easy, fast tool to see a quick overview of websites

Plepler is great and has a ton of good tools in their Tools section. Checks out

Our previous Google My Business marketing chats:


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