The Local Marketing Mixup | July 26, 2023

Your Weekly Briefing

3 reasons to be hopeful (about your business rankings)

If it feels like the Kens took over your Barbie Land and you need some hope for your business, then strap in because we're about to give you 3 reasons to be hopeful that you'll get more customers very soon. If you didn't get the Barbie reference, do yourself a favor and go see the Barbie movie. It was a fun ride. We were going to say "If it feels like Oppenheimer has dropped a bomb on you..." but wanted to keep things light.

Ok, here we go! Since you're a brilliant marketer and you know the importance of focusing on your Google Business Profile ranking high on Google Maps, we'll assume all of these will apply to you:

Reason #1: Google is making it just about impossible for lead generation businesses to verify and operate Google Business Profiles. If you've been suspended recently, you know that Google is asking you to verify your business by uploading a video that shows your place of work, your ability to access company equipment, and branded items - all in one continuous recording. You know who can't do that? The lead generation pages that have been stealing your customers. They'll likely all be gone in no time! We've been hearing of many businesses getting caught in this crossfire, so if that was you, don't take it personally. Google goes after thousands of fake business profiles daily, and they're bound to mess up a few.

Reason #2: As Google places more search results from Bard at the top of Google Search, it will be the most optimized Google profiles that get displayed instead of rankings taken from articles and aggregator sites. This means organic website ranking and ranking on other sites like Yelp will matter less and less. Just keep up the good work on your Google profile, and you'll win the AI ranking wars.

Reason #3: The FTC will likely start prosecuting businesses that buy fake reviews soon. Hopefully, this stops your competitors from buying them. Even if the FTC decides not to put an end to buying reviews, Google is getting better at fighting fake reviews and will likely start penalizing any profile that uses them. You'll capitalize on this if you get your review collection process in place soon... like yesterday.

If you're not focusing on your Google Business Profile yet, then you should start. It's easily the most effective way for businesses to get local customers.

Hey, also just a friendly reminder to enjoy your summer - for those of you in the northern hemisphere. It comes and goes quickly, and we need a remind ourselves from time to time to take advantage of it.

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Get in touch if you manage reviews for many different Google profiles. This new tool is going to rock your world! We've been making huge improvements daily to make it faster and more reliable.

Get RoboReply

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ProfilePro tip of the week:

Upload an image that represents your business in any way to your profile today. Google loves new images and will reward you for uploading one.

Our major upgrade to ProfilePro is underway and should be live in the next 30 days.

Download ProfilePro Chrome Extension

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Want to let the pros manage your Google Business Profile? It's literally all we think about doing. We offer:

• Google Business Profile management services

• Listings/citation management software

• Reviews management software

• Reputation management software

• Google Business Profile SEO AI tool

• Bulk Google review responding AI

The best part? Everything can be 100% white-labeled for agencies

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Check out our guide on every possible ranking strategy for Google Business Profiles!

Google Updates You Should Know About

Google updates their algos regularly, and we check and then digest them for you. Here are the latest ones local marketers should know about:

• March 2023 - Core Algo Update

• December 2022 - Spam Link Update

• September 2022 - Product Reviews Update

You can find details on all algo updates here.