Google Business Profile with Tricia Clements

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welcome to the messaging matter show my name is Todd Jones I am your host

and today I'm excited to have Trisha Clements and we're going to get into

introduction of her and what she does in just a moment I see Rob has already said

hey so hey Rob and also if you're in the chat room

um go ahead and say hey which Rob has already done so I'm not sure if anybody

else is here but if you are feel free to say hey and Rob is coming from Toronto Canada so I don't know if any if you are

in the chat room and you want to say like where you're from that's fine um and we'll get going here with the

interview in just a moment but I want to do a couple of housekeeping um

I don't know housekeeping things wherever you however you might say it uh we have actually a couple of these shows

left this year and possibly a third one but I'll let you know in the future but in October November I actually have them

scheduled uh for once I got uh semi um

organized I guess you might say anyway in October I have Maddie Osmond who's the author of writing for humans and

robots the new rules of content style and the founder of blacksmith and that

is October 18th and so we're going to come on and talk about her book talk about um really this the kind of things that

are in her book so I have a physical copy at home as well as an e-copy uh it

came out in July I kind of sort of peeped in in her little um launch party which was kind of

virtual which is really cool I'm so happy for her anytime somebody uh creates a book or some kind of product

is just a big accomplishment and so um and I'm looking forward to having her

on talking about that November I have literally and I know I'm gonna say your name wrong but ubaha and she is a

Content marker and we are uh follow we follow each other on Twitter and she

made a Tweet back in the summer that I agreed strongly to and I pulled the Rob

Karen's thing and said hey you want to talk about it on my show and she said sure why not so

um we're gonna do that at a little different time it won't be 7 p.m because she lives in Nigeria and 7 P.M my time

is like one or two o'clock in the morning there and I'm not doing that to her so we'll probably do it

um mid to late morning here central time uh it should be right around the week of

Thanksgiving uh American Thanksgiving so I'm excited about that we're basically

her tweet was saying um when it comes to content quality not

uh not uh quantity so I agree with her very strongly on that uh I'm gonna get

around to talk about that pretty excited about that um and and then one other thing I wanted

to say before we get started is this um well probably the last stream to the

copy flight YouTube channel as I have created a new YouTube channel for

um the messaging matter show thanks uh the ideal came to me from uh Joe casabana so uh we're gonna give that a

shot and I wasn't able to get that set up in time for this for scheduling this particular show so hopefully next month

we will be streaming to the new messaging matters YouTube channel so pretty excited about that kind of keep

that separated from all the other copy flat stuff make it easier for people to find the shows uh we go back to I think

April was our first one this year um and we missed last month but it's

pretty much been every month and I've had some pretty good guests pretty excited about it

um and now with Trisha it's all about Google business profile is that the

correct way to say it that's the correct way to say it as of last November I

believe it was uh it used to be my Google my business so if you're wondering what that if you Google my

business that's what we're talking about Google business profile is the new name yeah so it was something before that

wasn't it I think before that there was um was it Place Google Places I believe

yeah it's doing several things um so and then that's why it can be confusing it's it can be very confusing

and um so I had an issue earlier this year trying to help a client and she's

someone who really wants to use her Google business profile I'm thrilled about that

um we were dealing with some issues and I reached out to Trisha because we're friends in in a some mutual Facebook

groups and I knew that she was an expert in Google business profile Google my business whatever they call it now and

uh so she helped me out with that and um and I'm like well this would make a great uh discussion for the rest of the

matter show uh you don't really think about it in terms of content marketing and copywriting but this is the way I

think about this okay anybody in business especially if you are a brick and mortar business this local business

that kind of thing but even anybody should probably have a Google business profile and it is it's part of that

overall message that you have as a business so I think it's important to

discuss the the platform and uh I have some questions and uh and

um I think maybe some of these questions are the same so um before we get going though if you

wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about yourself I know you were in Atlanta right now is that correct I'm in

Atlanta yes I just came back here from Florida um so some just headed back just in time

to to get away from the hurricane and I'm in Atlanta I've been in Atlanta since 95. so um and I started my

business I'm trying to think when I think it was 2015. I have to remember to

look back and remember uh and I tell you when I first started I was doing social media and one of the things that I

noticed I pulled in and started doing for clients was Google Google at that time Google my business and then I was

noticing how I was getting a more traction I felt with some of those what

I was doing with Google my business and that's when I decided you know I prefer

sticking to one thing instead of looking at all these different social media platforms so I decided to really focus

on um that time Google my business now Google business profile and uh that's

really what I do I do that for individual clients and I also do it white label for agency

um okay and then name your business is your Biz Watchdog we have your uh yeah and one thing to to make clear

is a big part of your local SEO strategy and um one thing is

um like Todd was mentioning you know you really need to have that profile your Google business profile really does work

well with your website in conjunction with it so having one and not the other

um you know you're gonna do okay it's when they work together and you're really using them together is when

you're going to see the maximum results yeah so you know I tell people if you

want to get in this especially with people who are brick and mortar local uh if you want to be in the maps

go ahead and get your Google business profile page set up because that will ensure now there's other things you can

do to to boost your ranking within the maps uh we can talk about that a little bit later but

um those are things that uh you know you're not going to be in the map at all now Google's pretty smart

it won't pick up things without you actually you know requesting yes um

especially if you're well maybe a well-known business but you can you can

claim that profile if you will correct yeah yeah and that's the thing so I recommend it you know if you're if you

you go on the map and there's no profile profile for your business or you're not managing your business

um first before you set it up look and see if Google hasn't found one and set one up for you

um if it has you need to claim that and go in and use that if there isn't one set one up

okay go ahead I'm sorry one thing um I was going to mention is uh you know we're talking we're kind of saying you

know um the businesses need to have their Google business profile um and there are some businesses that

are not eligible for it um so that's one thing to Simply keep in mind um for example it's not meant for

e-commerce businesses okay okay that's good no yeah and so at brick and mortar

and then they're basically two two kind of categories as far as um well I don't want to say categories that's a whole

different thing in Google business profile but you've got uh brick and mortar stores the physical stores and then you have what's called service area

business you might see people shorten it Sab they're talking about service area businesses and those are basically uh

local businesses that um that go either go to their customer or they meet with

their customer they don't have that brick and mortar either physical store or office location you've got your

landscapers your your mobile dog groomers um you know house cleaners what which is

what my client does she she doesn't have a actual physical Place yeah yes so

let's get into a couple of things since you already brought that up um the first one I wanted to get into

and we made to come back to this was like I know there's a step you have to take when you actually claim it they

just send you a postcard or they give you a call is that still how that works so there there's several different

options that things are changing a little bit with that there is also now sometimes some it may have the option to

do a video verification okay um I do um

things are always changing with Google um that's something relatively new and

some it depends on the category some don't have that option I just went in and set up a profile yesterday and that

wasn't an option um so sometimes it's um phone number call or text sometimes it's postcard

um sometimes it's video verification and uh I do recommend the video verification if that's an option I do think in the

future um this is just me seeing what I think is going to happen is that you'll see more video

verifications um being the preferred method for Google um what is that they take their phone

and videotape themselves take your phone out and they um I for video verification

I have not done one with the client um but basically there's a link and uh you're gonna click it and show Google

hey you know I'm a real person um one of the things that um we'll we'll talk a lot about today um is spam on the

map so these are um businesses out there that that don't don't exist and somebody's out there

just trying to put things out whether it's lead gen whether it's just trying to gain the system and they're not real

legitimate businesses so um what this the video verification does help decrease

um the likelihood of one of those getting on the map okay so that's more about them reducing spam as much as

anything yeah reminding that you know yes you are

you are hopefully quicker because when you go through either the other options especially the mail and the postcard

gets to you rather quickly but it takes two three four days at the early at the

least to get there yeah and so maybe the video vacation would speed that up a little bit yeah I

like the video verification in the in the phone the text if you're sitting there texting but then again you know

that has as things you know you you put in you use a phone number for texting and you know Google can sometimes know

that that's a good number for you however you know um the the best thing is video verification

yeah okay so if you're now okay let's put ourselves on the shoes of a

consultant or an agency and you know I have a client and maybe they're brick and mortar so there's no nothing unusual

but they say hey can you set this up for do you recommend them to just do it for the client or is that is that a

efficient way I said I typically like to go ahead from the beginning if they say

we have nothing I like to typically say well let me go ahead and start from the beginning

um the reason is you know a lot of people they'll look at it and say oh it's just easy just fill out the information and you're done

um however Google has a few quite a few nuances in there and you know if you're just saying

well I'm not sure what Google means I'll just put something in for it for one of the options you know you could be uh

harming your something in the future on your profile um a lot of times businesses will put

things in not quite understand how things work with Google and then end up getting their account suspended I

actually at the very beginning of covid had a business come to me they're a brick and mortar store and she was

trying to get her um her business set up on Google she uh didn't understand it

she made a really big mess and basically got suspended we could not get it

handled because at the very beginning because of covid you know everything shut down so

um there was no way to reach out to support and get it then um get it done right then we had to wait

until support came back now once support came back we were able to get it I was able to help her get it reinstated get

going that's the thing that if she had come to me at the beginning she wouldn't have had that problem

um that that is a little bit um some businesses have that issue and and some don't

um but a lot of times too service area businesses tend to have it a little bit more

um than brick and mortar as far as um working on answering all the questions so so you do you think it is something

that actually could be done by the consultant with input from the business

I guess um yeah I I personally if they don't have anything I prefer to do it myself

to know that the information is in there and and correct and I've done it right the first time every time you go into

Google especially the tab that has a name address phone number website and

make changes you have a risk at getting your account suspended right now

to for reinstatement it is taking three weeks for Google to get back that's three weeks that your business

um it it depends you could um let's say you've got a bad review you can't reply to that review during that time period

when your account suspended um and that's why I really recommend they have somebody who um an expert

that's that knows how what to put in there um especially the way I do it is when I

do my monthly management my first month is my optimization audit optimization

all of that and if they don't have the profile I would do the setup so um so so that would all be the first

month that's not a question on my list but like what goes into a monthly management

of Google business profile sure there's a

there's an images weekly post keeping up with the new features the new attributes

and um looking at reviews making sure they're properly responded to and um

doing um basically kind of a Spam extermination on the map just looking in

and making sure that a competitor is not ranking ahead of you because they're using spammy tactics that are against

the guidelines all of those different things um they're looking at Q a

um there's there's a big long list it changes

um based on what's going on with um with Google because uh I'll tell you that I I

typically do like to do at least one post a week for my clients and um that's

something that has been recommended for a while and I know some people haven't done those posts the weekly well just

recently and um I I don't know for some reason it won't let me um add to the chat uh a link or anything

but I sent you a list of things Todd's emailed but uh if you don't get it we'll post it um the is it an email an email

I'm sorry in an email you did I did yeah and that so um there's a link to a

Twitter thing I just sent it a few minutes ago and uh basically one of the things like their new features all the

time and there was one that I noticed um I think it was just about a little over a week ago on on Google and I was

looking and this was on mobile phone looking at a Google business profile and at the very top it had the

pictures at the top well then all of a sudden right there highlighted was the most recent post

and usually posts are a bit further down so this is a new thing that they're probably testing tweaking trying to

figure out I went to other profiles and um yeah it's um yeah you can do the one

that says Twitter and then also um it was mentioned in the SEO Roundtable after I tweeted about it

um I say that yeah I think that's what that is um they all just got um yeah yeah

and but that's something that's showing that that Google is emphasizing posts

and I looked at profiles to see you know well how recent does it have to be

because I was looking at some and they were basically um you know months old and they weren't coming up I saw one that was two and a

half weeks old and it wasn't showing up Isis is somewhere between one to two and

a half weeks somewhere in there is how new your post has to be for it to show up and you can click on that Twitter

link to see where I talk to about it I have a screenshot there also the SEO Roundtable link so

um basically that's Google they're showing the posts are still important sometimes people say well my posts they

they're not getting clicked on they're not getting this or that one thing is that post will go

um and and are really a um conversion factor you know people look and see the

posts if you're you've got good posts on there they can also come up in justification those are when people are

searching and parts of it are highlighted uh and they'll show that in there this is why

Google showed you this specific result so um so those are definite things you

can see that Google is emphasizing posts also images one of the new things is

Google puts on there how how long ago the an image was specifically posted uh

so you know okay this is a recent one from a week ago this one wasn't like you know five years old so one thing I

learned with my own client was you you don't need to you know I don't need to

treat Google business profile like Facebook and it comes to picture you know posting and I understand why she

wants to do that but yeah you um so you can post like pictures so one thing is

is for the pictures you've got to put like for example your cleaner um the the cleaning um individual house

cleaner she wants to not just do before and after but she wants a picture have

somebody take a picture of her doing the work yeah and she's got people's homes

right she needs to make sure she puts pictures of herself on there um and those those are our pictures

they're two different things I'm talking about so I don't want to get people confused there's pictures that you add

and there's just the pictures and then there are posts the posts can have the image some text

um a link and phone number a link and or phone number and those the links in our phone numbers cannot go go in the text

there's a when you do a post there's like a call to action button if you say

call now it will pull in your your phone number from your Google business profile or you can say

um either it depends there's like learn more by now sign up things like that and that's when you where you put your link

you don't want to put your phone number or a link in the text for your post you

could get your account um Google doesn't like it and you could have issues yeah and and we talked about

they didn't care much for before and after pictures yeah and that's the so there are a lot

of things that it's like you know well um well Trisha how do you know you know I I can't find where Google is not

allowing this XYZ and some of that is really the fact that um you know I keep

on top of things talk with others in the industry find out what they're seeing and that's kind of the whole thing you

know like I posted that on Twitter where I was seeing the post others saw it and

um so now they're telling their clients that so it's kind of you know finding out what others are seeing a lot of these things that happens Google they

won't come out and say this is what's happening you know or if they do maybe it's a long time from now

um so yeah Google is It's Not Unusual for Google to not exactly tell you

everything I mean I'm in I'm in enough SEO circles I don't consider myself an SEO expert but I listen to a few people

here and there and and they do extensive research because they have a lot of clients and they see a pattern and like

this is not what they're saying but this is what they're doing and so you I get

that from uh in their in all these platforms have their degree of that right just like Facebook you know yeah I

go in okay I help run a local group that's called geek breakfast

um don't ask me how I got into that I wasn't even a leader when it's when I started doing somehow or another I ended

up leading it but I go into the Facebook page today to share the event which is

Thursday morning because I had talked to two or three people in the last couple days like oh yeah it's this week I need to go you know share and buy Jazz I go

in there and they updated to the new experience since I was last in there

love that now most of the other Facebook pages I'm in have already been updated with that

and it just it just threw me for a loop like I just want to go in and invite and

share and I have to go through all these troops and so Facebook does it Twitter

is probably a little more subtle with some of their changes yeah LinkedIn doesn't do them as often but they do

them once in a while so yeah all these platforms and that's the danger of playing on these platforms

and only exclusively absolutely that that's one of my things that I tell people all the time and I think I have

it on my my website on my about page it's like um you've got businesses you have to own own your your stuff I think

I have a a picture as own you're and then a poop emoji you've got to own your your business so

um just because um you really need you've got to have your Google business profile doesn't mean you shouldn't have your website you

you've got to have that website you've gotta that's where you own your content um

you don't own them I'll say this you could probably especially if you're

a local business whatever you could probably get by without having a Facebook a Twitter or even a LinkedIn

but you probably cannot get by without having to get Google business profile or it could whatever it's called I mean

that is that is almost as necessary as a website and email list yeah um they go

hand in hand yeah but uh yeah and I think the yeah the in Rob's right these are perfect

traffic sources by the way uh Kim Ortiz said hi to you earlier I don't know yeah

I saw Kim hi Kim so um at least we have a couple people

hanging around so anyway um so yeah that's uh it's very important

part of your your your whole system and I try to put all those links in one by one the first time I lumped them

together and didn't turn out too well so that's okay uh one of them I know I saw was the link to the Google guidelines

that's really important to have that link um and look at the different things if

you have questions on it uh and I know I've got the link to the Twitter that I talked about that post

um my link um and then I've got like some a chat with Trisha that's like for a 15 minute chat with me and then the

zoom chat that's that's basically for agencies who have questions about my white label Services yeah so and I think

you know any agency who's doing because agencies typically do

almost everything especially smaller agencies for you know some of my friends

that I hang out with are or agency owners I mean they're not like big agencies but they're like a one or two

man shop deal but they do all this stuff for their clients and I mean one of my friends I noticed does setups for Google

business profile I don't know if the advantages but he does do setup so yeah um it's uh but it's interesting you

talked about using the post feature which I hadn't thought about it might be a better option for my cleaning friend

than just sending pictures that's the easy thing but I would do both I

um I you know that's that's what I do for my clients I would do both of them but you would do more posts and actual

pictures correct um not necessarily I would say um posts

aren't like like when you think of Facebook it's like oh you gotta do this many posts a week or today or whatever

on Google um I would say you know one post a week is fine okay

um and um for images you know I I like to do around at least 10 a

month of images so yeah maybe a little more images than posts and now if you have a brick and mortar you are supposed

to put a picture of your place of business up right your storefront those are yes you um

sure I don't know I haven't seen where they like really have required it but you should um think of a brick and mortar you're

going to have people coming to your office you want to have a recent photo of somebody's a little bit lost where am I going oh here's what it looks like

um so that's all that that's just customer experience um I would even I was even understood

that having a picture of your business with your logo somehow is a something

that's very important yes yes include including your logo having all that on there is extremely important

cool beats I don't mean I have a office but it's not really a place I receive people so well and so that's

um probably and we we took mentioned earlier service area business um so those those of us like um that are

just like both you and I Todd we have service area businesses people don't come into like my my I have a home

office people don't come into my home office to see me I don't have signs outside right so I have to verify it with my

home address and basically tell Google that people don't come to see me not to

show my address and that's one of the big thing Place big areas that people

get into trouble with um are the service area businesses uh

they'll think that they have to have the pin on the map and so they'll go set it up at a UPS store at our Regents

um thing those are going to get you into trouble and one thing to keep in mind is

I shared the link with the Google business profile um uh guidelines

um having a UPS store is not allowed will you find people at UPS Stores yes

you will um but that's not allowed and just because they have it now doesn't mean

that they're not going to get suspended in the future keeping with that I think yeah Google goes back and finds stuff

later or they catch something later that they have them in the kitchen well um and Google that's one thing like your

your address that you um verify your business with that's the address that

they put as the center of your your location so one of the things on um as far as as you know SEO getting found

there um for in the search is proximity to your location so if you're trying to

get um business from Clear across town that's one of the things Google focuses

on where you are where you verified your business yeah so what if you're uh a remote

business like you and I but I'm sure not everybody you do business with is in the southeast part of the states or in

Atlanta yeah I mean like I had I'm working with a client right now in Toronto I have another one who lives in

Florida I mean sure you know so basically we we are allowed there are a couple of things

um that you look at that make us um allowed is that number one there is

something in there a category that we fall under um so you so that's kind of like a first

um key point there the other one is that um we even though we don't see all of

our all of our clients aren't here a lot of businesses like ours start out local and do have local clients and we might

go out and meet them so that makes us uh eligible for it um so what is that

category that you were saying that so so for example I think on mine I have I

think I have internet marketing service so I think is what mine is um I need to go back and look don't you

love it it's like I have all these things and I'm like I'm not sure I need I always check my clients categories

because they're always new categories being added to Google and I need to go back in and check my own and see if it's

the best category and see if there's anything new I need to add for the

typical web agency uh a digital marketing company whatever would they be better under internet marketing

um either so it depends if they they primarily do web design it'll be like um web developer I think is the the one

category and that's the thing you can you don't just say oh this is what I do Google you get you pick from what Google

has to offer and that's on a lot of different things in Google you can't just say I'm like oh well I do Google

business profile management I I pick from what Google offers and um it's that

is one thing that some businesses you know there's unique businesses and that don't quite fall into some of these even

they have like whether they're service area or brick and mortar so they have to find the closest thing for them so yeah

um you mentioned e-commerce not being something that would be useful for well

so they're not

supposed to have um a Google business profile there specifically Google was uh

business profiles are really uh started based on the map and it's for local SEO

and they look at a pure e-commerce store as not eligible because it doesn't have

that local functionality with it okay so if you're a brick and mortar but you also have an e-commerce website you

would still follow yeah you would have because you're brick and mortar yeah I mean sometimes in e-commerce is

changing rapidly as well I know people who do content marketing copywriting for e-commerce and d2c that's direct to

Consumer and I always struggle about what the difference between the two are but anyway

um that's changing a lot and you could have someone who literally starts a e-commerce store in the Conway Arkansas

Area and they really only Service central Arkansas would they still not be

a good Google business profile so if they're purely only e-commerce know

however if they've got at all their local customers there um I would say you know well what else

do they do they meet with their customers and have some other type of service that makes them so local shocks

or something like that yeah if they do like more I'm I'm thinking if they're servicing a

local thing maybe they've got Consulting that Consulting and then you buy a product online I you know it really

depends a lot on the specific um yeah so and I guess the first question

um how a service business based business like what we've been talking about for probably the last 15 minutes you can

take advantage of Google business profile you've kind of answered that um a couple one thing I do want to

mention I I mentioned that you can't use like UPS Store no Regents

um no let's see um co-working spaces now that one

there's some exceptions to the co-working spaces um you you've got to have you know your

signage you have to have an office there that's yours it's not shared space your employees need to go there during office

hours you have to have somebody there all the time that you pay not like somebody sitting in a front desk that

answers everyone's phone there's a lot of different things like that um and and I'll tell you that Google has

gone through and seen where a bunch of businesses were outrageous and suspended every single one in that location

so um I will say that if you because I know there are co-working spaces that do have

um individual spaces like that would be eligible individual they've got that that's their space they run it nobody

one else does they have an office they have their own phone there they have signage all that the employees and

everything um it's a little unusual not many do it but there are some I would say that

um they are more likely to kind of have trouble in the future with their profile simply because of the address and most

are not allowed to be there so I one thing I would say is if you're a business and you're looking to have an

office and you're looking at a co-working space I would see if there's something comparable near because uh

that's not a co-working space because you would probably have some issues running into problems with Google

um thinking that you're should not have that address at a co-working space well okay that brings

up another question because okay we have a couple co-work spaces in

town they have different membership levels because the cheapest one is a is a kind of a for the day you claim that

spot whatever the more expensive ones you actually have dedicated space obviously um some of them are private offices and

some of them are more of a space um but like the building I'm in is an office building it's an old office

building but there's probably 13 offices in this one building so there's a low there's an address 809 Parkway but then

there's a suite number how is that different from a co-work space so the

the co-working space a lot of the co-working spaces like you said is like you won't have your individual space

people go in and out of that like they've got desks and people will rent the desk for an hour or a day or

something like that um and the other thing is is that it needs to have your permanent signage

um You Can't Take tape a piece of paper on the door and say this is my Loco um that has been tried I will tell you

okay um permanent signage um and again your payment either you the

owner your paid employees there working during office hours your own phone line that comes in there where your um office

is that doesn't work well with like a solo business though a what now so low business well

so and that's where you would probably have your

could you just be if you were because a lot of people who do co-work spaces are basically service area top businesses

anyway yeah could you set it up that way and yeah I would tell them to set it up as a service area business do not try to

get the pin on the map at a co-working space um you want to be a service area business and not show your address on

the map and you don't want to verify it at that co-working space because even though uh the public can't see that

address Google knows where you verified and that could get you in trouble so if you were going to verify and you

don't verify at the co-work space how would you verify your your address your home address okay so they send it to you

there yeah but as a service area business you can do that yes

yes because you're telling you tell at my house

so okay um um wow you you've plowed through most of

the questions I had about that you mentioned one thing uh that comes up virtual offices basically and I think

that's kind of what we were talking about where they run an address and this is what Google terms that I'm reading

this is specifically what I've pulled off earlier to make sure I said exactly what Google says virtual offices aren't

allowed virtual offices where you rent the address but you don't operate out of

the location that's considered a virtual office and you cannot um cannot use that for it would be the same with the UPS

store or something yeah similar but some sometimes I will tell you like the co-working spaces and several years ago

I had I went in um I I know I saw a Facebook ad for a co-working space that

I knew the co-working stress I knew what it was and it said sign up for a mailbox

here and you can use us for your Google business profile I knew the people running it I sent them an email I was

like please first stop that ad you're gonna you're gonna get your clients in trouble with Google and then your clients are gonna be happy with you so

um so yeah sorry did they listen to you yes yes

oh we didn't know that and

that's not how you do it so the pin on the map is really for Brick

and Mortar business yeah if you're a business office anything like that where you have a physical location customers

come to you you have your um your employees there during office hours you've got your

um permanent signage so now let me ask you this me I'm a service area business I guess and I

actually kind of operate two things out of here but do I need to have my a permanent signage in here

or is that not a big deal um not your permanent so if you you're not showing your address is that correct

honestly I don't know I mean I will be making an audit of my Google business what I've done Todd is going to go check

his Google Business exactly yeah and um definitely if you're if that's a place

you don't um have permanent signage um if you don't have like specific hours

that you're there and um and that you're there during those

hours um I would say remove your address yeah okay I will definitely be doing an audit of I

think I've got two of them because one is a is a local media company

um because I do uh hyper local media uh site and um that can probably be a

service area as well I mean I have yeah it it probably both of them probably should be server Services one

thing that I will tell you is um you know we're taught I'm not quite familiar with your office setup

um is that office solely yours that you rent or do other people rent no challenge I mean it's a building this is

my private office yeah your spot yeah that's what I mean that's one of the things um Google does when you um have

your address that you're using to verify it needs to be an address that you basically control whether you own or

rent it so that's space there and I uh I was across the hall when I did it before

so I really need to check till that because I've moved across the hall since then

um you need to control that address and then um it also needs to be the address

that you're showing on on other different things um like let's say the Secretary of State

um all of that okay very good this is uh this is helpful yeah and so that this is one of

the day well we saw that we're just talking about the

address and we've talked for 10 minutes or so on just the address that you put in

yeah yeah okay and that's something that could get your account suspended and right now Google is three weeks behind

on um processing those reinstatements so uh you don't want to get it suspended

and if you get it suspended you want to have your your paperwork and your ducks in a row to be able to get it reinstated

quickly and quickly is waiting three weeks for Google to get back to you but but

you want to have that um the good I have always said that uh if you have an issue

um at least Google will get back to you some of the others that is true

it's reinstall fixed services and

um Google will get back to you um you'll get an automated response and and then saying that they're going to get back to

you and however if you don't provide them with the information that they need

and they will not tell you what it is they need um you are are not going to get

reinstated it's a trap um so and but I I've had success because

of how I focus Google my visit Google business profile oops uh is what I focus

on and I've done so much so many reinstatements I know what Google wants and so it's a lot easier and before they

had this three a week um backup backlog um you know I've gotten things

reinstated within a day a couple of days you know um but now you're just waiting so but

that's the thing a lot of times businesses they they look they kind of read through the standard reply that

Google sends them and they say well I'm compliant and then I start talking to them and asking them questions and I'm

like no I know Google needs more information and I know why you got

suspended and you need you know we need to get them more information and what

you requested to get reinstated is not sufficient for Google and businesses get frustrated because

they say well I don't see this anywhere in the documentation well Google doesn't put all that in the documentation and

part of the reason is because just like everything else you've got Bad actors out there and if they tell you

specifically everything they want then the spammers out there will know and then they can go in and and they'll

they'll they'll figure everything out and they'll find ways around it and um and I'll tell you a lot of the different

you know updates when there are things in the guidelines that they update a lot of it is because businesses have um The

Bad actors have found ways around it to act like they're legitimate business when

um maybe they're not so it that just uh that brings up

another question and that I don't know have time to go into but you know is that a service because there can be so

much to it is it a service that another type of Service Agency digital agency

marketing agencies should add to their portfolio because it is so dish niched

and specialized yeah absolutely and you know with that my monthly management and

my Fix-It stuff I do that white label I have I get referred um

from a lot of uh agencies who you know my client got their Google business profile suspended you know we need help

um and so and yes so definitely um and and that's what I'll say I have had success in getting

reinstatements because I worked with them and done them for so much I know really what Google's looking for

um if you don't have that experience um I will say that you know it takes it

takes a while to figure out what you know what I've been doing this for for quite a while and and focus on it so if

you're doing so many other things it can be hard to figure out and know exactly specifically what Google wants what

they're looking for um and it might be better time spent to to to Outsource it you know I can

definitely help them with that white label so yeah so if you uh if you're an

agency owner listening to this or a consultant of some kind and you know that's not your Arab expertise you want

to just white label it that's a really probably a smart way to go

and that way you don't man when and that's the next question really and you've gone over some of these to begin

with OR but let's talk about some mistakes that business owners tend to make on Google business profile you've

already mentioned a few of them one of them is the address and yeah you know some of those things I think that's one

of the main that one of the main um too and we've kind of talked a little bit about them both of them um first the address

um getting that wrong and I've heard some service area businesses think that

they they can't have a Google business profile they've got to somehow get around the system to show an address and

and that's not the case so um so definitely we went over the address the other thing is with reinstatements that

we just talked about um you know businesses they they get suspended they then they get frustrated

which I completely understand um but I'll tell you that if you get

frustrated with Google and you you try to tell Google how things are

Google's just gonna not care um so you know why while you know I can

emphasize um really kind of you know I feel it feel for you I can help you

Google is is really going to just be like oh well you know that's one of the things some businesses will say I've

been in business for for 10 years for 20 years you know I don't understand why my account's suspended and when you go and

you talk with Google about those things Google doesn't care about that they want

the information that they want they're not going to tell you what that is and that can be very frustrating for

businesses um so and that's what one thing that that helps you know I can take a step

back away from the business and say okay this is what Google wants let's get this paperwork together and get it submitted

and um where when it's your business and you're having this because a lot of times these businesses they will see a

significant drop in um in all of the their conversions getting people the calls the the contact

forms all that if their profile suspended so um so yeah it's definitely

um they definitely want to get it get it worked on and it can be very stressful for him yeah it sounds like

one mistake is not turning to a trusted expert to to help sort through all that

and and just trying to shake your fish say Google and just like we'd like to do with Facebook and other places and

frankly they just Shrugged whatever you know yeah but at least Google will get back to you they will get back to you

or um they you know nine times out of ten you got to have a positive response and

get reinstated last question and and we I can't believe going 50 minutes really

just about and um they're so good though um the last question is

um what can we expect from a Google business profile in the next five years and I guess this is probably your just your best uh estimation so

um that's the thing in the next five years who knows where it's gonna go um but you know in the last

um two and a half years since covid there have been so many so many changes and

um basically oh you know there's so many added features we're going to continue to see new features added features on

there some of the things um for example you know

describing the the business owner you've got things in there that you can select and uh one of them is identifies as

veteran owned well you know for a long time I think that was one of the first ones now they've got tons of them you

know they've got women owned lgbtq um they recently added um identifies as Agent Owned those are

things that just because I go in there all the time I notice them and I'm like oh this is something new let me contact

my client um and let's get this added if it applies um all the different features different

categories those are just things that we're just going to see more and more of um one thing I do think recently with

the um different things we've seen with posts and images I think Google's doing a lot more with them and and that's been

happening over the last couple of years you know um just different Google likes photos

and and can read what's in the photo and and so you definitely need to be posting

those photos that's one of the things I try to emphasize because it's hard to really get those images out of the

businesses um and when you post photos on your profile

um Google does not allow stock photos on those on adding uh photos to your

profile so definitely um don't do that there are other things that Google doesn't want them to be um

blurry and out of focus so so yeah if you're a service area business

um or like a consultant you know obviously if you're a clean you know somebody's doing cleaning you can take a

picture of your employee or yourself doing you know that yeah at home that's fine but but you know like your typical

your typical consultant what kind of photos would you be putting in there and this is I'm going back to another one

I've got

so one of the things I do for that that I have on my to-do list for myself is

all these pictures I went to work campus um a couple weeks ago right I've been to

lots of different conferences I've spoke at lots of different conferences I've got pictures of myself I was speaking

with other um people in the industry I need to put that up on my my Google

business profile um you know things like that um yeah well I went out to uh WordPress

um Work Camp us and I had got my selfie with um Matt mullenlug and I'm like well geez I needed on there so so I put a

picture of of this video online oh okay um you can put this in um

now sometimes when you add photos it'll allow you to add a caption and I think

you need to go on your your mobile phone I I do so many different um things with

with profiles and I I do reviews for other businesses because I know it helps them out when I do reviews of course

sometimes if I don't get good service then they don't like my review but when I've added images sometimes

um it does sometimes allow you to add a caption to it so you could um put on their you know messaging matters

um and all on there and there's another thing a lot of one um do have a client that wants to make

sure photos that they add have their logo so that you know people just can't take and use it and anyhow anyway it

works out people could probably steal photos but they're it's it's not Google

doesn't like it and and I wouldn't want to get caught by Google so don't do it but some businesses want to put their

logo on it and there is um something and I can't remember the percentage I want to say it can't take up more than 10

percent definitely look that up because I off the top of my head I don't know that that's the exact correct amount

um but Google allows you to put that but they have a specific thing you it can't be over a certain percentage

um on the photo so so definitely if you're going to do things like that any editing definitely go in I guess I could

do like a post and with a picture screenshot and and say messaging matter shows with

Tricia Clements and then the call to action could be a link to the actual video yeah that could be a post and for

posts they um Google is a little bit it more lenient as far as stock photos I

tell my clients try not to use a stock photo for post you know you've got four

a month um four or five a month so um try to get your own photos in there

um if not you know you can hear and there use a stock photo for posts now when you're uploading just images to the

profile those cannot be stock photos so I want to make sure people understand there's a difference in photos and posts

there's okay so your pictures could be like if

you've gone to a conference what if you haven't gone to a concert in three years [Laughter]

and that was the thing with coven yeah it's like I've been out to conferences I have all these photos um so I definitely want to put it up on

there so um yeah you know that's kind of the hard part um with businesses like ours we don't have as many photos but

then again when you look at your competition did they have many photos um and if they don't have any or two if

you put 10 to 15 you're gonna look better than theirs so you know that's another thing too is looking at your

your competition and also um your local area what what everyone else is doing so so the first thing is

do better than than all your surrounding competition and then from there get better so um I don't want to do the same

thing everybody else is doing for sure I might have to do an audit of mine Kim had a question looks like Kim had a

question here so I've recently had reviews that didn't post publicly on my profile but my readers see it on the end

as posted profile is not suspended everything's up to date any recommendations yes so this is about

reviews so we'll tell you um earlier this year Google

um really strengthened their review filter and this is again some Bad actors

that are causing legit reviews to not go live and

um basically there are several different ways um the one that Kim is saying is that so let's say someone leaves her

client a review their customer that left the review sees it but I go on to look at it outside I

don't see it her client doesn't see it on their business that's one of the things that happens with that um Kim

um you can reach out to me and and um and I'll I'll check in with you but the first and this is part the thing that

really makes this hard is that the first thing is if the client wants to pursue it they have to reach out to their

customer and ask them to screenshot it and send it to them and it depends on if

they've got that type of relationship with their customer um it sounds like they know that they got left the review but um but they

can't see it so they're talking with the customer so it might be one of these things you know please do me a favor and

screenshot it and then what you'll do is send that off to Google and tell them you know the review is not live

um now as far as success rate with that I don't know I don't know um if there

are any you know percentages available on how what the success is a lot of

times Google does want to see like um if you're just having an issue with one review not posting Google takes that as

well it's working how it's supposed to and as a small business that's very frustrating if you know that that's your

client and and they wrote that review for you um that's frustrating um but they're looking at it as you know

well you know we've got these filters in place and and you know maybe we picked up something we didn't like so so we we

filtered them out um and so I'll say if you have like a a group of a larger group of them that

didn't go live um or that aren't live on the map those are ones you may have more success getting all of that information

um and let's see if I can read her response she says um she tried that but didn't

get a response from Google um send me an email Kim and we'll see what we can do um I I with with the

reviews like that they are very hard um to get um a good resolution from but

is something we can definitely try very likely something I'd come across so I'm glad she asked a question well um I I've

had that before and the other thing is so um I've I've had reviews that didn't

publish and I I could see that I saw it but then when I logged out I couldn't see the review

um sometimes you know I would tell them to um maybe even before if you've got a

good relationship with that customer and they want to help you out tell them you know well first go in and and and copy

your text from that um review and and keep it somewhere and then erase it and

only leave the star and then leave it like that and see if the star the like let's say I'm assuming they left him a

five-star review see if that goes live if it does then go back and have them

edit it um they can also try adding an image to it those are some things they might want

to try because like I said Google you know your it's just kind of thrown a dart weather

or not you're going to get Google to to add that back in there are lots of

different um different types of things that's one of the ones um that issues that people

have with the review filter there are other things that um that are being found for example like let's say

somebody leaves a review you see it up there looks great and then like after a while you look and it's gone

um those are um issues that you know were Google's taking them down and um those are things

you can contact Google and see if they'll if it's a legit review um ask them to

um to post it back now I know this is frustrating for those of us getting these legitimate reviews and I'll tell

you again it's the Bad actors that are buying these reviews um and uh and getting uh people to to

leave the reviews that aren't their clients um those are what Google's trying to to

filter out also incentivized reviews are not allowed um so you they're looking for those as

well and I'll tell you if Google catches you doing something like having paid

reviews um in incentivized reviews they and they know like that you've done

it they could go in and take not only the reviews you got let's say you implemented a new policy and you were

were doing this and and buying reviews they could not only go and take down all those reviews they could go and take

other reviews that maybe you had that were legit and take those as well and

and they're on the platform Google's platform you don't own those

you can ask people to leave a review yes but you just can't give them a case of

beer for doing it yeah exactly um and those are things too that um not

only is it Google but those are things that FTC um doesn't like that as well

um and and that's um I I want to say um I can't remember the

the name of it but basically wanting to have um what is it the fair

something in advertising and yeah yeah and and so if if anyone pays for um for

a testimonial or something that um he wants you to reflect and show that this

was a paid um testimonial yeah if you ever watch a TV commercial or something like that as a review and they'll say

these they'll either say sometimes they'll say they were paid and sometimes they'll say they were not paid so yeah

and and those are two to comply with the FTC and the thing is is that um Google

does not allow any type of paid or incentivized reviews so you can't say oh I'll give you this you can just note on

the review that you you received whatever it was you can't do that you're going to get in trouble with Google

um the FTC says you know if you do a paid review that you have to show it so you can't do that on Google so

okay yeah yeah just yeah we could probably spend two

hours on all this yeah incredible it's been days talking about this and still

probably wouldn't get through everything but yeah well I got way more than I

expected but that's very good I mean I think it's uh I think we had people to

hang around for most of the the hour which tells you that the conversation was worth listening to and I knew you're

the right person to do this with so thank you but it's an overall part of your message is you know not just we we

talk about having a website having an email a market you know email list and all this other stuff but uh just uh your

overall messaging Google business profile is an important part of that so

um thanks for coming on um before I let you go before we shut this down

um tell people where they can find you I know we have links in the chat and I'll put them in the the uh the show notes as

well but in your your watchdog.com is one of them so yourbizwatchdog.com that's my primary

webs that's my website where you can go and um

if you're looking for um to to chat with me if you've got questions also

um if you are an agency and you're looking for information on my white label um you can sign up for a chat there that

is zoom chat with trisha.com um and you can go there or just send me

a message and we'll set something up if you don't get that just go to my contact page on your bizwatchdog.com and get in

touch yeah and if you're you know anytime

you're an agency and you have the opportunity to add another service that you don't have that you don't want label

out to I mean we have a lot of people I work with a lot of people who do web maintenance and actually we do a survey

every year through awp or well we started last year and I asked like some of the things and so some of the HC

people will do SEO email uh marketing setup those kinds of things this is

something that they can add and and just white label it to you and they don't

have to actually it's absolutely it adds that recurring revenue and also you know

once you you've built the website you're you're doing the maintenance um the next step is to to then get that

website out there and in front of people um through SEO and this is local SEO

working um with their clients so yeah you should get a line item at uh local SEO

yes yeah yeah very good thanks for coming on Trish sure thank you Todd

thanks so much for having me all right guys um be sure to go yourbiz watchdog.com

and check out our website if you're interested in white label the uh URL is

zoom chat with trisha.com uh if you are somebody who's running an agency or a

consultant and would like to add that to your portfolio and you want let Trisha handle it that is the way to go the

train is coming I don't know if you guys can hear that I heard it oh yeah it gets

kind of loud we went at the first part of the show and I thought I muted myself and then here it is again so anyway

thanks for watching the messaging matter shows we uh be sure to come back next month uh I think it's October 18th we

got Medi Maddie Osmond on there and I'm looking forward to that

thanks so much