Why do you need to optimize your Google Business Profile for conversions?
We’ve already talked about why conversions are so important. Really, I’d say optimizing for conversion rate is the low hanging fruit. The hard thing is ranking.
It’s hard to rank your Google Business Profile. It’s hard to rank your website. It’s hard to get your local service ads to show up. All these different things. Showing up is the hard thing, and that’s the big thing.
The easy part is getting people to convert.
I run Pest Control SEO, a marketing agency for pest control companies. And I can tell you that most companies spend all their energy on ranking and forget about conversions. That’s a huge mistake.
So why not really focus on this low hanging fruit? Make sure that everyone that lands on the profile becomes a customer.
There really aren’t too many things we can do to optimize on the Google Business Profile, but just some small little things can set us apart from the other pest control companies. And that’s really all this is. That’s all SEO is. Really all business is. We are different from the competition. We set ourselves apart in some way.
Google Business Profile vs Website Optimization
How does the differentiating between your website and the Google Business Profile look?
The website is going to be much more complex. Google Business Profile is much simpler. It’s much easier. There’s not too much optimization to do.
But yet most companies still don’t do it. You’ll look at their Google Business Profiles and there’s always something to improve, always something to add. They’re just not fully optimized, as in being fully filled out.
But the website, and we already talked about the website, so much goes into the website. You have the individual page and all of the things that are on the page. Are we adding a click to call button or a contact form? Are we adding several of those? How many sections are on the page? How are we designing the page?
What should the copy be on the page? How should we end the page? What should the header be? What should the footer be? How is the technical SEO done? Do we have schema? Do we have page speed? Do we have these other things? It’s so complex on the website.
Versus the Google Business Profile, it’s much easier. So this is another quick win we can get. And really we should start here instead of the website.
Treat GBP Posts Like Free Advertising
Which Google Business Profile features directly impact conversions?
There’s a ton. And really, I’d argue it’s almost every single feature.
A lot of companies might even have this twisted. They might think that everything is for ranking instead of conversion. Like, “I need to add all these products because it helps ranking” or “I need to reply to my reviews in a certain way because it helps ranking” or socials because it helps ranking.
A lot of those things are actually more for conversions. Which isn’t a bad thing. Don’t stop doing those or don’t not do those in the future because they’re for conversions.
We need both sides. Don’t just rank or don’t just convert. We need both ends. They kind of feed each other.
One thing that we can have going out continually is Google Business Profile updates, also known as Google Business Profile posts or GBP posts.
This is something that every Google Business Profile should have. It’s super easy. It’s almost like a social media post that you can make on your profile.
And really something that works well here, what experts like Darren Shaw recommend. Darren Shaw is arguably the number one guy in local SEO. I had him on my podcast and he’s saying that even though you get to post there, don’t treat it like a social platform. You should treat it almost like free advertising space.
So you should put all of your offers there. You should maybe put some testimonials there and maybe some of your top services and such.
That is something really easy you can do to optimize for conversions. It’s literally free advertising. It’s like you have a mini billboard. When people are searching, shopping around, landing on your profile, they’ll see, “Oh wow, $50 off” or “Hey, free first service” or “We’re doing mosquito free” or “Termite free” or whatever.
That is something that will get people over the edge. And it sounds so simple. I’m sure it sounds so simple here, but most people aren’t doing it. So that’s a really easy one to get in place.
Products Link to Your Service Pages
I would say products, products honestly don’t help too much for ranking. It’s one of the last things you’ll see on a profile. And a lot of people probably even aren’t familiar with this, but you still, I’m honestly kind of surprised by this, but Google allows even home service companies to add products to their profile.
I would have thought they’ve removed it by now. But I would like to think that they keep it on for a reason. So we still like to utilize that section.
That’s one of maybe the last things people will see. But again, in a game of competition, conversion is competition, SEO is competition. We want to be doing as much as possible. We want to be doing more than other people. Especially because there’s so little to do on the Google Business Profile. So why not do everything there?
So that’s another thing we can have, products. Usually we like to have all of our top services there and then link to our service pages.
We’ll have a termite control as a product and then link to our termite control page. And actually even going one step further, establishing some more location relevance, ideally we have “Termite Control Chicago” as the product and then that links to a Termite Control Chicago page on the website.
That is something really good you can do. And this, I wouldn’t even say is conversion or ranking, but this almost more so just establishes the connection between your website and your Google Business Profile.
And overall you want to have as much congruency, that’s the term experts use, congruency across your Google Business Profile and your website.
Reviews Are Huge for Ranking and Conversion
Some other factors there, I mean a really easy one which I don’t even mention because it’s so obvious is reviews.
Reviews are going to be a huge conversion factor. A lot of people just think about this for ranking, but when people are looking at different profiles, they might actually be looking at the reviews you get and looking at your star rating and how many stars you get.
I’m sure a lot of prospects are mainly just going to judge you on the reviews you have.
So I can mention all these small little things I already did, but reviews are going to be a huge one for ranking and conversion. And it might come down to, let’s say you have 500 reviews, competitor of yours has 400, but they end up choosing the competitor because they have a 4.8 and you have a 4.5.
It really comes into the weeds there. And especially with reviews, something as important as reviews, you really have to make sure that you are dialing those in. Getting as many reviews as possible. Making sure that they’re consistent. Making sure that they’re recent. And replying to all of them.
You Need 50 Photos and 5 Videos Minimum
How can pest control companies optimize their photos and videos on the Google Business Profile?
This is almost a misconception. I think I know where this question is going. People misinterpret this or misinterpret maybe what Google would think converts better or ranks better.
They will geo tag their images, meaning like purposely show the location on the images. Which is something you can do. Or something small you can do, this helps a little bit, you can do this is changing the title of your images.
If you go on your computer and let’s say you just took a selfie and then uploaded it to your computer, it would be labeled as something. It’d probably be like a string of letters and numbers and then .png or .jpeg, whatever.
That’s something that can help a little bit. It’s kind of overkill. We don’t even personally do it. But you can do that too. Especially, I mean, really for your top images. If you have a core five or 10 images that you’re using across Facebook, across your website, local service ads, Google Business Profile, okay, we can optimize the title for those. But we don’t have to go too overkill with that.
The main thing is actually just having those photos and videos. I’m glad you even mentioned those to begin with, because a lot of companies either will barely have any photos or videos on their Google Business Profile. They don’t know they need them. Yeah, they don’t know they need them or they have very few.
So we should have, first off, a good amount of photos. Typically what I recommend, this might feel like a lot, but trust me, it’s not. I recommend having at least 50 photos and at least five videos on each Google Business Profile that you have.
50 photos, you can get that done in literally an hour or two. Maybe a technician is doing a service. Maybe you go around taking pictures or you have a son or daughter taking pictures, whatever. Just pictures of everything they’re doing.
I mentioned this in another video, the content that I recommend is a technician smiling, doing something. Technician smiling in the truck. Technician smiling spraying. Technician smiling in the attic. But whatever it is, just take a ton of photos.
And that would actually be like a day in the life, not just, “Here’s the truck, here’s the equipment.” There should be people in the photos.
People Buy From People
And maybe that’s something that should be emphasized most: people connect with people. People want to buy from people. Especially when it’s a service based business like pest control, you’re actually going in their house.
You want someone that you trust. You want people that seem trustworthy, that seem nice, that seem caring. And part of that is the brand, the mascot and such that you’ve established.
But also part of that is just, who’s going to come over to my house? Is it that big, scary, six foot five guy who’s all hairy and has a big beard? Or is it just that nice guy and he’s really smiling. Maybe he’s a little chubby or something. Yeah, I’d love for that guy to come over. And he seems like he really knows what he’s doing.
You can still demonstrate that in photos, but really the natural extent of building that trust and that connection is through videos.
Videos Are Your Secret Weapon
This is something really almost no one is doing. And obviously we know Jonas crushes this and why he stands out.
Ideally we should be making some kind of videos that we can connect with our audience. And also the great part about this is we should already be doing this to begin with. We should already be making great videos and posting them to YouTube and maybe to Facebook and whatever.
But the great part about great content is, the same way we’re doing here, once you make great content, then you are okay to distribute it everywhere.
So now you can put it on your Google Business Profile. And by the way, if you’re doing paid directories, that can go across all of those. That can go on your website. That can go across all the social platforms. That can even maybe be turned into a podcast if it’s like a five minute horizontal video.
There’s a lot of things that you can do with quality content there that most people aren’t doing. So get those photos and videos up there. And it should be of technicians smiling, actually servicing, showing you do what you do.
And that’s something most people miss.
The Restaurant Owner Who Told Reviewers to Die
Are there any mistakes that people are making that we might have missed?
For Google Business Profile, other things that affect the conversion rate, review replies, which we’ve talked about before, is still important. People want to see how you’re interacting with your customers.
If you are being mean, actually, this is kind of a funny story. I just had this pretty big guy in local SEO on my podcast. He has all these crazy stories. He’s been in it for 20 years and he’s really in the weeds. He’s known as the sheriff of local SEO.
He’s seen, you know, he’s working on all these big projects with all these big companies, even helping the FTC with this review policy.
And one of the things he saw was with this restaurant. One of the review plans, apparently they got swarmed by, I don’t know, these Indian hackers or this group of people essentially leaving a ton of bad reviews.
That was paid. They have almost like sweatshops to do this kind of thing.
And the owner, instead of trying to remove the reviews and instead of saying, “Hey, we never worked with you, whatever,” to two of the reviews, and maybe to more, but at least from the screenshot that I saw, this is legit, to two of the reviews, he goes, “I hope you die in a car accident.”
One of them was, “I hope you die in a car accident.” And the other was, “I hope you crash your car and die.”
Even, you know, it’s a one star review and they didn’t serve them, but like still, that kind of ruins your reputation and your character.
Don’t do that. Don’t do that. No matter how angry you are. No matter if it’s for another company. I’ve seen this. I’ve worked with Eco Care Pest Control and maybe Eco Care Pest Management did a really bad job and they ended up leaving the review for that company. Don’t lose your cool.
Just very calmly acknowledge it. You can either ask them to remove it. You can remove it via Google. Or I mean, it’s honestly not the biggest deal.
A 4.6 Star Rating Is Actually Better Than 5.0
People think a one star review is end all, be all, can’t happen. One of my buddies runs his dad’s construction company, and they have like 10 Google reviews. Really small. I’ve been telling him to get more.
And they’ve gotten one one star review, and now they’re at like 4.6, 4.7 on Google. And he was like, “Dude, dude, I gotta get rid of it, man. How do I remove this review? Just tell me.”
I’m like, “We can, but a 4.6, you’re still totally fine.” And actually people trust a 4.5 to a 4.9 more than a five star Google review or overall rating because it almost seems fake. It almost seems fictitious.
You know that there’s no perfect business. That just doesn’t happen.
It’s kind of like, I’ve seen a meme recently going on Twitter of people would rather, essentially people would rather have the Amazon product with 15,000 reviews and it’s a 4.5 instead of an Amazon product with five stars but it only has 10 reviews.
You’d rather actually have more volume. So you don’t have to worry so much about those one stars. But make sure that you’re publicly acknowledging them and either saying, “Hey, this isn’t for our company” and maybe trying to remove them. Or “Hey, we’re so sorry that happened. We are definitely going to make this right. We just texted you, we just messaged you.”
So you can show customers and prospects how you deal with bad experiences.
Start Optimizing Your GBP Today
The bottom line is this: Google Business Profile optimization is low hanging fruit. It’s way easier than website optimization. It’s way easier than ranking. But most companies still don’t do it.
Fill out every section completely. Post GBP updates like free advertising. Add products that link to your service pages. Get at least 50 photos and 5 videos showing your technicians smiling and working. Reply to every review professionally, even the bad ones.
These small tweaks set you apart from your competition. And in a competitive market, these little differences are what make people choose you over the other guy.
Keep Learning and Growing
Want to connect with over 2,000 pest control business owners who are optimizing their Google Business Profiles for maximum conversions? Join our free Facebook group, Pest Control Millionaires. We share GBP strategies, optimization tips, and real examples every day.
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Now go optimize that Google Business Profile.
