267: Google My Business with Amy Toman
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Summary:
What is a Google My Business (GMB) listing and how does it help a local business? Amy Toman, from Pet Sitter SEO, discusses the power behind a well optimized GMB listing and how client behavior is changing when searching for services. She gives advice on what to avoid to make sure your listing doesn't get removed (including how to use your address appropriately), why you should list your business on quality directory services, and how to approach Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Topics on this episode:
Do directories help my SEO?
What's new with GMB?
Optimizing GMB settings
Preventing your listing from being removed
Main take away: Follow the Google guidelines for setting up your GMB listing, so you never risk it being removed.
About our guest:
Amy Toman is the founder of Pet Sitter SEO, a digital marketing company that specializes in SEO and Google My Business audits for small businesses in the pet care industry. She's worked with pet sitters for over five years, and started her company in 2017.
Amy's a Product Expert for Google Business Profiles, has written for Pet Sitters International and NAPPS, and has spoken at conferences by PSI, NAPPS, and the Texas Pet Sitters Conference. She's been cited in many SEO industry articles as an SEO to follow, and has been featured in several podcasts, discussing both local SEO and pet sitter SEO.
She loves solving puzzles, which is why she loves SEO. She's married, has three adult children, and two happy cats. And when she's not buried in websites, she loves to read and watch classic movies.
Amy may be reached at amy@petsitterseo.com or at her website, PetSitterSEO.com.
Links:
Email: Amy@petsitterseo.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
listing, business, google, people, seo, website, pet, area, information, springfield, photos, service, address, pet sitter, amy, suspended, optimized, search, added, paperwork
SPEAKERS
Collin Funkhouser, Amy Toman
Meghan 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan I'm Collin and this is Pet Sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter
Collin 00:17
brought to you by time to pet. What do the letters g m be mean to you? Well, it stands for a Google My Business listing. Do you have one? What is it? And how do we optimize it to make sure that we are being found by the clients that are searching for us? How do we make sure that we are using it correctly, and that we don't get our listing removed? All those questions and many more are answered today by Amy toman from petsitter. Seo, if you're interested, you can check out her previous episode episode 120. Let's get started. Well, I
Amy Toman 00:56
hate to say it, that's that's like half the time. That's That's my issue is that people do stuff. And it's been there so long, that they think it's must be fine. And I'm like, Yeah, but if somebody reports it, or if you get reported, I felt so bad. But yeah, what can you do?
Collin 01:12
Well, just, I don't know. Pretty recently, somebody was telling us like, they asked how we had made the expansion down to Springfield. And we told them about the office and getting the address and stuff. And they were like, Oh, you don't need to do any of that. Have you heard of UPS boxes? No.
Collin Funkhouser 01:36
And I was like, I kind of let them, you know, do their thing and talk because I knew what they would say like, I would save so much money. It's like literally pennies a day. It's great. And then I was kind of like, well, that may have worked in the past. But that's not the recent recommendations. And kind of like,
Amy Toman 01:54
let me let me just tell you something along those lines. And I don't know if you want to bring this up later. But one of the things I posted today, is that Google, I don't know how this is going to manifest itself. But Google seems to be they've been seen a bit in the wild where it says that say, um, the listing has been confirmed recently. Right? So that may be occasionally they're asking people to re verify their listing. And, you know, in the past, it's been okay, we'll just send you a postcard again. But I've heard rumors, it may not be true, it may be only one or two. But people actually had to submit their paperwork. So if you're being asked to re verify, and your listing information is different from the information that you have on your paperwork is a problem. As I mentioned, part of the issue, too, is and I think I mentioned this to you, if you are using, excuse me, a UPS or some similar sort of thing in a zip code where you want to, you know, attract yourself attract business and whatever. But if your paperwork doesn't have that address, well, when your listing gets if you're lucky, if it gets reinstate, you got suspended and it gets reinstated. You're not going to be recommended there, you're going to be recommended where you live. Mm hmm. Right. Exactly.
Collin 03:24
Okay. Yeah. It's, so it's fascinating to me. I mean, Megan and I were such, we're so newbies at this. And it's really, it's really hard, because there's so much information. And I think there's so much like old information. And that's out there that you end up having to parse through like, like, like that. Good question. Yes. When did you hear this? Was this? Oh, that's it. That's it. 10 years ago.
Amy Toman 03:55
I was it was funny, because I was telling that woman about, you know, some other stuff about things that had happened based on information people were given, like so long ago. And it's hard because a lot of people think two things. They think a it's been like that so long, it can't be wrong. And the other thing they think, too, is a lot of times when people go to the Google My Business Forum, because they have a problem and they can't get an answer. They go to the forum. And they almost what it has to do with them being having been suspended. They almost always say, my business is, you know, 25 years old, and I've just been suspended. Why is that? There's no connection between either how long you've had your business or how long you've had your listing. If it's wrong, it's wrong. It may have been right when you set it up, but if it's wrong now, the age of the listing is not going to stop Google from you know, suspending you and now it's, I don't know, it's tough. They don't put out enough information. That's what I will say. Well, it
Collin 04:57
is and I know you've talked about that before about How last time you had we had you on back in episode 120, or whatever was, you wish it was more clear, there's more apparent what they were asking for. Because as you said, like we do all this work to try and learn the rules, apply them, and then we live by them and kind of move on. And what we don't recognize is that things change. And I guess, really Google trying to figure out, they want to be giving the best possible recommendations to the people searching, because that's their bread and butter. So whatever they need to do to do that, they're going to do,
Amy Toman 05:34
right, and that that is you know, and it's the, that's the elephant in the room, you can sit there and say, Well, I'm not going to do that I'm going to work with an whoever Duck Duck go, or Bing, which is fine. But the majority people don't do that. So you have to kind of play a play, you can deal with them. But you also have to deal with Google's rules. And if Google says you're not going to be allowed on, because until you verify your information, you got to verify your information you got to play with, you know, it's their playground, their rules,
Collin 06:05
which is, which is frustrating, right? Because we want to, we may have already as how we want it to operate, but like you said, like, it's kind of a cost of doing business, we factor that into a lot of the thought processes in our business of, okay, in order to operate, I have to pay for insurance, I have to pay for gear I have to pay, if I have employees, I gotta pay their wages and all this stuff. Now. And now we've got to start thinking about the listing services, the rules that they have, and abiding by those as a cost of doing but we may not like them, they may be confusing, but if we want to be there, that's what we have to do.
Amy Toman 06:39
Like I said, it's the elephant in the room, you're not a marketer, you're out there trying to you know, walk dogs operate a small business. And it's hard because it's gotten to the point where they want it so that everybody can do it. But it's it's got such finesse to it, like people will say to me, you know, I've got tons of photos on my Google listing and like, Yeah, but they're not the right kind, or they're, I shouldn't say they're not the right kind. There's, there's others that would do better for you that would better serve you, you know what I mean? Everything is kind of gotten nuanced, you can have this on your, you know, on your website. But that would be better for you know, for viewers, it's, it's not enough that you just put the information out there, you have to kind of massage it, you have to make sure it looks pretty do its hair, you know, he just can't leave it and just say, people will find me or people figured it out. We're way beyond that. That was like 1997.
Collin 07:35
Again, because Google's trying to make good recommendations. So people continue to use that search engine. So whatever they have to do, like you said, like the photos, things are so big, because of like, okay, we learned one time post a bunch of photos. But now it's post a bunch of the right photos and with your face, doing the kind of things that you do as a business and post them consistently, the specificity of what's required of us has actually gone up as the algorithms and as the search engines have gotten more intelligent.
Amy Toman 08:07
And I love what you say there because that's one thing is he as you probably know that I always recommend, if you are, excuse me, if you are a rescue, you post photos all the time of your pets. Now I shouldn't say pets, your dogs, your cats, your you know, whoever you have up to available to be adopted? Well, if you're a pet sitter, you need to show the pet the pet sitter, you need to show the human. And I have got in my reports, and I I'm sorry, I don't remember who it is. I had one person who has on their Google list, and I assume it's on their site, too. I didn't look the best photos because what they have the photos of is them there they in their staff providing services. So you know, you used to be able to just say, look, here's me, here's my business and move on. Now, because so many people are not hitting the websites. And that's it's I'm sorry to say, but it's it's reality. In as much as you want to have the website look good. A lot of times right now, people are just doing a one click, they're going to your Google listing and going straight to calling you contact you emailing you, whatever, you know, clicking into your time to pet or your other scheduling software, bypassing the website altogether. So if the information that you're putting on there, as you said, the photos of you the photos of humans, the ones who will show up at someone's door, if those photos aren't on there, you know, somebody be like I you know, that's just one piece of information that they're wondering about because that that may cause them to wonder about something else. You know, can I look here? Would it be here, do I you know what I mean? So, yes, everything is nuanced, but I think it's because it's growing. It's developing. It's It's becoming much more of a just basically, we live in Google's world, you know, and you just have to kind of work with that. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 10:09
Well, I really saw this start to change whenever just, I mean, people have this experience. If you go into Google Photos app or Apple's Photos app, and you search, dog walker, are you searching leash? Are you search whatever, they are indexing those photos, to pull out and be able to search those photos and tell you what they are doing and what that photo actually is. And while that powerful at the personal level, it's even more powerful at the commercial and the business level. And they're trying to link because that's what I that's what I forget all the time, Amy, I always forget that when they're trying to link personal behavior, like individual person behavior with ones and zeros about what's on the screen, and trying to figure out why did this person click this over this and what I mean, and then we are supposed to scrape lessons from that to apply to us.
Amy Toman 11:00
It's very true, it's called intent. And a lot of times, that becomes a big issue, because I don't know if you remember a bit about 10 years ago, they kept saying, Well, Google keeps track of what you have clicked on in the past. And they use that and they don't, we found out pretty much that they don't do that as much anymore. I mean, they kind of do, but not really. But intent is is the big factor. And it's funny because I I really love Google Photos. Because I can, I can find the most obscure things. And I don't know if you've noticed that recently, which is kind of cool. I don't know if it was on my Android phone, or actually, you know, looking at them in desktop, but you can now actually, there was an option to lift the text that was seen in a photo. I was like, wow. But also, there's an SEO tool, which is really kind of cool. It's free with Google. But what you do is you lift up, you lift up, you upload an image, and it will tell you what Google knows about the image. Now I did this about, I think it was about a year ago, maybe more of my cat, just sitting like in a beam of sun on a carpet. And what was really cool was, it knew that it was a cat, it knew what type of cat that it was a domestic shorthair, you know, nothing special. He's wonderful, but not special breed. And it knew things about the carpet. It knew things about the color. It just, I mean, you know, it was like, like 20 things that it pulled out. And then it pulled out, you know, the possibility of this, the possibility of that, and it was just, it was just amazing. So, um, I occasionally will upload photos for Google posts. And when we had some stress a couple years ago, when some of them were just being summarily dismissed. We went in there and figured out what exact but using that tool, we figured out what it was that Google was seeing that we didn't think was there, but obviously was being misinterpreted. But yeah, it's it's, there's, it's, it's like I said, it's developing, it's developing and you can't just kind of throw things up anymore. You have to you don't have to be a crazy person about it. Because Google My Business Listings are meant to be a little bit more they're meant to be user friendly. But again, there's so many so many nuances to them.
Collin Funkhouser 13:23
Amy, I did want you before we move forward. I did want you to introduce yourself to our new listeners because it has been a while since you've been on it was episode 120 It's been been way too long. Tell us about who you are what you do and what's exciting you these days.
Amy Toman 13:40
Oh okay. I'm Amy toman. petsitter SEO, I'm on Facebook or I have a website has to be redone. You know, Ofsted always has to get something redone. I am an SEO at full time. I specialize in local SEO which is different from say like, you know, Best Buy or Land's End or something like that, or LL Bean. I do it for very small businesses. I'm mostly mostly pet care businesses. I also do other projects and the knowledge and the tools and information I get from the other areas I bring down to pet sitters. If you've got the about page on my website, I have been I have contributed to many surveys. I've contributed to articles I've written articles for naps and for psi. I've done webinars I've spoken at the psi webinar. Sorry it was a webinar supposed to be live it was so upset I really wanted to go but I I've just I've been around the petsitting community for about seven years. I've run my business this is actually I figured I think it's an April, April or May will be five years for me doing Pet Sitter SEO. So I just you know I just really enjoy working with pet sitters. I think everybody there's So many different levels of folks, you know, from people who are so close to people who have Yeah, 20 pet sitters working for them. And it's just, it's just a really nice community. And, you know, I love helping helping people out. That's it. Oh,
Collin 15:16
we absolutely enjoyed having you on last episode. And last time, we talked a lot about SEO. Specifically, I wanted to dive more into the Google My Business side of things for this episode. But I did think it important to at least give a brief rundown on SEO and what it is because I see so many misconceptions out there. Just as an example, the other day, some, someone was asking, Hey, I'm new to the business. I'm looking for marketing tools. I think I'll try SEO, what do you think? And I just kind of chuckled to myself, because I didn't feel like they fully grasped what it was. And basically, and how to go about that process. So how would you describe SEO to somebody who is new to this or has maybe maybe some misconceptions from the past?
Amy Toman 16:07
Thank you, that's, that's really good. i That's a great way to put it. Um, SEO stands for search engine optimization. And I like to think a better way to think of it is knowing how to how to kind of package your information, so that it is so that it's best appreciated by the search engines know, there's more than one search engine. But it's it's kind of it's a it's a form of its marketing, but it's a form of manipulation, how to make your information and your your business, you personally look better than someone else's business. So that more visibility comes to you. That's what I think SEO is. So it's, it's, it's taking your information and making it look, you know, prettier, stronger, more efficient, more successful than other businesses in your area. It is not when I first started, I believed when they said that there were like 200 things that Google looks at to figure out with your, with your website, only to realize that of those 200 to 200 things, there were supposedly 50 different aspects of each one. And now Google doesn't even do a number anymore. Because there's just so many parts to it. I used to think it was really limited. It's not, there's so many different areas of it. So when somebody says they want to try SEO, they already are using SEO, regardless of what they may think if you have a website, if you have a Google listing, if you have any social presence, Facebook, Instagram, anything you're already in, you're already doing SEO, you know, consciously or not, you are.
Collin Funkhouser 17:59
I think that is important to note, if it's on the internet, it's being optimized in some way, we can exert some control over it by understanding or trying to figure out what people are searching for, to make our content stand out.
Amy Toman 18:12
That's it. That's it. And as you as we were saying before, it's intent. What is an end tell you the truth. I think I've seen Google so long that I'm starting to see it in other places. And I hate to admit this, because I always feel silly. But I started to pay attention to tick tock. And I have absolutely no idea how they decide kind of what I like and don't, because some of the things that come up, I've been looking at it for about three months, and you would think that they would have some idea now but every once in a while they come up with something that has absolutely no relation to anything I've already liked. I don't like what it is, you know, I've heard some people say that for a while they were getting things in Spanish. They don't speak Spanish. So that's one that's just totally eluding me. But for the most part, yeah, you're when you look at it, you want to think of what is it? That's going to get either either what is it that is going to get me to someplace that I want to go they find the information that I'm looking for? Or when you think about your business, what is it that people are going to search on to get to me? And that's always that that will that's the big key to get people to get the visibility to your business. What is it that people in my area are going to search on that are going to hopefully get me in front of them
Collin Funkhouser 19:33
and exerting some control over that? Because remember, we're going okay, they went to Google because that's where majority people search via Google and they type in something, the results that pop up, they're going to click on something. I guess that's the that's where the intent comes in and figure out why they clicked on that. I like to look at kind of what what when people clicked on our website or found us What did they search for and I know there are tools that we can track for and to make sure sure that what they searched for is actually what we pop up for. And that there's not some crosstalk on the back end.
Amy Toman 20:07
It's, it's really true, because you can use tools free tools now last like Google Analytics, Google data's not Data Studio guru, Google Search Console, a lot of them will talk about queries, there are other tools. If you have a proprietary platform like Wix, or one of the others. They also have, again, they have proprietary Analytics, you can add Google Analytics onto it. But they also probably have their own their own analytics, and you want to look in there, you want to make sure that you're coming up, not only are you coming up for the queries that you want to come up for, that's, that's their quality query. But you also want to make sure that you're coming up, you want to look up the GLR geographics, you know, what the term is, but geolocation, that's it, you want to make sure that you're actually coming up in the state that you want to come up in. And then if you can click into that, the the cities are the areas that you're going to come up in, um, I have somebody I work with, and they occasionally come up in other states, but the reason why they come up, they're very local business. But the reason why they come up there is because they're there, they're in one of these towns called Springfield, you know, where there's, like, 20 of them around the US. So part of it is, you know, they optimize for Springfield, but obviously, there's, they're not local enough, maybe we have to put in the more the state, but it is something to, you know, to look into. And if you're if you don't have your site optimized for your location, your analytics will probably tell you that too, because that you will probably see that you're not coming up as local as you would want to.
Collin Funkhouser 21:47
Yeah. Yeah, I know, that's something we look for a lot. And it's funny, you mentioned Springfield, because that's one of the cities that we're moving our business to. So we've been hyper aware when we get a lot of contacts or queries from Illinois, because it's a you know, it's a it's a bordering state, but they also have a Springfield, and people get kind of crosstalk and confused so that that's funny because we are working on kind of battling the same issue of like, okay, how do we make our website more Springfield, Missouri, versus Springfield, Illinois or someplace else?
Amy Toman 22:18
Right. And there's I mean, the town next to me, there's 14 of them people don't people are so in a bubble. They don't realize like Springfield, I think a lot of people know Portland, there's a bunch of Portland's but like the town next to me, if you ask anybody who lives there, and you would say something like, how many towns are there with that name in the US, they would have no idea there's actually 14, but I was like, they have no clue. And it's just everybody just kind of knows your air. So it is something as you said, it's something to look into your your analytics and, you know, just make sure that you're getting the traffic that you want. And if not, you think about it, think about where is that coming? What's the intent? And how can I change things? Right?
Collin Funkhouser 22:58
Well, and one aspect of SEO and maybe I'm not wording this correctly, but I hear a lot of people recommend, or I see a lot of opportunities to list my business on directories or other listing services, whether that's with a national organization, or whether that's my with my insurance, or whether you know, a Local Business Listing. Is there any value to that? And what is going on with with those in getting business to me, right, because I kind of put our business on a lot of listings, people may put their business on listings, and say, Well, I'm not getting any enquiries directly from that listing. So is it doing me any good?
Amy Toman 23:38
Um, I think we should rephrase that. It's not is it a good idea, but how, like, how much of a good idea is it? Sure. Here's the thing. In as much as you may not get direct referrals from Manta from I don't know yellow pages from I mean, I hate to say it you know, care pets it USA per pet was I forget what that the ones are. There's one for naps is one for BSI. Oh, yeah. But here's the thing. What you're getting is a link into your business. That's called a citation in SEO terms, links into your business are very important. And you don't expect you're not listing there. If you list on say, I guess care, it has to be kind of, you have to kind of make an effort. But but having your information on a directory is an excellent, excellent way of increasing the authority of your of your website or your Google listing or of you personally, you want to have all that information accurate. Okay, so if I go in, and because I was actually cleaning these up for 11 businesses over the past like weeks, if I go in and I put in Your name Collin Funkhouser, okay, I should see those in connection with the name of your business, I should see consistent information. And I should see it in a bunch of places everywhere from LinkedIn to again PSRS locator naps locator you know, Manta, your local chamber of commerce, Biggie, very big, Better Business Bureau also very big. Those are the two that are really you want to have the money. But all of those they should have the information should be consistently correct. And the thing is, when small businesses don't understand, especially when they just start the value of those you're not expecting to get business from those listings. What you're expecting is that by having that information, pointing to your website, that ISP gives the website value, right? It says we authority, if you have a URL, it used to be if you have like hundreds of them going in, it's not that you want hundreds of them going in, you want local and you want industry. So you do want psi, I keep telling people, if I type in a business name, especially for a business, that hasn't been around for a while, some of the things that show up on page one, are almost always some of those apps, okay, that we don't want to talk about unless you're on them. But that comes up usually on page one, and almost always, the psi locator comes up. So it as much as you may say, Well, I'm not in any directories, but I'm on psi, you're going to come up on page one, even if your business name does not come up, when I type in your business name. If that psi locator comes up, that increases your chances of being, you know, of being picked, basically. So the directory listings, also known as citations are very important, I would not go nuts with getting you know, 100 of them. But there are places that you can order some, you just need to make sure that they are consistent, and that you're not and that you know where they are. So that if you do change anything, if you change the name your business, if you change the name of say if you have a partner, if there are two people running the business and one of them leaves, you want to make sure that that person's information is updated. But yes, those directory listings are are very important. Like I said, I would not go nuts, I would not order go somewhere in order a huge number of them. But local and industry. links coming to your website are very important.
Collin Funkhouser 27:42
Yeah, that's a really good reminder, Amy about we're looking for the quality of the link Yes, quality of information, not just sheer quantity, because yes, I mean, we've gotten spam of somebody saying, Oh, I searched your name, and you didn't show up on these 100 listing services, you know, pay us this fee, and we'll do it for you. And we've gone like, Well, none of those are really relevant, or I've never really heard of them, I'd rather be more specific and intentional about where I put my information. So that really like if I ever have to change it, I can remember where all it is. Well, that's
Amy Toman 28:15
what that's the thing is, like I said, two things you want you want local, and you want industry. So for local, you want things like the Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, maybe your local newspaper ran an article, or maybe they even just have a directory of local businesses, you know, great putting your $50 for the year, it's definitely worth it. Again, you're not going to get business from that necessarily, but it's a link back to your website, which is what you want. And then the ones from the industry, you know, get psi naps, you know, groups like that ibpsa All of those have links that will come back to your website. So you want as you said, you want quality over quantity, but then again, you know, having two pages of links, it's not a bad thing. And and as I said, Don't forget LinkedIn, you know, have have a LinkedIn, which will, which will both connect your name and your business that you it will come up for. So that's great.
Collin Funkhouser 29:13
Yeah, that is something that we recently added was we had our personal LinkedIn pages, but we just built out and we're working on adding a LinkedIn page for our actual business. Good. And that was something that we kind of realized was like, Oh, hey, we can do this. And we really didn't think about it until we added employees and we were like, Oh, I'd like for them to say that they worked for me and tagged my business on their profile too. So exactly. That was kind of another way another end again, sometimes you don't even think about it until you're in that position like like we were but you know that option is there.
Amy Toman 29:47
i To be honest, I am me. I am the only one who is with petsitter SEO someday I may grow it I'm not not doing that right now. And it was funny because when I was on my LinkedIn, I was bummed because it wouldn't show my logo. So I made myself a page petsitter SEO, only because I wanted that logo to be a sad little reason. But I now have a page and my logo shows on my personal page. Thank you very much.
30:17
Hey, do you know we we all have our reasons it all works out.
Amy Toman 30:24
I also do it too. I also it's like a why I have a Google listing? I'm a part of it is why I do it is so that I check things out. I figure out how they're how they need to be done. And then I can explain it to everyone else.
30:37
Have you heard of time to bed? Susan from the pet gal has this to say
Susan 30:41
time to pet has helped us grow exponentially. We believe the platform's features make us by far more professional than other companies who use conventional dashboards. They are the software gurus constantly developing and improving the platform based on user feedback. This decision was a good one,
Collin Funkhouser 30:58
if you were looking for new petsitting software give competitive try, listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting tide. pet.com/confessions.
Amy Toman 31:10
So you were saying about about Google My Business Listings? There have been a few things recently that I was hoping to, to bring up if that if this is a good time.
Collin 31:20
Yeah, I think so. Cuz I, you know, we've talked about SEO. But I did want to start diving into Google My Business because it seems like a whole nother ball of wax. Has anything changed recently, that that we need to be knowledgeable of or, you know, kind of what's what's been going on with Google My Business
Amy Toman 31:35
there. They change it so frequently. So frequently, it's hard to know from day to day, what you know what the new thing is. But okay, the big thing is, excuse me last fall from November 15. To roughly December 1, there was an update that was rolled out. This update was geared towards eliminating some of the VAT some hopefully all of the value that was given to businesses that had ads added spammy terms to their title. So if you had, you know, if you had Funky Bunch, pet care or pet sitters, and then you added your location and three other services, so that instead of just having, you know, Funky Bunch pet care, and then you have like three other lines of services that you provided or locations you went to, that used to get you extra points with Google, right, it would kind of raise you up. And to some degree, it still may. But supposedly the the this update called the vicinity update, is trying to change that. They're trying to make it so that if you've added the spammy terms, which I can go into another another thing I want to talk about about that. But supposedly, if you're doing that, right now, you're not getting as much value out of, um, and the other. The other part of that update is that they're giving more weight to local businesses. So whereas before, if you if, say, you, you typed in, plumber, okay, so whereas before, you might have been seeing businesses, and this is only for Google Maps, right, and Google My Business, this isn't for the other stuff. But for you would have put in, say, plumber, well, before you could have been treated to a plumber that had spam terms in the name, and was listed, you know, it was 10 miles away from you, which in my area in New Jersey, that's a lot. Yeah. But now what they're trying to do is they're trying to serve you people who are close to you, who have good ratings, who good reviews, whatever, but who are closer to you. And they're not paying as much attention to that, to those spammy terms in the title. So they say we're still seeing some value to those terms, but the location has become a lot more important than it was previously. So that's, that's one big thing and we've seen we have seen some changes as a result of it. I looked up in a few cities that I know of, and I'm seeing some of the businesses that added terms and services to their titles not not up there as far as I think they were previously. So so that's one thing I'm kind of I also want to mention this because it is very much connected with that recently, Google has started to record request that businesses reverify their listings, and I posted something about this on my my facebook page for pet sitter SEO. Um, sometime people are seeing a few people they've seen this in the wild, which means that it may not be consistent, but it may be slowly rolling out on listings, it will say something like, you know, confirmed by the business two weeks ago, which usually means that Google asked them for information and they provided it well The reason I'm bringing this up is because I over this past like, I guess like six months. One of the things that's been bothering me and I felt very bad backs, I have to explain this to a lot of people is that remember, I was saying before about people who would add things to their business title, right. So instead of just Funky Bunch pet care, they would add dog walking pet sitting cat care? Well, what I've been telling people is you can get suspended for that. So here's the problem, when you get suspended, and this, again, this goes back to adding terms because you think you're going to get better in the in the search results, when you add terms, but then you get suspended. You whatever you get suspended in general, you have to then produce paperwork, to show Google your business name and your location. If your business name is different, you have to then change the name on your listing, you know, take out all the extra stuff. But the other problem is, and this goes along with both what I was talking about with with the senati update, as well as with with Google, asking for re verification, some of the things that they're asking for also is they're asking for you to send things like your LLC, or your your business location, because I know, you know, outside the US, there are other terms for it. But they're asking you for your official business documentation to prove that, you know, you're a legitimate business. And what they're doing is when they do that, and this can happen not only for the verification, just if you get suspended, they will often ask for this, if your business title on the paperwork does not match the listing title, you have to make the match. Okay, so So there you go, that you might, you might have gotten like a lot of extra, you know, a lot of extra love and moved up because you use these terms, well, now the terms are going away. So you're not, you're not gonna be able to, you know, you probably get to see yourself dropped from that. But the other issue is on that paperwork. Google, when you have your listing, and your address doesn't show, you know, you were told you have to take your listing out that your address out, that's totally cool. But if the address that you're using is not the address on your official business paperwork, you got to make a match, or Google won't let you come back. And the problem becomes, and I've had this with a few people where if you're using a different address, like say you're using a relative's address, or you using a UPS store or whatever, those are often in the area where you want to gain the business. Well, if you're if you don't live there, and you've registered your business to your house. And so now because you got suspended or your RE verifying, you have to tell them what your legit addresses, you're no longer necessarily going to be recommended by Google in that new area, that other area, you're going to be recommended around your house. So I'm just I'm putting it out there just because I have seen that I've seen a lot of people use different addresses that they're not supposed to be using. Or they're they've added things to their business title. And I always have to remind them well, if you get suspended, and you have to provide paperwork to Google, it has to be consistent. So yeah, well, I don't mean to be Debbie downer, but I'm trying to warn people, you got to be careful.
Collin Funkhouser 38:27
So it sounds like that verification process can happen for a variety of reasons, whether they're just sending out those periodically now to make sure businesses are still operating under their conditions or to bring them under their new umbrella of terms and services. Or maybe you've requested a change. And I think that's a big one where people are looking to make a change in their business. And they go to their Google My Business listing, they make the change, and it may trigger that, okay, we need to re verify because of this, and then all of a sudden it kind of spirals out of Well, they didn't have this and they didn't have this and it's a different location, and they don't have the right title. And all these things get thrown out there. And it was all because of one or two things that they tried to do.
Amy Toman 39:08
And it's very true, because as i i also answer questions on the Google My Business Forum, and that's what what you kind of It's a standard part of your answer. If somebody says how do I how do I change the name? How do I do edit this? How do I make this change? And almost all the time you want to add in a sentence saying, by the way, changing the major elements on your listing may trigger a re verification. And so you have to, like I said, I want to put this out kind of as a warning to everybody saying, just make sure that the information on your Google listing and this pertains to address even if you can't see it, your address and your listing title. You need to have paperwork that backs it all up. You may never need it. But if you do need it, you're going to be really stressed trying to get it together while your listing is off the air and you're losing business.
Collin Funkhouser 40:01
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's, that's a question to ask, How valuable is this listing to me? Right? It's, it's, it's, quote unquote, free to have out there. Again, this gets back to our discussion about operating by their terms and conditions, it's free for me to make a Google My Business listing, but they're gonna have certain requirements of me. And if it's bringing me a lot of business, right, we're getting a lot of new clients, we're always asking them, how do you find us how you find us, if you find a lot of people are going in there saying, oh, through Google My Business? Well, you need to be directing a lot of attention and resources to making sure that stays up. And that that's meeting the guidelines, because you, you almost can't afford to not have that up and operational.
Amy Toman 40:40
That's, that's the thing. As I said earlier, I've seen businesses now where a full half of the traffic is coming directly from the Google listing. It's not going it's not coming from a contact form on your website, or a phone call. From you know, how you look on mobile. People are just skipping that step. They're saying, okay, great, you know, she has she has good reviews, it says that they do this, this and this, look, they have a picture of them with a giant breed, I'm just calling. So because of that, if I've had many people, including, like I said, these other businesses that I work with, I can see their, their, you know, their analytics, and their analytics are saying that the traffic is slowing on the website. But it's, it's getting more interactive on the Google listing. So what I tell people, if you have a choice, if you want to come to me, and you want me to help you with your website, and you want me to help you with your Google listing, I will do that. But if they say to me that they're on a really low budget, the first thing I will say is go with your Google listing, get it optimized, and start working on it. Because that's the one that's really going to right now, to where we are at this moment. That's the thing that's really going to get you there, the highest return on investment of your time,
Collin 42:10
Google makes it so easy to just do that one click as you mentioned, if it's working well, and it's hyper localized, you'll be the first one on the right to pop up when people just click right on that. And
Amy Toman 42:21
yeah, but remember, I posted something the other day, and it is really true, it was a slick, nice little black. Graphic I posted. The problem with SEO is you can't first of all people, if somebody ever promises you something in SEO, they're either naive, or they're lying. Because you can never there's so many different elements. But the thing I posted basically said it's not necessarily it Yes, it is everything you do. But it's always in relation to what everyone else does. So in as much as you know, you can you can make all your efforts. And you can do everything, as somebody tells you and you're still only coming up number two, it's not necessarily that you're not doing the right thing so much is somebody else's doing something differently. It's it's something to consider that, you know, somebody said to me today oh, well, they they only started doing, you know, X because I was doing it. And I thought it's that's interesting, it's wrong in that case, you know, they're both doing it. And they're both in trouble, because they could both get suspended. But that's another issue. But, you know, you get my point, you always have to have to see what's going on around you. You have to look at your competitors, or have they got more reviews than you do? Do they have a higher ranking than you do? Um, you know, are they are they more optimized for their location? That's what I've seen a lot lately, as I've seen a lot of pet care businesses who don't have very much mentioned at all of where they're located. Yeah, um, you know, what are they doing differently? That might be kind of, you know, getting them up one further step on the ladder, always, always something for you to consider.
Collin 44:08
I want to come back around to the address for the Google My Business because I know the majority of pet care business owners run and operate their business out of their house, out of their home, that's where they get all their mail. That's where they file taxes from, that's where they're registered as an LLC, or whatever, or sole prop. So how do I make sure that I list my Google My Business Services and get that page up and running appropriately and correctly? If I'm running an operating the business out of my house or from my home,
Amy Toman 44:42
right you use you use that address? Again, making sure all your paperwork is consistent. You use that address, and then when you're in the listing, you take the address off it will say Do you provide services at at clients locations and you say yes When you do that, what you want to do, I always think this too late, but you want to make sure that you also have a list of the places where the service area where you want to provide services. Um, but you just I'll get back to that in a second. But in general, if the only time that you can have your dress show, okay for for a residential area, or just anywhere, if your address shows, that means that you have a sign it not a not a piece of paper, but a permanent sign out front. And you have a separate door just for the business. And that you have somebody there during stated business hours, a staff person, you also have to control the space too, it can't be like your mother's house, it has to be, you have to be in charge of that space. If you rent it, that's fine. Rent lease is fine. You know, like you'll, you'll find a lot of doggy daycares, right, they have a sign out front, they control the space, they have people there during stated business hours, if you have that, you know, more power to you. If you don't have that your address should not show you also cannot use virtual workspaces. You cannot use PO Box places, mailboxes, etc. UPS can't use any of that. They all it all has to be a legitimate place. And for most people, that is from your house, I have that, you know, I, I had my address in, learned the rules took my address out. I originally said and this is another biggie when you're putting in your service areas. Don't say your entire state. Because if Google sees that, and almost anyone who knows how to hunt, spam, sees that, they will immediately look at everything else on your listing, you can't do that you have to even if it's like Rhode Island, which is really small, for the most part, that's probably the only state or maybe Delaware, you could do. But for the most part, Google says your service area should be within two hours. Right? So like New Jersey, it could be I could be my county in the next county. You know, it can't be all of central New Jersey, it can't be all of Southern New Jersey can't be all of you know, eastern Pennsylvania, it's really only supposed to be everywhere within two hours, for the most part. And again, they're not even going outside of about 10 miles from your location, they're not going to recommend you. So it's kind of useless. You know, but I've seen so many people who will have it saying that they serve like their entire state, and I just kind of want to go. If Google bags you on something else, that is the thing that you're never going to realize is the thing that's holding you back from getting your listing back.
Collin Funkhouser 47:44
Well, I didn't want to touch on the service areas, because that's something that many of us might not think to use, or we just have it in one, you know, around our home or whatever. So what value is it to us of adding those service areas around our home? And how specific can we get? Or how should we be using those that aspect effectively? For us?
Amy Toman 48:04
That is a really, really, really good question. And I must answer that at least once a day in some various aspects of it. When you enter these, in your Google My Business listing, that it proves to Google, it only helps Google do one thing and one thing or the only way they use it is to draw the pretty little picture that appears on your listing. Yeah. It does not tell Google recommend me in these areas. The only thing it does is help them draw the circle. I mean, someday I'm not saying you won't, at some point. Sure. But right now, the big thing is all it does is draw this picture of your service area. And quite frankly, going back to what we said before about addresses, this is another reason why you don't want your home address to show because by default, when your home address doesn't show that automatically reverts to show and that service area map, which is helpful. It's helpful for people in your area, right, they will know whether you're going to come down, you know whether you're in their service area. And that's why I think they're excellent to have that map there. So instead of showing a photo of you know, your random house, probably not looking, it's fast. It was the day that you know, Google vam went by. You just want to have if you don't show your address, one advantage is you have that map right there. Now, service areas I will tell you, that's how not to optimize for your Google for your service area. If you want to be seen in certain areas, the best thing you can do is have people mentioned it, say in your reviews, and also have them optimized for it on your website. Because Google itself won't do it from the listing. They won't they won't go out of their way and make assumptions. It will get done if you optimize your website for it. And you know there are things you can add to your Google My Business listing but just In general, please don't make the mistake of thinking that once you put that in there, Google will recommend you for those areas because you entered them in the service area. Field, because they don't do that. And if you want about how specific that's really up to you, because you can put in zip codes, but zip codes, sometimes you know, are a little wide wide, you can put zip code, you can usually put the town name, you can put your, your city name, you know. But that's really, that's really up to you. And to tell you the truth. After you do it, after Google draws the map, just go in and take a look and see if it's accurate. And one of the reasons I will just tell you that one of the reasons they did that, which I think is really cool, is for places they used to say, Okay, you serve X number of miles in a circle around this one location, the place where you, you know, set up your Google listing. But then what they found is places like in and if anybody knows what the map of Manhattan in New York City looks like, that wouldn't work, because Manhattan is like this long, skinny thing. So. So it would they would say, they would say that half their service area would be out in the middle of the water somewhere. So that's one of the reasons why Google changed that because by making it specific to say, a city, a town, a borough, a postal code, it's more specific to areas that are actually populated.
Collin Funkhouser 51:24
I mean, hey, it's a little bit depressing, because it's kind of nice, and you know, make me feel like it's going to do something, but be it's reminded to make sure that, you know, it's, it's actually doing what we want it to, and that we are using it appropriately, as well and not having false expectations for what we're going to get out of doing that.
Amy Toman 51:42
Yes. And that's the thing. It's like, people put it in there. And they're like, Oh, this is great. This is wonderful. And then they're like, Well, how come I'm not getting anything from it? I'm like, well, and then I have to remind them again, all it does is help you make that pretty picture, then you have to actually take it, and you have to go on to the website, and you have to make sure you have the pages and you have this and that. You know, and it's not it's not hard to extend your service area. But again, it's once you have the picture on the Google My Business listing, then comes the real work, which is doing it on the website. And you know, externally Well,
Collin Funkhouser 52:20
you know, there are a lot of aspects to a Google My Business listing. And I know you've said a couple times, you know, fill it out completely. But do I really need to turn on all of the features of a Google My Business listing? You know, things like something that I don't know if it's recent or not. But, you know, clients can message us directly through Google My Business through the Google listing? Is that something I should definitely turn on? Or should I try and redirect them to somewhere else to message me?
Amy Toman 52:48
To be honest, I think I think that that has yet to reach where it needs to go. I personally would try it, I would try for a short period. And if you either don't get any input, or the input that you get, is not what you want, or expect. I wouldn't use it. One of the primary reasons why is that right? It can really only the answers can really only come from one account. So everybody needs to be logged into that one account. Also, I've seen too, that if you turn it on, you also will sometimes I don't know if this is consistent, but you'll also sometimes be have a request a quote on your listing. Yeah. And when you request a quote, the problem with that if somebody clicks into that, is your if I click into yours, and I say I would like a quote from you on this. But what it also does is it also brings up the name of other businesses, well, you're getting a quote here, would you like request quote from other businesses? I'm like, Oh, sure. That's a great idea. So now, instead of just you know, saying, okay, here, you're going to get from one business. They're also taking you almost off that business on to getting you interested in other ones, because of course, then you're like, Oh, I never heard of this. Well, I'll go look them up. And then you're off the original one. So I, I'm inclined not to use that. But I but I'm still at the point where it's like, I would say tell people to try it. For messaging. Other than that, I mean, there's there's not a lot of things you can turn off. To be honest, you certainly can turn off reviews, people have asked that can't turn off reviews. Um, but you know, in general, you also can't turn off our suggested edits. People ask that occasionally. Oh, they'll say you know, people come in and they suggest that I you know, I do an entirely different type of business or something like that can't turn that off either. But the things that I would keep an eye on though, that and why I suggest that everyone, every business owner, regardless of what business type of business that you do, I strongly suggest that you log into your listing at at a minimum of twice a month. And the primary reason is because there's a couple of reasons. But one reason is because people can suggest edits. And if you don't, if you don't reject the edits, at some point, I don't know if there's any timeframe, Google may adopt the edits, I've gone in there. And recently, I tried to go in like once a month, maybe a little bit more. Um, and again, because of my business name is Pet Sitter SEO, every now and then Google decides I'm a pet sitter, I get calls for pet sitters like no, I love pet sitters, I respect pet sitters, I have no patience, I'm not. I don't do pet sitting, no to Cat care, I don't do dog walks. And I have to, I have to constantly say thank you, no, but you know, that's one thing. The other thing is, and this is another like Red Star, like, you know, put happy, you know, confetti around this, you want to make sure that whatever email that you use for two things, whatever email that you use, to register to set up your Google My Business listing, that you log into it and you pay attention to it. Every once in a while some spammer will try to take over your listing, you will get you know that they request ownership, you'll get an email, you know, this person requested ownership of this listing. It is not if you ever get one of these, it is not spam, it is not a mistake, as long as it's from Google. And if you don't answer within three days, Google may start to give that person your listing. Whoa, yes, that's bad. So if you get an email that says, you know, so and so has requested ownership of, you know, whatever your listing is titled, you have to answer you have to reject it within three days. That's the first thing. The other thing I definitely recommend to people, again, no matter who you are, what you do, if you have a Google listing, do not have only one user on the listing. Here's why. If something happens to that one person, okay, like maybe you had and I've seen this happen, I have seen this happen, say you allow you have an email for your office manager. And your office manager goes in and they're the one who does all the work on the listing, well, then they leave. And they change the password on that email. They've basically got ownership of your listing, and unless they give it back to you, if they're the only user, you're screwed, you need to have at least two users on every Google My Business listing. Users, you can see who they are when you log into your listing on desktop. On the left, there's a panel. And one of the things says users, always make sure that you have at least two users on there.
Collin Funkhouser 58:07
Well, that's I, I know what I'm doing my homework tonight. Am I
Amy Toman 58:11
scared you now? Sorry?
Collin Funkhouser 58:14
No, it's it's a good reminder. And I love how you talked about needing to check in periodically, if I want to go back to about the people requesting a quote, that if you have that on and those are getting shuffled away, or you're just deleting them, those are things that are out there that are remaining unanswered, right, and that doesn't look good when a business is not responding to requests.
Amy Toman 58:33
And I will tell you a quick one, just along those lines. If you don't request within I respond within I want to say 24 or 48 hours, then Google turns it off anyway.
Collin 58:44
But there you go. So, yeah, you want to be staying on top of these things. And then the whole being locked out of an account losing the password to an account or you know, I know some companies give one time emails to staff and then once that staff member goes, not just they change the password, but that whole email may be deleted and removed as part of their appeal termination policy. So always having backups. And that may sound silly to somebody who's going well. I'm a solopreneur. What why could I ever you know, do that's not important to me? Well, a backup is never a bad thing. Right? A backup is never a bad thing. And you may never need it. But the moment you do, you'll wish you would have had it.
Amy Toman 59:25
My children are my backups. I'm on on my listing. I think I have like free users as a primary then then two of them because on emails that they really don't do much with. Yeah, and I mean, on an off note, total side note of has nothing to do with our topics here. If you haven't, if you haven't already done so. Google accounts, Google Gmail accounts, Google, just general Google accounts have something called legacy and it basically says that you can go inside it's part of your account. You just have to go check on it with the full title is, but what you do Is it will set up that you set the time and says, if there has been no activity on this account for say, two months, three months, whatever, you're the information will then be sent to the people who you designate. And they can get into your account.
1:00:17
Yeah, I think, yeah, it's, why would
Amy Toman 1:00:19
you want that if you got sick, if you got hurt, if you were into the hospital out of nowhere, and you're running your business through that account, or you have 10 years of photos or something, it's just something to consider?
Collin 1:00:30
Yeah, no, I think that's great. I think that's a inactive account manager or something like that, where Yes, exactly. And I have that set up. And every periodically I get email from them saying, hey, just be um, here's the information we have on hand, make sure it's still good, you know, it, change it if need be, ignore this, if it's all good, but it's just a way to have, again, peace of mind about this, because many of the businesses that we're running like this is this is going to change hands one day, it may change hands one day, we may hope that this business is gonna outlive us. And this is part of the way that we start that process of making sure things are protected. And if we have to step away for whatever reason, knowing that the digital keys to our business are not just going to go with us, like we need to be thinking the forward a little bit about how this this transfer is going to take place.
Amy Toman 1:01:19
And there are a lot of people who have not did not know about this, and didn't think about it ahead of time, and are now struggling and they go on like, you know, what am I going to do now? You know, he took my he took access with him, like, well, you know, you kind of you have to you have to be able to know for yourself, and these are not things that are commonly mentioned.
Collin 1:01:38
No, no, they're not. And I will, I will have links to the how to set up the account inactive account manager, as well as if you're listening to this, and you don't have a Google My Business listing set up and you don't know where to go, I'll have that link in the show notes as well, because I think there's a little bit of confusion about where to go for that. And so that way, you can start looking and refining what you have, or getting it set up for the first time and get started on this process.
Amy Toman 1:02:08
It's it's a very, it's very, very, it's essential these days to have a Google My Business listing. As I said, Some businesses are seeing less traffic to their website, but their business is not dropping off. The reason for that they're seeing increased interaction with their Google listings, they may, you may not, you may again, you may not be seeing an increase increase in Google My Business traffic, but what you're seeing is it's it's more defined, right since that update last fall. So you may be getting more traffic from people who are local to you, who are again, bypassing the website, excuse me, and going directly straight to from the Google listing to contacting you. So not having a Google listing at this point. It's just a wasted opportunity, you really, really need to have
Collin 1:03:01
one I know it's something that, as we said, is always changing. But it's really, really mission critical. Even if you have a well optimized website or a really robust social media presence, and you're getting a lot of contact through there. Again, thinking it's it's free to have Google is really, really pushing it these days, they're investing a lot of effort into making it work well for the queries that people are putting in there. So making sure it gets set up right with a lot of stuff that you've talked about Amy about the the address and all of your documentation. And having it there is is kind of a you said it's kind of a no brainer at this point, because it's not going to hurt you. It's only going to going to help you as we move forward.
Amy Toman 1:03:40
Yeah, it's what it's one of these things that I Google is not going away. I mean, we can we can all assume right now that they've you know, they've been around what 20 Something years, and they're really not going anywhere. So in as much as you know, things change all the time, you know, maybe Bing will start coming back or start being bigger than it is or you know, DuckDuckGo, which is great. But right now, the biggest one that you're going to need to work with and optimize for is Google and knowing what they allow what they don't allow, what they look for. And what they don't really pay attention to, again, they don't really pay attention to that the fact that you put in service areas. But if you have that information on your website, it makes them very happy. So knowing what Google is looking for what the search engines want to know about you and how it how it should be presented. Those are the keys these days really just kind of getting your information out there in the way that they can use it to your best advantage.
Collin Funkhouser 1:04:46
Well, Amy, as always, I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I like I said I have lots of notes and homework to do. So I
Amy Toman 1:04:55
I do that to people I'm sorry whenever I get on the phone with somebody I I usually tell them to have their crowns ready because I kind of talk densely. And I tell them usually a lot of things that they need to do. And I, I sometimes feel bad. But on the other hand, when they get off the phone, they're like, no, no, that's good. That's good.
Collin 1:05:11
Yes, absolutely, I always enjoy it. And I know that, again, this is an ever changing topic. And there's a lot more here and you, you provide a lot of services. And you can do a lot of reviews and critiquing of listings and looking at analytics for people. So how can they how can listeners get in touch? Start asking some questions and following along with all the information that you're putting out there?
Amy Toman 1:05:35
Cool. Thank you for asking, um, Amy at petsitter seo.com. That's best email. I'm on Facebook, at petsitter SEO prize. Um, I have my website, you can fill out a form on petsitter seo.com, that I mentioned yet again, that I really have to update update my website. And honestly, I tell people, this all the time questions, you know, just send me a question. I'm on Facebook, also, Amy Tillman. But you can just always send me send me why did this happen? I'll tell you, if I know, if I know why it happens, you know, you know, I'm not going to charge you or whatever, just to answer a question. So if anybody has we're or I absolutely love it too, because I have a few people who will just funky things will happen. And they'll go why is this? Right? And so everyone's so I just like love it last night. lovely, wonderful person in Utah sent me this, because of a conversation we'd have like a year ago. And it was a video that basically talked about the same thing, but in another context. So, you know, messages, questions, love to hear it. You know, I also just see now, I own it entirely websites, I offer optimization reports for Google My Business Listings. And I also do a few other things, one of which is teaching people how to blog. And when I say that, I'm not going to tell you what to blog about. But I will tell you how to lay it out in the way that the search engines will think that you were, you know, the best person and the biggest, you know, authority on the planet. So that's something for what it's worth.
Collin Funkhouser 1:07:17
Yep, always important. And Amy, I will have links to all of that even your your website that you're working on in the shownotes. So people can can click right to there, I again, have just I've always enjoyed these conversations, because there's so much to learn and start doing so Amy, I really, really appreciate your time. And all the that you've shared today.
Amy Toman 1:07:39
Thank you very much. It was lovely talking with you. And boy, yeah, I gotta say this again, I noticed that last time, you ask some of the most well informed questions of almost anyone I've spoken with who's not an SEO. So I want to give you give you you know, kudos for that. You obviously do your research, and you structure your shows very well. And, you know, I really hope you're proud of that you obviously do such a great job. And this is why your site, I will say your site does come up very high in search results, so just wanted to let you know you're doing a great job.
Collin Funkhouser 1:08:14
Thank you so much, Amy, I really I really appreciate that. That means an awful lot coming from you. And I yeah, I that that. That means that means so much. So thank you
Amy Toman 1:08:21
have a great time. And you know, I look forward to, you know, hearing this. And if anybody wants to contact me totally cool.
Collin 1:08:27
How much homework Do you have after listening to Amy, I know seriously, every time I get the chance to talk with her or converse with her on social media or on the podcast, there's so much work to do. And that should be encouraging to us. There's always things that we can do to help our business stand out better. Just claiming your Google My Business listing is step one, and there's a link in the show notes. To go do that today. Make sure you sign in with your business Gmail account, so that you can always access it again and you don't use a personal account that may get thrown away. Pay attention, as Amy said to what address you're going to be using. Now you may have to enter it, but you can always ask for them to remove it later. So you can show that service area, make sure it matches all of your other documentation so you can prove exactly who you are in case they send out another reason to re verify your business. Google My Business is so incredibly powerful. And as Amy mentioned, it is becoming the single way where people are getting connected with the businesses that they want to work with to make sure you get it set up and it's set up appropriately so that nothing ever happens to that listing because it is incredibly valuable. We really want to thank time to pet for making today's show possible. And for you for listening. Have you set up your Google My Business listing yet? We'd love to hear how that process went for you how it's working for you and what kind of clients you're getting from that. Send that to feedback at Pet circuit Fisher comm or anywhere on social media. Yeah, we hope you have an absolutely amazing rest of your week. And we'll be back again soon.
