Latest / Semantic SEO Podcast / Maptimal Semantic SEO Strategies for Higher Google Maps Rankings | James Dooley ft Paul David Truscott (James Dooley Interviews Paul David Truscott)
Transcript
- James Dooley: How Mapimal.com uses semantic SEO strategies for better Google Maps visibility. Today I'm joined with Paul Truscott and we're going to talk about the different semantic strategies being used to increase not only Maps visibility, but also the AI map pack within the AI Overview. Paul, it's been an absolute pleasure having you and there's a lot of other episodes where we're talking about the brand SSOT and we're talking about Google Ask Maps and plenty of other episodes all related to Mapimal.com. But on this one, why do you think integrating semantic SEO strategies is important for our Google Business Profiles? Paul Truscott: It's vital now, James, because Google has moved beyond just serving these, um, these Maps results in an isolated capsule, if you like. So, previously we had the organic results that included usually three, uh, Maps, or maybe three with one sponsored, uh, one. And then you go to the Maps app where they'll serve you the full list of, uh, businesses for that area. But people are generally not going beyond the first three, four, maybe five listings. Um, but each of one... Each one of those is, uh, predefined in terms of what they serve you, right? It, it's, uh... If you have a look at it, you'll see there's an absolute format to it. Shows you the, the review, um, the, the number of reviews, the review aggregate rating, the phone number, review snippets, you know, things like this. So, it's use... Very useful information to make a quick decision as to whether you want to ring that business or not. But it's not complete. There's very little, you know, it's... And it's certainly not personalised. It's very, very, um, generic really. Now, Google is trying to personalise results as much as possible by bringing these things into their AI search environment. Um, I think this is going to become more and more prevalent because, let's be honest, Google has spent a fortune building all of this AI capability. It would be strange if they didn't use it. So given that it has the capacity to serve results that are contextually much more relevant and personalised than they can do through the current system of Maps, I think we're only going to see more and more and more of this. So where semantics dovetails into this is that it's a semantic engine. All of these, um, whether it be Google's Gemini, which is what powers their AI Overview and their AI Mode, whether it be Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, no matter whichever engine, they're all semantic, right? So they're all processing language. That's basically what they're doing. They're trying to... They're looking at the, the, the patterns in the language to make sense of what people are searching for and then match that with the best possible answer. So unless you understand semantics, you're not going to win at this game. It's as simple as that. It really is that simple. You, you need to be providing the information that these engines want and need in order to match your business with the person searching. And also that it needs to be done in a way that they can retrieve cheaply, quickly and, um, process it without, you know, digest it without, uh, too much difficulty. James Dooley: Yeah, for me you've, you've spoke about this for over five years to myself and saying that semantic SEO is really important. It's an entity-based algorithm. You should be connecting those nodes and edges together and talking about the Knowledge Graph. And if I'm being honest with you, I used to think, I don't think for Maps it's that important. This is what I used to think. However, now... Now we talk about Google Ask Maps. For anyone that doesn't know what that is, make sure you check out the link in the description. We've got a whole episode about Google Ask Maps, about where you're asking AI and it's coming back as a conversational, and that is 100% using the semantics. Paul Truscott: Absolutely. But also now with regards to ChatGPT and AI Overviews and people are asking a lot more very specific terms of what they wanted. Now I'm all in. And now I think it's become more important than ever for anybody that's looking to do a Google Maps service. They need to understand semantic SEO. They need to understand semantic triples, connecting those nodes and edges, connecting any case study with the location and with the actual entity of, like, the facility of what they've done it for. Trying to amplify reviews everywhere because that's what query fan-out is looking for within AI. James Dooley: Yeah. And I... And surely, like, I know you've always said to me about the importance of semantics, but surely now it's become more important than it ever has been to be doing semantic SEO for Google Maps. Paul Truscott: Yeah, we've kind of reached, certainly not the end point, but we've reached probably the beginning of that phase where Google starts to really, um, mash everything that they have in their arsenal together. Google has had an enormous amount of technology for a number of years, which is how I was able to predict certain things so many years ago. It wasn't because I'm a genius, because I'm not. But if you read the patents, you could see the direction they were going in. What they lacked at the time, though, I think, was the, um... They couldn't do it cheaply enough. They couldn't do it cost-effectively enough to make it make sense. Uh, now with compute being much cheaper than it was, with the advent of AI technology and its ability to learn as quickly as it does, everything's changed. And Google are now in a position where they can actually become the answer engine that they always wanted to be. I mean, I saw this... I think you... I can remember us having a conversation many, many years ago about the, uh, um, Google wanting to serve answers rather than options to people, but really lacking the ability to do it. But that's what the whole Knowledge Graph was built up to do. And it could do it with simple facts. Like if you put in what's the capital of Paris, it's not going to have to do a search to find that out. It's in the Knowledge Graph, right? It can tell you immediately the capital... Sorry, capital of France. The capital of France is Paris, right? So, it knows that. More and more now it's taking all sorts of information and, importantly, information about your business, whether you know it or not and whether you're doing anything proactive to, to affect it or not. It is taking information about your business and it is storing it and it is serving it to people. Very often it's going to be wrong. So it's really important that you do a good job in making sure that, A, the information is correct and that it's presented in the right, right way that these engines can understand. That's semantics at the end of the day. It's all it mean... Like, it's a fancy word. It basically just means the organisation of language. And so these, these machines are starting to understand language in a way that previously they didn't. And I think it's only... I mean, for people who can be bothered with it on our end, the SEO end, it's an exciting future. And for customers that team up with us here at Mapimal, they are going to be getting the advantage of our not just our current expertise, but our, um, willingness to keep learning because everything's going to change and it's going to change fast. And we're going to be, you know, we're going to be those people that stay, stay ahead of the curve. James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. For me, the two main parts that you educated me on and schooled me on over the years with regards to the importance of semantic SEO for Google Maps was, one, that confidence and clarity. That repeating who you are and what you do and having that in a consistent manner. And that was both on, like, the company bio, on the posts that you create, but then off-page as well, that third-party corroboration and that consistency with the semantic triples to define who you are and what you do was amazing. The second part was the review replies that you was doing and adding context to it. And it was only when I started to go, but Paul, I've got 150 reviews and, and they've got loads of five-stars. And then you were showing me it was like Bob Jones that would reply and it is... That would send a review saying, "Thank you very much, James. You provided an amazing service. Keep up the good work." And it was like, "What service did you provide?" How does Google know what service you provide? Paul Truscott: Yeah. And there was no context behind it. So then when you was then responding and you were saying, "We are really... We are really, like, thank you for the five-star testimonial. We love that you enjoyed this, this, this and this." And you explained exactly what we did in a semantic triple format, which connected our brand with the service and whatever the job was. And that then instantly just kept seeing it going from the... Like, from going from red in grid rankings to green because it was adding so much more context around what we did. And that's the semantic element that you added to that part was a game changer for so many of our brands. And this is why I'm excited for Mapimal.com. This is why the three of us combining forces at Mapimal.com, in myself, you, uh, Paul, and Peter Jones, I think it's going to take off. And I love... I love the fact that you've just touched upon things are going to be changing at a rate of knots. And you know what? I know that we're going to be at the forefront of it because we want it for our own companies, for our own brands. So people are going to be able to leverage Mapimal.com for their businesses and we're going to be the innovators. Even if we're number one, I want to innovate every single day. James Dooley: Yeah. Every day is a school day. It was important what you've just said actually, James, that we're doing this for our own, uh, businesses outside of Mapimal. Okay. So, we've got a vested interest in our own... Uh, we've got a vested interest in Mapimal ourselves, even if we never took on a client. Right? So, um, our, our clients as we move forward are going to be the beneficiaries of that. I would just say one thing that I wanted... I forgot to mention before that is so vital that people don't do because it hasn't been a feature that's been taught in SEO circles or any of the courses that people buy. They're told get reviews, and that's important. Yes, you must get reviews. But one of the, one of the things, and you just touched on it there about adding the context, and I'll explain one of the things that, that does. You, you've, you've been banging on about this for the last two years about corroboration, right? Um, you've been talking about external topical maps and third-party corroboration and how important that is. Where the, where that works in the, in the Maps, uh, space is somebody leaves a review for a service. But as you said before, you don't have any, uh, clarification from them on what the service was. You don't know where they live. You don't know when the service was provided. All we've got is the date that the review was done. Right? So, we've got nothing really to tie that review with an actual job that happened. Your website will say we provide, let's say, for example, we're going to pick, um... Give me a suburb of Manchester. Salford. Salford, right? So, we're going to say that we provide, um, a particular service in Salford. Let's say it's... We're an electrician and we do a certain electrical service in Salford, right? And it's on our website that we offer that service in that place. As soon as you've got a review that you can add some context around, you're no longer saying to Google that we're a business that offers that service in that place. You're telling Google and proving to Google we are a business that actively does that thing in that place. That's night and day. Anyone can say they work in a place. Anyone can throw up a page and say we do this in this place. That means nothing. That's table stakes, as you said before. Um, in the day, in the age of brands now, which is where we are, you can't get away with just declaring things anymore. You've got to prove it. James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. For anyone who's watching this, we hope you like the podcast episode about the importance of semantic SEO for Google Maps. If you're wanting to take your Google Maps listing onto the next level, that's both within Google Maps, but also within the AI Overviews or within ChatGPT, make sure you head on over to Mapimal.com and Paul or one of the team will be in touch. Paul, it's been an absolute pleasure. Paul Truscott: Thank you, James.