Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / The Truth About Ranking in Google Local Search

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The Truth About Ranking in Google Local Search · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
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1:03
Hey, hey listeners, boys and girls, Jeff Simfer, your humble host of the mortgage marketing
1:15
radio podcast, thanks for showing up.
1:20
I appreciate you spending some time with me, however frequent or infrequent you do.
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If you're new listener, let me know.
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Jump into our private Facebook group.
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More access to me to us to what we're doing and jump in quick because I'm going to be
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going live through the rest of the second half of December, sharing a lot of great content,
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2:07
So make sure you join us in the private Facebook group, I'd love to see you there.
2:11
Okay, so this episode, we are talking about Google and specifically your Google business
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profile.
2:22
Google has, once again, changed the name from Google my business to Google business profile.
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Yes, isn't that dramatically amazing?
2:36
So there's a lot of misinformation when it comes to marketing, digital marketing, right?
2:42
Social media.
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And Google is one of those areas, particularly the Google business profile and what helps
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you rank and show up in local search, there's a lot of misinformation out there.
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And of course, the Google business profile is one of the classes that we allow our members,
2:59
our mortgage professionals to teach to real estate agents virtually and in person in our
3:03
pro membership.
3:04
By the way, if you want to learn more about that, go to mortgage marketing.pro.
3:08
But anyway, it gives our mortgage professionals a platform to get in front of real estate
3:13
agents, add value by simply sharing the information we've put together in a very shareable, repeatable
3:18
form for them.
3:20
So that's what that's for.
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And one of the classes, as I said, is Google used to be called Google my business.
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Now it's called how to show up in local search, the new Google business profile.
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And because there's a lot of misinformation out there about Google, for example, I wanted
3:35
to, I'm a big like, I want to find out the truth, right?
3:38
My title here, self acclaimed title is Chief Truth Teller at the mortgage marketing radio.
3:43
And I love to bring the truth, not hearsay, not hype, not urban legends, but actual data
3:49
backed truth.
3:50
And so that's the genesis behind today's episode.
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My special guest, Joy Hawkins, is a Google business, I would dare I say subject matter expert.
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She is an agency owner, and she's been working in the local SEO industry since 2006.
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She is a Google top contributor, right?
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And she spends a lot of time managing Google ad accounts, and she certified in both Google
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search and display.
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And they do a lot of testing at her agency to discover the truth versus the rumor.
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And I've been reading her blog, we're going to put a link in the show notes to all her information,
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which is sterlingsky.ca.
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And then she's also got a training site that's in the show, the show notes links there as
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well, localu.org, that's local, the letter u.org.
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So check that out as well if you want to get more of your own self education on this.
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But I wanted to have her here to kind of unpack some of the missed rumors, misinformation
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about ranking in Google and what actually effects or impacts your ranking in the local Google
4:57
business search, you know, your Google business profile that shows up on the right hand side
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that should have your picture.
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It's got reviews, it's got a map link and stuff like that.
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So I think you, like I, might be surprised by some of the truth when it comes to what
5:12
impacts your ability to show up in local search and the one thing that actually impacts
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it the most.
5:20
What is it?
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You're going to have to stay tuned and listen to what she shares.
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Okay.
5:29
So let's get into this great conversation.
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I'd love to know your feedback on this and if you want to go deeper on Google, jump
5:34
into our Facebook group, let's have a conversation there.
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Without any further hesitation, let's get into this week's show.
5:42
Hey, Joy, welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me.
5:46
You bet.
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Thanks for being here.
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And why don't we do this just for the listeners?
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Quick setup.
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Who is Joy Hawkins?
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What is she all about?
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What do you do?
5:55
Yeah.
5:56
Well, I own a local SEO agency.
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We are in Canada and the U.S., so we have employees in both countries and we serve small
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businesses of all various types, lots of real estate agents, lawyers, insurance agents,
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things like that.
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And I've been working in the industry since 2006.
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Awesome.
6:14
Thank you so much.
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So as you know, I shared with you right before we hit record is I wanted to kind of have
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a, you know, level the field, set the stage conversation about Google business profile.
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But I thought it makes sense just to make sure we're all on the same page.
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If you could in the simplest way, you know how to explain what is a Google business profile
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and why should it be relevant for our audience?
6:39
Yeah.
6:40
So it's basically Google's platform for any small business where your customers are local
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to you.
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So if you are like, for example, a plumber where you go out to your customers, but you only
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travel to a certain area, obviously, it's only feasible to drive so far.
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You would be considered in that field.
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And then also if you own like a brick and mortar, like I think of a pizza shop or a bank
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or, you know, real estate office, anything that's got an actual physical address, this
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listing is essentially what shows up when people search for your business name on Google.
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And it usually, you know, it's got a map pin.
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So it's few people can get driving directions, usually as reviews and photos and lots of other
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things.
7:20
Okay.
7:21
Great.
7:22
Thank you.
7:23
Just for those that are listening and we're unsure.
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And it's interesting.
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Some people have a Google business profile and they don't know it.
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I'm sure you've seen that, right?
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So why is that?
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How does that happen?
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Yeah.
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So I mean, if Google only relied on people to submit their own information, they would have
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a very small inaccurate database.
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So they get information about businesses from a variety of sources and a lot of times
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we'll create listings for businesses that don't have them.
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And they also like users submit businesses too.
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So like, you know, if I noticed a new piece of joy in my town and they don't have a clue
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what Google is or like they're not checking it, they haven't submitted a profile yet.
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I can actually create a listing for them.
8:02
Hmm.
8:03
Interesting.
8:04
Okay.
8:05
Yeah.
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Because I find oftentimes when I'm working with some people, they're like, I don't even
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know if I have one, you know, and we'll type their name in and that will come up, right?
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With nothing totally void and empty, which isn't doing them any favors.
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How important though, knowing our audience is mortgage and real estate, how important
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is having a fully optimized and set up Google business profile today?
8:25
Yeah.
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It's huge.
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I mean, on one hand, it's a way that you can get leads.
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So, you know, people searching for real estate agents near you, you're not going to show
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up there if you don't have a listing.
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So that's one thing.
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And then I would say the other one is just branding.
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So like, you know, if somebody's researching you trying to figure out like, should I work
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with this person?
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Are they reputable?
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It's a place where you can have some control over what they see and kind of just make
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sure that you're actually paying attention to who's reviewing you and, you know, are you
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responding or you monitoring that?
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There's just so many different applications for it.
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Okay.
8:59
So, on your blog page, and we're going to put links to your website and all that kind
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of stuff in the show notes for those who hear stuff and they want to continue reading.
9:07
I mean, let me start here is, where do you see the most common errors of people when
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to come to their Google business profile?
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Well, for real estate specifically, the biggest thing that we see is real estate agents will
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set up listings all using the office address.
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And this is a huge problem.
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So we do a lot of audits for realtories in FIFA and like, you know, 40, 50 or more agents
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all registered using their office address.
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Sounds like I know in some states, they even have like rules around this.
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So, you know, in some cases, there's not much you can do there.
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We always advise agents to use their home address mainly because Google allows you to hide
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it so you don't have to like have your home address publicly listed on Google.
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But their Google's algorithm, the thing that determines who ranks for what, they filter
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out listings that are similar.
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So if you've got 50 agents, I'll use in the same address.
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Somebody searching you that address for real estate agents is going to get one, maybe two
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of those agents and the rest all get filtered.
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So it's interesting you say using your home address, naturally, some people block at
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that.
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And I know you just mentioned, so is that something new they added to allow you to hide
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your address?
10:22
No, it's been an option for a long time.
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I think just originally when people thought of that, they thought of the plumber.
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You know, they thought of the guy that works out of his home doesn't have an office.
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But like, it applies to so many other industries, real estate definitely being one of them because
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most realtors, they do work out of an office, but they also work out other home.
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And like my agency's listing, for example, is set up using my home address because we
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are all remote.
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We don't have an office.
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So there's a lot of business types that it applies to.
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And your address does not show on your profile?
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Not at all.
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And that doesn't affect search ranking.
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It does.
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So like, for example, let's say you are a real estate agent in Chicago, but you don't live
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in Chicago.
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You live in Naperville.
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And so you set up your listed using Naperville.
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You won't rank in Chicago.
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So that's kind of the downside.
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You will rank in Naperville.
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It is based on where the address is.
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It's just that address is something only Google can see.
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So the average user searching on Google won't be able to see your home address or get
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driving directions or anything like that.
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And when you choose to hide your address, it's clearly it's not showing up on your profile
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in when you search.
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But is there any negative to that?
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Because I think a lot of people are used to kind of seeing an address.
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Any concerns there?
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Yeah, I mean, not really.
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You won't have a driving direction button.
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You won't have a map pin.
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There's a couple like little aesthetic things that are different.
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But overall, like the reason why we recommend it is just because it is so hard to compete.
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We had a real estate agent I was working with that had I think a thousand reviews.
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He was the number two real estate agent in the particular country he was in.
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And he wasn't showing up because of this reason.
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There was like 90 something real estate agents using the same address.
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He was one of them.
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So like he was doing all these things.
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He's this massive agent, huge team.
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And this was his problem.
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So it's it's really a problem that I don't suggest fighting.
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Yeah, and I know I recently went through a setup with somebody and that is when you're
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setting up your profile, I believe there's a call to action to hide your address on that
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form.
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Yeah, for sure.
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You can also clear it off if you already have a listing setup and it's got your address
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on it.
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You can clear it and hide it.
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So that's doable as well.
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Interesting.
12:41
Okay.
12:42
Great.
12:43
Good info.
12:44
I'm glad we cleared that up because I got that question a lot.
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Let's then all right.
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Let's just go down the list in terms of like your usual best recommendations for real estate
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or mortgage professionals in terms of profile optimization.
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Yeah.
12:55
So categories isn't a huge thing.
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There's like I think three major categories that we see apply to real estate specifically.
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So there is a real estate agent category.
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There's a real estate agency category.
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They're pretty similar.
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And then there's another one for commercial real estate.
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I don't remember how many there are for mortgage brokers, but I think there's couple.
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Yeah.
13:16
There's just a couple.
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And it's like mortgage broker, I think.
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So it's not nearly as complicated as other industries we work in.
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So that's good.
13:23
As far as your name, though, it's like catalyst, your name.
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That's something we see done wrong a lot.
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So we usually suggest listing the brokerage name.
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I was actually talking to someone about this yesterday and they didn't list their brokerage
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name.
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And I said, you know, there's a lot of people.
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Let's say you work for Keller Williams.
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A lot of people search for Keller Williams or Keller Williams agent.
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And I don't know who these people are.
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I just see that they're search volume.
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But one thought is that agents get commissioned if they refer at a state, you know, sales
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to other agents that work for the same company.
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So I know that's true for my mother-in-law who works for or she didn't work for Keller
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Williams.
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If I was to buy a house, I'd know her and I used to Keller Williams agent that she referred
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to me, she would get commissioned.
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So people search on Google for like, oh, you know, give me a Keller Williams agent in
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the city.
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So it's a lot of mis traffic, I guess a lot of agents don't think about that.
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And then also just making sure that you list like your name.
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You can use the word realtor depending like as long as it's prominently used on your
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logo and your website and stuff.
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If you're able to come up with a name for your brokerage, like if you haven't gotten to
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that point yet, where you're trying to think of like what your team's name is, including
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something that has the word real estate in it is a really good idea.
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All right.
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So to be clear, so in your when you're setting up your name, I heard you correctly, including
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the brokerage name is helpful and important, but also including the word real estate in
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there because that's a searchable thing.
14:53
Yeah.
14:54
So let's say, for example, I'm setting up a listing for myself and I work for Keller Williams.
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I would want to be like, Joy Hawkins, Toronto real estate team.
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Let's say that's the name of the team.
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And then, you know, Keller Williams agent, the name of the team, I know like various, some
15:09
people can control that and some people can't, but if you're like just coming up with one,
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you know, having the word real estate in there is a good idea.
15:16
Well, I'm looking at one right now.
15:17
It says Gillian bachelor, simply Vegas, simply Vegas is the brokerage, but what would
15:23
you add to that?
15:24
Gillian bachelor real estate realtor real estate is it preferable to be one of the categories
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from Google?
15:30
Yeah.
15:31
So like, if you can change the end, this is where it gets kind of tricky because Google doesn't
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want you keyword stuffing.
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So they'll say like, you're not just allowed to go ad words, but if it's part of your name,
15:39
you're allowed to add it, right?
15:40
So we've had some conversations with clients where we're like, you know, can we add this
15:44
to your logo?
15:45
Can we get it added into your website?
15:47
Like can it be kind of get morphed into your business name?
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Like is that, you know, as long as there's no rules, because I know some states have rules
15:54
on this.
15:55
I just want to be really clear.
15:56
I'm not advising to break any of those rules, but yeah, as long as you can get it kind
16:00
of reflected in your name, your real, your real world name is Google would say, you're
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not breaking any of Google's guidelines, and it definitely has a ranking benefit.
16:08
Awesome.
16:09
All right.
16:10
So let's then move to keywords.
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This can be confusing for people.
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How could they use keywords with their profile?
16:18
Yeah.
16:18
So I mean, you're not, again, supposed to put it in your business name unless it's part
16:23
of your business name.
16:24
So that's why I was kind of suggesting like incorporating into your team name, if you
16:27
can.
16:28
So you're not supposed to put it there, really where you're optimizing for keywords is
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your website.
16:33
So your Google business profile is ranked based mainly on your website, like traditional
16:40
SEO, all of that stuff applies.
16:42
Yeah.
16:43
Yeah.
16:44
Yeah.
16:45
That's not something to just gloss over.
16:47
No.
16:48
Roll back.
16:49
Say it again.
16:50
Okay.
16:51
So like a lot of people think when they fill in this profile, the stuff that they're putting
16:55
in is what makes them rank.
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In reality, there's only a few fields that even have any impact on where you rank at
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all.
17:02
So one is your title, like I already mentioned, your business name.
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One is your categories, which I already mentioned.
17:09
Reviews definitely play into it.
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I don't know if they're a direct ranking factor, but if you have a lot more reviews than
17:14
other agents in your town, you are naturally going to have more people click on you, and
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that will help you ranking.
17:20
But the more reviews doesn't necessarily rank you higher.
17:24
Oh, no, not at all.
17:26
Like I said, that thousand review guy, like he, I think is, yeah, his closest competitor
17:31
didn't even have half the amount of reviews he had.
17:33
So it is not a race to see who has the most reviews.
17:37
Okay.
17:38
But it is social proof, kind of like you said.
17:39
Sure.
17:40
Yeah.
17:41
If you're a rank, then that's a huge factor of like who's going to click on you.
17:46
So yeah, and click through rate is a ranking factor.
17:50
So like the more people like interact with you, the more popular you are, it is a popularity
17:54
contest.
17:55
So when it comes to Google, so that is, that is important.
17:58
So by click through rank, you talking specifically website?
18:02
No, just like clicks on your listing clicks, but I mean, I would suggest they're clicking
18:06
on your website or clicking to call you.
18:09
I'm going to, I'm going to like control us back because I definitely want to ask you
18:12
about the content, the images and stuff on like, is that a click through example?
18:16
Yeah, images don't have a huge impact on your click through rate because they're not
18:22
really visible.
18:23
Like, in order for somebody to see your images, they have to first click through to your
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profile.
18:28
And then, you know, I'd say for some industries, images are super important.
18:32
Like if you are a restaurant, like images are everything.
18:37
Real estate, not really, you know, they're not like browsing for houses on your Google
18:42
business profile.
18:43
So it's not the same concept.
18:46
So I'd say like for photos, you'd want to have, you know, a photo of your team, a photo
18:49
of your office, that type of thing.
18:51
But like, I see some agents like uploading photos of the houses they sell and that's
18:55
a lot to manage, like upload and then remove them as you sell them.
18:59
You definitely don't need to be doing that.
19:00
Well, there's been people saying, right, I mean, you got to upload lots of images and stuff
19:04
and like Google wants frequency of content.
19:06
Yeah.
19:07
Yeah.
19:08
Not for Google, my business, I'm sorry, Google business profile.
19:12
So for your website, I mean, like, of course, you want your website to have your, your
19:15
recent listings and stuff on there.
19:16
Like, that's a no brainer.
19:18
But there's no like listing feature on your profile.
19:21
Your profile is about you, your business, not what you're selling.
19:24
Well, I've read stuff that says, you know, take pictures of your office outside.
19:28
If people are coming by, they'll be able to identify it, right?
19:31
Yeah.
19:32
Absolutely.
19:33
But that's like, that's a one time thing, right?
19:34
It's not something you have to do.
19:36
Like what drives me nuts is like these people that, um, have, it's a lot.
19:41
I see in Facebook groups and stuff, they're like, oh, add three photos a week.
19:44
And I'm like, what the heck are you adding photos of?
19:46
Like, what is there to add?
19:48
Yeah, it's not Zillow.
19:49
Right.
19:50
Well, it's, it's not like, again, you're not a restaurant.
19:53
Like your menu is not changing.
19:54
Like it's, I don't know.
19:55
That's a, that's a great point.
19:56
I'm glad you brought that up.
19:57
But I don't want to, I want to come back to the website.
19:59
Uh, if I could correctly, you said one of the biggest factors to your, your search ranking
20:06
is your website.
20:08
That's good.
20:09
To your profile.
20:10
So I unpacked that a little bit.
20:12
Yeah.
20:13
So I mean, a lot of people think that they're like these two separate things.
20:16
And we even sometimes look at people and reach out to us and they're like, we want you
20:19
to work on our, um, you know, map pack rankings or a local pack rankings, but we've already
20:23
got a SEO company.
20:25
And I'm like, those are not two different things.
20:27
Like, that's the same thing.
20:29
So I'm like, if your SEO company doesn't know anything about Google's profiles and how
20:34
they work, you need a new SEO company because you are a local business.
20:38
You need a, uh, SEO company that knows both, um, there is no separation like how we influence
20:44
where our clients rank when we are working on them.
20:47
The majority of what we're doing is stuff on their website, oh, I'm a link building, um,
20:52
and that's how you move the needle.
20:55
So I know there's some importance, though, in terms of when it says website on your profile,
21:00
I was reading earlier something about the page itself, the landing page, where it goes,
21:05
it's set.
21:06
But in terms of what drives though, why so much weight on website link?
21:10
Like what if my website sucks, does Google look at traffic on the website or anything
21:13
or what?
21:14
I mean, if your website sucks, then you're just not going to likely rank very well.
21:19
Like, I mean, we see, we do see people with a really old websites that, they do rank
21:24
well, but like their website still has content on it.
21:26
It's still readable.
21:27
It's just it's ugly.
21:28
That's a big question.
21:29
It's Google looking for frequency of content over there or traffic or how's it determining?
21:34
Oh, it's a good quality website.
21:36
Yeah, frequency of content is definitely not a thing.
21:38
Um, so frequency doesn't really matter.
21:41
I mean, you want to keep, when we do audits, we tell I did one couple days ago for real
21:46
estate agent and I, they have amazing content and I'm like, we need to keep this updated
21:50
because, you know, if you're talking about like best homes to buy and Dallas in 2021 or
21:54
best neighborhoods, we want to make sure we update that to 2022 and like we go in and
21:58
make sure like the statistics are relevant and stuff.
22:01
That's not because like we're trying to please Google per se, we're just trying to keep
22:04
it accurate so that users are actually finding what they're supposed to find, which will
22:09
eventually, you know, help with with rankings because people aren't going to bounce back
22:13
to the search results.
22:14
Um, so that's important.
22:16
I'm not saying like, you know, frequency thing to like just put content out there and never
22:19
update it, but how you know what to update should all be based around what pages are actually
22:25
getting you, uh, people look to your site and what are those people converting?
22:29
Are they calling you?
22:30
Are they filling, um, out of registration form or registering for your site?
22:34
Um, that's how you should determine what to update.
22:37
Don't just like, you know, throw stuff at the wall and hope sticks.
22:39
Yeah, that's why I was curious like with with the link to the website should it be the
22:43
homepage versus a CMA page, like you said, a form to fill out, is that like a lead capture
22:47
thing?
22:48
You know, I gave what you're saying is like, are you already getting activity on one
22:51
page?
22:52
But I also think, doesn't it kind of make sense it to, to, to, to, from a direct response
22:57
standpoint, kind of utilize or leverage that activity rather than just go to my homepage,
23:03
which a lot of people's home pages are terrible.
23:04
There's nothing.
23:05
There's no opt in.
23:06
There's no nothing, right?
23:07
Don't we want to try and capture some people you think or what?
23:09
Yeah.
23:10
So, first of all, you should definitely have that opted on your homepage if you don't.
23:13
So that, that'll solve that problem.
23:15
But I'd say for most cases, we would suggest linking to the homepage, because it is the
23:19
strongest ranking page of your entire site, um, most sites, like if you've got a real
23:25
estate agent, for example, it's got five offices, then usually no, we don't recommend linking
23:29
all five to your own page.
23:30
We look to see what, what page is Google ranking for that town and those queries?
23:36
And if it's not your homepage, which it usually isn't, then we link to that page instead.
23:41
Interesting.
23:42
Very interesting stuff.
23:43
This is both art and science.
23:45
Yes, definitely.
23:47
All right.
23:48
That's good info there.
23:49
Let me keep going down the list here.
23:50
Check my questions.
23:52
We talked about business category, URL link, which is the website link.
23:56
We talked about frequency updates.
23:57
We're, let me talk about this one, which I love, because I think you debunked this.
24:02
If I correct, you did some testing regarding geotagging images, and I was, I was somewhere,
24:09
oh, I was going to teach this class in some agent who couldn't attend the class.
24:13
She winds up like messaging me, and she's like, first of all, it's not called Google
24:17
My Business anymore.
24:18
Oh, okay.
24:19
Thank you.
24:20
But then secondly, it's like, oh, you know, you have to geotech your images in this and
24:22
this and this and this.
24:23
All right.
24:24
So let's debunk this.
24:25
Geotech, first of all, explain what it is, and then let's debunk that.
24:28
Yeah.
24:29
So geotech's are these lat long coordinates that get added to photos.
24:33
It's a field, like kid in behind the scenes, you wouldn't even see it.
24:36
But Google definitely read them.
24:38
You know, lots of other devices can read them.
24:41
Sometimes when you take a picture with your phone these days, they're automatically added.
24:44
It depends on your privacy settings.
24:46
So like I could be taking a photo in my backyard and have the settings turned on.
24:50
It's adding the coordinates of my backyard to that photo.
24:54
So there are like practical uses for them, but you know, people have over the years claims
25:00
that they help you ranking because it helps Google see where you're located.
25:04
It sounds good in theory, right?
25:06
Like it does actually make sense and there's a lot of things that I've heard in this industry
25:10
that make sense that are not true.
25:12
So the Google side, like for your profile, the reason why it was kind of ridiculous for
25:18
that, it's like Google already knows where this business is located.
25:21
They literally have it pinned on a map.
25:24
Like you don't need to help Google understand where you are.
25:28
They really know the exact address of your business.
25:31
So you don't have to help them.
25:34
But then I thought maybe your website, because they don't necessarily have an exact address
25:38
matched to your website per se, the way that they do for your listing.
25:43
But we tested adding geotagged photos to a bunch of different verticals, different industries,
25:50
to the sites, to the page that we were linking their Google profile to didn't see any impact
25:54
in ranking either in the organic section or the local pack section.
26:00
So yeah, like I know, we tested a bunch of them on no impact across the board.
26:05
And that's a lot of work.
26:06
As a matter of fact, if I read correctly, doesn't when you upload the photos, Google strips
26:11
out the packing anyways, right?
26:14
So does, so do a lot of content management systems, depending on your website platform
26:19
you're using, a lot of them delete geotags too, like they can't support them.
26:23
So like Slack, which we use for instant messaging, they delete geotags.
26:27
If you send a photo through Slack, the person downloading the photo at the other end doesn't
26:31
have the geotags on the photo anymore.
26:33
Wow.
26:34
So yeah, it's just a lot of work for absolutely no impact.
26:39
All right, so how precious I'm trying to come with the right word, you know, the Google
26:45
3 pack, right?
26:46
That's like, oh, like the perception at least for me is like, that's the Holy Grail, the
26:51
Google 3 pack.
26:52
So is that or not, you know, when it comes to being selected, first you got to get
26:56
to show up and search to even be chosen.
26:59
But then any data on Google 3 pack versus, you know, the profile on the right side there
27:05
in terms of clicking.
27:07
Yeah, so I love working actually in the real estate industry because you really can't just
27:12
take one approach because there's a lot of searches that don't trigger a 3 pack.
27:16
So what we generally find is things like homes for sale, there's no 3 pack, there's no
27:21
local listings showing up there.
27:22
There's all organic, whereas like real estate agent or realtor or like Keller Williams
27:27
agent or things like that, those return local pack results.
27:31
So you kind of got to think of like your strategy, really need to target both, but like focus
27:35
more on organic stuff for like the homes for sale terms.
27:41
They don't convert as well, but they get more traffic.
27:43
So it's like you really want it all, but usually we prioritize the real estate agent terms
27:48
because those are the highest converting.
27:51
Let me pivot for a second.
27:54
What about reviews I've heard, if tell me if this is true or not or something like when
27:59
somebody's leaving you with a review, you know, oh, make sure they put your name in it
28:04
or whatever because that helps as well with search, tell me about that.
28:07
We're doing a test on this right now.
28:09
It's not done.
28:10
So I don't want to like misspeak, but we will be publishing, we will be publishing that
28:13
because that is another thing I've heard a lot and I'm very skeptical about.
28:18
I'm also skeptical that you can actually control it, like we've tried, and it's like
28:21
you can't really tell your customers what to type.
28:24
It's crazy.
28:25
Yes.
28:26
Yeah.
28:27
So it's this.
28:28
Yeah.
28:29
Just cut and paste, right?
28:31
Yeah.
28:32
No, it's, yeah.
28:33
But we stay tuned.
28:34
I will definitely be releasing something next year once we got the data on that because
28:39
we've been doing some testing around review is quite a few.
28:42
Yeah.
28:43
And of course, that seems to be where everybody's drawn to is reviews, right?
28:47
And I tend to, you know, probably promote that heavily too in terms of the importance.
28:51
Like when I'm working with real estate agents, they're either going to have, well, not
28:55
enough reviews because five is not enough for this one particular agent.
28:58
I know who's already sold 156 homes this year, right?
29:02
But her reviews are heavily on Zillow.
29:05
So I assume that does Google also scrape Zillow for any ranking, yeah?
29:12
Usually it comes up like when you search for the agent by name, they have what's called
29:16
a knowledge panel.
29:17
So it's a fancy word that we use for like the, basically the profile, the Google business
29:22
profile.
29:23
But when you're the only one that shows up, so if somebody searches your name, it's not
29:26
likely going to get a three pack of like three listings, you're going to get just your
29:30
listing.
29:31
And then you see way more details on it.
29:32
All right.
29:33
I'm going to do it right now.
29:34
I'm going to do a screen share.
29:35
I'll show you.
29:36
There you go.
29:37
I've been talking about.
29:38
So this is a knowledge profile over here?
29:39
No, the right.
29:40
So where it says five Google reviews, that whole thing, like it's boxed in, that is
29:44
a knowledge panel.
29:45
This is a knowledge panel, also called your profile.
29:49
Yep.
29:50
Yeah.
29:51
It's the profile like the listing, but like the knowledge panels when it like shows up
29:54
to the right like this, and you'll see like down there, if you scroll down there, it's
29:58
like reviews from the web, kind of interesting, actually that they're not pulling in Zillow
30:02
there because they usually do, but it says Facebook and like that's usually where you will
30:09
see other reviews show up.
30:12
Interesting.
30:13
They don't show up in your review accounts, like where it's five reviews on Google, that's
30:17
strictly your Google reviews, up at the top, but like the reviews from the web section,
30:23
that can get populated by third party sites.
30:25
Exactly.
30:26
I've seen that and that's usually pushed further down.
30:28
And what I'm curious about is, you know, in terms of the, usually it's on mobile anyways
30:33
for most people, right, when they're doing this, like those to me, those reviews that get
30:39
pushed down from third party sites, I don't know like the percentage of people that
30:42
actually see that.
30:43
Yeah.
30:44
I mean, the one great thing about Zillow is like you look to the left there, they get the
30:47
gold star ratings.
30:49
So like that gold star feature is really powerful.
30:53
So we usually tell people to focus on review sites that get those, like not all review sites
30:59
have those.
31:01
So if you're advising somebody on how to divvy up their reviews, usually I tell them
31:07
this to give the customer, you know, no more than three choices, and I'm leaning more
31:10
towards like for real estate anyways, and mortgage is Google and Zillow if you have a presence
31:16
on Zillow.
31:17
Yeah.
31:18
I mean, you got to prioritize like what you get leads from, right?
31:19
So if you get a lot of leads from Zillow, then obviously you don't want to leave it alone
31:23
and not get reviews there.
31:24
So, you know, I kind of base it around that, but Google's always number one on the list.
31:29
It's hard to top them.
31:33
What do you mean by that?
31:34
As far as like priority, like where you'd want to get the most reviews, we see generally
31:39
that like bang for your buck, you'll get more putting more reviews towards Google than
31:44
any other site.
31:45
Yeah.
31:46
And of course, as I'm sure you know, there's this whole dynamic with Zillow and real estate
31:49
agents, right?
31:50
Some people want to have Zillow die and pull away from them.
31:54
Yes.
31:55
But let's just face it, Yelp is no longer relevant for all of the state, right?
31:59
Yelp is, man, so Yelp is tricky because you're not supposed to solicit reviews there.
32:03
So if they catch you and out of all the reviews sites there, they're the most likely to catch
32:08
you.
32:09
Like Google does not monitor stuff.
32:11
Yelp is really picky and they actually have a policy against it.
32:14
So if they catch you soliciting reviews, they can actually negatively like impact your profile.
32:20
If they're not available, they take the reviews down.
32:22
They have a penalty, like a ranking penalty, they can issue on you.
32:25
If they think you're doing something manipulative, like it's crazy, the lengths they'll go to,
32:30
they almost go to too far on an extreme.
32:34
So yeah, Yelp, there's not a lot you can do to influence them unless you're like literally,
32:38
you know, manually asking people like, hey, do you use Yelp?
32:40
Oh, if you do great, can you leave us a review and like, okay, I wouldn't even put it in
32:44
an email.
32:45
Like any, any way that Yelp can track clicks and stuff, I wouldn't touch because they can
32:50
see that.
32:51
Yeah.
32:52
They have ways of telling.
32:53
Too much friction.
32:54
It's crazy.
32:55
Yeah.
32:56
Is there any advantage to a real estate agent, have an independent agent, not a brokerage,
33:01
having multiple reading your article here, multiple practitioner listings, well, there's
33:06
really only two or three to choose from as a real estate.
33:08
Is that real estate?
33:09
Yeah.
33:10
So I would do it if like you have an office that doesn't have a million realtors in it,
33:14
for example, because those do exist.
33:16
So let's say you have an office and then you also live like in another city, you know,
33:22
if you have two profiles, then essentially you can rank in both cities, which is great.
33:25
And it's perfectly legit because like I said, real estate agents do work from their homes,
33:29
like they're not violating any guidelines there.
33:33
And I also ask Google that it was perfectly fine.
33:36
So we originally thought it wasn't, but yeah.
33:39
What is it?
33:40
You know, a mortgage professional and you're licensed in multiple states and you're actually
33:45
generating business across those states.
33:48
Should you have multiple profiles?
33:49
Absolutely, but it's tricky because it's like, well, what address do you use, right?
33:53
If you don't have an office, so I mean, like get an office if you can, like even a small
33:57
one, but like, I realize it's not feasible.
33:59
So people often go the route of getting like virtual offices or co-working spaces and those
34:03
get flagged very, very easily.
34:05
So yeah, they're not, you're not supposed to have a listing at like a location that you're
34:10
never at.
34:11
Yeah.
34:12
So I mean, if you want a house, like I see people do this, they get creative.
34:16
But like you are like, oh, I'm licensed in these three states and you want a house in
34:20
the other state, you could use that address and like home address and hide it.
34:26
Any quick advice for people, I know you see this a lot.
34:30
I have an old account and Google won't let me switch the info or whatever, right?
34:34
Stuff like that.
34:35
Yeah, they've actually streamlined this process really well.
34:38
So I actually have a video I did that's in Google's help center.
34:42
So it's like, for a way, you have to Google to get to it.
34:45
It's something like somebody else verified by listing the actual YouTube video that I did
34:50
showing you how to get access to it, but they streamlined it.
34:52
So you just have to request access and basically the person doesn't respond, whoever has access
34:58
to it, they'll let you re-verify it within I think three to seven days.
35:02
Oh, okay.
35:03
Great.
35:04
Yeah.
35:05
So they have made that better because it used to be better.
35:06
Way better.
35:07
Yeah.
35:08
All right.
35:09
So why did Google do this really?
35:10
This change from the name for the fourth time.
35:14
I mean, so I've been working this space for a really long time.
35:17
This is nothing new.
35:18
They do this every like five years or so.
35:20
I mean, like it went from Google Places to Google Plus profile to Google My Business.
35:26
I think I'm missing a few.
35:27
I think before Google Places, it was Google Maps.
35:29
Yeah.
35:30
Like, they do this all the time.
35:32
So I don't know.
35:33
I think their people internally just get bored.
35:35
No idea.
35:36
Yeah.
35:37
But they do.
35:38
They do a lot.
35:39
Well, it keeps their job, right?
35:40
Right.
35:41
Let's rebrand.
35:42
This is better.
35:43
And they're doing away with the Google My Business app for small businesses.
35:47
And I've already used the whole in browser, you know, ability to manage your business.
35:52
I have to say it is a little bit simpler in that I don't have to log in to that third party
35:55
app and all that kind of stuff.
35:58
But I don't know.
35:59
It's just creative.
36:00
Good news for us.
36:01
It creates some attention for people who like help people with this info.
36:04
So it brings attention to you, right?
36:06
It brings it back on the radar that I really need to fix that thing.
36:10
Any last just, you know, you're in a room full of real estate and mortgage professionals.
36:15
Like you've got, you know, three minutes to give them their last, your last bits of advice
36:20
on securing business leads from their, their Google business profile.
36:26
What would you tell them?
36:28
We do a really good amount with PR.
36:32
So like, I mean, this part is, you know, time consuming.
36:34
So you need to have somebody in your office that could help you with this.
36:37
So I'm going to have time to do it yourself.
36:38
But just there's a lot of like local reporters and like people that are writing that have
36:43
the need to interview people or like get thoughts from professionals.
36:46
And there are so many around real estate, like stuff like homes of like neighborhoods,
36:52
you know, things like that.
36:53
There's just a lot of pieces about it.
36:55
So we do really well with getting links to our real estate agent clients
36:59
from like those types of outlets.
37:02
It's a lot more of an interesting topic compared to some of the other industries we work with.
37:06
All right, it's Friday.
37:07
I was outplayed last night.
37:08
Help me understand what are we, how are we tying in PR and interviews to our Google business
37:13
profile?
37:14
Because links matter.
37:15
So links are one of the biggest things to help you rank on Google.
37:17
So the more people that link to your website, the better.
37:21
And this is something that most people don't do.
37:23
So they don't think about links at all.
37:25
You talk about links or?
37:26
Yeah.
37:27
Hmm.
37:28
Really?
37:29
So back to the interview thing you're talking about.
37:30
Like if I had a PR press or I was featured or links in general, the more links I have
37:35
on my website will improve.
37:37
And these are the way links to some other destination, not my property.
37:42
People linking to you.
37:44
So just the opposite.
37:45
Okay, sorry.
37:46
Right.
37:47
Yeah.
37:48
So we use like, there's a service that they're called Haro, for example, it's called, it's
37:50
H-A-R-O, help a reporter out.
37:52
And it's reporters that are like literally asking, you know, I need a, I need an expert
37:56
in this area to interview for this thing or whatever.
37:58
So that's one way monitoring queries in there.
38:02
They can connect with reporters and stuff.
38:04
Again, it's edge work.
38:05
I'm not, it's not one of those things where it's like going to take no time at all.
38:09
But it's definitely worth it.
38:11
What about if you had preferred vendors or providers that would connect to your site like
38:17
movers, plumbers, you know what I mean?
38:19
Contents, scapers and all those.
38:20
100%.
38:21
So like that's usually the first thing we asked people like, I did an audit for this
38:25
real estate agent and her husband was a mortgage broker and they weren't even linking
38:28
to each other.
38:29
It's like, you know, you should probably have like a, hey, you need a mortgage broker
38:32
on your website, linking to your husband and vice versa.
38:36
And then usually real estate agents don't even link to themselves because they have like
38:39
six websites and I'm like, okay, if this is your core website, why are your other websites
38:43
not linking to your main one?
38:44
Like you're literally losing links.
38:46
And that's just a page you can add on your website that says something like, you know,
38:49
partners, preferred, preferred vendors or whatever, right?
38:53
I mean, I, we don't usually suggest doing it like that because it's easier for Google
38:56
to kind of pick up on.
38:57
Like throughout your content, as it makes sense, like, you know, when you're talking about
39:00
mortgages, you can link to, you know, the March broker if you're talking about, so you're
39:03
talking about options like writing about these topics as an article.
39:08
Most people already have the content.
39:09
Like when we get these, honestly, we do for real estate agents a lot of them already have
39:13
like fully fleshed out blogs and articles and things, but they're not doing, they're
39:16
not doing anything with links.
39:18
It's kind of huge missed opportunity.
39:20
Yeah.
39:21
No, I remember that's a weakness on my own website as well.
39:26
Hacker links.
39:27
All right.
39:28
This has all been good stuff.
39:29
I so, so much appreciate your time.
39:30
For those that are listening and they want to connect with you, find out more, you've got
39:33
a great blog, lots of info.
39:34
Where do you want to direct them?
39:36
Yeah.
39:37
SterlingSky.ca.
39:38
That's my agency, the .ca's because I am Canadian.
39:42
But we, we have offices in the US and Canada.
39:45
And then if you want to learn more about local search, we do conferences three times a
39:50
year right now.
39:51
They're all virtual.
39:52
I'm going to talk about localU.org and it's you like the letter U.
39:56
LocalU.org.
39:57
Okay.
39:58
Got it.
39:59
I'll make sure that's in the show notes as well.
40:01
Joy, thank you so much for your time.
40:02
I've learned a heck of a lot.
40:03
I'm going to keep reading and following you.
40:04
So thanks for sharing with our listeners.
40:06
And listeners, you know what to do.
40:09
If you like this episode, hey, leave us a review.
40:12
And thanks for tuning in.
40:13
We'll see you on the next one.
40:14
Bye for now.
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So what are you waiting for?
41:46
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And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call.
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41:56
Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now.
42:00
Head over to mortgagemarketing.pro.