Maven Marketing with Brandon Welch

5 Reasons You’re Not Seeing Your Business on Google

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If your ads are running, your SEO guy is paid, and your phone still isn’t ringing — this one’s for you.


Brandon and Caleb break down the five biggest reasons businesses disappear from Google and how the rules of search have quietly changed.


From AI Overviews to Local Service Ads, Google Maps, and organic SEO, this episode reveals where your marketing dollars are leaking and how to plug the holes fast. Inside this episode:

  • What Google’s new AI Overviews mean for local business visibility
  • The overlooked ranking factors in LSA and Maps
  • Why your ads aren’t showing (and how to fix it)
  • The new kind of content Google actually rewards

For entrepreneurs wanting to grow without wasting money, join the Maven Marketing Mastermind → https://www.mavenmethodtraining.com

Our Website: https://frankandmaven.com/
Instagram: /frankandmavenmarketing 
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LinkedIn: /frank-and-maven  

Host: Brandon Welch
Co-Host: Kyle DeVries
Executive Producer: Carter Breaux
Audio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera Guy

Do you have a marketing problem you'd like us to help solve? Send it to MavenMonday@FrankandMaven.com!

Get a copy of our Best-Selling Book, The Maven Marketer Here: https://a.co/d/1clpm8a

Brandon Welch:

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I'm your host, Brandon Welch, and I'm here with Caleb. Is not really here, Agee.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, I'm coming to you from beyond. Yeah, from the past. Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

Believe it or not, these aren't live. Caleb has left the building. Uh yeah. Beyond the office. Yeah, they are live on the Maven Marketing Mastermind. That's right. Which you should join. Yes. At MavenMethodTraining.com. But Caleb is not here. Tell us why you're not here. Hey, where you are.

Caleb Agee:

After 10 years at Frank and Maven, uh, we have a mechanism built into our policy that you get a sabbatical. Uh one month or four business weeks, however you want to look at it. And uh that's where I am right now. I could be anywhere in the world. You wouldn't even know. Yeah. But I'm certainly not at Frank and Maven. That's the rules of a sabbatical.

Brandon Welch:

So we have, yeah, in Caleb's absence, we do have some stimulating episodes coming up. Um I have a really good um rundown with my pal Jeremiah Dalton, who has just done amazing things. Uh it's the episode is called Change Your Body, Change Your Business, and this guy uh will show you why the gym equaled millions of dollars for him, not just in his future health, uh, but actually in wealth. And that is a that is an awesome episode. One of my my favorite that's gonna be cool. Favorite outsider in a while.

Caleb Agee:

You gave the name away, but you'll have to wait.

Brandon Welch:

That'll be the next uh I believe that one's coming up next week. And then we have Ian Nix. If you have um found yourself in a in a spot where sales are harder to get, uh he's gonna reveal the three reasons why.

Caleb Agee:

Everyone raised their hand.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, they're they're harder. He's gonna reveal the three reasons why, uh, and more importantly, what you can do to probably put a double digit increase on your closing ratios. So that's a game changer. Yep, we don't play around when Caleb's out of town, but obviously. Hire some brilliance. Yeah. Caleb's not here, just make it better. Hire some brilliance. Wish Caleb the very best on his um sabbatical, and uh we will see him hopefully in four weeks if he decides to come back. So hey, today is about uh what all days are about, which is eliminating waste in advertising so you can grow your business and achieve that big bad dream, like sabbaticals and traveling the world with your family uh and making impact in your communities. That's what we're all about here. If this is your first episode, welcome. Hit that subscribe button, leave us a comment to tell us how good or bad we're doing. Uh don't hurt Caleb's feelings. Sabbatical, yeah.

Caleb Agee:

If you have if you have thoughts on what we're saying or or something stands out to you, throw it in the comments. Um, that's important. It helps, it helps everybody who's watching the video uh when you when you really engage in there.

Brandon Welch:

So yes, helps everybody. Uh this is a big topic of waste, though. So many thousands and thousands of thousands of dollars, even just man, even in the last month of people who have come to our door going like, why isn't this working? We're like, oh gosh, wish you'd have called us two years ago before you spent fifty thousand dollars and wondered why you're not ranking on Google.

Caleb Agee:

Yes.

Brandon Welch:

Um, it's the most frustrating, elusive question. And we're gonna demystify it and give you the three uh sorry, five biggest places you're not ranking on Google and three reasons why for every one of them. But we're gonna do this in rapid order.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

Um, in case you didn't know, uh 93% of online experiences start with a search engine. So this uh everything's changing, but that part is not. Um people are lazy, people have become uh ingrained or possibly lifelong um you know adapted to just using search as their first mental activity. Um and 75% of users don't scroll past the first page. That that basically hasn't changed.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, no surprise.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, and then um, but uh the CEO of Google recently said the shift from answers to experiences is the biggest change in Google search in 20 years. And what he's talking about um is we're not we're not trying to or we're we're getting to a pot a uh a point where search and Google and you know at large is not just about going on a search actually, it's about it delivered an actual experience for you um that is like a a learning experience on the actual page.

Caleb Agee:

I was gonna say almost educational in a way, right? We're we're looking for answers. That's that's why we search. We're we're searching, we're looking. And instead of giving us links or places, they're they're creating an experience um that we can get in or outside of those links. Yes. And so um that that is a big shift. And the world around Google is forcing that to happen.

Brandon Welch:

No doubt. Uh and yeah, and even even a couple years ago still, it was just like, you know, find a way to rank as a as a result that people could click on and then, you know, learn. Yeah. Um or go go to you to learn. And now Google's taking all that front page. And we talked a lot about uh Chat GPT a couple months ago and how to rank on there. You should definitely go back and look at that episode. Nate will put it in the comments and and Sydney will make it pop up on the screen right now. Hi, Sydney. Sydney, we've added to the team of the of the uh Maven Marketing Podcast. But today, uh, so you can have some quick takeaways and maybe just call your nerd up and say, hey, I'm not ranking as this why, and tell me more about this. Um we're gonna go through the five areas, uh, which are AI, AI overview, LSA, which is kind of a new-ish uh area of Google um like for for local services, paid ads, which are good old-fashioned paid ads, maps, which we've known about for a while, and organic good old fashioned if if you haven't looked lately, I would encourage you to go Google whatever you do and your city name.

Caleb Agee:

Just go do that, take a look at it on your phone, on your desktop. It has changed dramatically in the last year, two years, especially. And and what you need to do, you'll notice that the things that you once thought were the most important things are the 10th result down the page. Are, you know, and so um a lot of this has shifted, and Google is favoring um kind of in the order we just talked about, yeah. That we will talk about these. They're favoring AI overviews, they're favoring local services ads over their own search ads in a lot of cases. And so um you need to prioritize what they're prioritizing.

Brandon Welch:

Yep, we have answers. So let's jump into the first first one of those. We just said at AI. Uh, you'll notice for even uh this started out with you know more educational type topics. Google was doing summaries of, you know, historical figures or historical events or maybe geography type things. Uh now it's directly related to product and business searches. If you ask who is the best plumber, electrician, whatever, it's going to come up with a result uh for that town. Uh that should scare you because the way they're getting that information um is uh is altogether different uh than any of the other searches before. Yeah. So we did a whole episode on this called how to how to make your business rank on ChatGPT that Sydney's made pop up just a few seconds ago. You should go uh listen to that one. But if you're not there, if you're going, okay, I didn't show up in the AI overview, which is the first section on the on the page now in most cases, yeah. Um it's either that you don't have enough authority or trust, meaning not enough other websites are pointing to you, uh, or your reviews uh about your business in the service area that you are um, you know, the the searcher would be asking about are not strong enough, or there's not enough of them. Um and that that does a lot of it right there as far as recommending local businesses.

Caleb Agee:

Yes. Yeah, it likes the signals, not just from Google reviews, but from the internet at large. AI, especially. Now, Google has its own algorithm, which is which I think affects more of the rest of this page, but Google's AI backbone, which I think is powered by Jim and I, is what powers this first part, the AI overview, which is um you're gonna hear AIO a lot. Or GEO. That's in that's interchangeable. AIO means AI overview, um, but it can also mean AI optimization. Some people are using it both ways.

Brandon Welch:

Nobody can agree.

Caleb Agee:

Who who knows? But um, just just so we're clear, this is the overview when you search Google right at the top, based on reviews and whatever it's saying. Um, so yeah, uh, you want to make sure that uh we've even seen you know things like Better Business Bureau and uh Yellow Pages and Yelp and all of those signals that you have a strong reputation and authority in some of those places can affect whether or not Google or any AI engine views you as credible.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah.

Caleb Agee:

It's it's yeah, it's amazing.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. If you if your reputation about you is bad, your results are gonna be bad here. So the second one that is um I would say like the easiest one you can control in a short amount of time is making your content match the way uh that people are actually asking questions. So a lot of um old school SEO would have been like, oh, go write a bunch of fluff about a certain topic and have 500 to a thousand words on a on an individual blog page. That's out.

Caleb Agee:

And then it would use keyword stuffing, which would be like a phrase we hoped the a combination of two or three or five words that people would use in a Google search.

Brandon Welch:

Yes.

Caleb Agee:

Now that's not how people search for things.

Brandon Welch:

Yes. They were like, um, you know, there's a lot of choices to consider when you're looking for a lawyer in Springfield, Missouri. Yes, exactly. The way people wouldn't actually talk. Now that may have matched a long-term, you know, lazy search that a lot of people put in, but AI is looking deeper and they're looking at the intent and the questions around that because companies and websites who have answered questions with detail, they automatically associate with higher trust. And I'm gonna say this again you have to be willing to answer questions that you weren't previously willing to answer because you wanted to save those for the sales experience. So you need to be talking about pricing, you need to be talking about uh your timelines, you need to be talking about what the average person buys, you need to be talking about actual technical product and or service experience answers. You need to be giving them enough information. This scares some of you, where they could theoretically go do the dang thing on their own. Yes. Because that's what GPT and AI believes its job is. It believes its job is to give them the whole answer, not the partial, you know, clickbaity answer.

Caleb Agee:

And so it'll look for the website, it'll look for the reference that actually gives the whole answer. And when it references anything, it's going to give you the link. It'll put put you on the side and say, I got this from you know Frank Maven's website or whatever. And that's that's how you get that little click through.

Brandon Welch:

So uh we may even rank for how to rank on Google. Um who knows? Um, so the thing you want to do there is just know that if you don't answer the question, one of your competitors is going to do it. Um, and rest easy on that the company that gets the most time with a customer gets the sale. And so this is a way to get time with a customer. What what you'll realize in humanity, there's a lot of fear about like being transparent, I suppose. Um but humans are actually lazy, and most of them want an expert. Uh and the ones who didn't weren't your customer anyway. That's right. So just once they heard your price.

Caleb Agee:

Once they heard your price, they probably weren't gonna say yes anyways. That's right.

Brandon Welch:

So that's right.

Caleb Agee:

We'll scare them off ahead of time, save you some time.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. So so number two of those is like, you know, make sure your content actu actually answers the way people are asking the question. Um, and then um do that your website wide. This is not just uh, I want to rank for this term, so I need to have one page for that anymore. That's pretty much out. And we even even we were using those strategies a few years ago. They're just they're just not in line with what's working now. So quick give the quick uh rundown of what to do to rank in the AI overview sections.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, you'll want to add Q ⁇ A style content like like FAQs or or even you know specific blog posts that answer real questions people might be asking. You want to build trust with Google reviews, testimonials, other reviews from other engines. It sees Facebook, it sees Angie, it sees Yellow Pages, Yelp. You want to be credible, you want to be linked to as a credible source with good reviews, and then you want to publish helpful in-depth content around your core services. So don't don't just give them the high-level overview of what you provide in your service. Give them the details, give them the true what you actually do and and give it away. They could they could take your roadmap and do it themselves. And um when you go that far, you're gonna be the one that wins here in the AI overview. Like podcasts. Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

All right. That's right. Hey, second place you could be is local service ads. Um this has replaced um a lot of the search engine real estate, at least the high-level search engine real estate, uh, of what used to be just Google ads. Um and and there's a this is a paid section, LSA or what what is known as Google Guaranteed. Um, so the business the business uses the platform it's called local service ads to show up on Google Guaranteed, which is what the co consumer sees. They're the same thing, interchangeable. Yep. So if you hear one, it means the other. Um and and Google was basically looking at this as an opportunity to get some of like Angie's business and a lot of these directory services that were selling leads. And they go, Well, we we know how to do that. And it was probably taking a bite out of their paid search, you know, revenue. Yep. And so they kind of went into the business of becoming um not just search engine results and like ads that you could click on to go to websites, um, but to say, hey, here's a little kind of like a yellow pages listing for um the businesses that have paid us to be here. And they add a little bit of their you know, guarantee of like, hey, we've vetted these companies. They've got they've had to go through a background check, which that's you'll have to do. You'll have to do. Um, it's pretty light. Like it's just uploaded.

Caleb Agee:

It's like verification licensing and insurance sometimes. Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

So um, but but being here is really a matter of a passing the first filter, uh, which you have to go to um just just punch into Google, you know, local service ads, and it'll be the first link, and you go sign up and enter a few things about your business. Uh, but after you've done that, it's a matter of budget and combinate and uh combination of your reviews and what people are saying about you.

Caleb Agee:

So you dictate the services that you offer to Google. So you'll tell them, um, you know, I'm a roofer, I offer full roof replacement, roof repair, gutters, and that's it. Yeah. And then if you just check all the boxes, and if somebody says, hey, I need siding, um, the guarantee to the business is that Google won't charge you theoretically for the sighting lead if they aren't buying what you're selling. So um the guarantee to the customer is that they've they've checked you out, that you're a legit business. And the only thing that people can see in these results, this is the crazy thing. There is no ad text, there is no uh nothing you add to it except for your name and your star rating, your reviews.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. And that way it is not really good. It's not it's not the best exercise of like the most um profitable marketer because it levels everybody reduced to just a star rating. Yeah. And so if you've been the you know, the 60-year company with a legacy and generational employees, and you know, you've been committing to all of the uh causes in your community and people know, like, and trust you, and you've got an awesome um, you know, campaign and and and you're just this holistic, awesome company, you will be reduced to just the same as some start-out guy who is rolling around in his truck six months ago. And so your name obviously still matters. Yeah. So if you've built that equity in your name, which is why the tomorrow customer matters more than ever, yeah, then then you can win. But um Google is sort of putting it on a round robin of like, who's next? Who'd we show last time, providing that you all have budget? Like you and it's a very, very simple parameter. You go in there and you say, I'm willing to pay, you know, $400 a week, and that's all you get to control. And so you're gonna have to spend in in any in any medium-sized or greater market, you're gonna have to spend, you know, a couple thousand dollars a month on this to get any meaningful volume. Uh, and it's gonna frustrate you, likely, because you're not gonna be able to track uh or predict how much that's gonna get you. It's a moving thing.

Caleb Agee:

It is. It's based on, I think, the competition and this this round robin that you mentioned, and then a little bit of budget, you know, when people run out, obviously.

Brandon Welch:

So in the Google Guaranteed section, here's the three things you need to do. You need to complete all the verification steps and sign up for it, or you're not gonna be there at all. Uh, you need to get reviews as often as possible. Reviews are the biggest thing. And then here's one that a lot of people don't know, but the speed in which you re respond to your phones, Google's tracking that when they send you those phone calls.

Caleb Agee:

Um there's actually it's call or message, the messaging feature of this as well. Having staff that is watching that, yep.

Brandon Welch:

How quickly you respond is there's there's an app you download and it sends all your calls and messages through this little section. Yeah. So you want to put somebody on that, and I'm talking like not five minutes, I'm talking two minutes or instant. Like uh the faster the better. So uh that's how you let rank on local service ads. Uh number three, our favorite good old fashioned paid search ads. Search ads. Yep. So man, uh there's lots and lots of episodes we've done on this. Um we're not going to go deep into this, but uh there's we do encounter some people that are that are frustrated because they they're paying what is good money, you know, even even a couple thousand, three thousand dollars a month, and they're Googling their name and they're very rarely seeing it. Uh, why is that happening?

Caleb Agee:

Well, there's a lot of reason that that could be happening. Um, you know, there if if your you know budget doesn't allow you to is is a big reason. Quick yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

Quick discernment uh here of there's budget and bid. Yes. Budget is the maximum you're willing to spend. It's like what the the cap you give Google to spend on a really it's on a daily basis for a campaign. Yeah, you multiply that times 30 for your for your monthly budget, and it knows it has a window to play in. And it's doing its best to even out those results, you know, from you know, early in the morning to late at night, and then on the days that are active and not active. So it's giving you more spin some days and a little less spin some other days, but you give it your daily maximum. Yes. Sometimes your daily budget is too low or your monthly budget is too low to even get you more. Yeah. Because you think about it, if it's let's just say it's fifty dollars, so you're spending fifteen hundred dollars a month, and you and you're in a medium competitive category like um law, like legal, like just services, that well, that could be a twenty dollar click. That could be a fifteen or twenty dollar click. So by the time you got three clicks for that day, you're you're out of the auction. Okay.

Caleb Agee:

I'd say more often what would happen is you'd put a five or ten dollar um spend on a maybe a branded campaign. So you're bidding on your own name, maybe um, and then there's some other competitors also buying your name as a little bit of an uh offensive tactic. They raise the price up and the cost per click gets to five dollars. Yeah. Well, if you have a five dollar budget, do you think Google's gonna show you uh for a five-dollar click? No, that's just not gonna work.

Brandon Welch:

Step one, before Google shows your ad, they say if it gets clicked, will they even be willing to pay for it? And if it's the answer is no, or if they've sp you've overspent, you're done for. Yeah. So that would be number one reason. And there's there's a way to track that. If you'll ask your nerd, or even if you go into Google Ads platform, you can show the column that is search IS Lost, that's search impression share lost. And that means the number of times that you were um quote unquote qualified to show up. You're bidding on that term. You're bidding on that term. Like let's just say it's you know, lawyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and you bid on that term, you said yes, I want to show up for that. Um, but your budget didn't allow you, they'll keep track of the percentage of time that happened. And so you want like you want that loss to be as as low as possible. You know, um, you know, all the way up to 10% loss is probably about as much as you're gonna get. So um, and then uh you can you can determine if budget's the problem, and then you just need to add more money. Um, the second, we were talking about budget, and I took the mic away from you because I was like, that's a big thing. There's bid. There's bid and budget. Bid is what you're willing to pay per instance of that click. And and that is its own competition, because somebody either may be willing to pay more than you, uh, or if you've got automatic bidding setup, which a lot of search is automatic bidding, you have your basically your cost per conversion set with a max. Yeah, set low. And you think, well, I only want to pay you know twenty dollars a conversion. Well, if that's great. Four other people are willing to pay 50, you're out. I mean you're just not gonna win. And so so that's um search loss to rank. Uh budget is budget, and then rank is like a uh um sort of a conglomeration that's mostly driven by how how much you were willing to pay for that one click. Yep. And that's another column. You can say, how much did I lose to basically my bid strategy not being right? And how much should I lose to basically my budget not being right? Yeah. That takes care of a lot of reasons you just wouldn't show up at all.

Caleb Agee:

There's and then there's one more feature that helps inside of Google, which is your quality score. So the combination along with your bid, um, that ranking is affected with if I'm willing to bid $5, Brandon's willing to bid $6. But my ad and my landing page are better than Brandon's. Theoretically, I could outrank him because Google rewards quality as well as money. And so there's there's a there's kind of a combo here of, and there when you're building your ads, it'll tell you what they rate your quality score. So that's good. Um, but then they also do crawl the page you send them to. And does it speak to the ad that I clicked on? Does it connect the search or to you know the result, the landing page, the action that I would hope to take? And so um Google rewards a great quality score, and they'll even let you pay a little bit less if your quality score is higher.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, they want to show ads that are relevant to the user and they reward that. Um a good example of that would be uh let's just say it's roofer. Let's just say they want to show it for roofing and guttering and leaf guard repair, those little things you sit on set on top of gutters. Um but the search engine guy or them, if you've set this up yourself, only puts in uh like the home page as the the landing webpage. And it says, welcome to you know Ed's roofing. And it's like we do all roofing services, and Google sees that page is like, okay, that's a home page that's not super relevant for leaf filters. The homepage may not even mention leaf filters. Maybe there's a stray page on the website somewhere, but those those types of smaller services or add-on services generally don't get a lot of attention. And even worse, the search engine guy may have said, you know, click here for Ed's Roofing for all your needs, but he's bidding on the word leaf guard. Yeah. And somebody searches leaf guard, and it's like Google goes, eh, I see they're trying to bid for that and show up for that, but eh, they don't really look half as legit as this guy who's like leaf guardstulsa.com, right? Yep. And so what you want to do is make really specific landing pages for every type of service and keyword. Yep. And you want to write multiple ads for even small nuances. So you know, don't just do gutters and leaf guards together, put that in its own ad and ad group and write an ad specifically for leaf guards, specifically for gutters, and specifically for roofing. And I would say even roofing repair, and then even, you know, wind uh and storm damage, all of those things. As far as you can build it out, that's what gets you the relevance.

Caleb Agee:

Yes, that's what Google C that's usually the biggest differentiator when somebody else is trying to run Google Ads uh poorly, is they don't they don't break it out on the granular level. It takes more work, takes more time, but it will work better. The investment is worth it. Um one one other thing that's worth saying a big reason you might not be showing up for search, Google search would be your Google ads is actually running a different campaign type. So um this is a little bit of a bonus, but I'm gonna we're assuming you are actually running search ads. If you're running a performance max campaign, it contains search ads, and you put in relative relevant keywords that you want to you want to be bidding on and buying in in the in the most.

Brandon Welch:

So if you set this up yourself, they're gonna try to make you do PMAX.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, that's the first thing they'll try to they'll try to get you to go for.

Brandon Welch:

If you're a local service, don't do it.

Caleb Agee:

And the the risk here is um PMAX is a multimedia campaign. They're gonna spend your money in Gmail ads, they're gonna spend it in display ads on the side of um recipe websites, they're gonna spend it in YouTube pre-roll ads if you if you upload video creative. And all of that will share your budget that you've applied. Yeah. And therefore, you're probably expecting, I want to show up on Google. I'm in Google Ads, I should show up on Google. If you're running Performance Max, it's showing up everywhere they decide to put it, including their search network, which shows up on phone games and all kinds of crazy things. Run a search campaign if you want these things to happen and then do what we're just talking about.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. Google's gonna try to make you do that campaign and they're gonna fill it with filler junk because that's better for them. They can charge you for things that was not their premium inventory, which is the search page. You want all of your dollars going to the search page. All of those other things could be good, but there's a better way to become discovered in your market, and it's usually through not Google Media. Yeah. So don't use PMAX. That's a great point. So quick recap on Google Ads on the paid section. Uh check your lost impression share, both lost impression share budget, lost impression share rank. That'll tell you am I losing to budget, or am I losing to basically my bid and the quality of my landing page? They that that rank is a combination of your landing page and your your budget. Yeah. Um, and then use exact keywords and exact ad copy and exact landing pages um together per ad group, and you will have a higher degree of relevance and uh get more of your ads shown. Okay, second, or sorry, second, and what I mean by seconds, I mean the fourth section you could show up in is maps, and that's the good old-fashioned Google My Business profile. Yeah, people call it GMB. GMB. Uh altogether a different set of criteria for ranking here.

Caleb Agee:

Uh-huh.

Brandon Welch:

Uh, it's it's influenced a lot by um your location where you are, yep. Um, to the relative to the search. So if I'm searching in Tulsa, we'll keep using the example. But you know, if I want to show up in Tulsa, but I'm actually in, you know, Bigsby or, you know, Claremore or like, you know, 20 miles away in a different suburb, and somebody actually searched Tulsa, I have a less likely chance of showing up.

Caleb Agee:

If my if my physical location is further away.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah. Uh can't control that unless you buy another office. So that's that's kind of the number one thing, uh, or you know, one of the main things. But uh, but the things you can control, um, go to business.google.com, claim your profile, or if you've already done that, make sure you're updating that profile often. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have that a re as a recurring task monthly and just change it a little bit. Add something to it, fill out a new field.

Caleb Agee:

Add a picture. Um make sure, you know, that you're you're updating, yeah, the little pieces that you can.

Brandon Welch:

So profile completeness is huge. Um and then the you know, that that is just a matter of filling in fields and writing good descriptions and then, you know, the what what what else you can do in there? Bonus, respond to reviews and do it quickly. Yes. The more keywords and language and dialogue people or Google sees around your my business listing, it says that's an active business, that's a business who cares, and we have a lot of context for how to rank them for various services.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah. On the good and the bad ones. Think thank them for a good review and tell them why that means so much to you and respond to the bad ones and tell them why you know, validate a little bit, like empathize with their experience. Yeah. Don't don't go defensive right away. And then we've we've done this. We've talked about re review response before, but but then also explain why that's not your expect expected service for them. Right. You want you expect more from you and your people, and you're gonna do better next time.

Brandon Welch:

So big three things to do in maps, fill out your profile, um, all the categories, hours, services, photos, post weekly updates and refresh those photos, and then collect local reviews to ensure uh directory consistency. Last one.

Caleb Agee:

Last one. This one. This is the big one. Organic search results. Everybody wants more than S E O.

Brandon Welch:

What does that stand for, Caleb?

Caleb Agee:

Search engine optimization. That is this is the big one that uh everybody thinks they want, and I think it is it is valid. I'm not I'm not pretending like it's not a player in this. Um, but it's usually the first thing everybody wants.

Brandon Welch:

I'll actually make a point to say because they think free traffic, right?

Caleb Agee:

They think, yeah, it's free. SEO is free. Um, first of all, remember we told you go go do a quick search. Your organic search results are the ones that don't say sponsored or aren't next to a map.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah.

Caleb Agee:

Go look at how many times you have to scroll down. the page to find one of those um the first one.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah and there's eight or ten results at least before that. Before that.

Caleb Agee:

The the other thing I'll say is um of all of these pieces, of all these things, um LSAs and paid Google search ads are the only two that you can do with relative speed. Yeah. And and you know quickness.

Brandon Welch:

Like you could do something today and get a call tomorrow.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah you could you could reasonably have them live by next week if you if you didn't have those on right now. The rest of these weeks, months, years. Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

And tiny and tiny gains each time. Yes. Yeah. So SEO. Yeah we'll give you the big ones. This there's there's on-page SEO, which is what you can control by writing and putting pictures and good um content. There's technical SEO, which is like the performance and server and speed and like technology behind your site. That's nerdy stuff that probably your web developer decided without asking or getting your input. Yep. And then there is off-page SEO which is the practice of getting other people to see your content and link to you and and say wow frank and maven.com has this awesome thing called the Maven Marketing Podcast. You should go there. Yeah. And linking and Google don't forget the web is still what its name implies it's a web. Yeah. The only way Google knows what is what is they look at all of these different links like who's linking to who because that's all the internet is. And so uh it wants to see the more linking and webbing to you the better. Particularly if it's by authoritative trustworthy sites that are linked. Yes. So um those are the three types of things but let's say the the biggest culprits um let's go technical SEO. Talk about that since you're that guy.

Caleb Agee:

I'm the nerd is that what you're saying technical SEO um would be the things that are happening behind the scenes. So um we're talking about um making sure your site you know your server runs fast your site loads quickly that all your style sheets are what's called minimized as much as they can um they can be really long you know uh bits of code it's a jump in the background if you literally take out the returns and the spaces of that it takes out hundreds and thousands of characters in your style sheets will that to like I'm talking milliseconds speeds up your site and Google likes that you've tried to do that. Google sees those in your JavaScript files and all these things. And then there's a little bit of like structure. So like in the background um what's called schema so if you add FAQs um you can add them just normally how you know how do I rank on Google would be an FAQ content on that and then you answer it directly after that but the best way is that that would be surrounded by what's called schema which tells Google hey this thing right here this is a an FAQ.

Brandon Welch:

This is a frequently asked question.

Caleb Agee:

Speeds up where Google has to find information without processing it can skim your site and it looks at the code and is like oh well there's an FAQ right there that looks like good content. I like it.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah.

Caleb Agee:

Doesn't mean it won't grab the other stuff but it it will favor the stuff that it shows you've done an intentional work behind.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah it a lot of it comes down to speed and processing power that Google has to use and then speed and processing power they anticipate the user's device having to use nobody likes a slow loading site and there's nerdy technical things you can do to make that happen. If you want to check the health of your site from that level go to gtmetrics.com put in your URL it'll give you a grade A through F. And if it's low, just call up your nerd. So um the other thing is on page so let's talk about keyword rich content. And this it's ever more important just like in in um AIO we talked about at the top um to not just stuff a keyword in there but to really I don't want you to write in the style of a research paper but think okay I have to go full into all of the the web of the of of things around this topic to to generate the idea I'm not just a roofer with roofing experience. I can talk about uh the composition of shingles and what's the difference in an asphalt shingles life versus you know a metal roof and I can talk about um you know storm and weather patterns and I can I can talk about yeah um the average amount of time that a that uh it takes before a person experiences a leak.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah and I can do all of those do I call my insurance first or do I call you first? I don't I don't know.

Brandon Welch:

And and even even better if I'm an expert on home efficiency and writing articles on construction. And when Google sees that as a package around your name or your URL i.e on your website they go yeah this is the guy this isn't somebody some weasel just trying to get in here so um so you want to have keyword rich useful content and that is that is just a snowballing effect just be the one who's always putting good stuff um that's more important than ever like if you don't have that you're probably it's not that you're gonna rank low you're just not even gonna rank at all it's like it's you're just gonna lose because there's big bigger people doing it better. And then um last thing is backlinks.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah backlinks this is the I'll say the hardest because it's it's mostly out of your control. You don't you can't log into somebody else's site and start linking back to yourself. And and Google would actually probably figure out that you were doing that if you were doing it in a weird what they call black hat kind of way but um backlinks is literally you have quality content that um let's give that insurance example if I'm a roofer um should I you know should I call the roofer or the insurance company first? Yeah. Let's say that's the content we have well if my insurance company if a local insurance you know agent found that to be really relevant content they may say hey check out Caleb's roofing they have a good page here and they would link back to me to talk about why I should talk to the roofer first. Absolutely and that the the credibility of Brandon's insurance company linking back to Caleb's roofing company is a big difference. That actually his authority is actually transferred to me over the internet and I get a little bit of that credibility.

Brandon Welch:

And all the better if it's a local reporter or a local uh newspaper or an HBA that's linking to you because they're like yep Caleb wrote a really good article there are tons of places that this happens um even even inside of you know obviously social signals are powerful.

Caleb Agee:

Those count uh I will say like facebook.com has probably the one of the highest domains you know authorities you can get next to google.com right um those are those are really relevant Reddit threads I've seen a lot of um people in town will be like hey uh who should I talk to about this? That's that's high quality backlinks um but then you can also do uh what they call like guest blogging or where you could write something for somebody else's page a link back to yourself you could you could get together with your networking group and say hey I'm gonna write an article you post it on your site you do the same for me. Yep. There there are practices and you can you can look around we're we're not going super deep today but yeah um there there are practices where you can go and and create these relationships and you can create a mutually beneficial if you want to outsource that hire a PR agent or and this is this got to be something with a pretty specialized skill.

Brandon Welch:

But that is that is a thing that works well over time. So we have talked about how to rank on all five spots uh that you know relate to local business on a search engine page uh it's a lot more complex than it used to be um having a trusted nerd or a trusted podcast um is more important than ever. See what I did there. Yes I like that and hey if you're struggling with SEO and you want a uh a deeper dive uh we have a option for you on the Maven Marketing Mastermind uh that you can join and bring your questions and for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a cost of what it you know would take to work with us directly uh we'll look at your situation give you feedback on it uh just go to maven methodtraining com and uh we would love to have you in there uh we meet every other week um and there's a lot of awesome business owners in there so yeah um so check that out try to download that uh in the transcript at frankandmaven.com if you want more of an action item plan um but that is that is the answer that's that probably covers ninety percent of why you're nowhere to be found on Google. That's right. We can't wait to see how smart you get in the next four weeks. You're talking to me or the or the listener. You well yeah the listener I'm it's just with me so they're yeah they're they're on pause they're on sabbatical probably yeah so we'll see they'll be learning a lot. But um it is an honor and a treasure to get to work with you. And it's such a um a cool experience to see you get a break and a breather and a reset to go pour love and time with your family and uh we're proud of you and we're grateful for you. So thank you. Have a wonderful time.

Caleb Agee:

I'm so thankful for this place that lets me do this and um heard a quote today. The difference between Olympic athletes and mere professionals mere like professional athletes mere professionals it um is how hard not how hard they work but how hard they rest.

Brandon Welch:

Wow so that sounds like something good you should say to uh your boss if you're trying to get a um sabbatical take that one for free. So um hey we'll be back here every Monday even though Caleb is not um uh answering your real life marketing questions because marketers who can't teach you why are just a fancy lie. Have a great week