Google Business profiles services are now affecting local rankings!

Google Business profiles services are now affecting local rankings!

Last month, Joy Hawkins of SterlingSky took to Twitter to reveal a surprising finding about the impact of services on the ranking of Google Business Profiles. This discovery is sure to have many businesses scrambling to improve their search engine rankings.

Link: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/services-in-google-business-profile-impact-ranking/

The Study Led To Some Surprising Outcomes

This study revealed that local businesses that have verified their information with Google Business Profiles are now seeing the benefits in terms of local rankings. This is because Google has now started to surface business information in search results, giving these local businesses a boost in the rankings.

Although pre-defined services have been available on Google Business Profile dashboards for a while, it wasn’t clear if they had any impact on rankings. However, when retested, Hawkins discovered that services can have a major impact on a website’s ranking. Services in GBP may indirectly impact rankings if they are related to SEO or other ranking factors.

In contrast to previous tests, simply adding the service “DUI injury litigation” for a lawyer in New Jersey had a noticeable impact on their rankings. The charts showed the rankings before and after Joy’s experiment, and you can see the results below.

Final Takeaway

Hawkins noted that businesses that are able to offer more pre-defined services generally tend to rank at a higher level on Google. Furthermore, adding pre-defined services to a company’s Google Business Profile can positively impact both explicit and implicit keywords – with the explicit keyword ranking generally seeing more dramatic results.

The report also points out that the ranking impact varies depending on the specific industry and market. For example, it can take 24-72 hours for a change to take effect in the stock market, but it may take longer for the impact to be seen in other industries.

Therefore, businesses should take advantage of this and add pre-defined services to their Google Business Profiles for maximum visibility.

TL;DR:

  • Services impact ranking.
  • Both explicit and implicit keywords appear to be impacted by services.
  • The impact on explicit keyword ranking is more significant.
  • The impact on ranking appears to vary depending on the industry and market.
  • It may take 24-72 hours for the ranking impact to take effect.

 

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I am an avid Blogger and Writer with more than 6 years of experience with Content Writing. An Online Marketing expert specializing in Blog writing, Article writing, Website content, SEO specific Keyword content and much more. Education B.A. - business management, York University, Canada, Graduated 2016.