As I’ve shared in a number of blog posts, I tend to get my ideas for new blog posts from encountering the same client questions or challenges over a short period of time. Recent questions about Google My Business and its impact on an organization being found for relevant searches in geographies non-local to the organization prompted this one.

Why Do You Need A Google My Business Profile?

• You want your organization to be found on Google for relevant “near me” and “city” and “town” searches. When I say “relevant,” I mean searches that contain terms related to the products, services, and solutions you offer, such as property management services or roof installation services.
• Even if, in addition to being found locally, you want to found and hired by individuals and businesses residing far outside of where your main physical address/headquarters is located, you still want and need a Google My Business Profile and you want to embed it on the “Contact page” of your website.
• Creating/claiming a Google My Business Profile for your organization is just an SEO best practice and no-brainer, because, hey, if you can’t even rank locally, how are you going to rank regionally and nationally? I always say if you try to “rank everywhere, you’ll end up ranking nowhere (unless you’re a household brand like Pepsi, of course.)” And, I’ve always heard that ranking locally via a Google My Business Profile indirectly supports ranking more globally even if it doesn’t directly cause the aforementioned ranking.

So, What Can A Google My Business Profile Do For You?

The answer is quite simple. As indicated above, a Google My Business Profile can help you be found locally, but its primary purpose is not to cause your organization to be found regionally or nationally, even though, as also mentioned above, having such a Profile can support ranking (being found) regionally or nationally in search engine results for relevant search terms, known as “keywords”.

Again, Google My Business Profiles are all about helping organizations be found for local, relevant searches. That was the primary intention/purpose when Google first introduced such Profiles.

On The Flip Side, What Can’t A Google My Business Profile Do For You?

I’ve read that a Google My Business Profile is unlikely to be served up to anyone searching for an organization who offers the products, services, and solutions you do who is conducting such a search from a location more than a two-hour drive away from the physical address associated with your Google My Business Profile. And, as I always say to clients, “the further away the physical address associated with your Google My Business Profile is from the geography in which you hope to be found, the less likely Google is to serve up your Google My Business Profile, and the more likely it is to serve up a competitor’s Google My Business Profile that has a physical address associated with it that is closer to, or in, that specific geography.”

As alluded to above, your Google My Business Profile can’t cause you to be found for searches related to your products, services, and solutions, in cities, towns, states, regions, zip codes, and countries that are nowhere near your physical offices. It’s just not going to happen that having such a Profile is going to be the primary driver of your organization being found for geographies far outside your physical address.

Other Means For Your Organization To Rank Regionally/Nationally/Globally

Fortunately, there are other digital marketing tactics/activities that can help your organization be found by searchers who live or work far from your physical offices. That’s where your website and/or Google Search advertising or Bing advertising (paid search, SEM, search engine marketing, paid SEO) come in. Related to your website, there a number of best practices that our organization can help you to employ to support your organization being found in geographies that extend far beyond your local service area and physical office, and we also have more than 10 years experience in implementing search-engine advertising campaigns for organizations of all shapes and sizes including Google Nonprofit Ad Grant campaigns for nonprofits. Reach out today to learn more, or read more about our organic SEO services.