6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

November 1, 2023November 17, 2023

Google Posts are unique to Google Business Profiles (GBPs). GBPs are found in Google Maps and can be enhanced in several ways, including a location’s name, address, phone number, and website link.

Nowadays, however, enhancing your GBP goes well beyond updating your business’s address or phone number — enter Google Posts! Google Posts allow you to “share announcements, offers, new or popular items in stock, or event details directly with your customers.” For those familiar with Apple Maps, you may know this feature as Showcase.

Here at GPO, our team knows the ins and outs of creating custom Google Post calendars for a wide range of businesses. We also know not everyone has this expertise at their fingertips. Here, we’ll walk you through the six key ingredients you need to build successful Google Post calendars to help you garner more profile engagement!

Why Should I Publish Google Posts?

First of all, why even bother using Google Posts? Publishing regular Google Posts is part of having a complete business profile. According to Google, completing your Google Business Profile means:

Customers are 2.7 times more likely to consider a business reputable if they find a complete Business Profile on Google Search and Maps.

Customers are 70% more likely to visit and 50% more likely to consider purchasing from businesses with a complete Business Profile.

Google Posts Help Keep Your Account Verified

Google can (and does) revoke Verification on profiles that are not regularly updated. Re-verification can be a time-consuming, headache-inducing process, so avoid it at all costs!

6 Ways to Create Better Google Posts

1. Consistency

Publish once a week, every other week, or once a month. No matter your cadence, keep it consistent and make sure it’s sustainable for you. Regular updates (even in the post form) tell Google that your Profile reflects the most accurate information. Regular Posts also tell your customers that you are open, present, and prospering.

Think of it like this. If you visit a company’s Facebook page and they haven’t posted an image or update in months, you might assume they went out of business. Or, the information you’re looking at (address, phone number, services, etc.) is inaccurate. Plus, Posts more than 6 months old get archived.

Routine Google Posts help you earn trust with searchers, and trust is a necessary precursor for a click.

2. Geo-Modification

Including state, city, neighborhood, or street name within your Google Post copy accomplishes two things: it helps Google associate your business with a specific area and shows searchers you’re relevant to their locale!

Google Post copy is not a ranking factor. However, it’s safe to assume that Google uses a range of information to understand where your business fits in the Internet ecosystem. Don’t make Google guess or rely on secondhand information! Be specific with products, services, and areas served.

“46% of all Google searches are looking for local information,” so be local!

Demonstrating local relevance is one more way to affirm a customer’s search and build trust.

Here’s an example of a Google Post with simple geo-modification.

3. Seasonal Responsiveness

Only three Google Posts display front and center on your Google profile, and Posts are archived after six months. Including a mix of evergreen and seasonal content in your Posts is another way to demonstrate relevance to your local audience and help Google understand how your business relates to certain seasons.

For example, car batteries die and TPMS lights come on when temperatures drop. A car repair shop in the Northeast, Midwest, or West, would be smart to publish Google Posts about cold weather, dead batteries, and low tire pressure in response to the season!

Just think: 72% of consumers who perform a local search visit a store within five miles, and you could be that store if you’re the most relevant option for their needs!

4. Unique, Attractive Images

The recommended Google Business Profile Post image size is 720 x 540px. However, a 4:3 image ratio of 1200 x 900 pixels displays wonderfully as well.

Google Post images can and do display within the header area of your Google profile, so make sure they’re unique to your business offering and reflect something you’d want your customers to see prominently.

5. Clear Call-to-Action

Google Posts are like Instagram or Facebook posts. Including a CTA increases the odds that people will take action after seeing your Post. Even if someone pauses when they see a Post, they may not immediately know what to do with the information, and they’ll likely move on. Instead, tell your visitors exactly what to do next. Use Google Posts to prompt people to:

Learn More
Sign Up
Buy
Order online
Book
Call now
Get Offer

If you don’t ask for it, you won’t get it. As Hubspot writes, “You’re leaving money on the table by not using effective call-to-actions in your marketing campaigns.”

6. Bulk Uploaded and Scheduled

So, you have a Google Post calendar with one post/week for an entire quarter. Yay! Do you have to go in every week and manually upload the copy and text, and then do so for all the stores you manage? Nope. (cue a sigh of relief!)

It’s unrealistic (and inefficient) to publish Google Posts one location at a time, and one week at a time. A listings platform (or listings partner) allows you to schedule Google Posts in advance for any set of locations, as well as add geo-modifiers. Bulk upload and schedule specific posts by region, store code, or across the board.

Engaging, relevant Google posts are the cherry on top of a strong Business Profile. If you need help creating and managing optimized Google Business Profiles for your multi-location brand, let’s chat.

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

To Block or Not to Block GPTbot: Here’s What to Consider First

Learn what GPTbot is and the pros/cons of blocking ChatGPT's AI crawler

September 14, 2023October 2, 2023

Wondering, “Should I block GPTbot?”, “Is GPTbot harmful?”, or “Can I see if ChatGPT uses my content?”

We’ve got answers. Learn what GPTbot is and read up on the pros and cons of letting Open AI’s GPTbot crawl your site.

ChatGPT is an online AI software made by OpenAI. It provides users with information and answers using data and content aggregated from the web. Since ChatGPT was trained using web information up until September 2021, answers can be outdated or incorrect.

GPTbot, a site crawler, was released in early August 2023 to scrape websites and collect new information and data for ChatGPT’s latest software version, GPT-5.

GPTbot may be the most discussed name in AI bot crawlers, but it’s not the only one. Other bots are used to inform AI tools, such as CCbot and WebText2.

Blocking GPTbot can prevent ChatGPT from using content on your site, but it won’t prevent other crawlers that may be informing the tool. If you don’t want GPTbot to access your content, you can use robots.txt to block the bot from accessing your website, or parts of it. But should you?

Is GPTbot harmful?

The act of GPTbot crawling your site isn’t harmful.

Bots crawl websites every day, and most are relatively harmless. Google might crawl large, active sites several times a day, or once every few weeks for smaller or less active sites.

An aggressive bot can ping your site enough to cause a spike in traffic, though this traffic typically shows up as an anomaly within data reporting tools and is filtered out.

OpenAI’s GPTbot crawls sites and stores information to use for AI training purposes and to provide answers to users. Currently, ChatGPT does not cite sources or links to the original source material it uses to generate answers — which could come from your website.

At present, there is no way to track whether your site content has been served in ChatGPT as an answer to a question or prompt. Once ChatGPT begins citing sources, you may be able to track incoming traffic from users who click on your site as a source material.

Should you block GPTbot?

AI bots are becoming more intuitive and gaining popularity. With GPTbot crawling sites, it’s safe to assume your content will be crawled and indexed for the AI program to use. The question is: should you block GPTbot in your robots.txt file to avoid having your content crawled and potentially used to inform answers? Here are some facts to consider.

Analytics tools do not see if your content appears in AI results.

Analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, SEMrush, Adobe Analytics, etc., do not currently have a way to show if your site was used for AI results. Allowing GPTbot to crawl and index the content on your site will let it potentially use that content when answering questions, but there is currently no way of knowing if it uses your content or not.

ChatGPT does not cite sources… Yet.

ChatGPT currently does not cite sources when providing answers to its users, which means if it uses your content, there will not be any attribution to your site — and the user wouldn’t know which source is informing ChatGPT’s response.

However, it is reasonable to assume that ChatGPT will follow Bard’s lead in terms of attribution and cite sources in future updates. For that reason, it may be wise to allow GPTBot to crawl your site now in preparation for what is to come.

“OpenAI says it will cite sources when plugins pull data from third-party websites. This means there will definitely be potential to get clicks from ChatGPT if a user pulls in your content,” – Search Engine Land.

ChatGPT will not replace Google Search in the short term, but it is a great additive tool.

Though AI programs like ChatGPT have gained popularity, it is unlikely they will replace Google Search when it comes to providing answers to users’ questions. Why? In its current state, ChatGPT is not timely nor informed on current events, people, and places.

On average, there are around 8.5 billion Google searches per day, while ChatGPT averaged around 55 million visitors per day in recent months — less than 1% of daily Google searches.

That said, other AI tools, such as Google Bard, are already integrated within search engine results and providing generative AI results. Your site could be discovered by searchers in generative AI results as long as your site allows AI bots to crawl content.

“There’s a decent chance that if somebody uses the tool to pull content from your website, they might link to you wherever they post the output. You’ll be passing up this chance if you block it.” – Search Engine Land.

Letting GPTbot crawl your site may lead to more mentions — and ownership over your brand voice.

Even if you aren’t yet receiving direct attribution in ChatGPT results, your brand name may still appear among ChatGPT’s results. Allowing GPTbot to crawl your site could result in increased (though currently immeasurable) benefits — akin to earned media or word of mouth. While you aren’t doing any additional work outside of publishing content on your digital properties, ChatGPT may be serving up queries about or related to your brand and, in turn, providing influence and driving interest. Allowing GPTbot to crawl your site will ensure that GPTbot — and therefore ChatGPT — is informed by and synthesizing your brand through your lens.

AI is still emerging and could shape the SERP.

The rapid emergence of consumer-facing AI technology will likely shape how search evolves down the line. We will likely see an integration between “traditional” search and AI. Rather than resisting (blocking GPTbot), early adopters may be at an advantage over the competition by allowing their sites to be crawled in the here and now.

At a minimum, allowing your site to be crawled by AI bots could allow your content to be utilized by a unique new tool that leads users back to search engines to prove the AI’s information is factual.

“We need to start thinking of AI as a new acquisition channel – just like we do with search, social and retail platforms or app stores.” – Search Engine Land

What’s GPO’s takeaway?

Currently, AI tools can and do use a site’s content without proper attribution. In the future, if ChatGPT begins crediting sources for its information, it’s best to ensure your quality content is displayed as the source for a user’s question.

At GPO, we believe AI is a highly relevant, evolving tool that should be embraced by companies as consumers gravitate toward AI-based tools such as ChatGPT. Weigh the pros and cons for your brand, and keep in mind that there is vast potential down the line for your content to influence AI and receive attribution in front of a larger audience as AI capabilities increase and AI integrations become more commonplace.

Have questions about optimizing for AI? Get in touch to learn how GPO and the GPO Platform can help you build a future-proof local content marketing strategy.

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

Your Google Business Profiles Aren’t Fully Optimized If You Miss These 8 Things

Fully optimizing your GBPs in these eight ways will help you access the billions of people using Google Maps to earn calls, clicks, store visits, and brand awareness.

August 17, 2023November 6, 2023

Where’s the nearest tire shop? Is my favorite burrito place still open? How far am I from the urgent care? Where can I see some comedy tonight?

When you’re stuck, hungry, in need, or crave a gut-tremoring laugh, you turn to Google Maps.

Google Maps has over 1 billion monthly active users, with 41% of smartphone owners opening Google Maps at least once a week. This is where people discover the business that meets their needs — 84% of Google Maps searches are discovery searches, meaning most people aren’t searching for a specific store or brand. They’re starting with a flat tire, a grumbling tummy, a sprained ankle, or an ache for a chuckle or two.

Your customers are using Google Maps, but if you’re not paying attention to your Google Business Profile/s (formerly Google My Business Profile), then people probably aren’t paying attention to your business.

Fully optimizing your Profile in the following eight ways will help you access the billions of people using Google Maps to earn calls, website clicks, store visits, and brand awareness.

1. Complete Your Listing

This tip might seem elementary, but take a stroll (er, scroll!) through Google Maps. So many listings are missing a phone number, website link, appointment link, hours, payment options, accessibility information, etc. These small pieces of information can build or tarnish a searcher’s trust in your business. Consider how a link to an old menu could set a diner up for disappointment if they specifically arrived at your restaurant to gobble up a fettuccine alfredo you no longer serve. A complete listing enhances the customer. An incomplete, outdated, or inaccurate one frustrates the customer.

Google reports when you complete your profile:

Customers are 2.7 times more likely to consider a business reputable if they find a complete Business Profile on Google Search and Maps.

Customers are 70% more likely to visit and 50% more likely to consider purchasing from businesses with a complete Business Profile.

Would you choose the Costa Oil change location with no store images, appointment link, hours, store information, and one review from “Yoo Mamahouse2x?”

Or, would you choose the Firestone Complete Auto Care location with a website link, appointment link, product search, hours, recent reviews, and additional payment and store access details?

2. Publish All the Google Post Types

Assuming your listing is complete, it’s time to attract attention and clicks! Use Google Posts the same way you use social media posts. Keep them short and post often. Google Posts show toward the bottom of your GBP listing but are increasingly being pulled into different areas of Google Maps. The more visually engaging your Profile is, the more likely a searcher is to click. They may also choose you over a competitor if they know you’re offering a discount or coupon on the service they need.

For example, Offer Post titles show when you scroll through Google Maps.

Information Posts and images are being pulled into the main header image area of Profiles.

[Pro tip: If you have more than a handful of locations, use a listings distribution platform/partner to bulk upload and schedule posts to be published over time. Speed up the process by using your social media calendar — you can publish posts in your Google Business Profiles and on social media without the content being seen as duplicate.]

3. Add Videos

Record casual videos of your business interior, exterior, and people on the job. Videos automatically play when a user scrolls through businesses on Google Maps, and people will pause and engage with a Profile that stands out.

4. Add More Images, More Often

Businesses with more GBP photos get more clicks, calls, and direction requests. The data proves it!

BrightLocal analyzed 580,853 images across 15,191 Google My Business listings and found that:

Businesses with more than 100 images get 520% more calls than the average business, while those with just one image get 71% fewer.
Businesses with more than 100 images get 2,717% more direction requests than the average business, while those with just one get 75% fewer.
Businesses with more than 100 images get 1,065% more website clicks than the average business, while those with just one get 65% fewer.

What should you post pictures of? This is where you can be both pragmatic AND fun. Post pictures of the location’s interior, exterior, and signage. Snap photos during the day and at night. Snap photos of your store in different seasons and weather. Rain or shine!

If you have more than a handful of locations, use a listings distribution platform/partner to bulk upload and schedule images to be published over time. Similar to social media posts!

5. Post Q&A and Respond to Customer Questions

The Q&A feature was introduced in 2018 to empower users to inquire about and provide answers related to a location or store directly in the Google Business Profile. The Q&A feature allows the business owner or designated representative to address these queries directly. An ‘upvote’ function also enables users to signal the most valuable or precise response to fellow searchers.

Anyone–including you, the business owner!– can ask and answer a question on a Google Business Profile. All a person needs is a Google account. Ask and answer customer FAQs here to help alleviate customer friction and get ahead of confusion.

Consistently responding to Questions posted on your Google Profile sends a message to Google that the Profile content is regularly updated and the details are current. This practice enhances Profile visibility, potentially leading to better conversion rates.

6. Respond to Reviews AND Include the City, State, and Service/Product

The number, frequency, and star-rating of your Google reviews are factors in your local search ranking. The more reviews and positive ratings you have, the higher you’ll climb in Google Maps (all other factors, like proximity, being equal).

Do as Google says! “When you reply to reviews, it shows that you value your customers and their feedback. High-quality, positive customer reviews can improve your business visibility and increase the likelihood that a shopper will visit your location.”

When you respond, however, say more than, “Thanks for the review, Kim!” Use the review response as an opportunity to get more keyphrases and brand details into your listing.

Here’s an example. This customer left a 5-star review for Costa Oil in Bloomingdale, IL.

A better response from the Costa Oil owner would be, “Thank you for bringing your Toyota in for an oil change, Pat! We appreciate your business, and look forward to serving you again for an oil change in Bloomingdale or Mt. Prospect.”

The response shows the owner is paying attention to the customer’s service, vehicle, and location.

You can even think about review responses like compliments. Would you rather your friend say, “Great job, Dan!” Or, would you rather they say, “You handled that flat tire with such patience, Dan. I was really impressed by how quickly you took action to fix it, even though the kids in the backseat were screaming for snacks. It’s hard to stay cool, calm, and collected in that situation.” You’d prefer the second compliment because it makes you feel seen and understood!

Make your customers feel seen and understood, and let Google know you care (with a few keywords!).

7. Add Products with Branded Images

Add products manually or connect your product feed to your Google Business Profiles.

Customers want to know what products they’ll experience before visiting your store. Displaying products in your shop through your Business Profile can help customers comprehend your offerings, ultimately persuading them to come and explore in person. Products can also spark interest where there wasn’t any before! And you don’t have to maintain a real-time inventory in this section. You can put pillar items or main product categories (such as T-Shirts or Couches), instead of individual items (such as a brown Ashely recliner).

You don’t even have to be a traditional store to post product images and descriptions. In the following example, Walker Brothers Kombucha posted their drink flavors with detailed descriptions, call buttons, prices, and links to their main site. Consider that 720 people each month search Google for “walker brothers kombucha,” and those products are now seen by 8,640 people a year!

8. Add Your Open Date

Adding your business open date will not improve your Google Maps ranking. It could, however, increase clicks and calls from your listing as it’s an indicator of trust and authority if you’ve been in business for many years. Would you rather have your car radiator fixed by a mechanic who’s been popping hoods for 20 years or one that’s been around for who knows how long?

Do It All in a Listings Dashboard

If you manage one location in Google Business Profiles, doing all of the above is pretty quick! If you manage more than a handful of Profiles, you’re probably scratching your head at how you’re going to upload images, Q&A, Google Posts, and Products, and then respond to reviews in a meaningful way. The solution? Do it all in a dashboard, or work with a partner to manage the dashboard for you. See how easy these Google Business Profile enhancements could be with a GPO demo.

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

Content at Scale vs Content Velocity: Can You Have One Without the Other?

Everyone wants to know: how do I get a ton of quality content, crazy fast? Content scaling, which requires you to crank up your content velocity.

April 18, 2023April 18, 2023

When the GPO Content Crew attended (and spoke at, woot woot!) 2022 Content Marketing World, “content at scale” was THE buzzword. Ohhh, if only the organizers had met ChatGPT then! Their schedule would’ve flipped upside down! The conference featured a handful of sessions about AI content tools, and those sessions were less about artificial intelligence and more about achieving content at scale.

Everyone wanted to know — how do I get a ton of quality content, crazy fast?

The answer? Content scaling, which requires you to crank up your content velocity.

What’s content velocity?

Content velocity is the amount of content your brand produces in a given time. It’s quantifiable. I’m talking numbers, wordy birds. Calculate your content velocity by tallying up the number of content pieces you’ve published within a timeframe. Example: “Brand A produces 10 content pieces/month, while Brand B produces 5/month.” Brand A has greater content velocity than Brand B. And now our dear readers are having flashbacks of middle school math word problems.

Content velocity doesn’t have to be fast though it’s most often associated with speeding up, not slowing down content efforts.

What’s content at scale?

Content at scale isn’t a metric. Instead, it’s a marketing technique that helps you achieve great content velocity. Now, content velocity doesn’t always produce content at scale—the concept itself isn’t inherently fast. Just like a car isn’t inherently fast unless you’re slamming the gas pedal. However, content at scale always leads to great content velocity.

The general consensus is that when we’re talking about content at scale, we’re talking about many, many content pieces.

Amine Rahal, CMO at Regal Assets, writes in Forbes that “to compete in today’s online attention economy, you have to create valuable content at scale. This means hundreds, or potentially thousands, of pieces of original content every month to keep your brand at the top of your customers’ minds.” In other words, turn up time!

The digital asset management tool, bynder, notes, “Content at scale means producing high volumes of high-quality content quickly and efficiently—while always maintaining focus on quality rather than quantity.” Again, let’s get turnt.

Phrased a bit differently, content scaling is the ability to create and publish a lot of content in a short amount of time to ensure you maintain a consistent presence.

Sounds great, but content scaling is “notoriously difficult to implement,” writes Copysmith, for many reasons:

Burnout on all fronts. Coming up with new ideas, executing them, and staying motivated takes work!
Brand dilution. It’s tough to maintain your voice when you’re writing/reviewing so much content. Enter, burnout manifesting in blasé content.
You might be a team of one! How does one person plan, orchestrate, execute, and then publish/host hundreds of content pieces?! They try. And then they try to recover from burnout.

So, how do you achieve content at scale and maintain a high content velocity without hiring a bunch of people?

Content at Scale + Content Velocity

You need three components to achieve content at scale and maintain a high content velocity, explains Amy Thorne, EVP, Performance Creative Business Lead at Merkle.

The directing and redirecting of content precisely delivered through technology
Scaled content production underpinned by great creative
A customer-centric strategy

“These three aspects working in tandem,” Merkle writes, “enable moments that connect to experiences and, when nurtured correctly, will build the long-term relationships that brands need to have with customers to stay competitive today.”

I’d add a step before #1, too. Before “directing and redirecting” your content, decide what type of content you want to scale. Knowing the type of content you want to scale will determine the creation + delivery technology. I.e. your tech/content partner.

For example, you might work with GPO if you had thousands of product descriptions to write. We worked with a major vehicle parts manufacturer to create 16,000+ product descriptions for everything from air filters to catback exhaust systems. Each description was unique and paired with vehicle make, model, and year.

The result:

34% increase in product dollars viewed
17% increase in cart conversions
29% increase in the quantity of parts ordered

Let’s say you need local content for all of your stores and the cities and states they serve. GPO can create and host that content, too. All you need to provide is your brand guidelines for language and design, and your stores’ information.

For scaling blog content with hands-on support, you might go with Crowd Content. To DIY, perhaps you go with Jasper.ai or Writer. There are as many content scaling tools as there are types of content. Pick your flavor. You can’t scale content at a high velocity without assistance from people or technology.

Content scaling technology helps you do what you already do, just faster and more efficiently, so you can maintain a high content velocity. And turn up for more customers!

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

4 Reasons You Should Care About UX and UI

UX/UI influences your SERP rankings, bounce rate, and more.

April 13, 2023April 18, 2023

UX, UI, graphic design…why do they matter? When you’re analyzing where to spend your already stretched-thin budget, it’s easy to brush off design either as a given – it should just work – or even think of it as fluff.

After all, who cares how something looks if it works well?

Your customers and clients care! When it comes to user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design, it’s about more than picking great colors and hoping for the best. It’s about bringing customers to your site, keeping them on page, and more. Not convinced yet? Here are four reasons why you should care about UI and UX, too.

1. Great UX/UI Brings Customers to Your Website

Yep, we’re talking about SEO. And why wouldn’t we? Search engine optimization is what draws potential customers to your website in the first place. And we’ve learned that Google cares about UX and UI, or at the very least, the consumer behaviors they promote. Well-organized websites are easier for search bots to crawl, making them easier to find. Mobile-first indexing means that sites optimized to work well on both mobile and desktop fare better on the SERP. A lower bounce rate can help your ranking. And what better way to keep customers on the page than a well-designed, easy-to-use site? That leads us to…

2. Great UX Keeps Customers on Your Website

In the 100-meter dash, 3 seconds is the difference between Usain Bolt and your average middle schooler. In SEO, 3 seconds is the difference between a happy consumer and a lost conversion.

According to Google, 53% of users abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. That means that your fight for customers doesn’t stop at the SERP.

Once the race to load your page is complete, know that you’re not across the finish line. Great UX and UI help keep that hard-won customer on-page for longer, increasing their likelihood of converting. UX focuses on ensuring that the logic of your site makes sense, flows well, and presents crucial information quickly. Do all of the buttons work, or do they cause unexpected results? Is your site intuitive to navigate, or does it take a consumer two, three, or a dreaded four clicks to find what they’re looking for?

When you dedicate proper resources to user experience, you improve your Core Web Vitals performance and have a better shot at not only drawing customers to your site but keeping them there for longer. Plus, the lower your bounce rate, the better it looks for SEO. Meaning that customers who stay longer bring more customers in the long run.

3. Great UI Showcases Your Brand Voice

UI concerns itself with the visual aspect of your website. What do customers see when they click your search result? What story is it telling on the initial impression?

Once your site loads, it’s crucial to make a great first impression and showcase the services and products that you offer. Visual engagement doesn’t focus solely on high-quality graphics and picking the right font, though that’s part of it! Visual engagement also means staying true to your brand’s identity and maintaining distinct branding. Sticking to your brand identity can serve as a unifying factor when you’re working with dozens of different locations in various cities. It can also make your website a distinctive mermaid (or man) in a sea of competitors.

When you provide unique, powerful content that is tailored to your brand’s unique, powerful identity, it’s memorable to your consumers and keeps them coming back for more.

4. Great UX/UI Shows That You Mean Business

Throwback sneakers: very cool. Throwback websites: not so much.

We’ve all visited sites that look straight out of the dial-up era. White backgrounds, blue and black text, and even some funky word art or low-quality graphics to match. While “retro” can be a bold aesthetic choice when done right, most companies aren’t going for that look. And let’s be honest – like the throwback sneakers, most can’t pull it off, either.

When your site is beautiful, up-to-date, easy to navigate, and on-brand, your company looks more professional. It communicates to your customers that they can take you seriously and tells your competitors they should, too.

High-Quality Content, High-Quality UX: Localize Content

Words move hearts, not buttons. However, you need high-quality UX and UI to ensure you maximize your conversions and keep consumers in the pipeline during their purchase journey.

With GPO’s Localize Content, you can expand your digital footprint while maintaining a completely brand-matched experience from visuals to voice. Fast-loading Localize Content pages are expertly designed to keep your consumers on-page with thoughtful UI, interactive modules, and relevant content that answers searchers’ most pressing questions — allowing for a seamless experience and cleaner “messy middle” of the consumer journey.

Ready to connect with consumers and up your conversion rate? Let’s talk! Get a demo.

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

Testing More Than Just Design: Why Your Marketing Strategy Needs Content Testing

Test at the content level to drive your strategy — and save time and money.

April 6, 2023April 18, 2023

Everyone is “testing.” 77% of organizations do A/B testing on their website and 60% on their landing page.

The testing process helps your brand identify audiences, the proper market channels, and continually refine and improve — driving your strategy while saving you time and money.

However, most experimentation and testing still occur at the artifact level and center on user experience (UX). In other words, most brands are testing buttons and colors when they should be testing something else — the words on the page.

Yes — reimagining on-page flow and interactive elements can significantly impact the consumer experience (and your bounce rate), but a massive piece is missing from most marketers’ testing. That’s content.

Why Test at the Content Level and the UX Level?

Words might be free to use, but how you use them can cost you. Big time. Content testing can highlight the price you’ll pay for using the wrong ones, and the wealth that can come from using the right ones.

Don’t diminish the power of words. Words move hearts, and hearts move limbs (Hamza Yusuf). Words compel people to act online and in person because words are the point of connection between the brand (the creator) and the customer.

“Buttons move hearts” sounds as natural as “Bing it.” Nope. It’s words that move people, and when in doubt, “Google it.”

Test your words to find just the right ones to:

Increase Conversion Rates

Do your site visitors need a paragraph about style or one about functionality? A comparison chart or a pros/cons list? A causal, 20 words, or a comprehensive 2,000? Learn what drives conversions.

By testing different versions of the content on your landing pages, emails, and ads, you can identify the elements that resonate best with your target audience and increase your conversion rates.

Reduce Risk

If you don’t make moves to manage risks, you’ll never know if your new ideas will connect with customers or if they’re worth the end investment. Testing content minimizes the risk of a drastic business impact.

Identify potential issues with the content in your marketing campaigns before you invest a significant amount of time and money. Pinpointing ineffective content reduces the risk of launching campaigns that fail to achieve your desired results — conversions.

Enhance the Customer Experience

Testing at the content level helps you to understand your customers’ needs and preferences, enabling you to create copy and marketing campaigns that resonate and even update old content. Almost half (44%) of SEMRush content survey respondents said updating existing content has boosted their content marketing value.

Even if a content test doesn’t turn out as anticipated, you can still use your findings to identify what customers don’t want.

Provide Strategy-Driving Insights

Testing your content provides valuable insights that you can use to optimize your content creation efforts moving forward. By analyzing the results of your tests, you can identify trends, patterns, and opportunities that you may have otherwise missed.

Why Aren’t More Marketers Testing and Experimenting At the Content Level?

With the disruption of single-search and AI content generators, creating content that connects — and lots of it — is more critical than ever. So, why don’t more marketers hone in on their efforts to test at the content level?

Content creation is time and resource intensive. Creating quality content requires hours of strategy, idea generation, and editing. And when you’re talking landing pages and product descriptions, you’re talking hundreds of pages and thousands of words.

That’s a lot of output and a lot of line-by-line head-scratching.

Generating these massive amounts of copy for testing purposes in-house can bog down your creative team. It’s simply not feasible.

An astounding 19% of organizations don’t have a dedicated content team or person, and only 36% have a content team of 1-3 people. If you opt to freelance or use AI content generators, you’ve now taken on the stress of proofing and fact-checking content, ensuring unique outputs, infusing your brand voice, and figuring out how to host and monitor it. (Oh yeah, and all those freelance invoices!)

Logistics alone make creating “excess” copy for testing an intimidating feat.

That’s where GPO comes in.

Use the testing and optimization platform of your choice to its max potential quickly and easily — GPO’s Amplify Content allows you to test at the content level.

Amplify Content provides hundreds of unique pages of human-written, AI-empowered content (and fast). With Amplify Content, you can generate hundreds to thousands of unique content pages with minimal oversight. Our in-house writers adapt to your brand voice, integrate your marketing messaging, and ensure a clean output that passes AI-generator detection.

Get in touch now to learn more about how you can pair GPO’s Amplify Content with Optimizely and advance your marketing testing.

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

6 Ways Google Is Making It Really Hard for Service Area Businesses in 2023 — and What You Can Do

Service Area Businesses face unique challenges when ranking in Google Business Profiles and Google Maps. Learn why and what you can do.

March 20, 2023April 6, 2023

Many restaurants (42%) added or expanded delivery services during the pandemic, and many tasted so much success that they reevaluated their brick-and-mortar needs altogether. But restaurants weren’t the only businesses that grew service areas and bulked up delivery offerings. So did auto repair shops, furniture stores, technology retailers, paint studios, healthcare offices, and more.

Now you can have a mobile mechanic fix your car in the office parking lot or a repair technician come to your home and replace your cracked iPhone screen. You can even have a complete painting kit delivered to your home and enjoy a coordinated painting class with friends over Zoom. Talk about a pARTy!

Many businesses that used to operate only out of a storefront now operate inside a service area, or out of a building and delivery vehicle. And now they’re dealing with some new digital challenges.

In Google Business Profile terms, these are Service Area Businesses (SABs) and Hybrid Businesses. And in 2023, Google is making it hard for them to appear in search results. Why, and what can you do if you’re one of them?

What Is a Service Area Business?

Service Area Businesses do not have physical storefronts where they interact with customers. SABs have team members who visit customers at their homes or elsewhere. Examples of SABs include electricians, pest control providers, plumbers, contractors, in-home health assistants, and delivery-only ghost kitchens.

What Is a Hybrid Area Business?

A Hybrid Business accepts and interacts with customers at a physical storefront but also has team members that visit customers at their location. Examples of Hybrid Businesses include restaurants with dine-in and food delivery, appliance stores with delivery/repair options, and pet groomers with on- and off-site services.

Service Area and Hybrid Businesses face unique challenges regarding Google Business Profiles and Google Maps.

6 Challenges for Service Area and Hybrid Businesses on Google

One

Businesses with a physical address often rank better in Google Maps and Google Map Pack than those that do not display their address. That’s because proximity is a key ranking factor. Google favors businesses that are closer to the searcher. SABs are inherently challenging to position in this equation since a service area could include five cities around a searcher. Google favors the known result — the black-and-white, brick-and-mortar business right down the road from the searcher.

How can you get around this? If your business technically has a physical address, you can add the address to your listing and hide it from customers. Including a physical address, even hidden, could assist with your proximity relevancy.

Two

Service Area locations don’t display a location pin on Google Maps, which means you may lose searchers who prefer to browse the local map when looking for a business. Okay, I can’t fault Google for this one. If you’re using Google Maps, you intend to visit a physical location. You want directions to walk, bike, drive, or take public transportation somewhere. When it comes to Service Area Businesses, there is technically nowhere for you to “visit.”

How can you get around this? If you’re going to stay a Service Area Business, you can’t. Invest in Local Services Ads (specifically for service area businesses) to appear in more search results.

Three

You can only choose up to 20 cities, counties, or zip codes to serve from each Service Area listing. And there can only be one Service Area business profile for each metropolitan area served. To ensure the entire service area is covered, you’ll want to choose zip codes that sit at the outer limit of your service area. Simply inputting cities or zip codes covered doesn’t guarantee local search or Google Maps visibility.

How can you get around this? If you serve more than 20 cities, counties, or zip codes, you’ll want to create individual (and unique!) content pages for each locality you serve. That way, you’ll appear in organic search results when people search in those areas. Does it sound like a heavy lift to create hundreds, if not thousands, of unique local pages sound like a heavy lift? GPO can help with Localize Content.

Four

Google recommends that the boundaries of your Service Area profile are no more than about a two-hour drive from where your business is based. Uhhh, how fast do you drive? And what about traffic? This one is a bummer, and again, the best way around it is to create individual content pages for each locality you service. That way, you control the message, the locality, and ultimately — how your website appears in search.

Five

Results for Service Area businesses tend to include more spam than other industries, and Service Area businesses/listings are more prone to getting suspended. A spam Google Business listing is often the result of people trying to game the system for ranking purposes. Spam typically happens in health, legal, and home services. Examples of spamming include keyword stuffing in the business title (think, “DUI Attorney Nashville” when the registered business name is really “The Carlson Law Firm”) or a duplicate listing showing up multiple times in the same geographical area.

How can you get around this? Keep the business title in your Google Business Profile the exact name you registered with the government. Even if you don’t try and game the system (and you shouldn’t), Google could still suspend your listing. Don’t raise suspicion with Google. And if you have the opportunity to keep your Google Business Profile listing as a standard, brick-and-mortar one, do it and communicate your service area offerings to customers in Google Posts, your Business Description, and through owned website content.

Six

A Hybrid can show a physical address and select service areas, but it MUST have permanent signage at the storefront. Without permanent signage, the business can only be a Service Area Business and cannot display an address in its Google Business profile. Vinyl signs/banners are not considered permanent signage. A Hybrid must also have employees on-site during business hours.

How can you get around this? You can’t. Get an actual sign, get employees on-site, or don’t set your business as a Hybrid.

General Optimization Tactics for Service Area Businesses

Optimization tactics for Service Area businesses are similar to regular Google listing optimization.

Pick the correct primary and secondary categories.
Upload images to your Google profile continuously, and encourage customers to do so.
Post Q&A and respond to customer Google Q&A.
Engage customers with weekly Google Posts.
Encourage Google reviews and respond to them in a highly timely manner.

Creative Optimization Tactics for Service Area Businesses

Innovation is one of our Core Principles here at GPO! We take care of many Service Area Businesses and are always looking for new ways to get their listings found in local search, the Map Pack, and Google Maps.

Try the following ideas to increase the local content relevancy and uniqueness of your Service Area Businesses in Google Business Profiles.

Include geo-modifiers in your Google Posts.

Google reads EVERYTHING! Assume Google is also reading and ingesting your Google Post text, so help it indirectly understand where you operate. Include cities, states, zip codes, or neighborhoods in your Google Post copy.

Check out this example from CORT Events. See how they speak to their services in the context of their area? If you offer furniture and decor for events like CORT Events, highlight the whole area you cater to for such services. For CORT Events, that’s the entire state of Washington.

Include geo-modifiers in your Products.

If you already have a local product feed set up with Google, you will not be able to do this tactic. If you don’t have a product feed, then get to it!

This business offers mobile oil changes throughout the Baltimore area. See how they included this info in one of their Product offerings?

Link to a unique web page.

This creative tactic is the most important one of all. Link your Google Business Profile to a specific web page for your service area. Do not link to your homepage. Google looks for local relevancy signals everywhere, and links are how it understands the web.

The unique destination page should include the following:

Unique copy about your products and services (don’t copy and paste from the main site!)
Relevant geo-modifiers, such as City, State, Zip Code, and Neighborhood, woven into the copy
Local images with rich, local alt text and unique image names
Unique title tag and meta description

As straightforward as these Google Business Listing techniques seem, they can be challenging when managing more than one SAB listing, especially if you’re a team of one or two people. How about doing all these tactics for ten listings, let alone 200?

That’s where GPO and our Distribute Listings solution can help. We develop and implement custom listing programs for our clients with thousands of locations. Our platform ensures data accuracy across the most popular local search sites, including Google, Bing, Apple, and Facebook. And our people are the beautiful, creative brains behind the unique web page copy, Google Post copy, Product copy, and more. We do it all at scale, and we do it well. Get in touch today to learn more.

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

Watch Now | Breaking Down THE Buzzword of 2023: AI Content

Learn about the capabilities (and limitations) of AI content generators.

March 2, 2023March 20, 2023

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

How AI content works. You’ll get an easy-to-understand breakdown of how AI conceptually works, plus how marketers tend to approach using AI-powered tools.
The limitations of what AI copywriting can do for your brand. While AI writing has gotten amazingly good, there are still constraints marketers face when using AI tools.
How the GPO Platform works. Learn how our content solutions may be a faster, more accurate way to publish (and host!) content at scale for your brand.

Remain Competitive in the Age of AI

Are you prepared to take on an evolving digital landscape? Get in touch with GPO today to learn how our Content Platform can help your brand leverage unique human-written, AI-powered content at scale — resulting in increased presence and conversions.

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

[Webinar] Breaking Down THE Buzzword of 2023: AI Content

January 17, 2023January 17, 2023

ChatGPT, AI copywriters, AI content generators… everywhere you turn it seems artificial intelligence is THE buzzword of 2023. And for good reason: AI content has become more sophisticated and easier to use than ever before.

Plus, with the amount of content marketing teams need to keep customers — and the search algorithms — happy, it’s no wonder that content marketers are turning to smart tools to increase efficiancy.

However… is AI content any good? How exactly does it work? Do AI copywriting tool plagarize content that’s online? Is the content it generates even accurate? AI content has gotten a lot of buzz, but there are still a slew of questions content marketers have regarding these tools.

Join us to break down the hottest buzzword of 2023.

In our upcoming webinar, we’ll break down what AI generators can do — and what their limitations are. Plus, we’ll share a bit about the GPO Platform and how our content tools use human writers and scaling software to create unique content for some of the world’s most recognized brands.

What you’ll learn:

During this webinar, you’ll walk away knowing:

How AI content works. You’ll get an easy-to-understand breakdown of how AI conceptually works, plus how marketers tend to approach using AI-powered tools.
The limitations of what AI copywriting can do for your brand. While AI writing has gotten amazingly good, there are still constraints marketers face when using AI tools.
How the GPO Platform works. Learn how our content solutions may be a faster, more accurate way to publish content at scale for your brand.

RSVP today!

Let us know if you can make it! Attendees can opt for a free content audit after attending our webinar. Learn how your content stacks up to your competitors and what kind of content you need to create to fill the gaps.

Date: February 15, 2023
Time: 12 pm PST / 2:00 pm CST / 3:00 pm EST

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts

GPO Winter Mixology Class Recipes

January 5, 2023

Right before the new year, Team GPO hosted a mixology class to craft five delicious cocktail/mocktails and ring in 2023! During this event, our leaders pulled out their very best bartending tricks and entertained GPO friends and team members. If you weren’t able to attend this mixer, here are the winter wonderland recipes you can try at home!

GPO wishes everyone a successful new year!

Runchata Eggnog

Runchata Eggnog Ingredients:

8 oz Eggnog
4 oz Rumchata
Cinnamon sticks
Sugar (white or brown) for garnish

Dry Runchata Eggnog Ingredients:

8 oz Vegan Eggnog
4 oz Horchata
2 oz Wilderton Earthen
Cinnamon sticks
Grated nutmeg
Monk Fruit sweetener, for garnish

Apple Cider Mojito Cocktail

Apple Cider Mojito Ingredients:

2oz spiced rum
Red apple
2oz apple cider
Sparkling water
Fresh mint
Freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
Ice

Dry Ginger Beer Mojito Ingredients:

2 oz Wilderton Earthen
Red apple
2 oz ginger beer
Topo Chico
Fresh mint
Lime
Freshly grated nutmeg
Ice

Mistletoe Margaritas

Mistletoe Margarita Ingredients:

5 whole cranberries
Granulated sugar, divided
2 tbsp. kosher salt
1 wedge lime, for rim
1 oz. cranberry juice
2 oz. silver tequila
1.5 oz. triple sec
½ oz. Lime Juice
Ice
Mint, for garnish
Blender

Dry Mistletoe Margarita Ingredients:

2 oz. Ritual Tequila
1 oz. Monday Mezcal
2 tbsp. kosher salt
1 wedge lime, for rim
2 oz. cranberry juice
½ oz. lime juice
Ice
5 frozen cranberries
Monk Fruit sweetener for garnish
Mint for garnish

Sugar Cookie Martini

Sugar Cookie Martini Ingredients:

Sprinkles, for rimming the glass
2 ounce vanilla vodka
2 ounces Irish cream
1 ounce Amaretto
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
Ice

Dry Sugar Cookie Martini Ingredients:

2 oz Wilderton Earthen
1 oz heavy cream
Splash vanilla extract
Splash almond extract
1 tbsp zero calorie hershey chocolate syrup
Ice
Monk Fruit sweetener
Sprinkles, for rim

GP(espress)O Martini

GP(espress)O Martini Ingredients:

1 oz Angostura Bitters
½ Oz Sugar Syrup
2 Oz espresso shot
1 egg
1 coffee bean for garnish

5 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Web Content Writer

What has our brilliant Web Content Writer, Kelsey Conner, learned during her first year at GPO?

7 Proven Strategies for Dominating Local Search Results

Optimizing for local search can draw more customers to your website and your storefront(s). These strategies can help you land on page one of local search results.

6 Ingredients for Successful Google Posts

Want more engagement in your Google Maps listings? Check out these tips for crafting and publishing your best Google Posts and unlocking your GBP’s potential.

Back to all blog posts