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jameswray · 4 years

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Google My Business Proximity Influence Building 2021 – October 2020

If you aren’t considering the proximity influence of your Google My Business (GMB) pages, then you’re…

…missing a huge piece of the puzzle to understanding (a) how well you are actually ranking & (b) what you need to do to improve that GMB’s organic traffic.

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Approximate transcription:

Hi, this video is about GMB digital proximity influence. That’s a mouthful. Basically when you’re trying to rank in the maps. One of the most important parts to Google’s algorithm is going to be how… Is basically your business’s proximity to the searcher.

Now, proximity. I’m going to kind of use in air quotes here because it’s more of a digital proximity in that just, because someone is physically closer… Gives them an advantage for sure, but it doesn’t automatically mean that they’re more relevant from a proximity standpoint. That’s why you can have more influence maybe a couple of miles down the road sometimes than you do some place that’s closer. This is also why it’s not just whoever is closest to me. I think that how much weight they put on to physical closeness also depends on the market.

Maybe a pizza place versus a construction company. Both of them are going to have probably, Google My Business pages, but I think they’re going to be willing to go further for some types of services and Google tweaks. I believe that, that’s part of their algorithm, that kind of accounts for that. Anyway. So, this is not super well understood right now, I think. It’s a huge part of Google’s algorithm. In fact, after GMB category, basically, how relevant they think you are geographically to the searcher becomes the next biggest factor, so to speak. So almost all of my Google, my business, SEO stuff has this included or as the primary objective, is to increase the proximity influence. I’m always keeping that in consideration. If I’m trying to rank a project. If we’ve got a project with a company that has one or more Google My Business pages for which Google is serving up maps in the search engine results pages.

So, all plumbers with pretty much every keyword that they have, unless it’s a super small city. This is a very commonly, a huge part of a project. It’s no longer… Maybe five years ago you could say, Oh, I rank second in the maps for a Dallas plumber. Right? You could say that, and it would be reasonable and pretty much all over Dallas. You’d be pretty much accurate. That’s not true anymore. It’s really. If I hear somebody say, hey, I rank in the maps. I rank number two in the maps for this keyword. It kind of clues me into the fact that they don’t really know what it means to rank in the maps. And that’s what I’m going to talk about now, because it’s a major precursor or a major point of understanding that really needs to be thought about deeply in order to understand how to appropriately affect digital proximity influence.

You need to be tracking this, okay. If you have a project that has Google maps listings, you should be tracking what I call the rank of ranking geogrids. And I’m not the person that came up with this. There’s several pieces of software out there that do this for you. I use them just for the ranking geogrids a lot of times they have other features. I don’t like it when… I don’t use features that involve logging into accounts with clients. I don’t want to use the same access code because it kind of creates a footprint. If one of them gets suspended, then it could create the other ones. So, I try to separate the Google My Business pages as much as possible in terms of them all being on different accounts. This is different. This is more of a tracking standpoint, and I can track anybody.

It’s not actually accessing the Google My Business page. Quick side track on that. Okay. So here’s a bunch of examples. I’m going to use these examples as I go through and give you more examples of exactly how I would implement in different scenarios. You can see here, this is a really new listing. I showed this in another video of more broad maps. SEO video. This is an older lesson and obviously ranks a lot better. You can see the only place that they rank at all is basically right next door, right in this… At the center is the actual Google My Business page location, right? The point is to kind of grow this influence, not necessarily in a circular manner. It Doesn’t always make sense to grow it in a circular manner.

As you can see here in this first one. Let’s take a look at some of these other ones here. These two are really interesting because it’s a pretty significant patchwork. You have one, two, and then nothing. Then oddly, further away you ranked better. Now, the further you get from the first page, the first three to five results. The more fluctuation it could be. This could just be the timing of checking that sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not. Like when you’re rank 17. The fact that there’s multiple data points over here, that kind of… It’s pretty interesting that it kind of can go up and down and can be further away and actually rank better. So even all the way up here.

So, what I would do. Let’s say this is, well, I’m going to get into that. What I would do this listing. But identify this is maybe an area for growth, basically. And we have already built relevance to this area and we built relevance to this area. Now we still need to work on these other areas. And you can see another example here. Two to 17. This is quickly dropping this way and you have some more influence up here. Now, part of this is, in this specific area, there’s a good bit of little cities. And so [inaudible 00:05:29] and this is actually located in South Lake, Texas. But there’s a bigger city right here. Grapevine. That you kind of hit a wall, right? So, you can hit walls if it actually moves into a different city in terms of ranking. It doesn’t mean you can’t rank. Especially right over the border, especially if it’s really close.

If the Google My Business pages is a mile from the next city it can still ranked there. It’s just a lot harder and so something to be aware of. Here’s another one and ranking pretty well. Still could use some influence up here. Build it up in these areas. And then here’s another example. We can see there’s a lot of number one rankings, but then you just kind of go this way and it’s much harder. This is also about competition. This is downtown Fort Worth. So you just got to be more competitive. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t mean you don’t take these low hanging fruit up here. Okay. So, now… Where did this go? There we go. Okay. So how do we go about influencing this? Now that we go, okay, so we can rank in different areas. Let’s say we’re… This is a really good example right here.

Let’s say, we’re here. What are we going to try to do? And let’s assume this is all one city just for the sake of argument. We’re going to try… Actually, this one’s better. It’s a little better. We’re going to try to find a specific point of interest. So this park right here, and we’re going to try to build relevance to this specific park relevant to the Google My Business page. So we’re going to make the Google… We’re going to send information to Google that lets them think that… It gives them information, that these two things are relevant. There’s a lot of different ways to do that. You can do that in all sorts of parts of SEO. With it. With your Google My Business page itself. You can do it on your page, on your site. There’s actually a lot of things you can do on there.

There is kind of unlimited amount of ways in which you can do this. That you can work on the influence on your site because you have complete control over it with link building. Let’s give an example of a link. Let’s say I want to be more relevant over here, right? Again back to this analogy up here. And let’s say they have a donation page or something on Trammell Park that will allow me to get a link, right? Somehow I can get a link. I can, yeah. I call them up. I can ask them, if it’s not like a public thing, maybe this is possible, right? Let’s just assume that it’s a private park and I can get a link and say, hey, I’ll donate a hundred bucks or whatever to you. And I can get a link back to my website specifically back to the URL that is inside the Google My Business Page. The best place. Even just to the homepage would be good too.

That’s going to add a lot of relevance because they’re telling Google, hey, we appreciate this. That link, especially… They’re going to have a Google My Business page. So think about that. This is a brand that is tied into the website. Google my business page is talking to the website and the website is talking to the Google My Business page. And they’re linking to your website from their website, which is also tied into Google My Business page. Google can make that connection. Okay. So that is an example of link, now that’s a great link. So don’t expect to get that very often, but it’s an awesome type of link. There’s a lot of other kinds of links that you can use to make it more relevant. You can talk both at the same time. That’s just one way of doing it.

You can do it on your site. So on your site, have a page about Trammell Park and put it in the section of your site, that is all relevant to that Google My Business page you’re trying to rank. So you want to enter the link properly. You could just… If there’s a video about Trammell Park. Put it on your site, on one of your pages that would add relevance. There’s a lot of different things that you can do there. Examples with the GMB. So you can do insights, that’s sort of the backend. You could make a post about Trammell Park. You could talk about it. That’s going to add some relevance. I wouldn’t do this too much. It’s not like you can just make a hundred posts about Trammell Park and then you’re super relevant.

Well, maybe… I don’t recommend doing that, but it could still work. It’s just one… You’re looking at this thing and you’re going to do it. You’re going to add relevance in all these places. Let’s say. So we want to rank in Trammel Park. We’re going to see… Look for opportunities in all of these places to help improve the influence. And so making a GMB post is just one of several things that you are going to try to do. Outside as well. So if you think about… If someone is sitting in Tramell Park and they get driving directions from their phone to my business, that’s a signal to Google. This is much harder to manipulate, but there are still ways to kind of send these signals. It’s kind of a whole can of worms in and of itself.

I won’t be able to go into in this video. But I think that if you know of any way to send traffic, be it real or fake, or that looks real to Google, this would be something that you could consider. There’s kind of like offline marketing, where you get real people to take actions that you want them to do. That’s going to be helpful. You can do have to be careful with it because it can’t look… If it looks fake, then that could really hurt you. Okay. I want to clarify one last point about what a POI is. It’s kind of anything, literally it could be a park. It could be an intersection. It could be a zip code. It could be a neighborhood. And I typically like to pick big, unique things that are unique potentially to the city.

Like in this example, the Dallas museum of art or Trammel Park. These are examples of things that are… There’s not another Dallas Museum of Art, right? Fort Worth Botanical Garden right here. Fort Worth Stockyards. These are all good things, I think, to make yourself more relevant too. Because there’s a uniqueness to it that makes it… I think the connection a bit stronger. I don’t think you couldn’t do this, but I would probably never do it. I think I could always find a better opportunity. I would never do like a McDonald’s. But I think that would still probably work. I just think it would be out of place and it would not work as much as finding a more… Something that has… A POI that has a stronger presence in Google’s eyes.

That’s going to be what I have to say on that. I think I covered everything. If you’ve never seen these before. Well, welcome to the Google My Business page, ranking world. This is absolutely critical. If you’re not doing this and you’re trying to rank in the maps. Then you’re not understanding what’s going on. You just can’t know what’s going on. You can’t do enough manual searches to really check this. What you want to do is you want to track this over time for any client.

Once a month, take a screenshot, just like I’ve done here and document it and save it, right. That’s going to be really helpful to enable you to really paint the picture that things are improving. And also to know where to put the work into. What do you need more relevant to? So if you’re up here, if you’re in this situation right here, you don’t want to build relevance to these number ones. You’re already relevant there. You’re good. You don’t need it. You want POIs that are up here. Anyway. Let me know if you have any questions, leave a comment below. I will try to respond when I can. And if you liked the video. Please like and subscribe for more videos. Thanks and have a great day. Bye now.

The post Google My Business Proximity Influence Building 2021 – October 2020 appeared first on Digital Domination Dojo.

source https://digitaldominationdojo.com/google-my-business-proximity-influence-building-2021/

source https://digitaldominationdojo.wordpress.com/2020/11/24/google-my-business-proximity-influence-building-2021-october-2020/

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dorothydelgadillo · 6 years

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What is Remote Work? And Is It As Good As It Sounds?

Here’s a fun fact: Skillcrush (as in us, the team, right here) is a fully remote company comprised of dozens of remote workers. Every day, we log onto various platforms—Google Hangouts, Jira, Slack—and we get down to it.

Work days for us don’t look that different from a conventional company, honestly, with the exception maybe of the way we run our projects. There are team meetings, water cooler-esque chatter in various Slack channels, lunch breaks. We just do it from far-flung places like Los Angeles, Prague, Florida, and Finland.

There are advantages and disadvantages to remote work, of course (and I’ll delve into those later in this article), but the point is this: there’s a high probability that remote is the future. That’s why, today, I’m deep-diving into what remote work is, what it isn’t, and what it could be for someone who looks a lot like…yeah, you.

What Is Remote Work?

You might have heard it called “telecommuting” or even “work from home”, but remote work is based on the idea that work can be done from anywhere—within reason. The premise is this: thanks to the digital age, you can successfully complete projects and communicate with your team—even manage a team—without being in the same room or even the same city.

That means that rather than going into an office (or, worse, a dimly lit cubicle) everyday, you can work remotely potentially from anywhere as long as you’ve got a laptop and internet. Good internet is key.

How is remote work different than “work from home” or “flexible hours”?

Remote Work Versus Work From Home

Think of remote work as the umbrella term. At our company, plenty of us work from home, but others choose to head into a coworking space for part or all of the day. Sometimes people shift to a cafe in the late afternoon. And then there are those of us, like our Director of Operations, Caro Griffin, who work from everywhere (seriously, she gave up her apartment last year before hopping a flight abroad), courtesy of programs like Remote Year.

So is work from home right for you? Some people can work from their living room (so far so good with me) while others go nuts without the ritual of leaving the house. For that reason, before diving into remote job boards, it’s definitely worth considering whether it sounds like something you’d enjoy. That doesn’t mean you have to give up on remote work entirely—you can always look for jobs that offer coworking space stipends. Skillcrush does!

Remote Work Versus Flex Jobs

Our remote team also practices flexible hours. This is pretty inevitable given that we’re juggling multiple time zones.

Each team at Skillcrush decides on meeting times based on hours where they overlap (when our graphic designer in Romania meets us in video chats at 8:30am my time, it’s 11 hours later for her).

But “flex hours” don’t always equal “remote job”. Sometimes, flex can mean time-shifting working hours during the week or even job sharing with another part-time person, so it’s important to understand all the options. Here’s a roundup of five flex schedules you might come across.

The biggest distinction is this: a flex job is a role that allows you more freedom regarding when and how much you work so you can prioritize other elements in your life (like parenthood), whereas a remote job allows you the freedom of where you work. Often, companies and roles combine both elements to create a sustainable company culture.

Remote Work Versus Telecommuting

Then there’s telecommuting. This is a bit of a dated term (you mostly hear it when you’re reading outdated business sites), but a telecommuter is someone who works some or all of her hours from home in the same geographic area as the company. Remote work implies that you don’t have to come into the office at all meaning you could be living in Bangkok and talking to your boss in Berlin.

These days, some companies don’t distinguish between the two terms like they used to, so if you’re looking for a remote job, it doesn’t hurt to search through telecommuting jobs, as well. For the purposes of this article, though, let’s use the term “remote work” from here on out.

Remote Work: The Advantages and Disadvantages

Now that you know what remote work is, let’s talk about why you might like it (and why you might not).

Pro: You’re more likely to stay long-term

Remote work means you’re able to handle most of what life throws at you—including the moments that might have previously put your job at risk.

Last year, before I joined Skillcrush, a critically ill parent meant that I had to spend weeks aways from my office. Despite an incredibly supportive team and boss, that period of enforced flexibility was a major stressor. It meant I ping-ponged back and forth between cities whenever I felt like I’d been out of touch for too long. And had my company not been so understanding, I would have wound up having to take unpaid leave for all those extra days.

Not so with remote work. A laptop means you can work from home, on the road, and even (but I hope this doesn’t happen) from a hospital. It’s work that takes into account how unexpected life is.

Remote jobs also mean that if you’re considering maternity leave or your partner gets a job in a different city, you don’t have to sacrifice the job you love for the person (or future little person) you love. Warm and squishy, right?

Pro: You’ll have more time for deep work

Anyone else remember when that study came out that proved that work interruptions cost you up to six hours a day?

Those notorious “Hey, quick question…”s add up. Here at Skillcrush, we tend to stack meetings in the morning, meaning that the late afternoon is primed for deep work (I’m writing this massive article in uninterrupted bliss right now, in fact).

Working from home or from a coworking space where you don’t know the people around you means more focus. Another bonus: remote work is built on the belief that you’ll get your work done, not that you need to have your butt in a seat for exactly 40 hours a week. The result is that you’ll focus on quality not quantity, which is good for everyone including the company.

Pro: You’ll learn some seriously impressive communication skills

One could argue that it’s much harder to communicate when you work remotely, but I’d actually disagree. Working remotely means that communication is everything. It’s immediately apparent when the way you’re communicating isn’t working, and you’ll be forced to fix issues much more quickly. This is communication on steroids, and it means you’re going to dramatically improve every technique from how you present ideas to how you voice frustrations about a coworker. All good things.

Pro: You’ll feel healthier

A 2016 study from the University of Minnesota found that workplace flexibility lowered stress and the risk of burnout. So that’s better mental health. Then there’s the fact that working from home means you’re less likely to encounter this season’s flu.

Another big benefit of remote work on health: Forbes argues that while people commuting to offices reported that they were less likely to exercise and eat well, remote workers don’t have those barriers. Spoken from personal experience: it’s almost a treat to go to the gym at 5pm when you’ve been at home all day. Almost.

Pro: It’s one (huge) step toward ending the gender wage and leadership gaps

Part of the reason Skillcrush’s CEO, Adda Birnir, decided to build a remote company from the start was that it allowed women to have the flexible schedules they needed for personal priorities and successful careers.

Many studies have found that the gender wage gap is actually a motherhood gap. That gap also affects how many women become leaders within their companies. Time off, especially in a nation that lacks strong parental leave standards, inevitably leads to falling behind.

From the lens of intersectional feminism, there’s another clear-cut advantage: remote work means that you don’t have to live in an expensive city to work for a big name company or find a role that’s ideal for you. This means more opportunities for everyone, but particularly those who might previously have been excluded because of their location, background, or scheduling needs.

Con: You run the risk of feeling isolated

This disadvantage of remote work kind of goes without saying. If you’re used to working in a busy office environment, switching to a work from home schedule might get to you.

That said, many companies offer coworking space stipends or other programs if you begin to feel the monotony of your home office (and there are always coffee shops!). And a remote company done right involves a lot of video conferences and messages throughout the day—so you may find it’s not as isolating as you’d expect.

Con: You’re responsible for staying on track

Look, we won’t mince words: remote work requires a self-starter attitude. No one is checking to see if you’re working or how hard, you’re just required to get your work done on time. If you have trouble self-motivating, remote work might not be the best job for you. Then again, it might teach you how to take ownership of your work, which ultimately, is a great thing.

Con: You won’t always have immediate access to your team

Not to keep picking on Lizu, our graphic designer, but she signs off for the day (or her night) around 9:30am my time. That means that if I realize I need something from her that I haven’t assigned, I won’t get it until I start the next morning. Luckily, remote work means putting processes in place where those kind of moments don’t happen—or at least happen rarely. It’s all about doing proper planning (which we do through Scrum) to make sure everyone knows what’s coming.

Is Remote Work Right For You?

The big question, right? If you’re not sure if remote work is right for you (maybe because you’re one of those people I mentioned earlier who has a hard time self-motivating), we created a quiz to help you parse through it.

I’m tempted to make an argument that there’s a form of remote work for everyone, though. It’s just about finding the right one for you, which brings me to the next point…

How to Actually Find a Remote Job

I’ve only been at Skillcrush for about a month, and so I’m more than happy to answer this question for you directly from experience.

The beauty of the digital age is that there are job boards specifically for finding remote work. If you decide that a work from home, telecommuting, or remote job is right for you, you can go straight to the places where companies post more flexible positions. Here are a few of our favorites.

The 5 Best Remote Job Boards

1. FLEXJOBS FlexJobs has over 50 remote jobs categories, with positions ranging from freelance gigs, to part-time work, to full-time jobs, with remote careers varying from entry-level to executive. The best part? FlexJobs screens their jobs before posting, so you don’t have to dig through any less than reputable opportunities. The site currently hosts more than 20,000 work-at-home and digital nomad job postings.

2. WE WORK REMOTELY With a simple, straightforward layout, this job board is a catch-all of remote, work from home jobs from customer service, to web design, to programming. Living up to their stated goal of ”finding the most qualified people in the most unexpected place,” the We Work Remotely site connects over 130,000 monthly users with telecommuting opportunities. It’s your ticket to remote employment in no time.

3. REMOTE.CO Remote.co hand-curates their list of remote jobs. These listings include customer service positions, design opportunities, developer jobs, recruiter and HR roles, sales jobs, and other remote work (including writers, managers, and marketers). The Remote.co site also has the handy feature of allowing you to search or browse by job type.

4. POWERTOFLY PowerToFly is a dream come true for female job seekers interested in working remotely. PowerToFly focuses on matching women in tech with remote and work-from-home jobs. If you join the site’s talent database, you’ll then go through a vetting process and get matched for a paid trial (a 2-4 week test period) with a potential employer. The site was started by two tech-savvy moms who were dedicate to making other women’s digital nomad dreams a reality, and PowerToFly continues that mission today.

5. JUSTREMOTE.CO I got three solid interviews for positions off this board, so it’s definitely legitimate. It’s especially targeted at web developers, designers, and marketers.

These are just a few of the 25+ best remote job boards that we rounded up in another recent article. Told you remote work was the future, didn’t I?

Sometimes, Though, a Remote Job Means You Need More Skills

Truth be told, a lot of remote jobs are in the world of tech. That makes sense, right? If you’re building digital platforms and brands, you should believe that technology can do anything, including help teams work from any and everywhere. If you’re interested in a new career that’s more flexible, building up some tech skills might be exactly what you need. Take a look at our programs on topics like WordPress and User Experience or sign up for our 10-day bootcamp to learn some HTML & CSS basics. Who knows? This time next year you might be a web developer, fielding emails from Brazil.

from Web Developers World https://skillcrush.com/2018/11/07/what-is-remote-work/

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