Ron Collins is taking us on a journey in this new episode to show how to extend your GMB Proximity.
Proximity as Ranking Factor
Ron: Hello, everyone, this is Ron Collins from Blue Lacy SEO. And today I’m going to talk about how to extend your proximity in your Google Business Profile using Google Maps SEO. Now one of the biggest ranking factors for your Google Business Profile, which used to be called Google My Business, is how far away the searcher is from your business location; that is called proximity. And according to white spark, the proximity of your address to the point of search is a number 3 ranking factor for the Google local pack. So stay tuned, and I’ll show you how.
You can extend your proximity by creating custom maps with driving directions. This is also called pen drops. So let’s dive in and I’ll show you how it’s done.
Creating Custom Maps
Ron: First, you need to be logged into your Google account. And I’m logged into a client’s Google account and you can see I’ve already created some maps here. And I’m going to be creating some more so I’m going to show you the process. So you need to go to Google My Maps, I’ll leave a link in the description, this is where I am. This is a URL and is Google by maps and I’m going to create a new map.
So what I’m going to do is first title the map, okay. I’m going to put the name of the company and since I’ve created some maps already, I’m going to label these; I think this is a seventh map.
And you are also going to enter a description here. So this is an opportunity to add in the name of the company, the address, the phone number, what we call the NAP. And put in a description, maybe 2 or 300 words of description describing your services, you can even put your hours down exactly what you have in your Google Business Profile. Right now I have a description already in a notepad so I’m going to copy all this description and put it in here where it says description, okay. And I’m going to go ahead and save that.
So now we can get started here, we can title this layer if we want. And I’ll just put the name of the company. And next we’re going to make some driving directions so go over here where it says ‘Add directions’. Okay, so we’re going to have driving directions from a location that we choose to the business address. So A is going to be the location that we choose. And we’re trying to get something farther away from the business location where they’re not ranking quite as well as we’re trying to extend our proximity. So what I like to do, I’m going to go over to the client’s website where I created a location page. And I have this in El Paso so I have listed all the neighborhoods recognized by Google. And what I’m going to do is choose one of these neighborhoods so I can make sure I hit all the neighborhoods in this study and choose the location and each one of those neighborhoods and as outlined the neighborhood that I chose. So I’m going to zoom in here and look for landmarks here, you could choose any street, any address that you want. What I like to do is try to use some landmarks so here’s a park called Thomas Manor Park. I’m going to choose that one by clicking on it and it gives me the address over here. So I’m going to copy that address and copy it to the clipboard. I’m going to go back over here and put in A paste that addresses it, okay. Then I’m going to go and put in the address of the company right here, I’m going to copy that, put it in B. Okay, now, you may get something that says I couldn’t find the route and you may get this if, if you copy this, and it says USA at the end. Now if you delete that part for some reason, then it finds it and sets up the driving directions from point A, zooming in from point A to point B, okay.
Custom Driving Directions
Ron: So that’s one driving direction. Now you can add many different driving directions. And in one of these maps, what I like to do is no more than 2 or 3, I usually do about 2, just so it’s not so confusing with all these driving directions all over the map here, all over the city. And this looks confusing so I just do like 2 per map so I’m going to add another layer, okay. Click on driving directions and then I’m going to go back to my Google Maps.
Well, first I’m going to get a, I’m in the wrong place here. I’m going to get another neighborhood. The next one on the list is over here so I’m going to choose that one, okay. Mesquite Hills and I’m going to look for it, now we have Musky Bush Park. Let’s choose this one right here, okay. And it doesn’t have an actual address list and so look over this one, Honey Mosquito Park. Okay, this one has an address. We’re going to copy that to the clipboard and I’m going to go back, we’re here. And then I’m going to add that enter the address for A, okay. Then I’m going to get the address, the business, and the copy that put that in B.
And I’m just going to press Enter. So now we have 2 directions, driving directions. Okay, so we have from A to B from here, and then another one from A to B, this is where the location of the business addresses. So we have completely different directions from different parts of the town, okay. So, next thing we’re going to do, we want to embed this map xo we can use it on a WordPress site. You can use it in web 2.O’s wherever you want. I’m using our location page xo you click the 3 dots up here, and you go embed on my site. Now you’re going to get an error that says this map is not public. Click the Share button to allow others to view it. So the first thing you gotta do is click on this Share button right up here. So I’m going to choose anyone with this link who can view, let others search for and find this in a map on the internet and all I have to do is close it. Okay, now it’s shared. So now we can come up here and click on embed on my site. So this is the HTML code to embed it on your site, it’s in what works call an iframe. So I’m going to copy that and I’m going to put it in a notepad file. I’m going to label this crystal. And this will be number 7 and I’m going to paste it in here, okay. Now you see the default is 640 pixels by 480, the width and the height, and I found out on my website that what I’m using is a little bit too big. So I’ve, I’m going to change this to 400 by 300. So you can play around with this to get the size that you want, maybe you want a bigger map, maybe want a smaller map.
Iframe Embedding
Ron: I’m going to save this, and I’m going to copy this iframe, okay. Then I’m going to go over to where I’m working on the driving directions to the, to the business location. And this in WordPress, I’m using Elementor as my page builder. If you’re using a different page builder this may be a little bit different. I’m going to have 3 containers and I’m going to search for a widget, HTML widget, which I’m going to use this one, I’m going to drag that over here. And this is where I’m going to enter the HTML code, paste that in there. And then now you can see the driving directions, okay and then I can update it.
So I got two different directions for this map. Okay, so now I’m going to just show you how this works a little bit. Let me hide that and then see this little icon over here, I’m going to click that. And it brings out the name that if I scroll down, I can see the description. And here’s the directions from the addresses, okay. And then we can close that you can share this, I can share this on social media or you can actually embed it. And if you want to see a larger map, you can click on it and it will open in a new screen and you can see the actual directions, you can zoom in on it to see the actual directions.
Now this is made more for Google for ranking than it is for users but users could use this also. Now that’s basically how you do this, you can, you can add as many maps as you want. I’m going to add as many maps as I have on neighborhoods for the city I’m trying to rank for. So I’m going to end up probably with about maybe 40 different neighborhoods that I have in here. So I’m going to have driving directions for all of those addresses that I choose to make sure I’m getting all those neighborhoods and trying to extend the reach for this company from where their location actually is.
So that’s the basic steps that you want to go through. You remember that you’re trying to extend the proximity of your Google Business Profile ranking so you want to create driving directions that are farther away from your location to extend your reach. You can create ones closer but you really want to concentrate on ones farther away.
So I hope this helps you to create your own Google by maps. Everybody be blessed and I’ll see you in the next video.
See the full episode here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjH45khPZyg
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