Synup Office Hour #3 - 26. März 2024

(00:05) Good morning everyone! This is office our number #3. First of all thanks everyone for the great feedback that you have sent our way I see a lot more people starting to attend i' we received a lot of feedback by emails and calls for topics to cover there are certain topics we will cover during these sessions but there are certain topics  related to competitors and others that we would rather cover with you on your team one-on-one so we'll be sending out   questionnaires and information

(00:43) about it real soon  there was another thing that I was discussing with the team is the possibility of us  doing  live audit sessions with you guys so that we can help you audit your client website  along with the GBP profiles and your local search efforts that way we can help you come up with a strategy or a template that you can apply to the rest of your customers that said let's jump right into it okay industry updates so I was reading through this study a while ago that was done by Joan  from Sterling

(01:27) Sky sometime last year they were trying to see if there is a correlation between review recency and their ranking looks like it still works  we ran a few tests ourselves to see if you acquire reviews on a consistent basis  do they impact the ranking and visibility in local searches so that seems to be working  we will running more tests over the next few weeks to verify the outcome and share the reports with you guys  internally and  before that, there were several studies made where

(02:15) where it was  noticed that customers usually tend to ignore reviews that are more than 3 months old  so you might have a great review that was like six months old or a year old and does not make your business good or bad but customers tend to filter through and find out the latest reviews to understand the current experience of your new customers before they decide to do a business with you sorry so it's a good idea I think to get a few reviews on a regular basis  when especially when you're still on the top

(02:55) of your customer's minds when they are still fresh rather than  sending out a review request two weeks or a month later asking them for a review I think that should be something that you factor in when you are talking to your customers especially agencies who are handling  other businesses maybe create a process for them to send over a spreadsheet or a CSV file or create a section in your Google Drive document or your  AWS bucket for them to drop in a file every few days that you can use  to upload to the Synup dashboard and

(03:44) send out solicitation requests one thing that has worked very well personally  is when I was talking to people in the automotive industry I Consulting with people in the healthcare industry they started to ask asking for reviews while their customers were still at the clinic or still at the store just after the service because  people at the point of sales or service are best equipped to gauge  the personality of the customer or if they are happy or unhappy with the service and that's the best time to ask

(04:21) for honestly  we will send out more details about it later today some  we have been working on some collaterals that you can use  ideas that you can Implement and if you have further questions just let us know after that okay now let's go to the bad part of  search right we all know there were there were a tremendous amount of Heil in local searches  especially due to the  helpful content update and the core algorithm updates that are still ongoing  handful content updates went through I think they might do some

(05:03) tweaks later on but what we have learned so far is  March four updates are still going on it's still active there's a lot of changes in search there search and its results are in a constant state of flux it's extremely volatile I can see key ranking going up and down for several customers  every old day the Reddit still works well for certain topics but not as much as it used to like to 3 weeks ago  Google also updated this spam guidelines  we will be sharing a link  after this call but there are three

(05:50) things that they addressed through the spam updates recently  one was to address  expired domain abuse where a lot of businesses say large websites or medium-sized websites would buy expired domains and  create really crappy content or just redirect them to their existing domain to see if they can utilize the Domain Authority or domain ranking of those domains okay Google will strictly ignore those R you're not going to get any benefit U and the worst case scenarios you might get hit by spam updates or manual spam

(06:34) updates  the spam updates addressed  scale large-scale content abuse as well  there were a lot of  people in the industry who have been talking about how you can generate a thousand pieces of articles in a single day and update them automatically on your  CMS that's definitely not the way to go okay very predictable patterns  they can be identified easily, especially with search console and analytics in place and  Google will come out  heavily on these sites and basically kick them into Oblivion  there's another abuse that

(07:28) was going to that was site reputation of dat or as some call it  parasite SEO okay so basically what you what people used to do started doing is they would they would get paid placements on high Authority websites and create like listicles to run for random keywords  they were primarily being misused by people in in the affiliate marketing industry and I'm sure there are certain SEO's who are in the local space or typical in the search business have been utilized have been utilizing it so that is being curved to a large

(08:18) extent  I think some of these high Authority websites for even want to get rid of those types of content, especially the promotional ones  but I do see linking coming up a lot in terms of listicles and other pieces of content so if you can create something unique it might help but paying somebody to host your piece of content that is not going to give you qualified traffic don't believe it's a good idea okay another pattern that we have noticed after the helpful content update  went through was  Google's propensity to reward

(09:06) people who are adding unique elements and perspectives to their content that nobody else is talking about  especially when you're using a content outline or content briefer optimisation or surf analysis tools like say Surfer SEO or content Harmony or clear scope for that matter  and creating  based on what is already ranking you might get to a certain extent  there but solely having Pages  based on what is already ranking well may not help you rank better what you can try doing is  add elements to it that are interactive

(09:51) add elements to it that show your expertise on that subject okay? Especially especially if you have content on your website or your client's website that will created solely with the purpose of search engine ranking and with the search engine algos in mind consider either removing them or changing them to something that keeps the user in mind okay if it's helpful to the user keep it if you don't find it useful yourself just remove it we will be sending the developer blog updates and faq links along with the

(10:37) regular deck and notes after this meeting so there is no need to take notes right away so tips for the week  I've been going through a lot of our own  accounts especially large larger accounts where a lot of  customers are being serviced by larger retailers  sorry resellers or agencies and found a few things that  you might be able to do okay Google had launched a great way to Showcase businesses with their showcase videos options and Google my business profiles  need to keep something in mind  Google  the way Google works

(11:26) especially on mobile searches video tends to play automatically on mobile devices due to which you'll get far more traction with your videos than you are going to do with images I'm not saying that images are not important good quality images that are uploaded by you or by your customers  still work okay but videos can get your messages across to your customer  in a short span of time it's 30-second videos can do W okay  just make sure the resolution is a good quality because Google demands them to

(12:01) be at least 720 pixels or higher they should be within 75 MB file size and up to 30 seconds long okay you can create simple videos that showcase your CLI's more prominent products or even Services  you can do short video testimonials from their customers  everyone carries phone around it very easy to get  you can do product snap snapshot videos or short duration time lapses that can show people how they work or somebody making a cake or somebody servicing a car something like that okay they can is a good way of 

(12:49) being on top of the mind and helping convert those prospects into  leads another thing that I've seen a lot of customers still not using properly is the FAQ or the Q&A section on your Google Business profiles  every customer that you deal with they have a certain set of questions that they ask okay especially if you enable business messages or the life chat functionality on your Google Business profiles for your customers you can get a ton of questions those questions if they are fairly frequent in major convert them into Google Q&A yes

(13:32) you can add your own questions into Q&A don't try to keyword optimization optimize them they're not going to help you rank better but it's going to help you answer questions  that prospective buyers are asking or prospective customers are asking okay you can  make a list of them not just add them to your Google business profile or create a dedicated section on your client's website on your own website to add them okay that you get better-qualified leads when they to reach out to you chat function in itself it's a free

(14:14) the tool that you can enable from your Google My Business Profiles dashboard yes signup has direct integration with GBP chat if you reach out to your support or your CS  they will help you  enable them and integrate with your Synup account  I feel chat is a great way of interacting with prospective  clients real-time and converting them to customers  then again as I said before you can always convert the questions are learning from these conversations  to create faq's and Q&As Google profiles and

(14:53) on your website okay  not sure if everybody logs into Google My Business Profile Analytics all the time but if you go there on the overview section you'll see a section called searches breakdown it basically gives you a list of keywords or phrases that customers used to find your business or a business on Google on maps now what can I do with this  there are few things you can do you can create content around them or offers around those keywords or create offers that include some of those keywords 

(15:40) to keep the profile relevant to searches you can create content on your own website or your client's website around those keywords may be a dedicated section for each of those terms or you can even cluster each of those terms if they belong together and create content around it check your website see if you already have content if they are optimized properly for example check the title target they have enough images of the page serves the purpose apart  apart from just being there right okay I think we have a question

(16:28) somewhere okay no no sorry yeah so you can create content around them  you can create Google posts  with some of those TS so that when customers search for your Google business profile and they find your course and it's relevant to the search they there is there high chances of them clicking through it okay High chances of them converting so you can just your Google profile  so let me show you how you can see this is your business this is your profile go to Performance this is how people discovered you and on the right hand

(17:29) inside here we have the searches breakdown keywords people are using to search for the business and find the business okay  but along with it I will suggest that make sure those keywords are actually  added to your rank tracking tool that way if you do create content around it and you do run well in organic as well as local searches there will be a proof for your way for you to prove that it was due to your efforts okay you can use that in your reporting extract the data and share it with your customers or see if it's impacting

(18:15) anyway okay, that said tools for the week so we all know Canva. So canva has been around for quite some time all of the tools there are a few things that you can do with Cana that is not easily that is not usually possible for other tools for example as as I was talking about creating videos  custom or or showcase videos for GBP profiles you can easily go to Canva  and create a deck and convert create a slideshow and create it into convert it into a short video okay but for some people Cana is expensive so the isn't alternative to

(19:08) canva that you can try using is the Microsoft launched a free designer you can access it by going to designer. microsoft.com it has a lot of templates that they're adding every day they the generative AI templates you can create banners you can create Instagram stories or posts Facebook post ads  Dex LinkedIn posts LinkedIn storage there are a bunch of things that you can create using Microsoft create it's free for now  anyone can access it you have a lot of  free templates over here for proposals

(19:46) letters based on locations invoices planners Trappers presentations Etc by using it I found it useful so I thought that I'd share it with you because everyone or speed tools so the second tool of the week that I like this we all we all write a lot of content we create a lot of content some of us use free tools some of us use P tools so I just came across copy.

(20:19) AI outline generator um so that can easily help you create an outline for your blog or article that you're writing about more information you can add more information about it just hitting submit it's a free tool so I doubt I found it useful I generated a couple of blog ideas through it  we do not use AI writers we usually ask people not to write published content that is written 100% by AI because all the changes in search going through I don't know what's going to come off it but not all a content is bad  you can use it to

(21:07) create outlines you can  use it to do research  do you do you will need to fact-check it at some point you can use it to create  promotional elements you can use it to create ad headlines if you're running ads for your customers you can even use it to use collaterals  in guides and checklists that can easily be shared with customers because you won't really be using them for SEO purposes so give it a shot tell me what you need  what you think and I'll share more such tools during our next

(21:51) session so this was kind of a short session because there's not a lot going on in search so I'm open to questions if you have you can send over the questions on the chat directly to me okay can we one of the questions is can we manage Google Business messages on Synup. I think this is this has already been addressed yes we have the functionality all you have to do is just reach out to your  Synup CS support team and we'll turn it on for you or your client yeah there's a short setup process that takes a bit of time but once  once

(22:47) implemented it can work wonders for you awesome and okay I think this is related to the recent year previews that we discussed does it have an impact so the question goes how many reviews on average should my clients be getting every week well is this no hard and fast rule  how many reviews you should be getting okay don't don't just cluster them together like as I said the easiest way to get reviews is to ask for it while the customer is still fresh on your mind or you other the business is still on the fresh on the customer's mind  how many

(23:28) reviews there are no strict numbers but we are working on a small tool that will probably roll out by next week so that it will give you a fair idea of for example if you rated like 3.8 or 3.5 or if you're a customer who's trying to move the need loan renie and needs an idea that how many more they need to get into a 4.5 star or a 4.

(23:52) 2 stars from 3.5 stars that that simple tool will give you an indication as to the number of five-star use like customers need to collect to get to that number okay  it's a free tool it's a free resource that we are creating  we just create the landing page this week and share it with you next week but as I said there's no hard and fast rule as to how many reviews you should be getting on a weekly basis if you're targeting mine with a tool like that then it's good otherwise try and get a few handful

(24:21) on a weekly basis rather than waiting for the end of the month or every two weeks it's always good to have a steady stream of reviews  to keep up with the changes  one more question that we have is whether someone just sent it to me what user gets alerted about those messages by those messages I think I'm assuming yes business yes GBP messages GBP automatically sends out the alert via email whenever you have a new  question or a message on Google Business messages additionally with if you have already added the faqs or

(25:03) Q&As and the message  that you received pertains to all of the one of the EIC things that are already exist in Google  the system will automatically respond and you can see that I will send you an I think I have a screenshot of such a thing I'll send over a screenshot to you how what it looks like that way you'll get a fair idea when talking to your customers all right if you want to ask any follow question we can take that otherwise I can maybe move on to the next question  okay meanwhile one more

(25:47) the question  that's there is you said Reddit is still ranking but not as much as earlier so should it still be tested as a channel I think it's about you can test it depending on what kind of customers you are working with or what kind of business you are if you think your for a B2B segment I would say it makes sense because there are a lot of  tools or platform related discussions that are going on on Reddit and we have had some decent success  by participating in these messages but  it all depends on

(26:29) your code clients if you think they are on Reddit sure definitely go participate if you have the resources  but otherwise I don't think is just don't do it for the sake of doing it  then one more thing you can do with Reddit is basically you can harness the questions use it the way Google uses it in their algorithm they basically have a tie-up with read it few weeks ago as they wanted to train their own  AI models based on the questions and answers that are on Reddit but  but fair warning Reddit is

(27:13) accesses the I think the majority of the content on that platform is BS and  you need to have a strong stomach for it before you venture into it but there are some decent  what should I say conversations going on there that you can participate in interesting fair enough  credit yes as if we think about it in terms of the channel I think there's still a lot to unfold this year from SEO perspective but it still stands as a good  research source as well if you're writing content like one thing we did test out last

(28:02) the year I did test out their ads Reddit ads are bad they don't work. I don't care what everybody says anybody says but especially if you're in the local business don't do it don't waste your money there there the better place you can get far more bank for your buck for on on local Services ads provided by Google then platform diary.

(28:32) P great makes sense  I think the questions are more or less done let's wait for a minute more if anyone has any follow-ups or just something else that you're curious about I think we can wait yeah as I mentioned at the beginning of the call  if you're an agency  and you would like us to do a live audit session with you  you can record it if you want but we won't be sharing the video with El it be a private conversation  that can help you come up with your own checklist and processes  we have I'm more more than willing to

(29:08) do that so drop me a message or send an email to your  success team member um we'll schedule some time with you and your team yeah we'll set out some separate communication for this as well so that  you don't miss out on it and anyway, like we did discuss everything that we have talked about today here will be sent to you all the notes you don't have to take any notes around here and the recording will be available as well I think we don't have any more questions thank you Neil got to learn a lot today

(29:43) so I think we can wrap thanks everyone really appreciates you guys showing a we of me have a lovely rest of the week bye bye yeah thank you.

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