Simple Tips to Get into Google Local 3-pack

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What Is a Local 3-pack?

The Local 3-pack form the top 3 organic listings for local-intent searches. These three listings dominate position zero and are sorted based on the searcher’s location.

Moreover, these listings showcase more insights than organic listings and offer high CTR. The listings showcase the site, location, contact, ratings, business hours, etc. 

This listing pack shows up for 93% of local-intent searches. And so, local businesses must optimize for these outstanding listing positions. 

Read: What Is A Local 3-Pack & Its Benefits?

Let’s understand how to optimize for the Local 3-pack: 

6 Simple Tips to Get into Google Local 3-pack

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1. Claim and Adorn Your Brand’s Google My Business Listing

Google considers your Google My Business listing crucial while drawing data for Local 3-pack results. 

Moreover, your GMB listing defines your brand’s local presence on Google. 

So, the first step to bidding for the top 3 positions is optimizing your GMB profile.

Here are the main parameters: 

• NAP Consistency: Ensure you use your original business name for the GMB profile. And keep the updated address and phone number consistent across the internet. 

• Services/Products: Add your comprehensive list of business offerings here. You can add the main product categories and primary services. Moreover, add sub-services, specialties, and product or service-specific keywords. 

• Description: Use the 750 characters in the description block to define your brand’s USPs. You can highlight years of experience, brands served, team strength, etc. Also, include your brand-specific, product/service-specific, and location-specific keywords. 

• Service Area Business: If you serve on your client’s location, define your business as a ‘service area business.’ You can then add your service locations. It makes your business eligible for searches from these locations. 

• Hours: Mention and regularly update your business hours on your GMB profile. For service area businesses, you can mention your service hours. 

• GMB Reviews: The most crucial entity of your GMB profile remains your GMB reviews. These reviews can make or break your brand reputation. And Google considers your brand’s consumer sentiment crucial for Local 3-pack results. Take a look at the screenshot showing businesses on maps ranked as per the ratings. 

• Images: You must showcase your venue, food images, ambiance, staff, product catalog, etc., using the images feature.
  
  
• Posts: You must utilize the free Posts feature of GMB listing to showcase your offers or events. You must also add the CTA to attract your listing and site engagement. 

2. Attract Valuable Local Citations 

If you wish to rank for the Local 3-pack results, you must build your location authority. And your local citations impact your location authority. 

So, start claiming your business on popular local directories and business review sites.

• Yelp
• Apple Maps
• Foursquare
• Bing Places
• TripAdvisor
• Facebook and LinkedIn 
• Expertise
• Angi
• BBB

Moreover, use this list to find several popular local listing sites in the US. Further, make listings through data aggregators like Express Update and Neustar Localeze.

To grow your industry relevance by listing on niche-specific platforms that are popular in your city/country. For example, when healthcare businesses list in directories like Vitals, it receives credibility and pulls more potential audiences.

You can find a lot of industry-specific US-based business directories online. 

Ensure your listings are comprehensive, consistent, and showcase authentic information. 

Further, it wouldn’t hurt to check your competitor’s mentions using Google Alerts and Mention. You can also take advantage by listing on similar platforms as your competitors. 

You might also leverage citation building as a part of your local SEO services. 

3. Bet On Your GMB Reviews 

Google strives to showcase the most relevant and valuable results for local-intent searches. And the search engine considers GMB reviews as a badge of accreditation from the customers. 

So, a higher number of positive reviews increases your probability of ranking in the local 3-pack.

You must encourage your clients to drop reviews about their experience with your business.

Some ways to grow reviews on your GMB listing include:

• Add your GMB profile barcode to your feedback form. And your customers can scan it to directly write their feedback on your profile while in the store.
• Use automated feedback generation tools like SurveyMonkey and GetFeedback. You can use them as pop-ups, email, or when an action is taken. Here’s an example of a feedback form.

• Add links to your Yelp and GMB listings in your feedback request emails.
• Add incentives (discount offers) for successful feedback submissions. This also boosts repeat sales.
• Appreciate the positive reviews, and you can also mention them in your social media Stories.
• Respond to each of your reviews and manage negative reviews through witty solutions. 89% of consumers appreciate a brand that responds to user reviews. And this may encourage more positive reviews.
• Add feedback request reminders on your site for repeat customers. (Eg. “Tell us about your last dining experience and get a complimentary dish on your next visit”)
• Also, connect with bloggers and influencers to review your brand or its offerings. 

4. Build Unstructured Citations for Your Business

While building your location authority, unstructured citations also add SEO value. 

But, unlike structured citations, you cannot directly list your business for unstructured citations. 

These citations do not have a defined format, and they may share a higher authority. 

Moreover, unstructured citations that link back to your site offer significant SEO value. 

Here are some tips to win valuable unstructured citations for your local business: 

• Connect with local influencers or bloggers who would be interested in reviewing or mentioning your brand. You can find them using keywords in Google or any tool like Buzzsumo by filtering based on niche and locations. 

• Sign up on HARO. Here you can list the categories of your interest. The reporters use this platform to find experts who contribute to their new PR stories. 

So, if you find a relevant PR story, you can send your pitch to the reporter. This is a promising way to attract valuable PR mention (unstructured citation). 

• Next, you must also draw insights into your competitor’s strategies. Use SEMRush or Ahrefs to check which sites are offering backlinks & mentions to your competitors.

You can also pitch the same sites with highly relevant content for citations. 

5. Employ On-page Optimization Efforts

Local 3-pack rankings are a part of local SEO efforts. And your on-page SEO has a say in your local rankings. 

So, here are some crucial on-page efforts that you must make for your business:

• Use Google Keyword Planner and SEMRush to sort the right product-specific and location-specific keywords. And add these to your content. For example, if you’re a fitness trainer in Las Vegas, you can use the following keywords in your content. 

• Analyze your site’s SEO through Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
  
  
• Submit an updated sitemap of your site to Google and Bing webmasters.
• Craft a 55-character Meta Title that invokes curiosity attracts clicks and includes the focus keyword.
  
  
• Add explanatory and keyword-rich Meta Descriptions that grow CTR.
  
  
• Research and include the relevant Schema Markups for your site
  
  
• Update the address and phone number on your site and keep it consistent with your listings.
  
  
• Optimize your site to load faster by compressing images, using asynchronous loading, minifying JS, etc. 

6. Invest in Content Marketing and Social Sharing Efforts

Excellent content marketing efforts can bag backlinks and leads. And these will source you authority and referral traffic. 

The high online authority will also impact your local search rankings. 

So, you must start producing highly-relevant and valuable content for your business. And you must share this content through social media. 

Social media sharing helps you:

• Share your content with a larger audience, and some relevant webmasters might link to your content
• Attract brand mentions and backlinks through exclusive content
• Build engagement and even attract high referral traffic
• Encourage reviews for your business and enhance customer relationships

You can collaborate with social media influencers to win high content reach and reviews. 

SEMrush and Ahrefs allow you to draw top-performing content ideas from your competitors. 

Key Takeaways

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Local 3-pack results win significantly higher clicks and inquiries than other results. And so, here is a recap of some definite tips to build your way to the Local 3-pack positions:

• Establish a well-optimized Google My Business profile with NAP consistency
• List your business across the niche-specific and local business directories
• Implement a rewarding feedback generation strategy and grow positive GMB reviews
• Earn new PR mentions, blogger/influencer reviews, and brand mentions for unstructured citations
• Optimize your Meta Tags, page speed, and other on-page elements for better SEO value
• Produce highly relevant content and use social sharing to win backlinks and authority