This week's episode of Automation Unplugged we’re bringing you educational content we recorded between February to June 2024 — a series of “5-Minute Marketing” videos all about SEO and how to stay visible online.

Over the course of seven short videos, we unpacked the foundational tenets of search optimization — from claiming your Google Business Profile to earning authority-boosting backlinks to optimizing your on-site content for search engines.

Today’s episode of AU includes the first four videos in the series.

You’ll hear from me as I guide you through several key topics, including:

• How the introduction of AI has impacted search engine optimization and page one rankings.
• The rise of zero-click search results and how to show up in them.
• What EEAT stands for — experience, expertise, authority, and trust — and why Google uses it to rank your content.
• And how to optimize your Google Business Profile and other online directories to increase visibility in local search.

SEE ALSO: AU #308: Executive Streaming and AV Excellence with Jesse Miller

Transcript

Hey there, Ron Callis with One Firefly. Thanks for tuning in.

The online search world and search engine optimization are now forever changed. Thanks in large part to AI. So here at One Firefly, we have created an educational video series just for you to keep you up to date with the latest trends and best practices.

Now it all started back in November 2022 when chatGPT erupted onto the scene. Many of you have played with this tool. Many of you have incorporated this into your business practices or your personal life. This is simply one of about ten thousand different AI tools that are now released across the market and being used by many people.

Now what does that mean? That means jobs are now changed forever because of AI knowledge workers and a lot of repetitive tasks are going to be taken over by AI. Now, what also has changed is content creation.

This is the creation of words, images and videos that are now aided or entirely created by AI, and additionally internet search, with all of these people creating all of this content. Now there's an abundance of that content on the internet. Now that content can be used for good or bad. Let's look at what the CEO of Google has to say.

“I've always thought of AI as the most profound technology, more profound than fire or electricity, or anything that we have done in the past.” So if you think about this content, yes, it can help you grow your business, but also many people out there on the internet are using these tools which makes it harder for you to stand out. So although you're gonna tell me you get the majority of your work through referrals, I actually don't think that's gonna change anytime soon. But what are those referrals doing?

They are checking you out online. They are checking your company. Your services, your solutions, and your brands. Also, those people looking for a job are also online conducting searches.

And of course, being highly visible in search is a great way to grow your brand equity, particularly for all that merger and acquisition activity that currently is at a peak in the CI industry.

Now all of that content is being created by you, your competitors, people across many industries all over planet earth, which means there is now an abundance of this commoditized content on the internet. So the internet that was already growing exponentially now has even more content on it. So what do you do to make your business stand out in the crowd? Well, Google has given us a cheat sheet.

They've actually told us to focus on experience, expertise, authority, and trust, and all of the different elements and strategies to make that visible for your business online that really culminates in business profile work, Google core web vitals, unique and branded content, quality links often called off-site SEO, and directory listings, sometimes called local SEO.

We are going to work on all of this content over this educational series to make sure you're ready.

Now today, we're gonna be talking about page one of Google search. That page is made up of three primary areas.

Red is paid search, green is organic search, and yellow is what is called zero click results.

Now this zero click result area, as you can see here on the right, is being expanded.

So the green area is paying a penalty. It's being reduced. That organic results real estate, there is less of it today in 2024 than there has been in the past. That definitely means that there's gonna have to be additional work put into your website to make sure you're showing up in those locations.

And the red, the paid ad positions, they are about the same. Now this zero click results area, this is the interesting change because there is likely a lot of work that you need to be doing to your online presence to make sure that you are now being placed in this increased real estate. And as of right now, page one results are around 60% zero click search results. So it definitely warrants your attention.

So let's go ahead and look at what makes up the zero click result. First of all is what's called featured snippets. Google is trying to answer the question that they think you are trying to ask in search and they are gathering this information up from the website across the internet.

Next, we're gonna look at what's called PAA.

People also ask. So Google is trying to inform you of the additional questions that you might have if you asked that first question. And they're gathering the answers again from websites across the internet.

Next is the Google My Business Profile This is, of course, where your contact information is. Your business name needs to be here. Your reviews, your service, your solutions, the brands that you offer, but also there's many locations on your profile now to be regularly updating content. That's gonna give it a higher probability of actually showing up when people are doing that search.

Next is what's called the local three pack. This is where Google's gathering information from your Google My Business profile and they're populating it with a Google Map listing and they're delivering three recommended businesses and it makes you wonder what are they looking for when they present those three businesses and is your business today doing all of those right things to be shown? And the answer is there might be some opportunities to improve.

And then lastly, we're gonna look at generative search. This was the homework that I gave you in the last video. This is where Google's AI is crawling the internet and they are ultimately trying to use their large language model to answer the questions that the person is asking and this is changing. It's a moving target. But it appears that they will likely be giving the reference links to where they source their data from. And of course, that's where your customization, optimization of your website's gonna come in because you wanna make sure you're showing up in that location.

Now we are gonna be helping you in the coming videos understand how to optimize your business profile. What does it mean to be managing your directory listings? Why should you be creating question and answer content and where should that be on your website? Of course, including your blog. And how should you be updating and personalizing your brand message and voice on your website so that when those results are being populated in all of these zero click spots, it's ultimately helping your business.

Now in our previous videos, we talked about the acronym EEAT. This is the guidance that Google has given all of us to help us understand how they're going to rank content on the internet as more credible. EEAT stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trust. Today, we're gonna focus on the T, the trust factor, and the role that directory listings play.

Now many of you recognize these logos. We have web mapquest, merchant circle, Facebook, Yelp, Better Business Bureau, foursquare. These are simply a handful of the hundreds of local directory listings that people in your marketplace use to find local service providers.

Now here's an example from Wipliance, if you just simply type the name Wipliance, that's one of our clients out of, they're in multiple markets, but their headquarters are in Seattle. And what you'll notice on that page one result is multiple listings from these directories. There's Houzz, Instagram, Facebook, and Yelp. So you can try this, type this in and you'll see the results for yourself.

Now, Google is looking at these directory listings. In addition to populating them on page one of Google, they're also ranking them as a Google ranking factor. What does that mean? That means that they are looking for certain characteristics in the data in these profiles. And if that data is consistent across the internet, they would deem your business more trustworthy, and that ultimately is gonna help you rank better in Google search. So what exactly does that mean?

That means they're looking at your name, address, phone number, and website. That is the acronym NAPW. They're looking for that to be consistent on all placements online. So let's look at an example of what not to do. So here you're going to see that ABC Home Automation is listed on one directory, and then they are listed as ABC Home Automation LLC. And then on a third, they're listed as ABC Automation, LLC. Now if you look closely, you're also gonna see the address is inconsistent. The phone number is inconsistent. The hours of operation are inconsistent. The URL is inconsistent.

And so perhaps your business has evolved over time. Maybe your name changed. Maybe your address, your phone number, even your website changed. So the fact that it's not consistent, it's innocent.

But the reality is it's harming you online. So you need to go and clean that up. So here's an example of what you want. You want a pristine footprint. Where all of that information is uniform across all directory listings.

In today's video, we're gonna be focused on one tactic within local SEO.

Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website, your content, your listings, and your Google business profile to maximize your visibility to customers and prospects in local search. This is the way to impact the way you show in near me searches on Google.

Your Google business profile is one of the most important tools in local SEO. You could think of this as your business card on Google. It's an online listing environment that's free to all business owners, and it includes information that describes your business to anyone that will be doing search online. By optimizing your Google business profile, this is the way to increase your visibility in local searches.

Now you may be wondering how do I actually go in and make those changes? Well, the first thing you need to do is claim and verify your account. Here's a QR code where we have linked to Google's step by step instructions that will teach you how to claim and verify your Google account so that you can go and make changes. You can edit your profile.

Now one question we get often is how often should I be editing my profile? At a minimum, you should be in your account every month and potentially as often as weekly if your company has services that may be changing or you have events or promotions.

Now the reason we want you updating your Google business profile is that this is a key ranking factor in Google search.

So a ranking factor is one of the many different factors that Google is looking at when they are determining whose information, what business do they present at the top of search? Of course, you want to be driving your business's visibility to the top of search, so you want to stay up to date with your Google business profile.

This is primarily going to impact what's called zero click search results. We've talked about this in our previous video, so I won't go into too much detail. But I am gonna break down the sections of zero click where your Google business profile is gonna populate.

Here, you see a search query and you see the Google business profile is showing up there in this case, to the right of the paid in the organic results on page one of Google.

Additionally, your Google business profile information is gonna feed into what's called the local three pack. This is where Google is making recommendations to the person for a service provider based on the search query and based on the information that's on your profile. They're also using this information for Google Maps.

They're going to present businesses with pins on that map, and that is based on the information that is in your Google business profile.

The information that you want to be updating and to make sure is always up to date is your name, address, phone number, and website. That's the NAPW that we referred to in our previous videos. You want to make sure that's of course consistent across all of your listings. You also wanna have an accurate business description and business categories There's also a section called additional attributes.

The most important one I'll highlight right now is service areas. You likely want to do work with customers or prospects that are in some perimeter or distance from your office. So if that is true, you wanna make sure service areas are populated. Now there are some integrators that will take projects anywhere in the country, and it's less relevant for them.

The information that is important to round out your profile includes making sure any current events, activities, maybe you're doing home shows, or you're doing architectural interior design trainings, any special offers, product offerings, your reviews, you wanna always be soliciting reviews, you also wanna be replying to your reviews. So if you're not doing that, that's something to get on. And then you want to upload question and answer information. As well as regular photos, both of your team, your office, and your projects.

Here's an example of GHT Group if you wanna check out a really nicely built out profile. Here you'll see images, in the photos that have been uploaded, their business information, and they are out there regularly soliciting reviews.

You also can see their company description as well as latest news and blog articles that are being linked to, and their question and answer information.

Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

Resources and links from the interview:

• On the Blog: Why Search Rankings Matter More Than Ever