Has Google's Security Gone Too Far?

Last Updated: September 17, 2015

Surprise, surprise: Google is making life more difficult for local business owners and online advertisers. This time, the problems have to do with Google’s new security measures, which have become markedly stricter in the last year. While tightening security is a good idea in theory, it’s been extremely problematic in execution, as it has created quite a mess for the many business owners who share access to their Google My Business accounts with their advertisers.
Here’s what you need to know about Google’s security pain points so you can avoid being locked out of your account and keep your advertising on track.

Claiming Your Listing Is a Pain

If you are the owner of your Google My Business listing, then you don’t have to worry about trying to claim it. You can easily make your online advertiser the manager of your listing. However, many Google My Business accounts are created by a hired SEO company or online advertiser; when you stop working with that company, they abandon your listing without giving you back ownership. That company still technically owns your listing, but now you don’t have access to it because you don’t know the log-in information.
Trying to claim these types of listings has always been challenging, but Google has made it even more difficult recently. When you (or a new advertiser) try to claim your listing, Google will first contact the current owner of that page. However, since the current owner is your former SEO company that no longer cares about your business, it’s unlikely to respond to Google’s request. Your listing will be stuck in limbo for at least 1-2 weeks while Google waits for a response from the owner. If there’s no response after a few weeks, Google will give you the option to claim your listing yourself by phone or e-mail—but this will only work if you have a corporate e-mail domain. If this doesn’t work, you may have to create an entirely new listing from scratch and start over.

Solution

You can avoid these delays by requesting your Google My Business account information as soon as you stop working with an online advertising provider. You may also want to consider creating an e-mail address on your company’s website domain.

Good Luck Logging In to Your Own Account

“But if I know my username and password, shouldn’t I be in the clear?” Technically, yes. However, you may still run into problems logging in if you don’t regularly visit your account. Google takes any significant absence (we haven’t pinpointed the exact time period yet, but it seems to be at least several months) as a sign that your account has been compromised. As a result, Google will grill you with hyper-specific security questions to make sure it’s really you signing in. This may also happen if you forget your password or try logging in from a new device or physical location.
Some of these questions include:

On what date did you create this account?
What other Google apps and products do you use?
What is the date when you first started using these products?

In many cases, Google may also ask you for your mobile phone number so it can text a PIN to you, which you will then have to verify manually. Of course, because the vast majority of users won’t be able to recall the exact day and month that they created their accounts, the authentication process can get complicated and frustrating very quickly.

Solution

Be sure to log in to your Google My Business account on a regular basis (at least once per month). Not only will this prevent Google from thinking your account’s been compromised, but it will also help you remember your username and password. You can also turn off your two-step authentication process (which is an optional user setting) so that you aren’t prompted to verify your account every time you sign in from a new device or location.

Your Advertising Could Take a Hit

When Google’s security measures present these kinds of problems, your advertising efforts will suffer greatly. If you’ve hired an online advertiser, they won’t be able to claim your listing and, therefore, won’t be able to optimize your local search performance. Not only will they not be able to do their job, but they could potentially get blocked from your listing altogether if they try accessing it without the proper credentials. Even if you’re performing your own advertising, you won’t be able to do much if you can’t log in to your own account.
Here’s the bottom line: If you can’t log in to Google, you can’t manage your listing. If you can’t manage your listing, you can’t keep it updated to ensure it matches all of your other online content. If your Google listing doesn’t match your online content, your local search performance will take a serious hit.

Why Organic Search Will Always Be Vital

Last Updated: September 10, 2015

As you’re well aware, your website can get traffic from countless channels. Social media, paid advertising, and e-mail campaigns all contribute to your site traffic. But did you know that organic results (mainly from Google) remain the most significant source of traffic? This is according to a recent Search Engine Land article by Kristine Schachinger. Titled, “4 Reasons Organic Search Is Better,” the article explains why there’s no match for the long-term effectiveness of organic, SEO-based advertising.
Schachinger supports all of the article’s claims with data from a 2014 report by BrightEdge, which declares organic search “the clear champion” of website traffic. Accounting for 51% of total site traffic, “organic is simply better for delivering relevant traffic.” However, in addition to being the highest-performing traffic generator in terms of raw numbers, there are a few other reasons organic search is still the most viable resource for site visits:

You have more control over your organic presence. When you rely on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to drive your traffic, your success is based on the whims of their platforms—which are completely unpredictable. For instance, Facebook is notorious for limiting the organic reach of business pages, thus forcing businesses to pay for their posts to be seen by their followers.
With organic traffic, you have more long-term security. With sources like social media, e-mail referrals, and paid ads, your traffic will go away as soon as you stop investing in them. (This is especially true for paid ads.) But once you’ve created a secure, organic presence, it takes a significant period of negligence to create a major deficit in traffic.
Visitors who arrive to your site via organic search are more likely to become long-term customers because they sought you out. As Schachinger explains,

“Matching keywords to user intent means you may be present in many searches. The user may find you consistently, and once they get to your site, they are more likely to stay. Organic users are still your best long-term customers. In my experience, they have lower bounce rates and more pages visited, and they are more likely to return.”

This isn’t to say that the other traffic sources aren’t valuable. While organic search results will drive the majority of your traffic, the best way to approach advertising is to capitalize on all possible sources. The synergistic effect of multiple traffic generators is the key to long-lasting performance.
Be sure to read Kristine Schachinger’s full article over on Search Engine Land.

Take a Behind-the-Scenes Look at Prospect Genius

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

When you hear us talk about SEO and lead generation, do you feel like Charlie Brown listening to his teacher go, “Wah wah-wah wah wah”? If you’re not someone who specializes in online advertising, it’s perfectly understandable to feel confused—and, frankly, a little bored—about what it is we do. However, it’s important to know a little bit about what goes on behind the scenes so you can appreciate exactly how our services are benefiting your web presence.
Here’s what you need to know.

We Amplify Your Existing Presence

There’s a good chance that you had already set up a Google My Business or Facebook account before joining our program. If that’s the case, you may be misled into thinking that any leads coming from Google or Facebook are a result of your existing presence instead of our work. It’s a logical assumption, but it’s incorrect.
Instead, local search optimization functions as a multifaceted machine, with a series of gears, levers, and wheels all working together to create the final output. The phone call or e-mail inquiry that came from your Google listing is actually a product of the search optimization machine. Your company information ranked well in Google’s local search results, thus leading the customer to contact you thanks to all of the behind-the-scenes work we did.
For proof, take a look at two examples of clients whose Google traffic skyrocketed after signing up with Prospect Genius.
Company A:

Company B:

As you can see, after signing up with us, these two clients saw huge increases in their views and clicks. That’s due to all the work we’re doing for your campaign. But what does that work entail, exactly?

We Build the Machine

Prospect Genius’s job is to design and build the local search optimization machine that powers your campaign. That means making sure each individual part works perfectly in addition to fitting all of those parts together seamlessly.

Here are the four main parts:

Google listing
On-page SEO
Citations
Inbound links and social signals

Google Listing

Local search rankings improve when your Google listing is thoroughly optimized and populated with lots of customer reviews. That’s why Prospect Genius optimizes every client’s listing and provides a handful of tools to help you increase your number of reviews.

On-Page SEO

To appeal to Google’s search algorithms, all of your website’s pages must be optimized. You must have valuable content that’s targeted at specific search terms and is generally informative. All of our LeadTrax™ sites are written and designed for on-page SEO to further boost your company’s rankings.

Citations

Citations refer to all of the instances in which your business name appears alongside your contact information (e.g. address and phone number), and they must be consistently accurate. Citations most often come from online directories and Internet yellow pages, but they may also occur in newspapers, magazines, local blogs, and social media posts. Many of Prospect Genius’s packages add your business info to numerous directories, ensuring accuracy across the board and driving up your citation score.

Inbound Links and Social Signals

Inbound links are links that exist on another website and link to a page on your website. They indicate that your page contains valuable information. Along the same lines, social signals are data points that tell Google how appealing your website is on a human level. If lots of people are sharing links to your website on social media, and your company’s social media account has lots of “Likes” or followers, then those valuable social signals will boost your local search ranking. That’s why Prospect Genius sets you up with Facebook and Twitter accounts (if you don’t already have them) and promotes you on social media.

It’s All About Synergy

Did you make it to the end of this post without your eyes glazing over? Good! Hopefully, you now have a much deeper understanding of what drives your campaign and keeps it successful.
With your cooperation, we’re able to create a uniform front to fortify your company’s online presence. We achieve substantial, organic results by creating a well-oiled machine that runs flawlessly. While your Google listing is significant, you can’t give all of the credit to a single cog.
As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions you may have.
Photo credit: Linda Buquet, localsearchforum.com

Do You Have a Plan for Handling Missed Calls?

Last Updated: August 19, 2015

As a small business owner, you can’t possibly answer the phone every time it rings, especially if you’re on a much-deserved vacation from work. But that’s no excuse for missing all of those incoming leads. The number of sales you close is directly proportional to the number of calls you answer, but for those times when you just can’t get to your phone, you must at least have a working backup plan. Otherwise, you’ll never even have a chance to get those leads back.
Here are some things you can do to make sure missed leads don’t tank your business.

Have a Professional Voice Mail System

When answering your phone isn’t in the cards, having a proper voice mail system will allow prospects to leave a detailed message and enable you to follow up with those leads as soon as you can.
Set up a professional greeting: The first step is to set up a professional voice mail greeting. Whether you’re frequently out on the job and can’t pick up your phone or you’re going on an extended vacation, you must record a detailed greeting so prospective customers know that they’re calling a legitimate business. Include your company name, an explanation and/or apology for not answering the phone, and assurance that you’ll return their call ASAP.
Keep your inbox empty: If your inbox is full of old voice mail messages, new callers won’t be able to leave a message. If they can’t leave a message, they’ll immediately find another local business to call. To avoid this problem, delete new messages as soon as you’ve returned the call or logged the contact info. If you’re consistent with this, you won’t have to worry about your inbox filling up ever again.

Note: A few business owners who use pay-per-call services might strategically keep their inboxes full as a way to avoid getting charged when they don’t answer the phone. However, doing this prevents all incoming leads from leaving voice mails. The amount of business you lose by doing this outweighs any pay-per-call charges you’re saving. (If you’re dead-set on avoiding pay-per-call charges, you may want to consider adding another phone line dedicated exclusively to this purpose. Ask Prospect Genius about how to do this.)

Leverage the Convenience of Technology

Because it’s 2015, you can always count on technology to pull through. There are several different ways you can use technology to keep track of missed calls without much effort. The most popular options involve receiving text and e-mail notifications on your mobile phone whenever your business misses a call or receives a voice mail. This way, when you’re out on the job and miss a call, you’ll be able to follow up right away instead of waiting until you’re back at the office. Your chances of closing a sale are much greater if you can catch that prospect before they find another business to hire.
While we do not endorse any particular company, we know that RingCentral offers great message alert and notification services tailored to small businesses. You can also ask Prospect Genius to set this up for you.

Use a Professional Answering Service

While falling back on voice mail or text alerts is cheap, it also incurs a significant risk that those prospects will find another business or service provider before you get the chance to call them back. That’s why many business owners hire professional answering services.

Answering services are much less expensive than in-house receptionists.
Operating from a remote office, they can answer the phone and deliver messages to you 24/7.
They’re professionally trained for customer service and interacting on the phone, making them especially useful if that’s not your strong suit.
To make sure they get all the relevant information from your leads, you can even give them a script of which questions to ask.
An answering service is also a useful way to screen out marketing calls so you never even have to deal with them.

Again, we do not endorse any particular company, but we know that some of our clients successfully use AnswerConnect as their answering service, so that might be a good place to start.

But Really: Pick Up Your Phone

One of the things that all successful businesses do is answer their phones when prospects call. As we’ve covered before, missed calls mean missed customers, even if you do have a backup voice mail or answering service. Signing up for a missed call notification service shouldn’t be Plan A. Forward calls to your mobile phone, set up an advanced package with multiple lines, reroute calls to ring multiple phones… Do whatever it takes to connect with a lead. That’s the only truly effective way to create new business.

With PPC Ads, Users Prefer a No-Brainer

Last Updated: August 13, 2015

Are your PPC ads making users think too much?

In a recent article for Search Engine Land titled, “PPC Ads Not Performing? Reduce Cognitive Load,” Andrew Goodman describes what user-experience experts say is an often overlooked performance factor for PPC. In a nutshell, cognitive load refers to the “amount of mental processing power” required to use a website. Applying this principle to PPC ads, Goodman explains that reducing the cognitive load of your ads will make it easier for users to process your ads and, thus, click on them.
What does “reducing cognitive load” mean in practical terms? Basically, you want to make clicking on your ad a no-brainer. Don’t make the user think. Draw a straight line from their search query to your landing page. Use an explicit and specific call to action. Most importantly, make your ad as simple to read as possible. That means minimizing the number of characters and using white space strategically. Overcrowding an ad with too many words and ideas will increase the ad’s cognitive load, which will distract the user and push them away.
For specific examples of effective vs. ineffective ads, read Goodman’s full article.

Prospect Genius

Has Google's Security Gone Too Far?

Claiming Your Listing Is a Pain

Solution

Good Luck Logging In to Your Own Account

Solution

Your Advertising Could Take a Hit

Do You Have a Plan for Handling Missed Calls?

Have a Professional Voice Mail System

Leverage the Convenience of Technology

Use a Professional Answering Service

But Really: Pick Up Your Phone

With PPC Ads, Users Prefer a No-Brainer

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