How Local SEO and Google+ Can Make the Difference for Financial Advisors
In a way, Local SEO has been underestimated when it comes to increase the brand awareness of businesses on a determinate location, but with some work you can create an effective Google Business Profile that will increase the traffic to your company’s site. A profile on Google Business will work as a small website on its own and you would be able to add photos, videos and interact with potential customers easily. The benefits of Google Business Profiles hadn’t been fully appreciated yet. Today there are not too many professionals offering their service through this platform and therefore they don’t get to enjoy any of the benefits it can offer to their businesses.
As for Google+, it may not be the biggest social network in terms of users (yet), but having a Google+ Business Profile might help you to drive traffic to your business when someone googles about financial advisors services. Actually, according to studies by Stone Temple, compared to closed platforms like Facebook, interactions on Google+ posts will help you rank better on search engines for the general public, because Google will evaluate better these interactions to find out what users like, mixing very effectively online social behavior and search habits.
To see the potential of Google+ and Google Business Profile keep in mind that Google is today one of the most powerful companies on the world and there’s no arguing when you say Google runs 2.0 world and it’s safe to assume that Google would give priority to their own platforms on search engines, hence these profiles are one of the most incredible opportunities to improve the online presence of your business. Besides getting better SEO rankings on your website, you can get these benefits if you use Google + for your business.
Web Reviews Are the Best Referrals These Days
A lot of people are not happy with the idea of directly referring other people and while this process may work for some companies, there might be another alternative.
Having a profile on Google Rankings or Google+ will allow your clients to leave reviews about your service and it could be much more effective than taking an approach that may feel similar to the traditional sales pitch. Consider that potential customers probably won’t feel comfortable when you offer them a service that they don’t need at the moment, that’s why this could be a more effective alternative, because they will have access to web reviews that previous clients left before at the moment the really need your financial advisor services. These interactions are important for businesses because of a psychological phenomenon called Social Proof and you need to be extra careful about it because it might have a huge influence on the way your audience and potential customers think of you as a professional.
Also, these reviews could be helpful for testimonials. While testimonials and similar materials are not allowed on platforms like LinkedIn but, given that you can’t edit or delete any of the reviews you get on Google, they can be used here because it’s still a grey area for regulators (so you need to be cautioned) and once you make a reference to a review, it becomes a testimonial.