Get your space found with organic search — faster
Securing a top position in search engine results significantly impacts on your coworking space's lead flow and overall success. Odds are you're already engaged in digital marketing, whether that’s with your own team or with the help of an outside consultant. Either way, it's crucial to assess whether you are utilizing every available channel to their maximum potential.
Of course, you want your listing to rank as highly on the search engine results page (SERP) as possible. Even if you're not personally managing your digital marketing efforts, understanding the tactical goals is essential for effective strategizing and communication with your team. Local Search Marketing is just one part of your overall digital marketing strategy that is important to understand, and here are our best tips to maximize this channel.
Local Search Marketing
What exactly are we referring to with ‘local search’? We’re talking about how your business appears to people that are searching specifically for results that are local to them: not simple searches for ‘office space’ or ‘mailbox rental’, but instead for ‘office space near me’ or ‘mailbox rentals nearby’. These are the search results populated by Google Business, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp, and other business profiles.
These profiles, also known as local profiles, are an essential touchpoint of your online presence. Most individuals searching for the services your coworking space offers are looking locally, and so it’s likely their first exposure to your business will be from a local profile. Much like a website or even your physical building, first impressions matter! Ensuring that your local profiles are impeccable is crucial as they navigate a sea of competitors.
For the sake of this article, we will focus on Google Business profiles for examples. However, keep in mind that these best practices are widely applicable to local profiles on all platforms!
Maximizing Your Business Profiles
The key to success is consistent activity! Search engines prioritize local profiles that are relevant to a given search prompt and provide timely information. You did a great job with the initial setup of your local profiles by filling in accurate business info and well-staged photos, but how long ago was that?
Search engines have no way of knowing if information provided several months or even years ago is still accurate, even if nothing has changed with your business. Optimize your profile around this core idea of providing relevant, timely information.
Before we dive into specifics, also note that despite our recommendations here, many factors that determine your local search ranking will be outside of your control. For example, distance/proximity is heavily weighted – you will have a tough time ranking ahead of a competitor with half your number of reviews and photos if that competitor is also half the distance as you from whomever is searching. Local optimization is our way of overcoming those odds, but you won’t win every time.
With that, here are our best practices for local profile management:
Reviews
Quantity, quality, and consistency. More reviews with high ratings at a frequent pace!
Soliciting new reviews is critical to your profiles ranking. Locations with higher quantities of reviews and superior average ratings tend to receive better rankings, no surprises there. Less considered, though, is your frequency of reviews. Your 100+ reviews and average 4.9-star rating on Google looks great, but if it’s been more than a month since your last new review then you may be leaving room for competitors to catch up.
Be sure to respond to every review you receive, positive or negative. Show appreciation for their business or understanding of their difficulties. Specifically mention whichever services they joined your coworking space for, as search engines will use the content of reviews to assess your relevance for search queries. Above all else, avoid templated or automated review replies – not only will your members appreciate a handcrafted message, but prospects viewing your profile will notice the effort and authenticity put in. This is a crucial area to differentiate yourself from competitors that may be using generic, impersonal form responses.
If you're unsure about how to garner more reviews, try scheduling your requests for a fixed time after a member joins, or sending out a weekly or monthly communique to all your members reminding them. Include convenient links to take them directly to your business profiles review section. You'll be surprised to find that many people are more than willing to share their experiences and leave reviews! Frequent reminders and direct links reduce the friction and distractions that keep them from leaving their testimonial.
Still having a tough time and need to dig deeper? Consider offering incentives like gift cards, discounts on facility rentals, free coffee, and so on. Don’t hesitate to solicit reviews from one-time visitors as well, even if they just came in for a half-day in one of your meeting rooms.
Your Goals:
One new review per month is a realistic goal for most. Two or more per month is ideal!
Promptly respond to every review with a personalized message. Avoid templated auto-replies.
Be tenacious, make it simple, and offer incentives to improve your review frequency.
Photos & Videos
High-quality photos are often a difference maker between someone booking a tour or not. As mentioned previously, your photos should be updated frequently to demonstrate timeliness both to profile viewers and search engines.
Have you had professional photos taken of your coworking space since you opened? Even if your original photos are high-quality and still accurately represent the space, you should consider replacing photos that are potentially years old. Take it a step further and commission an interactive virtual tour of your space. Google profiles can natively panoramic 360° walkthroughs of a business’ interior via Street View. Matterport is another popular solution for virtual tours.
Since your opening, have you added photos that demonstrate the space in use? Events you've hosted or members willing to show off their space are great ways to generate new, interesting content.
Consider the power of user-generated content as well. Encourage your members to upload their own photos of the space to your business profiles or attach them to their reviews! Member-provided photos are massively beneficial for your search engine ranking as they provide an outside validation of your business. For prospects viewing your profile, they may appreciate more ‘authentic’, un-staged views into the space.
This all applies to video content as well. Whether shot by a professional videographer or a simple walkthrough with your phone’s camera, videos showing the space in motion are great for user experience and can help with your ranking.
Your Goals:
Regularly update your official photography. Avoid letting photos get ‘stale’.
Consider adding a panoramic virtual tour and a video tour.
Add photos of the space in use.
Photos from members and visitors are powerful – encourage them to upload and attach to their reviews.
In Part 2 of this article, we’ll dive into the more keyphrase-focused aspects of your business profiles, as well as how you should track your results and success. Click here to read Part 2!
You’ve taken the steps to improve your local web presence with these free, accessible resources. If you’re trying to get more national visibility for your location, consider listing your address with iPostal1.com!
Follow iWorkSpaceMail
