Google Analytics

By: Dan Bagby, BDX Content Manager

Google My Business was launched as a way to manage your Google listing and Google + profile. Find out what it means to homebuilders and how to take full advantage of the new Google listings portal.

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Since Google Maps was created, it has confused business owners and marketing professional alike with several portals to add and edit business listings. Claiming and verifying locations multiple times became the norm as Google released new ways to claim you page causing business details and reviews to disappear. With Google My Business, it seems these issues have been resolved. The portal combines all remaining services such as Google + and Google Places, allowing business owners to claim their locations one time and control their business listing, Google + profile, YouTube channel, and see insights from one dashboard.

There are several benefits to using Google My Business. First, by completing a profile for your sales center, community, or other location, builders can be found in the 7 Pack on the Google Search results. This is a section of the Google result page dedicated to local businesses usually showing 7 businesses.

Google2This also allows customers to rate and interact with the builder. With a few reviews, stars begin to appear below the listing, giving companies even more attention in the search result pages on Google. These listing can also help customers find the new home communities they are looking for on Google Maps, eliminating the frustration that comes when destinations do not appear on smartphones or other device used to get directions.

How to get the most out of Google My Business

  1. Claim your listing

The first step is to verify your listing. Go to Google My Business and search for your location. You will either need to claim an existing business or create a new listing. You will then be prompted to verify by receiving a verification code by postcard or phone call.

New communities will likely need to be sent a postcard to verify ownership. You can receive it at a sales office onsite, a construction trailer or a model home. If you have additional sales offices away from the community, claim those pages as well.

  1. Complete your profile

Once you have requested the verification code, you can start completing your business listing. From the dashboard, click edit where you will be taken to the Business Info page. Fill out this page including business hours, description, and add photos.

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  1. Continue to stay active

Once Google My Business is set up, continue to manage the Google + page. Post from the same dashboard to share pictures, blog articles, news and updates about your new homes and communities. Check back to view the insights that show number of impressions, clicks, and how people are interacting with you on Google +. Use the reviews section to reply to negative reviews and thank your raving fans. If you have videos, load them on YouTube and connect your channel to this page.

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  1. Link to your profile

Once your listing is complete, add a link to your Google + page from your website. If you have multiple locations, link to them from a location specific page on your site such as the contact us, driving directions, or community pages.

  1. Create citations

A citation is any site online that has a company’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) such as Yahoo, Yelp, YellowPages and SuperPages. By claiming listings around the web you create citation that will increase your rank within local search results. Claim the listing for all your new home communities using the exact NAP as the business info in your Google My Business page. To get a list of important sites to claim you can use Moz Local. Search a business name to receive a list of missing, incomplete, inconsistent, and duplicate listings to create or correct.

Taking these steps will increase local visibility and give home builders more control of their look and reputation. If you have any questions about local online marketing or reputation management services for builders contact us at info@thebdx.com.

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

Problem: you’ve created your website, blog and social media and have implemented search engine optimization, but you don’t know how to effectively measure your return on investment (ROI). Solution: Google Analytics. Yes, the answer really is that simple. Google Analytics is a free, easy to use tool offered by Google that allows you to filter your traffic to see the true impact of your efforts.

Once you’ve created an account, your Google Analytics report will show you graphs of your daily visits, average time on site, bounce rate, the geographical areas your visitors are from and more. Furthermore, Google Analytics recently launched social reporting which means you can now see the referrals to your website from social media, conversations on your social media sites, how your content is being shared socially and more. Both of these reports allow you to analyze your traffic to determine what your home buyers are actually looking at and looking for.

By becoming better educated about how home buyers are interacting with you on all of your online platforms, your company will be able to adjust or make changes to your plan to meet unforeseen needs and to continue to increase what is working. These tools essentially make you a smarter provider because you’ll know what your audience wants and how to get that to them.

For example, in 2008, we had a Florida home builder who needed to cut their marketing budget. And, even though they cut their budget by 85 percent over the next three years, traffic to their website tripled thanks to the information we gained from Google Analytics. Now that’s what we call a good ROI!

If you’re company wants to increase your ROI or if you’d like a walkthrough of what your Google Analytics report is trying to tell you, contact Marketing RELEVANCE.

Carol Flammer is managing partner of Marketing RELEVANCE, LLC, a Marketing, Communication, Interactive agency with offices in Atlanta and Chicago.