#2 Ranking Factor Google My Business Profile in 2023

We’re talking about getting your business ranked number one on Google My Business, now known as the Google Business Profile. This is part two of a series on the two biggest secrets to ranking your business in 2023. So in the last video, we talked about how the address, the physical location, legitimate physical location, can have a huge impact on your ranking, although it can be very prohibitive for many different types of businesses. This is going to be a very similar video, except we’re going to be talking about your business name. Now, how can you use your business name to get to the top, to get to the number one position? That’s what we’re going to talk about in this video. Now, I’m going to give you warning before we get started here. This is not necessarily fair. It’s not fair the way Google sets this up and lets some people rank and other people’s not rank.

It is getting better. I have noticed over the past year that Google has improved on the fairness of getting yourself ranked using the business name and/or address. But that said, people with a specific business name and a specific address are going to have a huge advantage over everybody else. So this secret that I’m talking about is putting the city name, the major city that you want to rank for, assuming you have a physical location there already. If you want to rank there, then the secret is to add the city name into your business name. But I have a big warning here. Do not, I repeat, do not go straight into your Google account and start making changes to your business name until you watch everything in this video. Watch till the very end, or you could get suspended, you could get blackballed. It would be a very bad thing if you did this wrong.

So pay attention, get your pencil out, get your paper, let’s take some notes. So before I get into the nitty gritty step by step, I want to show you three examples I found on the internet of why this is true and other people doing this to make it work. So let’s look at my screen. The first search I did was for a plumber in Beverly Hills, California. Okay? A lot of times you’ll see people do this in very high-end competitive areas, where if you rank at the top, you are going to make a lot of money, especially with service-based businesses. So you can see. When I type in plumber in Beverly Hills, California, you’re going to see that the top ranking business is Adrian The Plumber, Beverly Hills. Notice he added Beverly Hills to the business name here. Then you’re also going to see Paul’s Plumbing Beverly Hills. And you’re also going to see Metropolitan Plumbing & Water Heating Repair, and then they added Beverly Hills to the end of that.

Now, you’re not going to see this across the board, but I did find some very specific examples. Let’s look at the next one. Now, if you like what you’ve seen so far, I’d like you to subscribe to this channel. I’d also like you to ask any questions down in the comments below. I do get back to you. But let’s get back to the lesson right now.

Now, this is for carpet cleaning, Studio City, California. Another high-end competitive area. So you’re going to see the very top ranking. One Studio City Carpet Cleaners. The next one, Studio City Carpet Cleaning. The next one, Good Guys Carpet Cleaning. Okay, he is not ranking at the top because of the city name, but the other two definitely are. Let’s look at the third example. Now, the very first ranking law firm is called San Diego Injury Law Center. The second one does not have the city name in there, that’s great. The third one, however, Hamparyan Personal Injury Lawyers San Diego.

So I think you’re getting the point here. If you want to rank in a major metropolitan area, it is very beneficial to have the city name as part of your business name. Now, like I said, do not go in there, I repeat, do not go into your Google account and start making changes to the business name. You will get suspended and you will get in trouble. Let me explain to you the correct way to do this. The key here is to make sure that you legally change your business name across the board, not just on Google. So the first step I recommend is getting your legal paperwork taken care of. If you’re an LLC, if you’re an S-corp, if you have a DBA, go get that changed with the Secretary of State.

So you may have to have your attorney do that. You may be able to jump on the website and do it yourself. So for example, if you’re in California, all you need to do is type in California Secretary of State. Now of course, you’ll do this for your own state, the state that you live in, or the state that you run your business in. And if you want to make it even easier, find the phone number and call them and just ask them, “How do I change my business name? How do I edit my business name? Can I do it online? Do I need to submit paperwork? Do I need to have my attorney do it?” Ask them exactly what you need to do for your specific state. So that’s step one. And if you have all the official paperwork and if they can go online and you can see your business and the new business name, then you’re good to go with step one.

Next, I recommend you going over to your Facebook business groups. So you go to business.facebook.com. Now, Facebook is pretty simple. Facebook does not make you jump through any hoops. All you need to do is go in there and make an edit and make sure that, of course, it matches exactly with the change you made with the Secretary of State. Next, I recommend that you change it on your Yelp business account. So log into business.yelp.com. Make the change there. There may be some hoops to jump through. Sometimes Yelp is difficult to work with. Sometimes you need to call our customer support. They actually have pretty good customer support, even if you just have a free Yelp account. So you want to make the change on Yelp, number three.

Now, if you have a listing with the Better Business Bureau, I also recommend you go do it with the Better Business Bureau. So get on bbb.com, get ahold of them if you need to, but you need to officially make your business name change with the Better Business Bureau website as well. Now, after you have it changed with the Secretary of State, after you have it changed with Facebook, after you have it changed with Yelp, after you have it changed with the Better Business Bureau. Now, if you’ve secured all of that and you are sure that everything is officially changed on those four websites, then you can go edit your business account and make the change in Google.

Now, I want to give you a heads up, I want to give you a warning. You still may get suspended after all of that. But when you go in and apply for a reinstatement with Google, you’ll have all the paperwork and you’ll have all the proof that you officially have legally changed your business name to include that city name on the end. And it will take a while, it is a lot of work. But once you do this, you will be good to go.

Now, if you like what you’ve seen here, I’ve got all kinds of stuff like this. If you download my free Google My Business Cheat Sheet, this will give you everything you need, including little links to separate videos where you can go deep on each one of these topics when it comes to ranking number one on Google My Business or the Google Business Profile. So go down in the description below, click on the link and grab your free cheat sheet. Once again, I’m Joe with the Big West Academy and I will see you in the next video.