Google Business Delays Up to 3 weeks
Businesses march on this March. More small businesses are needing help verifying Google Business Profiles; still hating the name change from Google My Business. Google Business directly mentioned to us delays of up to 3 weeks.
Clients are also reporting issues with postal mail sweeping the nation from Columbus, Ohio to St Louis, Missouri & beyond. Google relies on the post office to send PIN verifications to businesses. The post office announced service disruptions across 18 states including Ohio!
Many local post offices are open only for limited hours including 9am to 4:30pm now.
“You have to verify your business but in order to verify you have to have bills and customers” this hurts if you are starting a business as Google has suspended more accounts lately and to be verified you essentially already need to have a business running. We have had more clients call lately about suspended accounts as well.
We suspect Google suspended more accounts in light of sweeping Ai changes. Google stated they are able to detect Ai.
We are hiring, careers in content creation, video, and marketing, go to Kowabundant.com/JOBS to apply.
If you or someone you knows has the marketing chops we are looking for then inquire on our website at kowabundant.com/jobs
Kow Abundant wins top honors, winner of 3 major SEO awards. Local Excellence award winner from Upcity.com. Expertise.com named a top SEO agency in Columbus. Also, winner of SocialAppsHQ top 3 Facebook Marketing agencies.
Top Client Questions Of The Month:
Thanks to all the clients and newcomers for these great questions. Watch the Video Newsletter below for more detailed answers. Here they are.
1. Do you help with changing my business name for best SEO?
– Yes, we have helped businesses with great SEO worthy names to beat your competition.
2. Should I hire someone to update my website for SEO?
– Sometimes that work can be tedious so we understand. Having an SEO pro work on your site can help a lot and be worth the investment to get it all correct. Kow Abundant has the ability to expand your SEO with more custom coding work to improve your rankings. Inquire with us to see about how a member of our team can help.
3. If we want to make our site as sharp as possible for SEO what should we do?
– Hire Kow Abundant. From there we can help will all aspects of SEO that you would need. If you have a full website audit then there are many things that can help your SEO so the answer is “It depends”.
– Make sure titles and descriptions are optimized
– Have great User experience on your site. Send it to people to test it and see how it works or what they should see.
– Update images and alt text to make things look their best. SEO images include people and faces and images that match the article or page as well.
– Improve Site loading speed, run tests on GTmetrix and Google page speed insights.
– Clean up your site, if you don’t need it remove it. If it works, then make it even better.
– Add video to your site to max impact.
– So many more!
– Read the Top 99 Things You Shouldn’t Do for SEO
– Read the Top 10 Things You Should Do for SEO
4. What are ways to find the best blog topics?
– Our pro-tip covers this, you can use CHATGPT to get ideas for blogs including the top questions people ask for a topic. Note, the dataset is only current to 2021 and some questions are not allowed.
– You can also use ubersuggest and keyword.io, some tools are paid so be mindful. Another simple option is to search using Google and note the suggested “people also ask” questions listed.
5. Should I put the names of local businesses that I work with in my blogs for better rankings?
– Yes, this is a great way to integrate more local into your blogs. Add local landmarks and even roads to be even more local. Local pictures also help. Tell your story about how you serve the local community such as working in the Short North in Columbus Ohio. We have worked with companies all over Columbus Ohio and our office is located off Fishinger road and Kenny Road right here in Columbus Ohio as an example.
6. Should I add a new side of my business as a new website?
– You want to ask yourself if this is part of your current business? If it is an offshoot that is connected then yes you should have it on your current website. If it is actually a separate business then you might want another website. Generally, adding services should always be part of your existing website. Find a way to incorporate it and look at the top keywords to see how people are searching for your new service as it relates to your current business. If it doesn’t relate or is confusing then consider not adding it.
7. I really like and want to use ChatGPT, it finds keywords for me, can I use this on my website?
– Google has openly stated not to use ChatGPT. Bing and Microsoft just announced a partnership to buy a large share ongoing of the company and to support it. Google is currently releasing its own ChatGPT similar products to compete as well.
– For now, we do not recommend that users use ChatGPT. Although it is possible it could help with your SEO in the short-term, we consider its use a “Black hat SEO technique” we only use tried and true “white-hat SEO techniques”. Due to this, we do not advise our clients to use it to create articles. We have suggested its use however in aiding in the creation of content and generating ideas.
– For use in social, ChatGPT is fine to use if desired as there are no penalties at this time to our knowledge. Just like anything, use in moderation, and don’t abuse its use.
8. How important is the score in site audits? Should we follow that closely?
– Technical SEO is important and the audit scores should be followed but are not the bible.
– Scores on technical SEO and speed tests are guidance and you should always consult with your SEO pro on how to best optimize your website
– Come up with an SEO plan and pick that as your best option to improve your SEO.
9. Is monthly okay to post on a blog?
– Posting monthly is fine as long as you are producing great quality content that your audience enjoys. That is somewhat the strategy that we employ.
– If you can measure your analytics and see how often your audience wants your content that helps.
– There really isn’t any best number of posts, it all depends.
– You want to product quality content and not let that content suffer by the means of production.
– For help with content, contact Kow Abundant.
10. Does rankings change in map pack within a few hours?
– Map pack rankings takes 48 hours generally to update.
– Google itself says the updates can take between 10 minutes to 30 days
– If you are having problems updating your listing contact Kow Abundant
11. Should I leave my default title tag the same for all pages or not?
– We asked Greg Finn from Marketing O Clock Podcast and he says, “much better to have a title than to not have one… best yet is to have a GREAT title for all pages 
”
– It is a good idea to have something in there by default but to have great ones you create for each page, now that’s a horse of a different color.
12. Do you know anything about podcasts? Is there a one streaming service that’s better than another for example, Apple over Spotify? Should we name it something in particular based with SEO?
– YES! We work on podcasts and just celebrated over 150+ episodes of the Thermostat podcast with Jason Barger. We also have helped System of Strength set up their podcast.
We recommend Libsyn for podcasting. There are other like podbean, see here.
Libsyn for example is a distribution platform that sends the podcasts each release to all platforms. I don’t think one is better than the other. If you have a podcast you need it to go everywhere so whoever can listen to it.
The name of the podcast does help if you call it something descriptive that makes sense for what you are doing. Look at the top podcast names for your category on Google and listen to some and go from there. You want to also say your subcategory ideally in there as well.
13. Can you help me unsuspend my Google Business Profile Maps Listing?
– Yes, we help local businesses all the time with Google business suspensions. There was a significant increase in suspensions in the last month that we have noticed.
– We are currently helping a few businesses to unsuspend their listings on Google Maps.
BONUS
How long does it take to unsuspend a listing?
– It depends but often takes about 3-4 weeks to open a case and get approval from Google.
What is the process to unsuspend a GMB listing?
– You will have to take pictures of your location and signage to verify you own the listing. This includes photos of your offices with the name on the door or image outside proving you reside there.
– You might also have to provide utility bills with the business name and address to verify.
– If you have questions or are unsure of what to provide, contact Kow Abundant and we can help.
We are hiring, go to Kowabundant.com/hiring to apply
Check us out on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@kowabundant
If you have any questions or would like this kind of help please contact us at Kowabundant.com/contact
Watch the full video below
SEO NEWS
Thanks Ai, Bing saw the largest relevancy jump in search in two decades. https://searchengineland.com/
GA4 date is around the corner, be ready! https://searchengineland.com/
Linkedin Adds SEO Tools for Articles
https://www.
Google’s SEO advisor John Mueller seems PO’ed at Ai content writing for SEO.
https://www.seroundtable.com/
PRO TIP
Make sure that your Google business listing is accurate. Do not embellish or have inaccurate content on your list. Google has increased suspensions on Business profiles for content abuse in light of Ai content creation tools.
DIGITAL ADS NEWS
Google Ads uses Ai to create headlines and descriptions https://www.
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This Month In Memes
Businesses rightly complain that in order to verify with Google business profiles you need to have an existing business with bills and a storefront as well with customers already in many cases. This is counter often to new businesses that startup and do not have all elements in place but want preorders or new customers to see their location.
Contacting Google support for Google Business profiles has been frustrating. They have a 3 week wait in many cases and when they get to you they are quick to dismiss your case.
Google actually favors images of people and that relate more to the topic you are blogging about. This includes using images of people with faces in the situation or showing the object mentioned. Abstract images that are creative but don’t translate well using Ai with Google often do worse in rankings. 
Many customers have noticed long waits for Google Business support to answer back to their requests. They are severely backlogged coupled with delays at the Post Office for PIN verifications.
Listen to the Thermostat Podcast with all new episodes on work culture and leadership in 2023.
The Thermostat Podcast with Jason Barger. A workplace culture and leadership podcast going 150+ episodes strong
Thanks for reading! Please comment below with any questions.
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