Turn your local business profiles in the search results into portals that can deliver customers right from your listings.
Establishing a presence for your local business in Google’s — and Bing’s — search results enables potential customers to learn about your products, services and brand without ever having to click through to a website. It can also help you broadly communicate with your audience, keeping prospects and customers up-to-date with your latest offerings and operational changes, especially as you navigate reopening during the coronavirus pandemic.
A local Knowledge Panel, which Google also refers to as a “Business Profile,” acts as your business’ portal on the search results page. Unlike brand Knowledge Panels, claiming one is relatively straightforward — optimizing it to attract customers, answer questions and support your business’ operations is the real challenge.
What is a local Knowledge Panel?
Local Knowledge Panels are information boxes that Google displays for queries that it interprets as having local intent. They typically contain business information such as hours, location, contact info, reviews, and images; however, the exact details can vary depending on the type of business. You can think of them as business profiles that appear within the search results.
Factors such as relevance, distance and the prominence of the business contribute to its visibility in local search results, although the exact details of Google’s algorithms are top secret. And, it’s not possible to pay for better rankings for your business.
Bing also has local Knowledge Panels that offer a lot of information on a business. You should also claim and update your Bing local business profile, but for the purposes of this guide, we are going to focus largely on Google.
The benefits of having a local Knowledge Panel
“It’s a prime source for leads,” said Mike Blumenthal, director of local search at GatherUp, “In many categories, it’s more important than the homepage of your website . . . in the sense that more leads convert there than almost any place else on the web,” he said, adding that maintaining your business’ website is still extremely important for your local search visibility (more on that below).
Local Knowledge Panels make it easy for users to locate the information they need before they visit a business, and in many cases, can even facilitate their visit: Searchers can read reviews, check in-store product availability, ask questions, call the business, make reservations or appointments, get directions, order food to be delivered and more, right from the local Knowledge Panel.
“Pretty much all of Google’s [My Business] features, I would say, are beneficial to business owners,” said Joy Hawkins, owner and president of Sterling Sky Inc., pointing to features such as Google Posts and the questions and answers section that enhance a business’ ability to communicate with customers in a timely, convenient manner.
The SEO benefits. As is the case with brand Knowledge Panels, local Knowledge Panels provide businesses with more real estate in the search results, which can distinguish you from competitors. They also include links to your site and other features that can be used to attract prospective customers to your services or brick-and-mortar location, which is typically the goal of SEO for most local businesses.
When properly managed, local Knowledge Panels may also add an element of credibility: positive reviews, recent posts and updated hours can signal that a business is reputable to potential customers.
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