Local SEO Case Study: Sydney Psychology Industry

Google My Business (GMB) is one of the most powerful tools you can use to improve your Local SEO and online visibility.

If you’re a local business, it’s not enough to just claim your GMB listing.

By optimising your listing to appear when consumers in your local area search for products and services online, you can generate free exposure that drives both website traffic and foot traffic.

Take a look at Sydney based clinical psychologist, Dr. Steven Laurent, to see how important it is to optimise your GMB if you want to boost your local SEO results and generate leads through your listing.

Local SEO Case Study: Dr. Steven Laurent

Did you know that businesses with a complete and accurate GMB listing are:

✓  2.7x more likely to be viewed as reputable

✓  Get 7x more clicks

✓  70% more likely to attract in-store visits

✓  Twice as likely to lead to a purchase

By optimising for local SEO, your potential customers will be able to see:

• Your business name
• Your business address
• Your business phone number
• Photos of your business
• Online reviews
• Directions on Google Maps

This makes it easy for people to call, email or visit your brick and mortar store. All without ever having visited your website.

We optimised Dr. Steven Laurent’s GMB through completing his listing in full, perfecting his description, uploading compelling photos, and collecting 5-star Google reviews.

Here’s what happened…

This is how customers found his listing…

This data shows how many people were able to find Dr. Steven Laurent across a 3-month period.

His GMB listing was displayed across 4,174 searches.

This is broken down into 3 categories:

• Direct: Customers who found his listing searching for his business name or address
• Discovery: Customers who found his listing searching for a category, product or service.
• Branded: Customers who found his listing searching for a brand related to his business.

Across a 3-month period, 472 people found Dr. Steven Laurent by searching for his name or address directly, or 11.3% of total searches during that period. Brand name searches help to improve his chance of turning a lead into a sale. People looking for his brand are likely deeper in the sales funnel, with Google research showing branded keywords have over two times higher conversion rates when compared to non-branded terms.

Dr. Steven Laurent also saw 3,553 people finding him by searching for the services he provides, or 85.1% of total searches during that period. Discovery searches represent potential customers who would never have heard of his business without our highly effective local SEO campaign.

A further 149 people, or 3.6% of all searches, found Dr.Steven Laurent through branded search. Branded search gives him the chance to take traffic away from his competitors.

This is what customers searched for to find his listing…

These data reflects the search terms people entered into Google to find Dr. Steven Laurent’s GMB listing.

By optimising his listing to reflect the services and locations he wanted to target, we were able to drive website traffic and foot traffic through local SEO.

Outside of searches for his brand name, we were able to help Dr. Steven Laurent appear for competitive searches like, ‘anger management‘ (365 searches), ‘depression’ (360 searches), and ‘anxiety and depression‘ (82 searches).

When optimised effectively, a GMB listing can be used in the same way as organic SEO, attracting leads through local SEO search terms.

This is where customers viewed his business on Google…

This data shows whether Dr. Steven Laurent’s customers were finding him through a traditional Google search or through a Google Maps search. In total this added up to 4.2 thousand views.

High traffic from Google maps means that people are looking for Dr. Steven Laurent using their mobiles. And with 78% of local mobile searches resulting in either an in-store or online purchase, that’s great for business.

This is how customers interacted with his listing…

This data is broken down into action type, split between:

• Website visits
• Direction requests
• Phone calls

With 118 visits to his website, 37 directions on Google Maps, and 30 phone calls across a 3-month period, we helped Dr. Steven Laurent leverage his GMB listing into real, qualified leads. 

This is where customers requested directions from…

This data displays the locations and number of people who requested directions to Dr. Steven Laurent’s business address.

This valuable information shows that areas where people are actively searching for his services and can be used by Dr. Steven Laurent to target specific areas and postcodes in his future marketing efforts.

This will reduce future marketing spend by concentrating his resources on the locations proven to be driving traffic. In doing so, Dr. Steven Laurent will work towards lowering his marketing costs, improving his conversion rates, and maximising his ROI.

This is how many and how often customers contacted him via phone…

This data shows how many times a customer called Dr. Steven Laurent, broken down by day, across a 3-month period.

The graph shows when customers were reaching out to Dr. Steven Laurent the most, with Wednesday being the most popular time to get in contact, across 30 total phone calls.

This is how many photo views he had…

This data shows how many times Dr. Steven Laurent’s photos were viewed across a 3-month period.

Businesses with photos on their listing receive 42% more direction requests and 35% more click throughs to their website than GMB listings without photos.

By adding photos to his GMB, we were working towards increasing the interactions with his listings and driving qualified traffic to his website.

Is your business making the most of Local SEO yet?

Here are a few stats to show you just how important local search is for Australian businesses.

• According to Google, 46% of all searches have a local intent. That’s almost 1 out of every 2 searches looking for local products and services.
• 50% of people who conducted a local search ended up visiting a physical store within 24 hours.
• 92% of people will choose a business on the first page of local search results.

If you haven’t started optimising your website or GMB for Local SEO, you’re missing out on valuable traffic that can help your business grow.

So, what are you going to do today to put your business in front of ‘ready to buy’ customers tomorrow?