Meredith's Husband: 0:33

Hey, this is Meredith's husband. I've got some SEO advice for you, but I'm going to keep it really simple, so that you can understand it, so it makes sense, and most importantly, so you can actually use it. I was gonna talk this week about blogging, and then I mentioned, I mentioned this last week, we're gonna talk about blogging and some strategies. Something very timely has happened. Oh dear,

Meredith: 1:06

oh goodness.

Meredith's Husband: 1:07

Oh wow, Barbie. I think it's worth, I think it's worth coming going ahead of the blog. We'll do the blogging next week. That's fine. That'll that'll that'll be a three part series. Did

Meredith: 1:16

you hear what I asked about Barbie? Yeah, yeah. We're

Meredith's Husband: 1:18

not talking about Barbie. Okay, we'll talk about Barbie next. I'm not, we'll talk about Barbie the end of this episode. How about, oh, okay, sure, so I got an email from Google this week, really? Yeah, Google emails me a lot like personal emails. Interesting. No, I'm just kidding. It's just, it was just a generic newsletter email, but it's talking about new policies for Google business profiles, okay, which I thought is kind of important, because a lot of people, myself included, have been dealing with suspensions from Google business profiles. What else? Get suspended? Wait,

Meredith: 1:51

wait, wait, wait, is this? Is this, is this the thing when you people leave reviews for you, that's your Google profile. Yes.

Meredith's Husband: 2:00

Okay, yeah. Now what happens, to be clear, what happens when your account, not all the time, but, but this is what I've been experiencing at least a handful of times with with so far this year, again, myself included, the account gets suspended. Your Google business profile account gets suspended. Now that doesn't mean it disappears entirely. It's still active online. Penalized, yeah, you can't log in and make any changes. You can't make any changes to it. And typically, what will happen is you will experience a big reduction in the amount of times that your business is displayed online, it can have a very significant impact, yeah, on your business visibility, and then your leads coming in. And this is happening. Like I said, I've noticed this a handful of times with myself and some some students and some colleagues. So there has been, at least, it seems, in my opinion, some increased activity in Google, suspending business profiles.

Meredith: 2:57

And may I ask, what's up with that?

Meredith's Husband: 3:00

Yeah, you can. What's up with that? In my experience, it usually means that they have a lot of times you can I think they're making mistake, because usually what happens is, you resolve it. They never, they never tell you why it was suspended. They will resolve it a bit of bullshit. Yeah, and nothing changes. Like they you don't have to, like they're not requiring you to redo something. It's just reinstated. Which leads me to think that you guys, you guys being Google suspended. It inappropriately, if it's now being reinstated, and I didn't change anything, what was wrong? And they won't tell you what was wrong with it? Oh,

Meredith: 3:42

that's helpful. What do you need to do to get back to reinstated? Well,

Meredith's Husband: 3:46

the solution, there's a couple solutions, and the reason I wanted to do this is because they have a new contact form. Now, I had a student who was dealing with this very early in the year, in, like, January, February, and it was extremely difficult to get any support. Like, literally, the only way she could get any response from Google is because she was dealing with some other person at Google in relation to like ads or something. And she brought up, hey, I'm having this problem. Can you help me with it? And she said, I will forward it on to someone, and then it got resolved. Now, since then, they have released a couple links, and I'll put them both below where you can flat out contact Google support for this, and if your account is suspended, where you can apply for it to be reinstated. The two different lengths I'll put both of them below.

Meredith: 4:37

Were there any reasons

Meredith's Husband: 4:39

given? No In my case. In my case, I think it had to do with my business. Married, his husband, somebody flagged that as not being a reasonable business name. But most of the time. I think it has to do with addresses, your address, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. Okay, in a second. Okay, it's a second. Two seconds, two seconds. So one solution is to use these forms. If you use these forms to contact Google, they say the expected time to resolve the issue is two weeks now, in my experience, it's been longer than that, but it has been resolved. It is eventually resolved, okay? And I think it seems to me like they are making moves to improve their response time too. Number one, just have a place in contact with somebody

Meredith: 5:31

to go to contact them. That'd be nice. They.

Meredith's Husband: 5:33

Didn't have that. Why? Six months ago? I don't know. They don't, they don't let me inside the building. And that's fair. So that's, that's one solution that is, I think, the the best that is the first course of action. That's what you got to do. It's not the greatest solution to have to have done nothing wrong and then have to wait two weeks. Yeah,

Meredith: 5:53

my guilty conscience would just be rattling. Yeah,

Meredith's Husband: 5:58

so that's one option. Now, before you do that, I would say it would be wise to double check the, you know, the guidelines, the best practices, make sure you're not blatantly breaking any rules. But again, I haven't seen that happen.

Meredith: 6:11

What's really not happening? My question would be, where do you see these guidelines? I'll link to those both. You're gonna link the guidelines. You're gonna link to the contacting the people. I

Meredith's Husband: 6:21

will say I think that that a lot of times this was like I said, it revolves around the address. So sometimes you have a physical address in your Google business profile, which I have recommended, it is the best way to improve your visibility, because and the reason for this, and Google won't. They do not come out and say this. They say, if you are a a business such as yourself, and you go to photograph at the client's locations, then you should have a service area. And they say, that's that's legitimate. It's not going to hurt your visibility. That's the official Google line. Now the problem is that a lot of times people search using Google Maps. They search for local businesses lose using the local maps. So they can look yeah, so they can look to see your location with a pin right on the map, right? Okay. Now, if you have a yeah, if you have a service area, however, there is no pin, you don't have an address, so you're not going to appear in those searches. So that's why I say, if at all possible, have a physical address. Now, it's when you have a physical address and you're trying to fake it that I think it can flag attention from Google, because people have tried to spam the system using this method in the past. Now, the things to make sure you're avoiding, yeah, don't use a post office box. Don't use a PO Box number. That is, that is a blatant violation that will get you suspended.

Meredith: 7:42

Now, what about there? There was, I was walking down Fourth Avenue, and it was they offered PO boxes, but they weren't PO boxes. They were actual addresses. So

Meredith's Husband: 7:55

the guidelines, and this is, you know, you talk to three different people, you get three different opinions on this. But the Google guidelines says, Google guidelines you need to have, if you have a business address, somebody needs to be at that business address representing your business during your business hours, which is typically during business hours. Now to me to interpret that, like, if you have a co working space, a co working office, yeah, you need there needs to be somebody there available to, like, say, collect packages, to greet people if they walk in during business hours, or during your business hours. The problem with a co working space is that you don't have a specific address, you don't have a mailbox number, you don't have a suite number, you just have an address.

Meredith: 8:46

You don't have like office number three.

Meredith's Husband: 8:48

If you have office number three, that's great, but if you're just the if you're using the address of the building, and it's where you have co working space. There's 50 or 100 or 200 or 30 other businesses that have that same address. You can't do that. You got to have a sweet number. So if you're,

Meredith: 9:04

does the number have to be pretty

Meredith's Husband: 9:07

sweet? That was good. So if you're, if you, if you're in that sort of situation, you got to work out something with your landlord, it's that whoever is renting you the space, they have to give you a suite number, a special number that's just yours, and nobody else's right. Reading the guidelines from Google to me, that's legitimate. Now, what about another option? Exactly? What about the option you just mentioned? Like a place that rents out mailboxes? Yeah? Now they that's what you did for a number of years, and it was, yeah,

Meredith: 9:36

yeah, because I was box number, like, We're seven two,

Meredith's Husband: 9:40

right? And if, if you do that, I would say, now, don't use Box Number. Use sweet.

Meredith: 9:45

I just use number. I just use numbers. That's fine too.

Meredith's Husband: 9:48

That's fine too. But again, there's got to be somebody there during business hours to represent your business. IE, to me, that's that sounds like to receive packages. If somebody walks in and says, I want to speak with Meredith Zenner photography, they can, I don't know, maybe have your cell phone number or something like that. That is, that's kind of more borderline, but that, even that is still legitimate to me as I interpret Google's guidelines, yeah, the things that are not going to work. If you are just a if you have a co working space, like I said, you don't have a mailbox or suite number. There's no number associated. You just kind of work at a big table. Yeah, that's probably not going to work. And what if you work at a Starbucks, and that's that's definitely not going to work, you need an excuse. I mean, if you work. Get a Starbucks, great, but that's not where you're having your mail, sense, right, right? If you work out of your home, which you do, yeah? My I go everywhere. Yeah, you do go everywhere, but you have a a place that you could make an argument you work out of. If people wanted to come speak with you, they could come to your address. You know, people don't come in. You don't photograph them in your location, but that's where you are. That's where you do your work, that's where you create your products, that's where you ship from. If somebody wants to talk to you, that's where you are. Yes, to me, that's that's legitimate. Like, if somebody is looking for a children's or family photographer and they live just down the street from us, yeah, it would be great for them to see on the map. Oh, hey, this person is super local, right up the street, right? So that's, that's my argument. I feel that is totally legitimate. If your account is suspended, and that's the situation that you're in, I would reach out to Google. This is what I would do, and that's it. How do you know that you're suspended? Does it? Oh, yeah, yeah. You'll, you'll go, you just, well, first, if you go to try to log into your Google business profile, it'll say your account has been suspended. I believe that they also will send you an email and say, Hey, your account has been suspended. But if that's the situation, use one of the forms. Use the and just be honest with them. Say, Hey, I work out of my home. Like this is, this is my place of business. I, you know, you know, lots of people have businesses out of their home. Hello,

Meredith: 11:58

post covid or still into covid, but what was the letter that you received? The

Meredith's Husband: 12:04

email to receive that that said I was suspended. I just got an email said, my account has been suspended. Oh, when it was reinstated, I just got an email said had been reinstated. There was no explanation either way.

Meredith: 12:19

Yeah, I thought you said at the beginning of this podcast that Google just made an announcement, oh,

Meredith's Husband: 12:24

they sent me an email and they said, Hey, we have a whole bunch of new security guidelines and help center. Oh, and checking out the Help Center is when I, I mean, I knew that these options had become available, but now it is. It is a it's a pretty solid option, okay, if, like, it's a nice it's a nice Help Center. I haven't had to use it yet, yet, but it seems I really jinxed myself. You

Meredith: 12:53

did it okay?

Meredith's Husband: 12:55

So if this happens, number one, don't freak out.

Meredith: 13:00

Oh boy,

Meredith's Husband: 13:01

don't freak out. Freak out. Yeah, don't freak out. You're gonna want to freak out.

Meredith: 13:04

It's not don't freak out.

Meredith's Husband: 13:06

This is happening. It's not uncommon, not the end of this podcast. Remember, I have never seen an account be suspended and not be reinstated.

Meredith: 13:16

What the What is up with the Google? What are they doing? Why are they? Why they making,

Meredith's Husband: 13:20

well, people, yeah, people have tried to abuse this system.

Meredith: 13:24

Of course, they have a lot, of course,

Meredith's Husband: 13:27

yeah. And so Google is fighting against that, and they're, you know, perhaps a little overzealous in their efforts,

Meredith: 13:36

wow. Speaking of my friend, he loved the fact that Meredith's husband was probably one of the worst things to choose if you're promoting

Meredith's Husband: 13:45

SEO, yeah, as an SEO name, as a name for SEO, Meredith's husband is an awful choice. It is awful. It is terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. I always say in my consulting life, I say I'm going to give you the SEO perspective. I'm going to tell you what's ideal for SEO. If there are business decisions that outweigh the SEO elements, you need to go with the business decisions. Those are ultimately more important than SEO considerations. So I chose Meredith's husband, which

Meredith: 14:18

I think is a great idea. It makes everybody laugh. Yes, hey, thank you so much for listening. We really hope that you find this helpful and useful, and if you do what you could do for us as a thanks would be to drumroll please, yes. Leave a review. Yes, everybody says that. I know, but it really does make a difference. Take three seconds, leave as many stars. Say something really nice about what you like, about the podcast, and maybe why other people would like it. It would mean the world to us, especially my husband, that better. All right, I'm gonna try one where I'm not gonna be charming. You.