The internet moves fast. Searchers aren’t reading every word of your meta description - they’re skimming the page, looking for something to catch their eye.
The searcher is looking for a solution to their problem - and Google is trying really hard to give them one. That’s why Google will put a blue checkmark on some local pack results. The algorithm is saying “Hey, I’m pretty sure this site has what you’re looking for!”
That blue checkmark can boost your lead conversion rate significantly. So how do you get one?
The blue checkmark Google shows is called a “justification;” ie, “Here’s why we think this website is a good result for you.”
Google will also sometimes show relevant customer reviews in this spot with certain words highlighted. Almost always, this comes in the form of a customer saying the business did a good job handling the specific query that the searcher asked.
Relevant justifications can massively improve your click-through rate!
Think about it - you’ve got one of the most powerful, widely-used companies in the world sorting through all the potential options to find exactly what your potential customer is looking for. Then Google highlights the exact reason your business is a good option.
Anyone trusting Google enough to use the search engine is going to be swayed, at least a little, by Google’s justifications.
But how do you get these justifications to show up on your profile? What about customer reviews?
And is this really any different than what we were doing before?
Getting justifications is the easy part - you simply need to fill out the services section of your Google Business Profile.
Google will suggest services based on the categories you’ve marked for your business, and you should make sure that any relevant ones are checked. This is the database from which Google will draw justifications.
If you offer services that aren’t already in Google, you can add customized ones!
Pre-made services have more SEO value than custom ones, so use the preexisting services where you can. Adding custom services will still help you, though! They just won’t help you as much as pre-made services.
Be as thorough as you can. “Online payments” may not seem much like a service, but for someone who’s tired of having to mail a check to the facility they’re currently using, it matters!
Google’s justifications are a great vote of confidence in your business–but customer reviews are even better.
Google’s algorithm reads all the reviews left by your customers, and it will pull out relevant text to show searchers. That means if you have customers talking about your in-unit alarms, those reviews will be highlighted for a searcher who wants in-unit alarms.
It’s hard to imagine a better marketing pitch than that.
Imagine someone is looking specifically for a storage facility with climate control and packing supplies - and Google finds them a review that says, “Great climate-control facility, cheap packing supplies.”
It’s exactly what you would want that searcher to see, and you’ve got Google’s algorithm to do it for you.
This only works, though, if your reviewers talk about your services. How do you make that happen?
The same way you get Google reviews for your business at all - you ask!
Obviously, there’s a good time to ask and a bad time to ask. Use your judgment, and teach your managers to use their judgment before you start spamming out text messages asking people to leave reviews specifically mentioning the services they used.
This sort of ask goes over best when you’ve had a good interaction with a customer - maybe after you’ve signed them up for your military discount and passed the plate of cookies around.
“Hey, if you get a chance, could you leave us a Google review?”
Then, if the response is positive, follow up with “Make sure to mention which services you used!”
If you have a great relationship with a few particular tenants, you can tell them specifically what Google is looking for. Don’t tell them exactly what to say, but you can let them in on the process and trust them to help you out.
Or you can go with a simpler request of asking them to be specific! That’s easy to add to the conversation, and hopefully, that’ll catch some service terms too.
If customers are only searching for “storage units near me,” then there wouldn’t be many terms or services to target, right?
Search (and SEO in general) is a tricky business. While the single most popular search term in self storage is, in fact, “storage units near me,” that keyword doesn’t have the majority of searches.
Over 70% of searches are for long-tail keywords. These are specific phrases, usually long ones, that won’t show up in keyword research because not many people are typing that exact phrase.
For example, I might be the only person in the world searching for “mexican restaurants in cedar bluff with spicy salsa but not too hot knoxville tn.”
Luckily for Mexico Lindo (right down the street from us!), they don’t have to include that exact long-tail keyword on their website. Google understands most of what I’m asking for, and understands that Mexico Lindo is probably a good option.
In fact, Google will pull out the terms I used and find reviews that match!
The algorithm knows I’m interested in salsa, spicy, and Cedar Bluff, even if it doesn’t have an exact understanding of the question.
Specific reviews help Google (and other search engines) give me what I’m looking for.
The same goes for any long-tail keywords you can think of related to storage. People type long, meandering questions into Google all the time. People use voice search on their phones a lot too - and these queries tend to be longer and more sentence-like.
The more detailed your reviews are, the more ammunition Google has to answer these longer search terms.
And the best part is, Google will use all the incredible power of the internet to give these reviews to the people they’re most likely to convince to rent a storage unit.
Make the most out of your self storage marketing with these:
StoragePug is a modern marketing company for self storage. We create intelligent marketing websites that allow you to rent units & take payments through your facilities' website.
