To improve GBP rankings, do you need to optimize the whole website, or just the page the profile links to?

[AdrianCuevas]

If a site has dedicated pages for every core service and location, does that improve GBP rankings more than just optimizing the one page the profile links to? Looking for how much website work actually moves the needle for GBP rankings, and what's worth doing versus skipping.

 

[ElizabethRule]

Short answer, yes. Optimizing service pages + the GBP landing page will help improve map rankings. A key factor to that is mentioning all your services on the GBP landing page, then linking to dedicated service pages that go deeper into that topic/service.

Check out this article about what should be on a well-optimized GBP landing page: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/google-business-profile-landing-pages/

 

[fisicx]

But....

If you have pages for dozens of zip codes, towns, zones, cites and whatever you can only really point your GBP to one of them.

As @ElizabethRule suggests, the service pages are more important.

However, if those service pages link to posts that show the work you did at each location and these posts are properly categorised you can leap up the organic ranking giving you more online exposure.

As an example, if you mow lawns you have a set of 'recent posts' on the service page showing the houses where you cut the lawn. You have lots of pictures, talk about the fertiliser your used, any scarifying you did, the edge trimming, the location (very important) and so on. Tell a real story. Do this every day you will have a huge corpus of highly indexable content.

 

[mattmcgee]

I think this is industry-dependent.

Example: Google has a ton of engagement signals for restaurants. They generally get a ton of reviews. A ton of driving direction requests, calls, clicks to see the menu and maybe clicks to order online. People spend a lot of time on restaurant GBPs. Plus, Google can track foot traffic. I don't think a restaurant needs a strong website or GBP landing page to rank in the Local Pack (and anecdotally, a lot of the restaurants that rank in my area have lousy web sites).

OTOH, I work exclusively in real estate. (So take my restaurant comments above with a grain of salt.) Average real estate agent does ~10 sales per year, which means they get very few reviews. Most agents drive to their clients, so there's few driving direction requests and no foot traffic to track. There's not much in a real estate agent's GBP to engage with -- no menus, no order online, etc. And what I see in my work is that traditional SEO plays a pretty big role in Local Pack rankings -- both the landing page in the GBP, and the strength of the site overall.