What Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Google My Business

Do something right now.

Go to Google and search for your name, your business name, or your website. 

Happy with your results?

If not, your next step is to come back here to read how to maximize your Google presence.

What did you find in your search? What images and links came up on your Google search?

When I Google myself there are several pages with my information on it not only from my own links and posts but also other partnerships I’ve created in the past. If I look at the images tab, the news tab, videos tab, my name is all over it. 

This is your goal as a business owner for a few reasons.

Did you know Google is the #1 search engine? So, wouldn’t it be amazing if you came up on Google as an answer to people’s searches? This is what’s called inbound marketing and through SEO (search engine optimization) it’s also free. 

What Every Yoga Teacher Needs to Know About Google

The Benefits of Being Googled (& Found) 

1. You have credibility and recognition from your potential customers and peers, especially if articles from 3rd parties and blogs mention you and come up in the search. This is such a powerful tool because when someone else boasts about you it gets you closer to the know, like and trust factor.
2. You get direct traffic to your website, funnel or social media. You want this traffic coming from an organic source as it is free, easily found and easily clickable. When I’m searching for something on Google, I tend to click on the results to YouTube videos and to blogs for the answer to my question.
3. You build a presence on the web. Now a days, the web is one of the most trusted sources for information and where you can be exposed to thousands of potential customers. This is why you want to make sure to show up on Google not just in the search under your name, but also for things you do. We’ll go over this more below.

Other than the search part of Google, you also want to have a Google Business profile.

You can start this by opening an account on business.Google.com.

You’ll follow the instructions step by step in the prompts to set up a business profile which also helps tremendously with SEO. 

You’ll be found easier and if you ever want to do paid ads on Google, it’s definitely needed. 

What are some ways you can start getting found on Google?

Let’s start with some basic SEO knowledge.

What is SEO & Why Does it Matter? 

It basically means getting your site optimized for visibility and when people search for certain terms. 

According to Moz, a top SEO site:  

“SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.”

Let’s look at all the different aspects of SEO creation and building:

• Clarity: You want to be super clear on what it is your offering so when people look on Google, it’s cohesive and connected. For example, if someone is looking for marriage therapy and you teach yoga therapy there’s no real correlation but it’s not like someone is searching for puppies and your site comes up about wepuppy pose. You want to try to be specific so the quality of visitors is high. 
• Number: You want the most number people visiting your site to get the answers they need to their questions. This is why having good keywords is very important. 
• Frequency: How often are people visiting your site and where is the traffic coming from. For example, if one of your strategies for visibility is having a YouTube channel, you need to make sure people can find your website on your profile or on the description. 

What is Google My Business?

I remember when we had the yellow pages delivered to our door and how useful they were to find businesses. This is the 2021 version of the phone book!

It makes your business findable and at the click of a button too.

This free tool helps you be seen by potential customers and it will help your business show up alongside other businesses, all for free. 

How Google Works for Local Businesses

You want to make sure your business location is set up correctly like I mentioned above and sometimes businesses don’t show up for relevant searches in the area. You want to make sure your tags, keywords and descriptions are accurate, up to date, engaging and easy to understand. 

Google organizes search results based on distance, how relevant it is to the search and it also adds in some AI to make sure your business is the best fit for someone’s search. 

Even if you don’t have a physical location but you work locally, you can still have a Google business page. 

Google will send you a physical postcard to make sure you’re a real business and as a verified business you’ll have much higher likelihood of being found. For example if you’re a yoga teacher in Miami Beach and you’ve set up your Google business correctly, someone searching for that term might have higher chances of finding you! (Now make sure it’s easy to book you!)

Once you have this page set up, please get some reviews!!! People love to give you love if you ask and this will make you more credible and people will hire you more often when you have higher reviews.

Why You Want Google My Business Listing

• Based on Google’s data, 97% of businesses learn more about local companies via Google My Business than anywhere else. 
• 90% of the internet space is taken by Google listings
• 64% of customers have used Google My Business to get contact details from a local business they were searching for.

One of the best things is you’re building trust with customers, being found easier, boosts your appeal and make it your goal to appear in the top of the Google searches. 

Tips How to Make Your Site More Google Friendly

Load time is key. Make sure the site loads quickly (you can check this with an online speed test) so any large images or long to load parts can move you down from the top of Google. 

Also make sure you have good hosting for your site so that it’s stable and secure and consider that most people view their sites from mobile so the site needs to be super duper fast. 

Nowadays with the ease of switching and scrolling, people don’t need a big reason to move away from your site.

Keep them there as long as possible by making sure your site loads quickly and is easy to navigate.

Keywords and Why They Matter

How do you find the best and the right keywords you might be asking?

• Do a search for one of your services and see what comes up. This is a trial and error based search but a good exercise none the less. 
• See what keywords people are using in your industry. 
• Use a site like semrush.com and look at keyword overviews to get an idea of variations and usage.

Now that you’ve created a list of keywords, go and use them on your site! 

Write blog posts, use them on page titles, headings, page content and anywhere else you can write organic, searchable content.

You can also use keywords on your image titles, which is something most people don’t do and is quite simple. 

So for example, an image on my website would be arianne-bizyogi-miami-marketing-1.jpg

Another way to maximize SEO is to create backlinks to your site. This means if you have a blog post or content on the site, make a link that goes to another page on your site and also to ask other people if you can contribute on their blogs with links back to your site. 

As an example, this post I am writing will backlink people to my website in the signature area or when you go check out this latest blog where I talk about How to Make Money as a Wellness Entrepreneur.

There are 2 ways you can do this: 

1. Being a contributor on other sites and sharing content there
2. Creating content on your own site that is keyword rich and that are relevant to the content and services you are providing.

You can do a ton of research on using Google and Google My Business as they want you to have your sites and businesses on their search engine.

The more you post, the more you update your listing, keep it fresh, the higher chances of being found and finally you can learn a ton about your customers too!

The data you’ll be able to access will help you make the necessary tweaks to your website or landing page so that your message and connection or sales strategies are more effective and bring you the results you want.

And always, always, always, consider the customer journey from being found on Google via keywords, organic searches and your business listing as the first exposure they’ll have to you and what that process looks like to book you.