Get Found, Stay Live: The Google Business Profile Playbook for Higher Rankings & Avoiding Suspensions with Rachael Doukas

Rachael Doukas, MBA, is the founder of Reinstate Labs, helping business owners reinstate, verify, and optimize their Google Business Profiles so they can get back to growing their business. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. Growth creates complexity, fix broken processes before adding people. 2. Find your Most Valuable Action, identify what creates the most value for customers and each role. 3. Don't hire your way to growth, automate and simplify before adding headcount. Reinstate Labs https://www.reinstatelabs.com/ – Check out Rachael's website to learn more about Google Business Profile services. Sponsors HighLevel https://highlevelfire.com - The ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies. Learn more at HighLevelFire.com https://highlevelfire.com. Shopify https://shopify.com/onfire - Ready to launch your business and start selling before Black Friday? Shopify makes it easy to get up and running fast! Go to Shopify.com/onfire https://shopify.com/onfire to start your free trial. Framer https://www.framer.com/fire - The AI website builder that helps creators, teams and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at Framer.com/fire https://www.framer.com/fire for 30 percent off a Framer Pro annual plan. Rules and Restrictions May Apply.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Boom. Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down how to get found, stay live, the Google Business Profile Playbook for higher rankings and avoiding suspensions. And to drop these vibe bombs, I brought Rachel Ducas into the Fire Studios. Rachel is an MBA and the founder of Re-Andstate Labs, helping business owners reinstate, verify, and optimize their Google Business Profiles so they can get back to growing their business. So, we talk about why Google hits the brakes, recovering the right way, the verification advantage, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Rachel and our sponsors. Ready to launch your business and start selling before Black Friday? Shopify makes

• 0:45Speaker 00

  it easy to get up and running fast. Go to Shopify.com/onfire to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/onfire to hear your first

• 0:59Speaker 00

  If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting, all on one platform, plus award-winning 24/7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Rachel, say what's up to Fire Nation, and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Hello, Fire Nation, and thank you so much for having me, John. Yeah, to answer your question, I mean, I don't think you have to hustle nonstop to succeed. A lot of some of my ideas that I come up with for my business come to me when I'm just taking a walk, or I'm out in nature, or just slowing down, or resting a bit. So, I feel like that's a little bit different. Sometimes people are very into the hustle culture, but I think you do need to hustle a bit, but you can also take some time to rest.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Fire Nation, rest, relax, breathe, meditate, gratitude, journaling. There's a reason why top entrepreneurs do these things on a consistent basis. And today, we're talking about getting found, staying live, the Google Business Profile Playbook for higher rankings, and of course, avoiding suspensions. So, I want to talk about why, Rachel, why Google hits the brakes. I mean, Google Business Profile suspensions, they can happen without warning, and of course, they're terrifying when they do. And getting reinstated, it's not always easy. So, what are the biggest reasons that Google seems to suspend business profiles? And what can our listeners do to avoid finding themselves in that situation?

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Sure. Yes. So, Google has a set of guidelines, and they're not always clear. So, sometimes I have business owners come to me, and they read the guidelines on Google's site, and it's just not very clear what they're doing wrong. Some of the common issues that I've seen is keyword stuffing. So, for example, if you have a company, and the legal name of the company is called Joe's Plumbing, keyword stuffing would be something like Joe's Plumbing, San Antonio, 24/7, emergency repair. So, I'm basically putting in keywords

• 3:21Speaker 01

  to get Google to rank my profile higher in search engines. So, this is like a tactic that some people use. It's not the right thing to do. Google is very into like, high-quality Google Business Profile listings, so they really want you to use your legal name. So, that could definitely cause a suspension. Another big thing that I've seen is just inconsistencies online. So, if you have a Google Business Profile, and let's just say your hours on there are listed nine to five, but your Yelp account says that you're open 24 hours, your Apple Maps says that you're open eight to four, there's just so much inconsistencies

• 4:04Speaker 01

  out there that you could get suspended for that. A lot of times, they consider that deceptive content. So, when people hear that, they kind of freak out, and they say, what did I do? What did I do that was deceptive? But it could be something as simple as just inconsistent information. So, to avoid that, I highly recommend checking out all of like, the directory sites that you're listed on. Big ones are Yelp, Apple Maps, even LinkedIn is now big, and Facebook. Just all of the same information is really key. Service areas, that's another one where I see people go wrong. So, if you have a business, the main point of a Google

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Business Profile is to serve your community locally. So, I should not be putting, you know, that I serve the entire state. I have to put like, different cities that I cater to. So, if you're putting in like, if, let's just say you're, let's say you're a plumber, right? And you want to rank really well in like, a tri-state area, because you have other people that can go out and do the business for you, they don't want to see that. They don't want to see multiple states. They don't want to see an entire state. They want to see, basically, the area where you're legally like, located. So, if you have an actual storefront,

• 5:32Speaker 01

  or if you have business documents that say a specific city, and then a two-hour driving time from that area is what you can put on. And they only would like you to put on about 20 service areas. They don't want you to go over that. This is very important. And I sometimes see people putting in so many different places that are just so far away, and that can cause a suspension as well. So, those are big things. I mean, I've seen everything. I've seen like, even if you, on your Google Business Profile, if you're putting like, in your description, something like, "Call us today," and then you're putting

• 6:12Speaker 01

  your phone number. They don't like that. They don't like you putting any kind of contact information. They want the user to be able to just hit the call button. They don't need to see it in a description. They don't like anything about promotions. So, like, in your business description on your Google Profile, you shouldn't say anything like, "Everything is on sale, 50% off." It should just be a very basic description of your business.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Now, that's a lot of stuff right there. And Fire Nation, I hope you were taking notes. And the great thing is you do have that rewind 30-second button. You need to go back and kind of figure some things out. And of course, the ones that apply to you, I mean, what are you waiting for? I mean, these are things that you can be doing soon, today, tomorrow, to make sure that you're not going to get to the next part, which is having to recover. Because, let's just talk about recovering the right way. If our profile does get suspended. So, of course, we don't want it to happen, but things happen. You know, Google makes mistakes. You might have done something incorrect. It gets flagged. What's the proper roadmap, Rachel, for getting reinstated quickly? And what do you see as common mistakes that make the process even longer and more difficult? And I actually have a little story that I want to share at the end of this.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Oh, sure. Okay, great. Yeah. Well, one big thing is, don't rush and make a new profile. That is something that you should not do. The main thing is to figure out why you got suspended. I know that can be very difficult sometimes, because they don't give a lot of context. But what we usually do is, we audit a profile. We first look at the business name. So, we have our clients send us at least two legal documents for their business. It could be company formation document. It could be a DBA document, certificate of insurance, tax certificate, anything that says the actual business name. So, we compare that. That's step one. We also look at the business category. We want to make sure that

• 8:08Speaker 01

  the category that you're listing makes sense for your business. Sometimes, people are listing

• 8:15Speaker 01

  categories that really do not apply to their business, and they may not have that service on their website. So, it does create confusion. The business description is something that I tell people to take a look at as well. You want to make sure that it sounds authentic. Again, no contact information in that description, phone number, email. Don't stuff keywords in there. Just make it very natural. Explain what you do. And don't make it sound spammy or any kind of promotion should not be in there. The phone number is another big thing.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  So, if I have, let's just say I have multiple businesses. I have an accounting firm and a landscaping service. If I'm using the same phone number on two businesses, that can also cause a suspension. So, you want to keep everything separate. Then, we get into just making sure that consistency is online. So, we check out, you know, we'll do a Google search on you. We'll check out your Yelp, check out Apple Maps, social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, just making sure the name is correct there, the address is correct, your hours,

• 9:37Speaker 01

  the domain, everything has to be very, very consistent. The hours are a big thing. Another thing about hours is, if you do not operate 24 hours, I don't recommend putting that on the profile, because that can even cause a suspension. So, it has to be realistic. If it's an emergency type of service, that's understandable. But, you know, if you're just doing it because if you have the 24 hours, you're going to rank better, I would not recommend doing it, because you just never know when you could get suspended. Google is always crawling information online. And so, if they see those inconsistencies, or if they see something like that, that may not be relevant to you, to your type of industry

• 10:20Speaker 01

  24 hours, they may knock you down. Those are like, the main things that we look at. From there, I highly recommend gathering all of your documents in advance, because when you do your first appeal, you only have 60 minutes to submit all of your evidence. So, you want to make sure you have all your documents together. You want to look at the profile first, before you go in to submit the appeal. I've had people sometimes run out of time, or just like, send a picture of a business card, like, things that are not relevant. You want to have very solid documents. You want them all to match. So,

• 11:02Speaker 01

  the business name and the address of the business should be the same on all your documents. Another thing that's important is if you are a service area business, so what that means is that I'm going to you to do the service. So if I'm a painter, I'm going to your house to paint. And I do not have an office. I should not list my home address. Sometimes, you know, business owners do this. When you have an address on Google, it is helpful for rankings, but it's not something that I recommend doing because if you are listing your address, Google wants to know that you're actually seeing customers there

• 11:45Speaker 01

  at your location. So it's best to just be listed as a service area business where you can put in the different cities that you go to. After that, submitting the appeal, the first appeal, it could take anywhere from three to seven days. You just have to be a little bit patient. When you're doing the appeal, try to just state the facts. You know, a lot of people, this is a big deal when people get suspended. So I totally get it. It's a, you lose business, the calls stop coming in. But you want to make sure that you're not extremely emotional on your appeal. You want to just state the facts

• 12:27Speaker 01

  and to show that you're credible. That's done by documents. That's done by showing what you fixed, how everything matches, and then you go from there. If you get denied on the first appeal, you can do a second appeal. You can, if you get denied on the second appeal, you can do an additional appeal. We help a lot of clients that are either they've gotten rejected on the first and second, and then we come in and we also do a little bit of a manual escalation. So reaching out to different support agents that can help take a look at the profile. We always have to make sure that we're in 100% compliance.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  You know, there's, we can't just reach out to someone and say, hey, turn this back on. Like, we have to go by the guidelines. We make sure everything is fixed. And we just try to push the case forward for our clients.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  I'm going to share real quick my story, just to show people how it can be scary. It's not even super relevant to exactly what we're talking about here with Google Business Profiles, but it has to do with Google. Like, they were telling me, hey, you need to pay $37 to your Google Workspace, or we're going to actually cancel your Gmail account. Like, and that's my John and Entrepreneur on Fire email. Like, it's, everything's run through there, like, everything. And I'm telling you, this is $37. Like, I'm going, I'm going, following their steps. I'm trying to pay it. It's error signals are coming up. I'm trying different payments, all these things. Nothing's working. I can't get anybody on a call. They're like, you have 10 days, nine days, eight days. I'm like, I'm trying to pay you as much money. You can ask for $3,000. I'll give it to you. I couldn't get anybody online.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  It was an absolute nightmare. So Fire Nation, you have to know who to talk to. You have to know, like, the process. I finally got some, you know, person who was still clueless, but at least they were able to, like, figure something out for me to just, just to make this payment and to set up on Auto Pay. It was such a disaster. There was so much stress over $37 of me just trying to pay a bill that I wanted to pay desperately that they just weren't, they had like this backend error system with their cloud that was just messing things up. So it can happen to any person. It can happen on anything within your system. So you have to be prepared for this kind of stuff. And we have a lot to talk about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, speed matters in business. When you have an idea for a new page, offer,

• 14:50Speaker 00

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• 15:32Speaker 00

  get more out of your site from a Framer specialist, or get started building for free today at framer.com/fire for 30% off a Framer Pro Annual Plan. That's framer.com/fire. Rules and restrictions may apply. When I launched The Freedom Journal, I learned that having a great product is only half the battle. You also need a simple way to get that product in front of people and make it easy for them to buy. And for that, I used Shopify. Shopify helps you launch your store and start selling in just a few simple steps without needing to be an e-commerce expert. And with the holidays fast approaching, there's no better time to get started. Their pre-built themes and AI site builder make it easy to create a professional storefront so you can focus on growing your business. And Shopify Checkout with Shop Pay converts

• 16:17Speaker 00

  up to 36% higher than the competition. So if you've been sitting on a business or product idea, now is the time to get moving. Launch before Black Friday and take advantage of the extra online traffic when people are ready to buy. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/onfire to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/onfire. Go to Shopify.com/onfire today to hear your first...

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed, all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business. And their award-winning 24/7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success,

• 17:30Speaker 00

  my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. All right, Fire Nation, we're back. And I want to talk about the verification advantage, because it sounds simple, Rachel, but it's where many businesses, they hit a wall. So why is it such a challenge? And what can entrepreneurs do to get verified successfully the very first time?

• 17:53Speaker 01

  When you have to verify your profile, there is an option to do a business video. When you're doing this video, you need to make sure that you are showing that your proper location, signage, and any kind of documents that you have that prove that you are a legal entity. That's really key. Sometimes, business owners rush through this. They don't show documents. If you are a service area business, meaning that you go to clients, you should show your service vehicle with branding. Start up your vehicle. You should also show documents as well. What we do a lot of times, because people have a lot of trouble with the video submission, is we organize a Google Meet with a Google Support

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Agent, where you'll be on a live call, where you'll be able to show them everything. They'll ask questions, and it's just a lot smoother. So I highly recommend, you know, if you're having a problem with verifications and getting stuck, sometimes it's best to just get the live video option enabled, and I'm happy to help you with that.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  Let's talk about winning local search, because once your profile is actually verified and active, what would you say are the biggest ranking factors that can help a Google Business Profile appear higher in local search and consistently attract more customers?

• 19:10Speaker 01

  I would say make sure that your profile is completely filled out. There are sections on the profile, such as products, services, that you can actually write descriptions of what you offer. I would make sure that on your profile, you have the correct primary category, additional services, secondary categories. You can also optimize your landing page on your website so that it has local keywords and content. Make sure that everything is matching what's on your profile. Those are some key things. Also, just making sure you have consistency online. It's not just about preventing suspensions, but consistency

• 19:51Speaker 01

  on directory listings can also help your Google Business Profile rank very well.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  Let's talk about optimizing for maximum visibility. It's kind of building off what we just talked about. But, you know, if we're building a Google Business Profile from scratch today, like, a lot of people maybe are listening right now, Rachel, and they're like, wow, I just, I could actually do this. Like, let's go. Like, now that I can know how to do it right, like, I'm going to do this for the first time. What would you say are the must-have optimizations that every business owner should complete to maximize visibility and conversions?

• 20:25Speaker 01

  I would definitely say the services section. This part is often missed by business owners where you can really describe what you do. Highly recommend uploading photos, video, your logo. Consistently doing this like throughout the month is showing Google that you're active as well. Reviews are also a very big, big thing. So consistently reach out to clients, get reviews, reply to your reviews. And just again, making sure everything is completed on the profile. That's, that's very, very important. That will also help with your rankings.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  We love talking about the future, Rachel, because again, we want to stay ahead of the curve. So let's talk about the future of Google search. I mean, AI is just rapidly changing how people discover local businesses. So how are AI-powered search and local SEO evolving? And what should our listeners, what should Fire Nation, what should entrepreneurs be doing today to stay ahead of where search is headed?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  I would suggest to business owners that they think about searches a little differently. Sometimes now people are searching, just typing in questions and they're getting very specific, such as who's a good plumber near me for a burst pipe, very specific search. You want to also make sure that you have brand authority. That's very important in AI, in the AI world now. Because if your brand is mentioned, let's just say on different news sites or in a blog from another company, anything that shows credibility is very important. And that will help you come up in AI overview, chat GPT, very important.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Again, going back to the website, making sure that's fully optimized, getting the site speed to a good place. The content on the site is very clear. There, I suggest having an FAQ section. That's very important. But yeah, again, going back to citations, everything is, some of the, the old ways of ranking on Google are still there, like building citations, having that consistency. But also brand authority is big and that's like getting, making sure your brand is out there, making sure maybe you're covered in press releases and, and worthy news sites, things like that.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  I mean, Fire Nation, there's so much content that Rachel's dropping. There's only so much we can do on a podcast episode. You need to find her, you need to connect with her. And we'll get to how you can do that, you know, in a second here. But first, Rachel, I want to ask you, if there's just one thing, I mean, you told us about 30 things, which are all amazing and we need to do them. But there's just one thing that Fire Nation can do today. What would that one thing be?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  I would take a look at your profile and just make sure that you are following some of the suggestions that I made, the name, description, because you might be able to catch these mistakes and fix it before something happens.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  Fire Nation, we know that you're listening right now. And there's a lot of you saying like, listen, I got a lot of information today. I learned a lot today, but I need a professional, I need an expert, I need Rachel. Rachel, how can Fire Nation reach out to you? How can they work with you? Tell us more.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Sure. You can visit our website, reinstatelabs.com. You can also send us an email, [email protected]. And I check those emails every day, so I'm happy to help anyone.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  This is what Rachel does, Fire Nation. She does this type of reinstatement of optimizing all the things that need to happen to make sure that you are doing everything you need to do to protect yourself and also to expose yourself in a good way. To who? Potential customers. That's what we're doing here, right? And you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with RD and JLD today, so keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit EOFire.com, type of Rachel in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And Rachel, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge and value with Fire Nation today. I mean, for that, we are saluting you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Rachel for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who wants to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we're now accepting applications for EOFire. So to learn more about becoming a guest, visit EOFire.com/guest. And I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Shopify helps you launch your store and start selling in just a few simple steps without needing to be an e-commerce expert. And with the holidays fast approaching, there's no better time to get started. Go to Shopify.com/onfire to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/onfire today to hear your first. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments and course hosting, all on one platform, plus award-winning 24/7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com.