What is Benchmarking?

In plain language, benchmarking is the process of comparing a particular firm with competitors in a niche. And in this method comparing everything, beginning from the construction of sites and finishing with the search of those counters which do work of competitors better, than the client of the marketer who ordered service.

The peculiarity of this type of research is its actual continuity. Because it is important for most entrepreneurs to know why things are not going as well as their competitors. And one result does not happen. As a rule, the answers are calculated in tens or even thousands. Depending on the niche, the level of competitors, etc.

Varieties and goals of benchmarking

The main goals of benchmarking include:

• identifying the weaknesses of the client in comparison with competitors and their effective elimination;
• developing and changing behavior patterns in their market.

If you analyze the goals of benchmarking, you can logically deduce the following main varieties of this area:

• functional;
• internal;
• competitive;
• procedural;
• strategic.

All these types of benchmarking are reduced to several main goals. Namely, finding leaders in the customer’s niche, identifying their strengths, and eliminating errors in the customer’s business model.

In other words, with the help of benchmarking, you can go from constant analysis to direct action, knowing what and where to fix. It is worth noting that benchmarking is used both for the analysis of online business in general and for viewing individual communication channels, such as mail, social networks, etc.

In order to better understand the specifics of each type of benchmarking, it is necessary to analyze each of these in more detail.

Internal type of benchmarking

With this method, you can compare processes within the customer’s organization, or branches and other business units. The role of objects, as a rule, are different types of services and products. Due to the ease of data collection, this method is quite popular.

This method, logically, is popular among network companies with a large number of branches. You can compare the results of one with another and identify the most effective. But due to a number of limitations in the analysis, the results can be very biased.

Summing up, we can say that the main task of this type of benchmarking is to analyze the internal processes of the client. This allows you to share experiences with large network companies.

Benefits, given the exchange of experiences

It is clear to entrepreneurs that the benefits of sharing experiences within the company are huge. The experience and knowledge gained in one branch can increase the effectiveness of work in several others.

Thus, the gained experience and skills are used at once in all organizations, increasing its efficiency as a whole. Instead of individual pieces, tarnishing the reputation among customers in different parts of the country or cities.

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Optimization for the local audience allows you to successfully compete with the giant brands in the local area. What do you need to do?

What is local SEO?

This is a search engine optimization strategy that helps to achieve high positions in search results for geo-dependent queries — where the city, region or just the user’s location is specified. On average, half of all that people search in search engines is local requests. For example, in Google, their share is 46% of the total number of all requests.

Local SEO includes not only requests indicating the region or certain location, but also wording containing “next to me”, “nearest”, etc. When users turn to Google with such information, local companies go to the top results. Therefore, the struggle for regional issuance has become a priority for local businesses.

Integration with Google My Business

Registering an organization in a business listing on Google is where any local SEO starts.
Registration allows the system to control the display of company information in Google services — mainly on maps and in search results. An organization card in GMB is the thing that you definitely need to have if your business is offline and tied to a specific region. Integration with the listing is also available for e-commerce, but for this, the company must have a physical office.

The top of search results (especially for commercial requests) are densely occupied by contextual advertising, but Google has provided a mechanism by which companies can be effectively displayed in local search — this is a pack with GMB results. It bypasses organic delivery and generates traffic well on relevant requests. The GMB pack displays basic information about the organization. From here, the user can immediately go to the site.

Google ranking factors. Optimization schemes

The presence of a verified card does not guarantee a default inclusion in the GMB results pack. As in global search, ranking factors work here. First of all, it is a relevance — how much the card corresponds to the essence of the user request. The ranking priority is given to organizations with high internal ratings and positive reviews. The location plays an important role — Google takes into account the user’s location and offers a selection of closer organizations.

From the point of view of optimization when working with Google My Business, it is appropriate to focus on the following aspects:

• Use in descriptions of low-frequency keys in the direct entry. Periodic updating of information.
• Work with reviews. The account owner must motivate the audience to write reviews and be sure to respond to negative feedback. It’s better to forget about writing fake reviews.
• A high organization rating is another important ranking factor in GMB packs. As in the case of reviews, it is better not to think about cheating here.

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