Why You Need to Invest Some Time in Your Apple Maps Listing

On this episode of the Propel Your Practice Podcast, we're talking about why your clinic needs to embrace its Apple Maps listing now. 

Well, hello there, and welcome to the Propel Your Practice Podcast, where we talk about actionable strategies clinic owners can use to improve their online presence. I'm your host Darcy Sullivan with Propel Marketing & Design. 

Today, we're talking about Apple Maps and Apple Business Connect. 

Much like how the Google Business Profile listing controls your Google Maps listing, your Apple Business Connect listing controls your Apple Maps listing. So that's what we're diving into today. 

We're going to talk about:

• What Apple Business Connect is exactly

• How it's similar and different to your Google Business Profile listing

• Why you should care about this

• How it's controlled

• And how you can get listed

• And, of course, optimize your listing

Now throughout this, I will be sharing some additional resources for you to take a look at; I know that it's much easier to sometimes look through guides than it is to listen via podcast. 

So over on our website, propelyourcompany.com, you can find a blog post that we put together specifically about Apple Maps and how to optimize your listing. 

We also have a brand new local listings guide, which you can find at propelyourcompany.com/local-listings. In this new guide, you will find directions on how to optimize four of the most key local listings that include your Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Bing Places, and Yelp. 

Again, you can find that complete guide by visiting propelyourcompany.com/local-listings. 

Today we are specifically talking about Apple Maps. And if you aren't familiar with this, this is exactly what you would find if you picked up your iPhone and went to Maps, which is one of the reasons that this is so key, as you can imagine. 

There are more than 1.5 billion active iPhone users worldwide, and Apple is really starting to take their Maps more seriously. And as a local business, you should too. Now much like, again, how the Google Business Profile listing controls the Google Maps listing, the Apple Business Connect listing is what controls your Apple Maps listing. 

So what exactly is Apple Business Connect? Apple Business Connect, also referred to as ABC, is a free tool offered by Apple that allows businesses to create and manage their business listing. 

This helps Apple recognize your business and can provide its billion users with the most accurate information about your company. So you can start to see why this is so important. 

So with Apple Business Connect, you have the ability to have your listing, which is not called a profile; it's called a place card. And once your place card has been verified, it will be accessible in ABC, where you can make edits and optimizations as well. 

Edits are made on the backend in a very easy-to-use dashboard. 

Now, again, we have a blog post that walks you through this exact process with images to help you along your way, which you can find at propelyourcompany.com/ABC. Or, again, you can reference that more dynamic guide that we have at propelyourcompany.com/local-listings to get that bundled guide, which includes Apple Maps, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, and Yelp. 

But I think you can start to see as we're walking through some of these elements that it's similar yet different from your Google Business Profile. 

And one thing that I would suggest to you is that if you have yet to start to go through the process of optimizing using your Google Business Profile listing, you do that first and then take the information that you've used to optimize that listing to go into the other listings, like the Bing, Yelp, and the Apple listing that we're talking about today. 

So within ABC with Apple, you have the ability to add your business name, address, phone number, website, hours of operations, images, logos, about section, and more. 

You've got insight features, again, similar yet different to what you have with your Google Business Profile. And you can manage your information from the Apple Maps place card, such as adding new images, adding calls to action, offering promotions, updating your logo, business information, et cetera. 

And if you have more than one physical location, you can have multiple ABC locations.

I think we've already covered some of the real benefits of this one. There are, again, so many people out there using their iPhones. So we want to make sure that you’re thinking above and beyond just the simple Google listings. 

Setting up your ABC place card is easy. All you have to do is go to businessconnect.apple.com  to get started. 

You'll need your Apple ID. If you do not have an Apple ID, you can visit support.apple.com to get started with setting up your Apple ID. 

After you finished looking at your business in the search to make sure that it's there, then you can add the information that accurately represents your business.

Next, you're going to want to optimize your listing- go into your Apple Business place card, your ABC place card, and optimizing it is so much like optimizing your Google Business Profile listing and Bing Places listing. 

Here are a few optimization rules you want to follow:

• You want to include your keywords. Those are words that people use to find your company. You want to make sure that you're using them in your description. 

• You want to be detailed in your description. 

• You want to make sure that you add your services and products if you offer products. 

• You want to make sure that you update information as needed- change of hours, change of location, phone number, et cetera.

• That you've got good images; whatever you do, you don't want to use stock photos, so make sure you're using images that really represent your organization. I suggest that you also offer an image of the outside of your clinic to make it easier for patients to find you. 

• Yelp reviews are featured on ABC. So get some if you don't already have a few of those.

• Also, be sure to optimize for voice search so Siri understands. You can kind of think about this as using long-tail keywords- closer to more full, complete sentences, to offer more specifics about what your clinic offers. 

So there you have it. That's why you shouldn't put all of your eggs in the Google basket, and you should make sure that you've also jumped over to Apple and created and optimized your ABC place card. Good luck!

Well, Hey, before we head out, I want to invite you to join in on a free masterclass I put together on the Five SEO Secrets to Owning the First Page of Google Without Buying Ads.

You can find a link to sign up for this free masterclass in the Show Notes of this episode or by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/learn. 

During this workshop, we do a deep dive into strategies to help you improve your online presence. Including your Google Business Profile, that's what used to be called the Google My Business listing and what controls the Google Maps section, along with how voice SEO plays a big role in today's search and where you should be focusing your efforts online for the biggest impact. 

All right. Well, that's it for today. Again, you can join the masterclass by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/learn. And if you have a topic that you would like to hear on an upcoming episode of Propel Your Practice, please send it in by visiting PropelYourCompany.com/podcast-topics or looking for the link in the Show Notes. 

Thanks so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon.