Historical data proves that sales and occupancy across the storage industry declines in the fall.
As facility owners shift mindsets to think like marketers to battle the decline, they may collectively realize their online presence is lacking. Namely, a facility’s appearance (or lack thereof) in the Google Local 3 Pack when a potential customer searches on their phone or desktop for storage options.
Today, we’re helping answer the critical question, “Why isn’t my storage facility appearing in Google’s Local 3-Pack?” You’ll learn:
As your in-house self storage marketing team can attest, Google has versatile products, but the product ecosystem doesn’t communicate back and forth to the extent you’d think. Meaning, when your team updates business information in Google My Business, it doesn’t automatically update Google Ads.
In this case, manually updating and syncing these platforms are crucial. Especially when your facility is looking to appear more frequently in Google’s Local 3-Pack search results.
To make this as seamless as possible, follow this streamlined process:
So, what’s the bottom-line benefit from taking the time to manually sync this information? Increased likelihood of appearing in BOTH paid local 3 pack results and organic Google local 3 pack listings. Refer to the screenshots below:
As you can see from the screenshot above, the first local 3 pack results are paid results. You’ll see a tiny box with “Ad” listed in green if you’re trying this at home. Check out the same view, this time on a mobile device:
Notice how the first result in Google’s local 3 pack is a paid listing? This is no coincidence for mobile or desktop searches. While there’s no guarantee your facility’s paid listing will appear at the top of Google local 3 pack results, your facility will set itself up for success by making sure its Google My Business information is up-to-date, has optimized its paid keywords, and has a sound local SEO foundation.
When your self storage marketing team accomplishes this, it will increase the likelihood to appear in BOTH paid local 3 pack results and organic local 3 pack results. Appearing twice within the same Google local 3 pack result would be the equivalent of having two pieces of prime real estate on the same block. This gives your facility a huge advantage in terms of visibility, especially during a slower fall season.
Moz assessed 11,000 SERPs, using various keywords producing local results across disparate industries in 100 major U.S. cities and concluded that local pack ads appeared 35% of the time in Google local 3 pack listings.
What does this mean?
Paid placement will continue to gain prominence in Google’s local 3 pack, and local SEO continues to carve prominence in the SERP, especially on mobile.
For storage owners/operators and self storage marketing teams, having your listing appear in paid & organic Google local 3 pack listings will be a key way to stay competitive during a slower fall season. That said, appearing in organic Google local 3 pack results is still a byproduct of a successful local SEO strategy.
The reason behind why your facility isn’t ranking in the local 3 pack won’t be obvious from the onset, but will begin deeper dialogues that spin off into additional actionable tactics your team can take.
Beyond syncing your GMB location extensions to Google Ads, have your self storage marketing team work on the following items:
The cumulative effect of the tactics provided will increase the likelihood your facility appears in Google’s local 3 pack when a potential customer searches for local storage options.
Investing in local SEO will help your facility’s occupancy and customer acquisition, especially when you consider that 75% of your customers live or work within two miles of your facility.
Our team has helped 100+ location storage organizations and single location storage facility’s alike with our deeply rooted expertise in Local SEO. Call our team, and we’ll speak to the tactics we’ve taken to maximize visibility and profitability for client partners, and how we could do the same for your facility, especially during slower months.
