Why Maptimal.com Was Created for Google Maps SEO (James Dooley Interviews Kasra Dash)

James Dooley: Today I'm joined with Kasra Dash and I'm going to talk through why I've ended up launching a Google Maps brand for defining the entity and trying to grow local businesses out. It's not just for local businesses, it's for anyone that's got a Google business profile and mainly because of AI map packs is growing more and more. So Kasra it's an absolute pleasure and obviously I know you've got quite a few questions for me of why I've launched the Maptimal brand. So first of all, if somebody just doesn't have super advanced SEO knowledge, what does Maptimal do?

Kasra Dash: So it is defining who you are, what you do and why you are brilliant. So to start with, if you've got a Google business profile, we're going to be looking to work with brands and encourage them to try to get as many five star reviews as possible. The amount of businesses that have got amazing products and services, but they don't go out of the way to ask the customers to leave a five star review on the Google business profile is insane. Like I've worked with certain brands that own a brilliant business, but they've got one Google business profile review. Then obviously within their Maptimal can then be responding to all of the five star reviews of what they get. We're going to make certain they've got a consistent NAP, so name, address and phone number across the web on relevant local directories, which is also very important. And then we're going to try and extract all of their best photos of what they've done and start getting before and after photos for case studies, uploading them on a daily basis, creating posts on a daily basis, keeping the social media being active. And we're going to try and get that visibility up with regards to Google Maps rankings in local Google Maps, but also more and more getting them being pulled in within the AI overview within Google and also within chat GPT.

James Dooley: And obviously we've spoken about the split between websites generating the leads versus Google business profiles generating the leads. But let's say if I did sign up to Optimal, what's the benefits of that for my business?

Kasra Dash: Yeah, so on there you said Optimal, but the brand name's called Maptimal and it's a play on what you've just said. It's Optimal for Maps. So we feel we've got the optimal strategy that's going to be used for Maps to be pulling in the reviews and stuff like that. So I think that every business needs to start getting those foundations right. I think the amount of ranking websites that have been hit, and mainly because they don't have a brand, they don't have an entity, they don't have a physical location, they don't have a company being attached. People are going out thinking they can go and build an EMD and go and do a thousand location pages with zero entity, with zero brand, with zero trust. They're going to spend in $10. They're learning from people that's then training them, oh, just launch this EMD and let's go and do a thousand pages, no crawl budget, no trust and thinking that it's going to work. So many of them have been slapped. And I've just come back from Kusadasi Core's event and I was very, very shocked by the amount of large law firm SEOs and they're saying that 70% of their inquiries is coming from Google Maps and from AI overview within ChartGBT and within Google AI overviews in comparison to PPC and organic SEO. I'm like, do you know what? I don't think I leverage it enough, but I've gone out to the market and I've gone over the years and I've tried so many people that do GBP, so Google Business Profile SEO, and I think they're terrible. And I'm like, if I'm going to be promoting it, I'm going to team up with people that I feel are the best in the world at what they do and I want to make sure it's the best. I will not stop until we provide the best service. And if it means I have to make a lot less profit to have the best service, if I'm going to rubber stamp my name as a co-founder of Maptimal.com, I need it to be the best and I'm not going to stop until it is.

James Dooley: I'm going to put you on the spot with a couple questions. How long do you think it would take to actually start seeing results?

Kasra Dash: That's a great question. So I'd love to say at Maptimal that we should be able to get results within month number one. I genuinely think that we can then start cleaning up the name, the dress, the phone number, instilling the entity of exactly who they are, and then try to start getting the red goblins, the red pins that you see to start being amber. I'm not saying you're going to start generating loads of leads in month one, but you should start literally within four weeks, start seeing improvements of what's needed, mainly with regards to proximity, but then we can then start expanding that ring and start getting inquiries, start getting that phone ring in, start getting more branded searches being done. I believe that if we do have the best service, that within four weeks people should within month one start seeing results. And then my next question is, when are you going to launch it?

James Dooley: When are you going to launch it?

Kasra Dash: It's going to be launched next week or the week after. So we're going to run with it straight away. We're going to onboard 20 or 30 people who we think are influencers in the marketplace. We want to show them our worth. We want people to come back and give us the negative feedback. Look, look, this took too long. Look, this was a large onboarding form. What I would say for anyone watching this, you might be looking to sign up to Maptimal.com. We are going to ask for a large onboarding form, but it's because we want to define that entity. We want to make certain we've got a single source of truth to exactly understand who you are, what you do and why you're brilliant. And having all that little bit of information of the founded date, the founders, all the services that you offer, all the photos that you have, we want to amplify exactly why you are brilliant online. The more information we can get, the more we can amplify that to make you look amazing. The amount of businesses that are a brilliant business that have been trading for a long time, but they look terrible online. We want to get those foundations being made for the entity and for the brand. I want to be increasing that branded search. Not only is it going to be brilliant for the Google Maps listings and the AI map pack, we genuinely believe it's going to start improving overall the whole branded search. You're going to be active on social media. You're going to start getting better rankings on your website. Why? Because Google understands you with confidence and clarity who you are, what you do and why you're brilliant. And once you get them foundations right of having a brand that Google can trust, query augmentation will come for the main brand and they'll start ranking for more keywords. And then my final question is, let's say I have a GMB and maybe I rank locally in my small area. How would I know if I need to use you guys or not?

James Dooley: Let's say I have a GMB and maybe I rank locally in my small area. How would I know if I need to use you guys or not?

Kasra Dash: So generally speaking, let's say they rank number one for all the main services of what they do in their area. The first thing we can start to do is start expanding on the proximity so we can start looking at the outside areas, the suburbs that they're not yet ranking for. But also for anyone that says I'm ranking for all my queries, I'd always question that. I'd always be looking because there's always different ways of someone searching for the services and the products of what they sell. There's always ways to expand more queries that they do to say, do you offer that? Oh, yeah, we offer that as well. Oh, yeah, we offer that as well. We can always be trying to push to try to get more reviews. And like I said, it's not even just for the core focus services of what they offer. It's defining that entity to be able to get the whole website holistically being more trusted to rank for more keywords.

James Dooley: Brilliant, thanks for answering all my questions.

Kasra Dash: Thank you very much.